GRACE CHIYAPENI;WHAT A SCARE

   Grace Chiyapeni gasped, rolled up her glazy eyes expelling the dark pupils to the top. Her mouth opened slightly dropping the lower jaw inelegantly. The sight sent other girls stampeding in all directions amid shrieks of panic. A few went into funeral motions making horrible sounds.

  “Eehhe! Given! Eehhe! Given!”They chanted out their anger on a tall boy standing next to the gasping girl. His face was congealed into a fearful mask and his hands dangled on the sides like dead snakes.

   “But I didn’t do anything,” Given Monze lamented woefully spreading the long hands in gestures. “I just smacked her bottom that is all.”

   “Don’t play the clever boy,” Catherine Tauzeni swung in with a strong accusation noted for its glaring malice. “We all saw what you did to her.” What showed clearly in all her gestures and facial features was the hatred for the heavily muscled hunk. She looked at the hairline moustache, one portion of his arsenal of endowments that made him irresistibly attractive to girls. Though seemingly immoral, she would still plunge the knife of vengeful antagonism deeper into this stupid Romeo-brought- back –to- life for some cheap gain. Why is it that most handsome hunks choose to close their eyes to reality, going for wrong girls while the right ones are left suffering the merciless pangs of unrequited love? Couldn’t the punk see that the sensual squeeze on that stupid Grace should have come to her instead?

   “Instead of quarrelling about what happened or didn’t,” Margaret Phiri swung in, “Call Mr Old to take the girl to the clinic before something worse happens.”

   “Can anything be worse than this?” Catherine pointed with her elbow disdainfully. Her face grimaced in disgust; she was totally sold out on the idea of spiting her heartthrob. “He has killed her, just call the police.”

    Meanwhile Grace Chiyapeni’s gasps for air worsened; her breathing coming out as disjointed, wheezy peals taking longer moments to execute than before. The pulse rate had started by quickening aggressively before slowing down to an imperceptible pat. She was departing very fast.

     “Today is Friday the thirteenth, Grace Chiyapeni’s birthday,” someone shouted.

    “No wonder she was so excited, frolicking about like a mating chimpanzee on heat,” another voice said.

   “Can you imagine?” Another voice said with a lot of emotion. “She has been throwing about a lot of pranks; some dangerous while others damn foolish.”

  The last prank saw her roll a full page A4 cardboard paper into a small coarse edged ball which she threw into her mouth playfully like an idiot on parade. After chewing a bit of paper mash around it, she yanked her throat open to swallow a bit of saliva.But just then Given Monze came quietly behind, playfully grabbed her in the lower abdomen and squeezed the girl’s most sensitive regions. The unexpected squeeze threw the girl into a devastation shock which quickly escalated into convulsive spasms and in no time her body was jerking all over.

   The jerks hurled the throat ajar, opening it wider than the walls of the kariba dam. The ball of paper which was lurking at the entrance rolled into the open trench and went way down to the epiglottis where it blocked the air passage. And that was it, no more breathing, no more swallowing; the hard immovable substance prevented anything from passing through. Every attempt to remove the blockage only helped to push it deeper until it got wedged in a spot well beyond the reach of hooking fingers. As she gasped in death throes other girls broke into the animated squeals like agitated cats.

    Presently, Mr Old heard the commotion of girls screaming hysterically from the netball grounds. He was just about to hurry someone there to find out why the gazelles were tearing their throats senseless when Mr Humphrey Liyanda, the boarding master, breezed into his office. He wore a face worse for worry than that of an agitated fox facing a roaring bush fire.

   “Grace Chiyapeni….dying….hospital,” he talked haltingly, agitation flashing on him like a disgraceful badge on a man who had accumulated a respectable pile of thirty five years in age. Luckily enough, Mr Old did not bother about semantics in an emergency; standing up with the alacrity of a tiger he raced his tall frame towards the Mazda Drifter Twin cab parked ten yards away. By the time he reached the vehicle a key had already jumped into his right hand. Stabbing it into the door lock, he quickly jerked the door open and was already inside even before the door had opened completely.

   As a pastime, Mr Old was an accomplished race car driver who had won many prizes at tournaments in Chisamba. And this day the rare skill was evident in his steady reflexes, especially the grim face exhibiting tight lips in deadly concentration. Just after jabbing the key into the ignition his foot ground the accelerators into the floorboard – he swung the huge vehicle around raising a cloud of dust mingled with the acrid smell of smoke- the machine was already roaring towards the netball grounds as obediently as an ass barely ten seconds after Mr Liyanda’s agitated announcement.

 “Girls hurry up!” the fox faced matron flung her grey hair wildly while waving her emaciated snake like arms around. “Bring her up here, the vehicle has come.” she was walking excitedly in defiance of her seventyish years as if it was her daughter’s wedding day.

