### The Last Bell
"Every holiday begins as a daydream before the gate even swings open."
The final bell of term rang like someone had set a bird free. All across Victorious High School, chairs scraped against tile floors, boys shouted victories into the humid air, and the smell of chalk dust mixed with the sweet-sharp scent of torn paper and freedom.
Thirteen-year-old Tobechukwu Amakeze, or just Tobe as everyone preferred, stuffed his
exercise books into his backpack with the urgency of a prisoner granted parole.
Six whole weeks stretched before him like an unwritten story. " Summer break" The words tasted like chilled Coca-Cola on a hot harmattan day.
Outside, the school field shimmered beneath the late-afternoon sun. Victorious High wasn't the finest school in Awka City, but it carried itself with a certain dignified pride. The two-story building wore its soft blue paint like a well-pressed uniform, grey highlights tracing the plaster moldings, and rows of windows that caught the light and threw it back
like curious, blinking eyes.
Here, the Queen's English reigned supreme. Teachers stretched the word *women* into "weemeeen", and examinations were so
mercilessly difficult that students joked they were writing entrance tests for heaven itself. The teachers dressed in coordinated uniforms, different colored tops for each weekday, always paired with black trousers or skirts, and they taught with the precision of clockwork. Students wore their main uniform with varying degrees of enthusiasm: blue shirts, grey trousers for boys, grey skirts for girls, and for the seniors, grey blazers that made them look important even when they weren't.
Tobe and his friends tumbled down the stairs that had carried thousands of small feet and hurried dreams toward the assembly ground.
They huddled beneath the ancient mango tree, its branches heavy with green fruit that wouldn't ripen for another month, trading holiday plans like precious currency.
"I'm going to Jos," Uche announced, puffing his chest. "My uncle has a house on the hill. Says you can see three states from the veranda."
"Lagos for me," Ifeoma said, twirling one of her neatly plaited braids around her finger. "My aunt promised to take me to the beach
and the amusement park."
Tobe had his own list, carefully cultivated over the last week of classes. He'd draw the new superheroes he'd been sketching in the
margins of his mathematics textbook, he was obsessed with the Justice League
cartoons and had recently acquired three issues of "The Indomitables" comic
series that he'd read so many times the pages were soft as cloth. His mother
always said he should read proper books, the kind that would make him smarter
and more knowledgeable. He did read them, of course, but mainly when exams
loomed like thunderclouds on the horizon.
More importantly, he planned to finally, beat his neighbor Chike at street football. The boy had been insufferable after last holiday's victory, crowing about it for weeks. Tobe had been practicing his footwork, and this time, that makeshift goal would be his.
He also intended to spend entire nights watching action movies and cartoons while his mother thought he was asleep, and maybe help his father at the busy shoe merchant shop on Okwudili Road. Dad had promised to teach him how to haggle without blinking, a skill that seemed as valuable as
any mathematics formula.
The walk home unfolded warm and lazy, the way all good days should. Tobe's house sat just around the corner from school, but the journey usually stretched to thirty or forty-five minutes because they always stopped
at Mama Nene's bakery.
The structure was humble cement blocks and wooden planks, topped with an aluminum roof stained black from years of fire smoke. Some of the blocks were cracked and hollowed with holes, and a few zinc sheets stood uneven, pulled askew by strong winds. But the scent…oh, the scent of freshly
baked bread, sweet buns, and chilled zobo always drew a crowd, along with Mama
Nene's crooked but perpetually inviting smile.
The woman stood barely taller than the thirteen-year-olds who frequented her shop, which somehow made her seem more approachable, like she understood their world in a way adults usually didn't. The shortness ran in her family, she'd explained once with a laugh that shook her whole body.
After collecting his warm bun and saying goodbye to his friends, Tobe finally reached home. He dropped his bag by the door with a
satisfying thud, kicked off his shoes, and felt the first real taste of holiday stretch before him, wide and golden, like a football field waiting for the perfect goal kick.
Friday evening settled over the house with its usual rhythm. The generator hummed its familiar song in the backyard. His mother's voice floated from the kitchen, riding the waves of highlife music from the radio.
His father sat somewhere behind the rustle of newspaper pages.
Tobe had no idea that his carefully crafted plans were about to be folded as neat as laundry and packed away for an entirely different adventure.
***
Saturday mornings in the Amakeze house always smelled of fried akara and floor polish a combination that shouldn't work but somehow defined home.
