It happened on a chaotic afternoon during a school activity. The seniors had seized control of every escape route, hunting juniors for punishments only they understood. Kalu and a small group of boys darted from corner to corner, only to find each path blocked. The shouts of seniors closed in, heavy with the promise of pain.
With no choice left, they veered into a place many had heard of but few dared to enter—Tinker Forest. It began as a narrow trail swallowed by thick undergrowth, the air cooler and damper than the open field. Shadows clung to every tree trunk, and the boys could hear their own breathing over the distant yells of their pursuers.
Inside, the forest revealed its secrets. Dialium guineense trees sagged under the weight of black velvet tamarind pods, their scent tangy and sweet. Cashew trees arched overhead like watchmen over forbidden ground, their fruit glowing faintly in the dappled light. Temptation battled with unease; every fruit they plucked felt like it came with a silent warning.
Then came the strange encounters—a rustle in the bushes too heavy to be the wind, a pair of eyes glinting from the shadows, gone the instant anyone looked straight at them. Footsteps—soft yet deliberate—circled them, never coming close enough to see clearly. The air itself seemed to hum, as though the forest was breathing around them.
A sharp, dry laugh cut through the silence, snapping branches echoing its rhythm. The boys froze, eyes darting in every direction. Even the insects seemed to grow louder, their buzzing swelling to an almost unbearable pitch. Every minute felt stretched, their nerves fraying with each whisper of wind and crackle of leaves.
They hid for hours, crouched low, hunger and fear tangled in their stomachs, yet their hands still reached for tamarind and cashew apples. When they finally emerged—clothes dusty, pockets bulging with fruit—the seniors had given up the chase.
By the next day, the story had swept through the classrooms. Tinker Forest was no longer just a rumour; it was a place of danger and reward.
But Saturdays brought a different kind of trial—hostel inspections. Every hostel woke early, juniors rushing with buckets of water to present to the seniors. Duties were assigned: scrubbing toilets, mopping floors, sweeping every corner. Hours later, inspectors arrived, marking each hostel on neatness and decoration. Dust behind a locker, a bucket under a bunk, a cobweb—any fault could sink the hostel's score. And when inspectors left, juniors paid dearly for every mark lost. The seniors' punishments after a bad inspection were often harsher than anything found in Tinker Forest.
Sometimes, in the quiet that followed these ordeals, the boys would sit together and talk about classmates who had left the school entirely—those who couldn't survive the horror. They'd name them one by one, remembering the day each was withdrawn. The mood would soften, drifting to stories of home: mothers' cooking, neighborhood games, the smell of fresh rain on familiar soil. For a moment, they weren't in Old FGC. But then reality would return, heavy as ever, and the longing for home would twist like a knife.