Who took that shoelace hanging on the line yesterday? Jay asked his roommates as he dressed up.
It is his matriculation morning. He had prepared a well-ironed white shirt and stripe tie to go with it. He was going to look smashing, at least for his course mates who had always looked at him as a little boy. All that hope will soon be cut short by the missing shoelace.
Jay brought his traveling bags down from the wardrobe and searched and searched but he couldn't find the lace.
I remember vividly how I hung it on the line. He grimaced.
Lot looked at him and said;
You know I don't wear laced shoes.
The other guys in the room kept mute. The freshmen were all putting finishing touches to their preparation for the matriculation ceremony when Jay started the search for his shoelace. Mandy and Kelly did not bother to respond to him. That got Jay angry the more. How could his shoelace grow wings and fly away?
Jay got his new chucks from under his bunk and wore it. He wasn't happy because that isn't what he had planned to wear but he was left with no choice. Soon, all boys were queued outside the university hall for the procession to take the oath of the university.
Good morning Jay!
Sekinat, Jay's course representative, was greeted in a happy mood. She was quite elated about the event of the matriculation. But as she drew nearer to Jay, she saw that his face was not the lively one she used to know.
Jay! What are you brooding about? You don't seem happy.
Jay gave a fake smile but did not respond to her. In his mind, it could have been any of the boys toying with his emotions. But since he has not seen any of them on the line where his lace was hanging, all of the boys are his suspects.
After matriculation, everyone returned to their hostel and continued the celebration since it was a lecture-free day.
A week later, everything was back to normal and the students continued their daily activities. Jay still held the grudge that someone must have definitely stolen his shoelaces. It really pained him to no end that he didn't get to wear the shoes he wanted and if he didn't find those shoe laces, he couldn't wear the shoes because they were custom made.
It pained him, but he decided to just move on and forget about it. He was sure he'd find the culprit one day.
Jay was having a conversation with one of his course mates when he saw Lot approaching with angry strides.
"Who took my sociology textbook?"
He boomed out in anger. Jay stared at him in confusion because he had no idea what Lot was going on about. He sure didn't take the sociology textbook because he had his and he still wouldn't have taken Lot's book because he knew the lecturer would be scoring them with that particular textbook.
"I have no idea what you're going on about" Jay said with so much confusion dripping from his voice.
"I know you're still angry about losing your shoe laces but that doesn't mean you'd have to take people's belongings " Lot shouted at Jay and a little crowd had started forming.
"I'm sorry, but I still do not understand what you're saying. Are you accusing me of taking your book?" Jay was already becoming annoyed because Lot was obviously accusing him wrongly.
"I'm not accusing you. I am sure you took the textbook for revenge"
He screamed at Jay and Jay immediately walked out. He's not one to vent out his anger. He rather prefers to brood over it.
After that incident had occurred, little things were also going missing in the hostel and all fingers pointed down to Jay. Later in the week, it was at night and surprisingly, all the boys were in the hostel and the hostel was oddly quiet.
It was as if they all had what was going through their mind and they lost in thought. Scratching noises started echoing through the silent room and Jay's ears perked up at hearing those noises. It seemed as though he wasn't the only one that was intrigued by the noise.
The noise was coming from the end of the room where there was a crack in the wall. There were sounds of feet tapping the wall and irritating eating noises. Jay jumped down from the bed to take a look at what was going on and the other boys followed as well. On getting there, they saw a rat cowering down in fear and the rat immediately took off.
They looked at the hole and saw all that was missing in the room there. They were so shocked that a rat had taken their belongings and yet they were at each other's neck, accusing one another.
Jay apologised to the other boys in the room for accusing them wrongly and Lot did the same too. Now they look back at what had happened and laugh about it as they were too quick to judge.