Tobe's mother, Adanna, moved about in her patterned wrapper, hips swaying in unconscious rhythm with the highlife music still playing on the radio. She was a woman of medium height with quick hands and an even quicker smile, the kind of mother who could scold you and hug you in the same breath.
His father, Obinna, sat at the dining table behind a fortress of newspapers, his reading glasses perched at the edge of his nose as
if they might jump off at any moment. His blue shirt and khaki trousers were
neatly pressed, he always dressed as though work might summon him at any second,
even on weekends.
But it was the way he moved that Tobe had known all his life without ever questioning: carefully, deliberately, his right leg stiff and
unreliable. He couldn't put his full weight on it the way other fathers did, so the wooden walking stick leaning against his chair was as much a part of him as his reading glasses. His hair was cut short and neat, dark strands flecked with grey at the temples, and his eyes held a patient quietness that Tobe had always
trusted.
Tobe wandered into the dining room still half-asleep, his hair sticking up at odd angles like stubborn grass refusing to lie flat.
"Morning, champ," his father said without looking up from the newspaper.
"Daddy, good morning," Tobe yawned, his eyes immediately finding the plate of golden-brown akara on the table. "Is that all for me?"
His mother's laugh rang out from the kitchen doorway. "Go and brush your teeth first before you start claiming kingdoms."
She was bustling around the stove, chopping tomatoes with practiced efficiency, stirring a pot of stew that sent up curls of peppery
steam. Her dress was bright and cheerful, her hair tied back in the practical bun she always wore when cooking. She hummed something soft and wordless, as if mornings were meant to smell like breakfast and sound like contentment.
While Tobe ate, after brushing his teeth, of course, his father folded the newspaper with the deliberate care of someone about to make an announcement. He cleared his throat in that particular way that made Tobe's
chewing slow.
"So, Tobechukwu…"
Tobe froze mid-bite. When his father used his full name, something significant was coming. Always.
His mother sat down across from him, her expression warm but
serious in that way mothers mastered. "You know your Uncle CJ?"
Tobe blinked, thinking. "The one from Dad's side?"
His father nodded slowly. "My older half-brother. He's been away for many years, travels a lot. He wrote last month. Well, called, actually." He paused, adjusting his glasses. "Says he'd like you to spend the
holidays with him."
The radio seemed to lower its volume of its own accord, as if even the music wanted to hear what came next.
"With him?" Tobe's voice came out smaller than he intended.
"Where?"
"Palm Town," his father said. "It's a quiet town, about
three hours from here. Green, peaceful. Different from Awka."
"Palm Town." The name conjured images of a sleepy village with more goats than people, the kind of place where excitement meant watching yams grow. Tobe thought of his grand summer plans, football victories, comic
marathons, endless sketching sessions, and watched them flutter away like loose papers caught in a sudden breeze.
"But… my friends…" he started.
His mother reached across the table and squeezed his hand gently. Her palms were warm from cooking. "It's just for a few weeks. He's family. And he specifically asked for you, Tobe. Not your cousins, not anyone else. You."
His father's eyes softened behind his glasses, a look Tobe recognized as the one that meant the decision was already made but they'd
pretend he had a choice. "Your uncle is… different. But the good kind of different. You'll see."
Tobe stared at the last piece of akara on his plate, his appetite suddenly gone. "Different" could mean anything. It could mean a man
who collected boring stamps. It could mean someone who made children do endless
chores as "character building." It could mean awkward silence and early bedtimes.
His mother must have read the worry on his face because she added quickly, "He's kind, Tobe. Thoughtful. Creative. I think you'll like him once you get to know him."
Tobe didn't miss the glance his parents exchanged, something unspoken passing between them like a secret note in class.
His father unfolded another section of newspaper but kept watching Tobe over the rim. "He said he'd come himself to pick you up. Next Friday."
Next Friday. Six days. Just six days for his perfect plans to pack their bags and slip quietly out the window.
Tobe tried to sound casual, though his heart was sinking. "Do I have a choice?"
His father smiled that faint, knowing smile of someone who'd already won the match before it began. "You have a chance," he said. "A chance to see something new. To learn something unexpected."
Outside, the generator coughed once, twice, then fell silent, leaving the house suddenly still. A breeze slipped through the curtains
and brushed across the back of Tobe's neck, cool and curious as a whispered dare.
For a moment, sitting in that quiet kitchen with the smell of akara and his parents' gentle certainty, Tobe felt it, just the faintest tug
of something he couldn't name. Not excitement exactly, and not quite fear.
Something else.
Something that felt like a door he couldn't yet see had just swung open, waiting.