It was one of those mornings after a night's heavy rain, the atmosphere was cool and the sun hadn't dreamt of smiling on the horizon, talk less of shining. The flowers were still wet and there were drops of water from the trees with every rustling by the wind.
Kingdom Kids Missionary School had its domain at an isolated part of the city. This had been the decision of the founding fathers because they needed a large expanse of land to build a standard school which had all the required amenities. The environment too was calm and peaceful, suitable for learning. Being isolated didn't deter the number of students from increasing each session. The school proved to be one of the best schools in the state. In addition to academic standards, the staff at KKMS made sure the spiritual lives of their students were on point. The school could be considered top notch.
This academic centre was made up of four three-storeyed blocks, a very big school hall, a boys' and a girls' hostel, a dining hall, and a well-equipped library.
One of the four three-storeyed blocks served as the school's administrative building. It consisted of the offices of the principal officers of the school the principal, his vices, the bursar, and the Heads of Departments. The other three blocks housed the classes, the essential laboratories and rooms for all the departments and other staff offices. These storeyed buildings were arranged in a semi-circular format with the administrative block facing the frequently painted blue school gate. The flag of the country and the school's stood in front of the administrative block. The rest of the school buildings were located at the rear of these four main blocks.
The school hall served mainly as the assembly ground for the general populace and a chapel for the boarding students. It was used for different kinds of events – graduation ceremonies, quizzes and debates, club meetings, name it. The school even leased it to outsiders for wedding receptions at times. It is quite worthy to note that this prestigious school had a very large pitch and that they took sports seriously. In fact, in the principal's office, you'd find so many trophies that had been won in sports alongside trophies won by competing in quizzes, debates or even Christian competitions.
Abigail Brown felt the excellence of the morning too. She felt as calm as the atmosphere and she was particularly happy that morning. She was a beautiful ebony girl of fourteen who was in the second year of her senior secondary schooling. She was an inquisitive being, and this trait of hers contributed largely to her intelligence. She and her brother – Olaluwa –who attended same school had just been dropped by their mother.
In her sparkling white shirt and socks, brilliant light blue beret and skirt, and a well-polished black pair of shoes, she raced to her class to drop her backpack. On getting there, she dropped the bag on her seat, unzipped it, brought out the poem she wrote the day before, and zipped up. She checked her digital wristwatch, it was 7:15am. She moved hastily to the front of the classroom to sign the prefects' register for her class. The prefects' register was made to keep tabs on prefects' punctuality and their levels of responsibility. As the library prefect, Abigail had never for once been late to school, defiled any of the school rules, or neglected her prefectship duties. After signing, she ran to the library to check
If the people she had assigned to clean and arrange the library for that week had arrived and started work. She was satisfied that they were already there and they were doing a good job like they had been doing since the start of the week. She checked her watch again and it was 7:19am.The morning prayers and assembly proper would commence by 7:30am and she had to show Mrs. Adigun her poem and hear her comments. She checked herself again to ascertain if her hastiness that morning hadn't caused any form of misplacement on her uniform or gotten her white dirty. On confirming she was still very neat, she started for Mrs. Adigun's office.