SUGAR

 Justin stood in the middle of the line that morning and leaned against the wall. It was 2 am, the weather was chilly, and the smell of urine from the gutter in front of the hostel wafted down the line into his nose. Although it was early, he could hear the sounds of belts and sticks hitting human flesh drowning out the sobs of junior students lamenting their fate. But he was already used to it, already used to everything that came with the hell-hole of a boarding school he studied at; the chilly weather, the harsh wakeup calls at midnight and the brutal punishments from seniors that follow, the seemingly never-ending announcements given by the house-captain, the meaningless chores that follow before he could go back to bed and so on. It seemed to be just another Friday night at school except for one minor detail; it was Monday. It wasn't too long before the majority of the students in Unity House were lined according to their classes –JS1, JS2, JS3, SS1 and SS2-on the courtyard in front of the middle hostel. The SS3 students, the top dogs, were either sleeping, complaining about the noise, or coming out to punish junior students. Unjustly, of course. Dickson, Justin's best friend, stood behind him. He wasn't too happy with the decision of a random rollcall on a Monday morning. 

"Justin," he said", any idea on who's coordinating this rollcall?"

"I don't know, guy. I'm just confused right now", he answered. That wasn't true, however. Justin knew the exact reason or at least had a clue concerning the reason the rollcall was coordinated. And he knew who was coordinating it. 

"J BOYS!" a voice yelled. Justin knew that voice all too well. The person who organized the rollcall was Chidera Benjamin, more popularly known as SK; which meant Silent Killer. But apparently, no one thought it strange for a secondary school student to have such a nickname. 

"YES SENIOR!" the students chanted in reply. "J-boys, una get mind o", SK shouted. The courtyard became as silent as a graveyard. No one dared to so much as move a muscle, much less breathe.

"J BOYS", he yelled again.

The junior students gave the same reply. Justin could see the fear in the eyes of most of the junior students. It wasn't just the fear of being flogged that he sensed, anything could happen. They could end up sleeping outside if the senior students wished so. Or they could serve punishments and end up being flogged as well. It was all so stressful. 

"J boys, this hostel is filthy", he yelled. "I'm sure you all know what to do."

"Yes senior", the students replied. He then sent all the students away, except those in SS2. Those students, he commanded to lie on the floor. After punishing them, he told them the reason they suffered. A student wearing an SS2 uniform bust through the roof of his room and snatched up his watch-a gold-colored Rolex worth over two-hundred thousand naira- He demanded that the SS2 students pay for it since it was one of their own who took it. 

      A senior student was sitting on the floor of the corridor a small distance away from where the students were being punished, flashing a laser pointer into the eyes of students SK was punishing. He pointed the laser on Justin's forehead and looked him in the eye. Justin stared back, tears welling up in his eyes. The student stood up from where he sat and walked away. Justin received the most beating that day because he was the only junior in the room when the incident happened and he wasn't able to identify the person who took it. After what seemed like hours of torture the SS2 students were allowed to return to their rooms, and for a few hours, the rowdy hostel environment settled into quietness.

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   Justice rolled out of bed that morning feeling groggy. He looked at the watch he was wearing: 6:47 am. He had a few minutes to shower and get ready for breakfast. He sat on the edge of his bed and looked around the room. A boy was scrubbing the floor, some of his mates were still asleep and some had probably left the room to freshen up. SK was still in the room lying with his eyes closed on the bed closest to the door. He wasn't sleeping and he was fully dressed in his school uniform. He walked up to SK and tapped him on his forehead.

"SK", he said, "do you have any shoe polish?"

"Why?" SK asked back. "You just got up. Do you want to use it to bath or something?"

The junior student cleaning the floors choked on his saliva as he tried to stifle a laugh. Justice rolled his eyes in annoyance. It's too early for all this sarcasm, he thought.

"Are you giving me or not", Justice retorted.

 "Why so vexed this early morning? Sure, you can have it", he laughed. "Check the lowest compartment of my locker", he said as he handed Justice a key. 

"Thanks", Justice said. "In return, I'll get someone to polish your shoes for you."

"Whatever. Just make sure it's cleaned too. My shoes are under the bed."

