If Tomorrow Never Comes

Next on the screen saw myself in a classroom.

The whole class was there and that meant only one thing, Song Practice.

My first sister was there too so that meant I was in my third and final year. The music teacher then, Mr. Awotwe Pratt, made sure we all learnt to sing well.

That day, we were learning ‘Begone Unbelief’, a Methodist hymn and the tenor singers were messing it up big time. I was one of the tenor singers and we were hot like something.

He kept asking us to repeat the song over and over because he wanted to fish out the ‘abotsi’ singer among us.

Finally, after spending half the day, the culprit was singled out and we were eventually released to go into our various classrooms. It was all fun afterwards when we mimicked the teacher throughout the day.

Then the screen changed, and I saw myself staring at myself, my sister and a few more others on our way to school.

By our green and yellow outfits, will be during our secondary school days at Winneba Secondary School. It was my sister’s first day at secondary school. She was not so thrilled about going to school because they had admitted her to form four science class.

The thing was that she was going to be in the same form as me and that unsettled her too.

It was not our fault to find ourselves in this dilemma though. See, we went to the experimental JHS and ideally, after JHS, you are admitted into Form Two at the secondary level.

Those who were extremely good and had distinctions in the exam were admitted to Form Three.

When she completed the BECE, she and another boy in her class did so extraordinarily well that the two of them were admitted to Form 4 Science.

My sister had always loved accounting and hated the science courses even though she was an A student in all her subjects, so the science bit and the fact that she was going to be in the same form as me dampened her spirit massively.

Besides, they were joining mid-stream and thought it would be extremely difficult to catch up. That morning on our way to school, I did my best to encourage her to give it a shot but I knew that once she was not pleased about something, she could never pretend to be okay with it.

So, we decided she joined the business class after the first week or so and by the time they found out, it would be too late to change anything.  

So, I found myself and my sister in the headmaster’s office some terms later and he was disappointed I encouraged her to switch classes without proper process.

My sister tried to get me off the hook by saying that it was her decision but this man, who happens to know my Dad will not let me be especially since we attended some business classes together.

At the end of the day, there was really nothing they could do because it was just a few weeks until the registration for the ordinary level started.

Now, I see about six of us in our green and yellow uniforms on our way to school again. We are kind of angry about an injustice meted against us the previous day and we continued talking about it on the way to school that morning.

We were all proud members of the school choir and every time a school event was coming up, they would require us to rehearse countless times, sometimes missing lessons in the process.

We were cool with it although sometimes we really struggled to catch up with the class. On one such rehearsal, we came back to learn that not only did we have to copy notes but we also missed a test.

Thinking because we were doing something fruitful by rehearsing for an event the teacher would consider us for a separate sitting for the test. But he was adamant.

The matter went to our class teacher but the teacher in question would not budge so we all decided that morning that we were going to withdraw from the choir, after all, schooling was for academic work.  

So, that morning we walked straight to the Choir Master to lay our cards on the table. He knew we loved to sing and thought we were bluffing until we failed to show up for the day’s rehearsal.

He sent for us severally, but we refused to go since lessons were ongoing. The short of it was that our time in the choir ended that day. Despite pleas from the master and other members, we still did not give in.

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