Flashback: I was buying a new notebook from the bookstore. I didn't really require one, mine was barely half-full, but Mansoor used this particular brand. Blue cover with thin ruled lines. I recall thinking if I were to use the same type of book, maybe my handwriting would be as tidy as his and my responses as incisive.
God, I was such a stupid kid,. It did pay off though.
Mansoor sat three seats ahead of me in JSS1. I noticed him on the second day of school, he was loud or flashy, but I just couldn't help notice how still he was. When the rest of us were just discovering which teachers were strict and which classes we could slack off in, Mansoor had already got into this routine. He'd come in, sit down, arrange his books in a very specific way, textbook on the left, notebook in the middle, pen along the edge of the desk.
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I thought he was just a show off at first. The way he'd lift his hand to respond to questions, the way he never ever struggled with anything. But then I began to observe him during break times. While we were standing out in the sun kicking around a flat football or debating who had the best lunch, Mansoor would be sitting quietly at his desk, reading ahead in the book or studying what we'd just been taught.
Not desperately, you know. He wasn't freaking out or cramming. He simply studied like it was the most natural thing in the world.
"Why don't you come play?" I'd asked him once, during a really boring break. The sun was scorching and most of us were seeking shade anyway.
He was reading his book, I think it was our Basic Science textbook, and smiled. "I will in a minute. Just want to finish this chapter."
He said it so simply. Without attitude, or superiority. Just a fact. And then he did join us, fifteen minutes later, and played football until the bell rang. He was not antisocial. He just had his priorities in a different order.
That's when I started modeling him. Not consciously at first. I'd be arriving in class early, just to see what he was doing. I'd sit up front, telling myself it was because I could see the board better. I bought that blue notebook. I started doing my homework the day that it was assigned instead of the night before it was due.
My mother noticed the change. "You're taking school seriously," she said to me, and there was a note of surprise in her voice. I wasn't a bad student, but I was average. Glad to do enough to pass.
But watching Mansoor was like watching a man with a secret. The way he'd ask questions in class, genuinely, clearly because he needed to understand. Not to impress anybody. The way he'd explain things to classmates who were having trouble, quietly and systematically. The way he never seemed stressed on exam day, only focused.
I envied that. I wished to float through school that way with so much confidence.
It occasionally paid off. In JSS2, second term, I was second in class. I remember being shocked to see my name on the results board, just below Mansoor's. My parents were shocked. I was shocked. Mansoor simply smiled and said, "Well done. You've been working hard," and we congratulated each other.
Had I been striving so hard? I guess I had, unbeknownst to myself. I'd been studying the way he studied, asking questions the way he asked them, taking notes the way he took notes. I'd been tracking his shadow, and in some way, that shadow had fed me.
But then things changed.
My father was posted to Kogi State. He works in the ministry of education, and he is a lecturer, so they sometimes get reposted from school to school.
We had to move just before SS1. I can still remember the very last day at school, how strange it felt that I would no longer be seeing Mansoor anymore. We weren't best of friends per se, he had a better friend, but he'd become this constant in my life. This measuring rod I'd used to measure myself.
"You'll be fine at your new school," he said, assisting me in closing up my locker. "You've got good study habits now."
Study habits. Had I developed them? I hadn't necessarily thought about it.
The new school in Kogi was different. Bigger classes, new teachers, strange faces. But I found myself sitting at the front row without even noticing it. I found myself reading during breaks; it felt like a natural thing to do at this point. I found myself asking questions in class because I actually wanted to understand the answer.
And something unexpected happened. I started topping the class.
First term, SS1. I glanced at the top of the results board and there was my own name gazing back and I felt this strange mix of pride and bewilderment. Was I really this? The same kid who used to be content with fifth or sixth?
It just kept on happening. Second term, third term. By SS2, other students were asking me to explain things to them. Teachers were calling me to answer difficult questions. I was becoming the student that I'd always seen Mansoor turn out to be.
But that's what I keep asking myself, even today in my final year: Would it have been like this if I had stayed in Niger State? If I had remained in Mansoor's shadow?
I think about that a lot, especially when I'm helping my fellow students. They treat me the way I used to treat Mansoor; like I'm in on something they're not. Like I have some kind of secret.
Maybe the secret is this: sometimes you have to leave behind the person you are trying to be to actually become them.
Sometimes I even find myself arranging my books the way he did. Textbook to the left, notebook in the middle, pen aligned with the edge of the desk. My classmates probably just assume it's my thing, how I stay organized. They don't realize that what they are seeing is an echo of something that started years ago.
I took a leaf from Mansoor's book, figuratively and literally. I copied his approach, his diligence, and his pursuit of excellence. I guess the biggest lesson was not studying or grades or sitting in the front row. It was finding someone to look up to and having the courage to be your own copy.
They tell you that some people leave prints on your heart. But Mansoor? He left footnotes in my notebook, and I still read from that page.
