PIRRIP OF THE EAST

Mondays are unique Mr Hans reiterated but this Monday if it's right to say will be more unique. He had just finished dinner alongside his family; wife and three kids on the cold Sunday night. Jane and Janet sat cosily on the couch in the sitting room on the right and left the side of Pa respectively. Mr Hans had just finished watching the evening news at 8 pm and surfing the internet on his phone, entertaining his twin daughters with a special kiddies program on TV. It was a special evening bubbling pretty smiles on the faces of everyone in the family. It was Mrs Hans' birthday, her husband had taken them out in the afternoon. The Hans' were average or middle-class so to say. They were neither poor not quite rich. Pirrip their first and only son is my classmate at school and all I write about them he told me.

On our first day in school, I met Pirrip. His Dad was mom's coursemate back in their university days. Mr Hans had brought Pirrip to school for the necessary registration by himself, it was an unusual day for him because he so much believed it was a very vital day in the life of his son Pirrip and however it goes will affect his enter life either positively or negatively. He had taken a good time to speak with his son that morning because he couldn't do that the previous days being that he was busy on the previous Saturday getting items Pirrip needed for school, they had to go to church on Sunday and had a little family out party after church to celebrate Mrs Hans. While he spent the evening with his princesses, Pirrip and his mom checked and packed up his for school. Our class in the first year of Secondary school was JSS 1C. Pirrip was the smallest student in our class, the smallest in JSS 1 and the smallest in our entire school then. He was eight years old while I was already ten. 

Pirrip was a tender-hearted young lad with a broad heart. I never met any other person like him. He was almost the punching back of everyone as even younger students in JSS 1 when we already in JSS 2 threatened him. He accepted molestations as though they were compliments. Most amazingly with a cheer that left we his molesters humbled with a grave calm unimaginable. Pirrip, while we were in JSS 1, was the overall best student in JSS 1 and never lost that position till we left Secondary School. He started out bright and finished brighter. 

The name of our school was Excellence Match International Secondary. My school was located in the heart of Port Harcourt City. Port Harcourt is the capital of Rivers state in Nigeria. It's a state situated in the South-South Region of Nigeria. My father is of the Ikwerre ethnic extraction and a son of the soil, working with the biggest oil firm in operation in Rivers State. Pirrip was from Imo state, the eastern heartland. Our country is divided into six geopolitical zones, Imo state is located in the South-Eastern part of the nation. There are 6 states in South-Eastern Nigeria. The states of the Eastern region were predominantly made of the Igbo people. Pirrip is an exceptional chap and most interestingly the Igbo people were known for smartness in all fields of endeavour. 

The biggest challenge Pirrip had in JSS 1 was facing humiliation and molestation from everyone in school then. I recall several occasions he was punished unduly with a very sharp rebuke from senior students. Apologies from Pirrip was, has always been and would most likely remain sincere but most compassionately even when he's innocent. It was a pleasure listening to him speak. My father's name is Walter Reno and mine Kingson Reno. 

It was week one in school and Pirrip was my first and best friend of all time. Growing up in the midst of older sisters with a knack for bullying, Pirrip learnt as a little kid to accommodate people's excesses with a passionate understanding of human frailty. Mr Hans was, has been and still remains the only Dad Pirrip will ever yawn for as he never stopped making references to his Dad. Pirrip lived a life of principles not for himself or out of his understanding but because he was trained with precepts and very convincing instructions that guided him.

In JSS 2, we had risen a class above the lowest echelon of classes in school. Pirrip hadn't just risen in class but also earned a mind-boggling distinction from the rest of our class by his excellent performance in the exams by being the best in almost all the subjects we offered and the overall best in the class giving a wide margin separating him from the second-best student. But quite unfortunately being a bright chap and the excellent student didn't provide Pirrip security from the molestation of other kids in the class nor did it save him from the claws of punishment hungry senior students looking for any junior student defaulting at any turn to pure out their grievances for bad treatments of their junior years on. Manane was the most notorious boy in our class all through Secondary school. He was the leader of a gang of 7 called White Tigers. His father is a politician and a very influential person in the state and was ever ready to negotiate him out of any troubles he got into with a cover-up that he was a little boy and didn't really mean to be rough. Manane had other boys like Amado, Khaled, Enyinna, Johnson, Chris and Karim in his gang. Besides the fact that other kids molested Pirrip, Manane and his friends made it a duty to ensure he never had a minute of peace by ordering him about in class to undertake basic tasks for them and beat him up mercilessly if he ever attempted declining to do anything they wanted him to do. 

Pirrip from a plain point of view lived through penury in Secondary school as he remained everyone's little boy till SS 1 and faced continuous molestations from my classmates till we finished Secondary school. If he had seen it so, it would've been a lot different buy from inside he remained the calm warm lad you can't ignore even though you tried hardest possible to subdue him.