Justice opened the locker and rummaged around for a bit before he found the shoe polish. He walked over to his bed and got a pair of shoes from under it, then he walked across the room and got SK's shoes out from under his bed. He made sure to step all over the spots the junior student had scrubbed as revenge for laughing at him earlier. He walked out of the room and into the hostel by his left. There were a lot of students getting ready for the day; some coming in from taking a bath, some leaving for classes, some getting dressed. 

"Justin!" he yelled. All movement in the room temporarily stopped, and as soon as everyone realized that they weren't Justin, movement resumed. After a short while Justin emerged from the corner of the room. He was only wearing a pair of shorts. There were bruises all over his body, most of them from the beating he received the previous night. Justice suddenly felt pity for his 'almost-namesake'. Well, he almost felt pity. He handed him the two pairs of shoes and the can of polish. 

"Clean and polish these shoes then ask someone to bring them to me. Do that quickly and then meet me after classes are over. Come to the ICT lab." After he had delivered his message, he walked away leaving his namesake cursing under his breath. Justin looked at the shoes in disgust. He wasn't feeling like doing anything in his current condition. He picked up the two pairs of shoes and walked to his bed. Most of his friends had left for breakfast so he was the only one in his corner of the room. He began dusting off one of the pairs of shoes when he noticed something. He recognized a pair of those shoes. He picked up one of the legs of the shoes and held it up. There was something inside. His heart began to beat faster. He put his hand into the shoe and felt something. He smiled. 

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"Damn, I'm late" Justin thought to himself as he ran towards the ICT lab. He glanced at the gold-colored Rolex watch strapped snuggly around his left wrist. 3:32 pm read the time. Senior Justice is going to kill me, he muttered. He got there and met Justice sitting down by the school cobbler, who was attending to a customer. Justice spotted Justin beckoned him to come closer. Justin walked over and sat beside his senior.

"Do you have the watch with you? Can I see it?"

"Y-Yes senior", Justin stammered, unbuckling the watch strap. "Thank you for bringing it for me", he said as he handed it over.

"It's alright", Justice answered. "It won't be right for you to leave empty-handed after the beating SK gave you last night", he said as he absentmindedly put the watch on. For a while they said nothing to each other and just focused on their thoughts as they observed their surroundings. Justin watched his senior from the corner of his eyes, taking in every minor detail he could; his hair was ruffled and he had a disheveled look about him. He observed his surroundings with sleepy eyes; perpetually half-open eyes, as if to say he had lived the same life a thousand times over and had finally grown weary of it. He was somewhat surprised that someone so strange could be the Christian representative. Finally, Justice broke the silence:

"Do you know who stole the watch last night?" he asked.

Justin shook his head. He wondered why such a strange question was asked when the watch was attached to his wrist.

He then stood up, reached into his pocket and pulled out a laser pointer then shone the laser on Justin's forehead. "There have been a lot of thefts lately and I have reason to believe they were committed by the same individuals. If you help me find the person or persons involved, I'll give you back this watch, and you can do as you like with it."

"Why me, though?" Justin asked.

"It's simple. You're not much of a talker and our names are somewhat alike. It's nothing special so don't fret." 

"Alright! But, um, excuse me Senior Justice?! How are does SK suck sugar out of that pointer?"

Justice pointed to a hole on the bottom of the pointer. He then removed the bottom part and removed asked Justin to look inside. He noticed that there were three cylindrical compartments and two of the empty compartment had sugar granules. However, only one was in use while the remaining three were empty.

"There are supposed to be three parts to be used in this pointer. One for the laser, one for a flashlight and one for a UV ray", Justice began to explain. "He removed two of them and left the laser intact. After that he put a hole in the bottom and removed one of the glass holes on the top. That's why he can take sugar from it." After his brief explanation, Justice reached into the bag beside him and pulled out a bra and a piece of bloodstained green cloth. The cobbler beside him muttered something in Hausa and Justin stared in surprise.

"I found these at the crime scene while everyone went off to chase the intruder. I don't know why there was a bra but that could only imply one thing, and that's the fact that it's either an SS2 student from the press club (because only the press club members have laser pointers) or one of the non-teaching female staff of this school"

"That's one way to narrow it down", Justice remarked. "But why do you say it's a female staff?"

"It's simple. This is an all-boys school so you cannot say it was a female student who took it. Plus, the kitchen has a room where most of the female staff stay, and the kitchen isn't far from the hostel."

