A truckload of canes was driven into the school at a slow pace for us to see. Teachers and school administrators looked pleased with themselves. They were giving us the “how-about-now?” look. It was supposed to be nothing more than a scare tactic. And we were scared, not of the pain, but of the humiliation. There was something about a lady being asked to lie down to be beaten that was just unbecoming. It might seem laughable that for all our dreadful crimes, we still considered ourselves as ladies but really did. After all, we were always neatly dressed, we hardly ever got into physical fights and we never, ever ran unless it was a matter of life and death. And if that wasn’t lady-like, then what was? We spent weeks agonizing bout being the canes. When teachers made threatening to bring out the rod, we caved. This lasted only a little while; we got tired of the empty threats. We called their bluff and started running wild again. Whether it was out of pride or out of the fear of losing control, one of the teachers panicked and caned someone in our class. The student then broke out into a loud wail and we joined in. The teacher shouted and threatened but none of us would stop. We only wailed louder and louder until students from other classes and some teachers were surrounding our class, trying to find out what catastrophe had befallen us. The next day, in the spirit of showmanship, the school administration decided to treat my whole class to a ‘fete’ of canes. They started with a speech about how our class was jam-packed with wild animals – animals that needed taking care of. We refused to lie down. One by one, we started stripping naked, much to the embarrassment of male teachers. They had no right to cane us, we said. They were in shock. They called for an urgent staff meeting. In the meantime, we called a meeting of our own and we decided that if the school administration thought we were wild animals, we would act as such. The following day, our English teacher entered the classroom and for the first time, we were silent. We just stared and said nothing and did nothing since animals could neither speak nor write. At lunch time, we ate our food with our hands as opposed to ‘being proper,’ by using forks. We then proceeded to prevent cooks from giving leftovers to the pigs. We said pigs could come and fight us (their fellow animals) for food if they wanted to eat. At night during prep time, whenever a teacher passed, we made different animal sounds. The following day, we saw parents trickling into the school. After a while, it was clear that the school had called a meeting with parents from our class. There was only one reason why the school invited parents; if they were going to expel someone. We freaked out but there was comfort in numbers. After a while, parents and teachers came out of the meeting. We thought they would haul insults at us as always or even send us home, but they had a different plan. Parents just told us to lie down. It rained canes that day.
