Despite being a graduate of 22 years, Mr. Fafore's salary remained €5,000. How could he afford up to ten thousand dollars rent per annum? How could he buy the government's flat, even when all he needed, as initial payment, was a 25 per cent deposit? Besides, residents knew there would be other unadvertised charges.
Fafore's first solution to the housing challenge was to rent a one-room apartment in ljaye, near the boundary between Berkeley and Los Angeles, in the lyana Ipaja axis He paid €2,000 per annum. After he got married, he moved further away to Sango, where he rented a mini flat for €3,500 per annum. Three years later, he purchased half a plot of land in Ifo, a little deeper into downtown, where he built a two-bedroom apartment. He had barely completed building the facility when he moved in with his family. As a matter of fact, two years after, he had yet to plaster the house and had neither installed a bath nor a toilet. What mattered to him most was the joy that he was no more a tenant. He had become a landlord, a bona fide member of the community's landlord association. He paid rent no more. He lived no more in fear of landlords who often behaved like land gods. The only sacrifice he made daily, to guarantee punctuality at Springdale, was permanently maintain shorter nights at home. He woke up latest 4:00am and set out for school at 4:30am. Thus, he would get to the premises by 6:00am, rest his head on his desk, and snooze for about an hour before his colleagues arrived. There were about five teachers who ran a similar schedule, living in the Ifo, Ojo and Ofada axes of neighbouring San Francisco. The principal was aware of these and should, ordinarily, not have raised any query pertaining to lateness. Fafore had, indeed, twice won the Most Punctual Teacher Award.
"I am sorry, I have to bombard you with these questions," Justin said, relaxing a bit. "But there is a problem, a major problem. The MD called me to her office. She is very angry. Livid. By the way, I wonder if you had any argument with Mr. Wanye, the father of Dorah in SSS 2 and Nicholas in 155 2
Fafore said he had no discussion with him, let alone art argument. "He came to the class. He checked his son's books and said nothing before he left. Well, it seemed he left abruptly. Perhaps, angrily too, given the way he stormed out. He did not have any word with his son or me..."
"Definitely, there is a problem. The MD says you have to go
"Go? Go where?"
Fafore crashed into the sofa at the office. Sacked? How? Why? Questions raced through his mind. His thought flashed to his home, where his wife was heavily pregnant. He had also yet to complete the payment of his children's school fees. He had put the two of them in a school near his abode in Ifo. Apart from the long distance to Lagos, he could not afford Stardom's fees. The management gave teachers who had been in the school up to seven years the concession of paying only 50 per cent fee on any child. Other charges remained sacrosanct-like those for books, feeding, uniform etc. Yet, Fafore could not buy in. He would still have to pay up to 4,000 on each of the children if they had to school at Springdale.
When he returned to the staff room, he found some of his colleagues were already discussing his matter. He wondered how they knew. But, of course, at Stardom, information travelled faster than light.
"Fafoo, what happened?" Mrs. Ose, the Igbo Language teacher, asked. Before he could answer, three more questions had jumped out of the mouths of other staff.
"Honestly, I don't know," Fafore said, as he began to sort personal items on his desk, indicating to his colleagues that the ordeal was real. The staff, visibly unhappy, wondered what went wrong. It was a lesson to them all: there was no job security in the establishment.
"What do you expect when you are working in a one-man business?" Anderson asked, unusually serious, "I have always said that the job we have is the type of the wind can blow away any time, any day, depending on the mood of our employer. I think we shouldn't allow this matter to go on like this"
"What would you do? What power do you have to change anything? Do you want to fight your employer?" the Agric teacher, Mr. Obi, queried. Just then, a message came from the principal: all teachers were to congregate at the MD's office for an emergency meeting.