"But we all know that the thief ran towards the back of the hostel and jumped the fence. How will one of the kitchen staff possibly know her way around the jungle behind the hostel?" 

"Good question. We both know that the kitchen staff regularly go to the back of the hostels to dump left-over food in the compost pit, correct? The compost pit is very near the spot where the fence has broken down, so it won't be far-fetched to think that a kitchen staff would know her way around that area."

Justin nodded in agreement.

"Plus, judging from the size of this bra", he said as he held it up, "I have narrowed down the suspects to Miss Beatrice and Miss Emma. They are the only kitchen staff that these will fit. The others are too…um…" 

"Busty?"

"Yes, Busty. That's the word I was looking for. Leaving that matter aside, I've ruled Miss Emma out as a suspect because I know for a fact that she helps out in the clinic and often sleeps there. And of course, on the night of the attempted theft, I checked myself into the clinic and I spotted her sleeping on one of the beds."  

"You've done your research", Justin said.

"Of course I have", Justice replied. "Plus, most of the kitchen ladies are um…plus-sized. So it's unthinkable they'd be able to get into the roof. Much less outrun a whole mob of angry teenage boys."

"But is Miss Beatrice that fast?" Justin asked.

"You may not be aware of this, but when I was in JSS2, Miss Beatrice was the one who coached the SS3 of our set for a nation-wide athletic competition. So we can use that as a fact against her."

"Alright then," Justin replied. He suddenly felt like a detective solving a case. "But how about the piece of bloodied cloth?" 

"If you look behind where the badge is located" he said as he flipped the piece of cloth around, you'll notice that a name is written, or rather a nickname is written behind it." He asked Justin to come closer and read it out. "Essss Kayyy", Justin said slowly. "It reads SK."

"Now, Justin, this could be brushed aside as a mere coincidence. That 'SK' could be someone's initials. However, there is no period separating those letters hence it couldn't be someone's initials. Plus, Miss Beatrice is SK's aunt and I know she does his laundry and keeps some of his possessions for him. SK also repeated a grade so it's logical for him to have an SS2 uniform."

"I see", Justin muttered.

"Yeah. She likely wore it when she attempted to steal the watch. Also, judging by the bloodstain and the position the uniform was torn off, she must have gotten a serious injury and…"

"Justin, Justin", someone yelled, "come to the clinic now. A staff is seriously injured. There's blood everywhere. Come fast."

"I wonder what all that's about", Justice said. "Let's check it out", he said as he ran towards the clinic.

Upon reaching the clinic, they found Miss Beatrice lying on a stretcher with a huge cut along her stomach up to her chest. Justice approached the nurse who he was on friendly terms with and asked what happened to her. Although she was hesitant to tell him at first, she caved when he said he was the Christian Rep. and he wanted to offer a prayer for the injured lady. She said, according to Miss Bridget, that she had injured herself a long time ago, but as she was doing some work the wound reopened. He thanked the nurse, offered a prayer for Miss Beatrice and took Justin and left.

  They reported the incident to the school's security and explained to them the details of what they discussed that afternoon, showing them the laser pointer, the torn piece of cloth and the name behind the badge. They only thing they left out was the watch, which had been assumed 'missing'. The school security then interrogated Miss Beatrice and after a period of resistance she admitted to having attempted to steal the watch. However, she claimed that she did it to help SK who was constantly being accused of stealing various items from his peers. He thought that if someone else were to commit a theft in a place where he was present, people will no longer suspect him. SK was summoned but he denied all accusations. 

        However, when Miss Beatrice's room was searched they found a bunch of items that had been reported as stolen. Amongst the items found in the room was a laser pointer with two holes; one at the top, one at the bottom, and sugar spilling out from one of those holes. "Old habits die hard" Justice said when he saw the pointer.

          SK finally admitted to stealing most of the items so he could pawn them off during the holidays. After the items were returned to their owners, SK was subsequently expelled and Miss Beatrice was fired.

  A few weeks later when the school term ended, Justin went off to pawn the watch for one hundred and fifty thousand naira. He came to Justice's house and offered him half the money but was politely turned down. He, however, asked Justin to share the money with his friends. He waved Justin goodbye and as soon as he was out of sight, he reached into his shirt pocket and removed a pack of sugar with a laser pointer inside. He sucked some of the sugar out, feeling satisfied with himself. "Old habits die hard", he muttered to himself and shut the door.