I recall a secondary school days' friend, Chike. He was a very hardworking student though, his hard work, as it concerned reading, was not a reflection of his academic records. In spite of the many hours he spent reading, when the result comes, he'll either fail or, just manage to get a pass that'll take him to the next class.
What was going for him was that he was aware of his debility - that he wasn't as smart as those ones that top the class or pass well yet, he was determined to succeed. That's why he put in a lot of time in reading just to get a pass, any pass at all, no matter how casual.
In that school which was in a rural area, there was no electricity at that time. Everyone depended on a hurricane lamp to read in the night. For anyone living in the dormitory, ownership of a kerosene lamp was a major prerequisite. During the night-prep which was very compulsory, everyone took his lamp to the class to read.
At 9:30pm, the bell goes for prep-over. Then, everyone stops reading and gets back to dormitory to sleep. You have to hurry because at 10:00pm, another bell goes for lights-out. At that time, every student should put off his lamp and be in bed.
If your lamp is still on, you're looking for trouble. The prefects whose duty it was to enforce school rules and regulations will go round to check offenders.
For my friend Chike, that 10:00pm lights out was not supposed to be for him. He would not want to stop reading. This made him to be having a running battle of hide and seek with the prefects.
To outwit the prefects, he devised a means of hiding his lamp. He brought a thick carton and made a small hole at one side of it. He will put his lamp inside the carton and cover it. A ray of light will come out from that small hole to enable him read.
When the prefects come, they will not know Chike's lamp was still on, and they'll move on. With that, my friend could read to his satisfaction.
But one day Chike had a quarrel with a student who in a bid to have a pound of his flesh went and leaked his secret to a prefect.
Acting on the information, the prefect stormed our dormitory after lights out to catch my friend. He looked around and didn't see any light in the darkness. He went to his informant who led him to the corner where Chike's improvised light was helping him to read. Chike was severely punished.
And as all eyes were on him, he couldn't continue with his game. That second term, Chike failed, and in the third term, he didn't come back to the dormitory. He went to live as a Day student.
One Saturday, I went to visit him. As expected, I met him on his desk, reading. He told me he'll never come back to the dormitory where someone will be controlling his reading time. Suffice it to say that my friend passed his third term exams though, with his usual narrow escape.
Anytime I see the old hurricane lamp or even think of it, I remember my friend, the hardworking Chike who is presently a branch manager of an insurance firm.