It was at the meeting that the still-enraged MD announced why Fafore had to quit, and why others could soon follow suit. But no sooner did she begin to speak than she stopped and winced, as pain fired her buttocks. She had sat down for hours during the day. Now, her bum had begun to revolt. She squirmed and readjusted her backside on the chair. Her face reflected a mixture of two distinct troubles Fatons and her distressed bum. Everyone that saw her, however, believed her counteriance was all about the embattled English teacher.
Armed with the double-barrelled frustration, the MD declared she was feil up with the embarrassment teachers were causing the school whenever they demonstrated incompetence, especially, in the presence of parents. This school will no more tolerate incompetence, she dropped, "We employed you because you said you were protessionals. Whether in Maths, Biology. Government or English-once You show that you are raw or more illiterate than the woman from whom you buy onions and pepper in Obalende, then, you have to go.
"I'm sure some of you must have learnt that Fafore, the so-called English teacher, is leaving this school today. And I think the principal too will, henceforth, have questions to answer. If you cannot monitor your teachers, if you do not check their notes, and parents have to uncover the abomination we ought to have eliminated internally, then you are bound for trouble. Imagine! A supposed English teacher! This is what a parent, who labours day and night to pay his children's fees, found in a note Fafore gave the students..."
Mrs. Evelyn Claire collected five notebooks from the secretary, seated on her left. On the right was the principal. She had asked the secretary to randomly gather the notebooks from the class Fafore handled. The MD then opened a page and pointed out what she believed was a grammatical atrocity.
"Janet as well as Jerald comes early," the MD read. She observed the staff, eager to see shock written all over their faces. "This was what the parent, Mr. Wanye, saw and became so angry about that he threatened to withdraw his children from the school What sort of an English teacher or any kind of a teacher would say, 'Ade as well as Jide comes', instead of Janet as well as Jerald come? Ladies and gentlemen, a teacher like Fafore-Mr. Janet-as-well-as-Jerald comes has no place in this school," she submitted
"Is this the reason we are sacking the man, ma?" the principal asked, with a chuckle
"Is it not grievous enough?" the MD asked.
Some of the teachers murmured in her support or, at least, in mild protest against the way Justin trivialised the matter. The principal's response infuriated the MD greatly. At once, she thought he also might not survive the scandal. "So,Justin, 'Janet as well as Jerald comes' is your position too, and your estimation of what represents the standard of this school?"
"There is nothing grievous about the statement," Justin began, unruffled. "There is no error whatsoever. It is a piece of Standard English. As a matter of fact, we have to quickly call Fafore back and update Mr. Wanye too. I wish he had not left. More importantly, we have to call Fafore back. What he taught the students is correct. When you use 'and', the verb that follows is 'come'. But when you use as well as', 'together with "alongside etc, we go for the singular verb with 's'. The clause is in the subjunctive mood and does not align with normal grammar rules."
Not impressed by the 'blasphemy' the principal was muttering, the MD directed everyone to bring out his or her smartphone and investigate the assertion online. Interestingly, all discovered that Fafore and the principal were right. Mr. Wanye was wrong. The MD was wrong.
Silence. The MD had ranted publicly about an error that didn't exist. She had set in motion the sacking of a guiltless employee. She had embarrassed hardworking Fafore. Now, she felt deflated. Some teachers felt sorry for her. Others thought she could have been more discrete about the affair. No one knew exactly how to break the ice. But Mr. Audu was on hand to save the day.
He cleared his throat and confessed he had something "even more important" to add to the grammatical trial. Everyone waited to hear what that could be, especially as the English question had already been roundly resolved. "I just want to say that Mr. Fafore." he began, picking his words heavily, "as well as the principal," he continued, "is correct. And the MD, Mrs. Evelyn Claire, is hereby pardoned, discharged and acquitted."
The room rocked with laughter. Anderson had done what he knew best. He stood to his feet, smiling mischievously, and gave the already-amused Mrs. Evelyn Claire a Japanese bow.
"Anderson, if I lay my hands on you!" she returned. "Principal, give him the sack letter as soon as you collect it from my great teacher, Fafore." Everyone laughed again.