 “She is heavy mama,” Catherine refused to be used as a red carpet for the old hag priming herself for some post-dated glory. “Tell that pig Given and his friends to carry her, won’t you?”

 “Catherine, be human!” Mr Liyanda shouted, breathless after running the damn two hundred yards from the administration. He had just reached the girls and was making himself busy supervising the transportation of the girl to the clinic. Catherine’s cruel comments significantly shredded huge piles of patience from his system already overworked to breaking point. Hurriedly, he tore her in a rebuke; “Your friend is dying, can’t you feel pity really?”

  Catherine, for her part, locked her eyes into his. She was itching to tell him what was really good for him, but quickly aborted the idea. Instead she turned her eyes to follow a stray ball bounding across the touchline, watching it until it came to a stop among the shrubs. Wickedly, she undulated delicious Kim Kadarshian curves in hurried steps to pick it up ahead of a small boy. Swirling her head about and shaking the unforgettable plaits of hair into disarray, she threw the ball back into the play ground with a playful squeal. She was acting as if the Grace Chiyapeni problem a few yards away was just a small insignificant dot on the human horizon.

   Perversely, Mr Liyanda looked at Catherine with a new feeling; a consuming desire. Her pool of coal black shoulder long hair done expertly in terrace-like bristles made her irresistible. For a minute or two he kept his gaze glued on her broad back - mesmerized by the undulating Naomi Campbell curves twisting the air waves like a bone less snake. Provocatively, she was guilty of swinging her girlish dick-harassing hips about without a stage. The soft looking nape at the back of the head and the swinging brown ample fleshed arms added more agony to the man’s nerves already frayed to snapping point by the alarm, but thank God ... the firm pat- pat sound of her footfalls hurled him back from dreamland. He realized painfully that indeed the girl was going away, probably unaware of the turmoil raging like a cyclone in his heart. Involuntarily he tore his gaze away from the rebellious minx packing tons of sex appeal and swung his attention back to the unfinished task on the sick girl lying helplessly three inches away.

   “Grab the hands,” he shouted in a husky voice shaking with raw emotion as he himself stooped down to pick the legs. But horrors rarely abandon their victims that easily.

  Just as he touched the warm skin on the girl’s left leg, a slight breeze blew the skirt a few paces upwards; not too high but just enough to punch a damaging hole into someone’s heart, especially a sore one. The skirt flapping helplessly like an excited butterfly scandalously uncovered luscious brown thighs lying side by side resembling two roasted whales. His heart was pounding faster, screaming for some action sending the man’s thinking process crashing like computer software.

  “Just a little touch on the smooth soft skin,” it seemed to be saying. The urgency pounded his nerves creating some hesitancy; an indefinable expectancy clawed at his heat; his fingers bristling eagerly like cat whiskers started moving upwards to the knees. Crawling towards the expected pleasure, searching for the delicious feel, snatching rare moments of unforgettable thrill …But just then...

    Margaret Phiri would definitely qualify for a Nobel Prize; she literally saved the devastated man from a complete emotional melt down. A timely grunt loudly escaped from her lips as her hands fought to lift her friend’s sagging bottom. The unexpected sound brought Liyanda back to his senses. His side whiskers bristling in shame, he turned his attention back to the task at hand. They raised Grace Chiyapeni into the vehicle and lay on the rear seat with her head resisting on the matron’s laps for comfort if not support.

   “Are you ready?”Mr Old asked taking a long drag on his cigarette before pushing the damned cancer stick to the left side of his mouth.

      “Yes sir we are ready to go,” someone whispered into his ears as he tossed his head outwards to eject a cloud of blue-white smoke into the moist November air just outside the window.

    Mr Old’s left foot ground the clutch into the floorboard seconds before his left hand smashed the gear lever into slot one to get the car in motion. Hell should have frozen if it saw what he was going to do next; within a minute he would wickedly race through all the gears embarrassing the hundred yards distance yawning ahead. The Mazda roared angrily in protest at the ungentlemanly abuse- but lacking any alternative it settled into a cowardly splutter at gear four. The speedometer with shakes flicked way beyond one hundred fifty kilometers per hour. He could not go beyond this because even the steering wheel was now feeling marsh in his hands. In no time the Mazda tires screeched to a stop in the clinic car park throwing off a terrible smell of burning rubber.

  “We cannot handle this complication, go straight to hospital,” the clinic nurse wearing black Polaroid sun glasses explained her inability to help. She, however, gave Grace a jab on the shoulder meant to slow down all metabolic activity.

  Mr Old again engaged gears to race to the big hospital in town. On such a bumpy gravel road, it was a miracle that this former race driver could hit a scandalous one hundred and eighty kilometers per hour without sending Grace or anyone else in the vehicle for that matter into Satan’s bosom a bit earlier. A thankful sigh of ‘whoosh! That was close ‘escaped from every lip, especially from the aged matron, when the vehicle jerked to a skidding stop in the hospital car parks. She was not a regular church goer, but that same moment she made desperate pledges to serve the Lord and him only.

  “Hurry please, the girl is dying...,”she said more in relief than genuine concern for the sick girl. She was terribly thankful that the racing dragon had finally ended its dreadful marathon just on the edge of the grave.

 By the time a green coated man arrived driving a wheel bed, Grace Chiyapeni had almost stopped breathing. The pulse was getting very weak, becoming almost imperceptible. The green coated man wheeled the bed very fast to the emergency ward where another man in a white coat and slinging a badge immediately took over. Wearing specs like a man suffering from short sightedness, he would peer at you above the rims like a school teacher trying some intimidation ploy.

“What is the problem with the girl?”He asked while taking a sip from a cup of tea. He never panicked at all making others wonder whether he was seeing what everyone else was seeing or not.

“Something is stuck in her throat,” the matron answered.

“Hhhhhh..,”he uttered negligent sounds like someone totally unconcerned. Everyone became even more frustrated when he went to a table further on and started adding more sugar into his tea which he then started drinking unhurriedly. He then went to sit down on a sofa throwing one leg on top of the other like a house wife relaxing after the day’s work. To confound matters even more he threw his squinted eyes up to watch some soap on the regulatory TV screen.

   “Sir, won’t you hurry up? See the girl’s condition…,”Mr Old was disgusted by the slow pace in the man’s style of operation.

   “Treat her yourself if you think I am too slow,” he said.

    “Why the heck? Is this why I pay the damned taxes?”

   “It is not hurrying which saves life but the skill of the professional coupled with a stroke of fortune. "We treated a similar case three years ago and no one died.”

    He stood up and all the time his eyes were on the TV set where he was watching a Telemundo soap opera approaching a climax. “Put her face downwards, spread her arms and legs wide like an eagle in full flight, and then relax a bit, wait for the pro to come.”

 “Bring her in, Sibanda,” a voice shook everyone seconds later as it tossed out a command.

  Sibanda smashed down his cup of tea on the table spilling some and immediately became faster than a whirlwind .He wheeled the bed around expertly and shot into the operation room at terrific speed.

   Seldom has there been such a moment of real anxious silence as the next seconds for the three people. Mr Old went out pacing about in the corridors palming his hands vehemently. If Grace dies, how much would it cost to buy a coffin? How will the parents react? The damn clients will go bananas screaming the usual refrain; “you are a bunch of failures, how did your stupid school kill my baby?” Several questions buzzed his head as if it had suddenly got stuck in a beehive.

   The matron was also going through her own Vietnam; a jungle of emotions striking at her like invisible snipers ghosting about from everywhere. She jumped and hit into a trolley of medicines when Margaret touched her shoulder to give her a bottle of mineral water. Her nerves were so touchy that she was shivering all over in fear. If Grace dies my job as a matron is finished. Where was the matron when the accident happened? Why do we pay a matron who can’t even protect girls from their own mischief? A third question was just bobbing up when the door to the operation room opened slightly and a head peeped.

She glared at the white coated youth wearing a stethoscope like a necklace. Her eyes popped wide praying; “please don’t say it, please don’t tell me she has di…”to add more pain the doctor retreated and closed the door without saying anything.

The matron stood up and immediately crashed down, it was now clear that the seventyish nerves had taken enough battering. Her frail body creaked in the knees like an old metal chair. She refused help from Margret as she crashed facing down. Her whole body was shaking... no trembling violently in terrifying jerks. She drifted into coma when a hand touched her saying ‘mama Grace….”

 As the matron slumped into the darkness of a comma, Grace Chiyapeni walked out of the operation room, greatly weakened but still among the living. The professional doctor had succeeded in ejecting the blockage using a new technique that relies on a pair of electric tongs edged with plastic hooks courtesy of the famous Batoka Silicon Valley.

 Excitedly,Mr Old grabbed Grace Chiyapeni on the shoulders and kissed her passionately on the lips. She started shivering,whether from the kiss or something else, nobody will tell. That was the only way to show his great happiness. Then he tried to give the doctor a pile of leaves, trying hard to force the young man to accept it. But the man refused, warning him coolly; “beware of corruption sir.”

The matron remained at Hospital in a scary coma and died a week later due to old age.Catherine was heard saying"The old hag was punishing her bones working when she should have retired."