We’ve all heard the adage necessity is the mother of invention, haven’t we? Well, some can push it to absurd heights like JAMES SHIMWITWA’s ‘God father’ did one day when he devised an ingenious trick to escape from trouble with the school authorities. Read on…

WHEN a notorious pupil nicknamed Poke Toholo joined our Grade seven class as a repeater at Nchanga primary school, we all got apprehensive. Terror had been dropped in our midst. At his previous school, Poke had been arrested and locked up by police for beating and assaulting teachers on three different occasions.
His former schoolmates often narrated how he used to snatch money, school books and food from them. Poke was linked to a local gang in Chingola that terrorised mineworkers and committed robberies and other gang crimes.
Although most of his friends ended up in prisons, Poke was so slippery in the hands of police that he never got inside the walls of a prison. The entire Chingola new Poke as a smart troublemaker who always cleverly escaped punishment.
The name Poke Toholo was drawn from a ruthless killer, a character in one of James Hadley Chase’s thrillers. No one knew the real name of this guy because he hardly used it himself. Poke was a short guy with a hard muscular body. His red-eyed face was ruined by scars from his numerous street fights. His mouth was thickened and darkened by smoke; looked like the edges of a chimney.
Poke was a skillful football player. It was for this reason that he was accepted to repeat in most schools in spite of his bad character. By the time he was joining our school, he had repeated several times such that he looked the same age as, if not older than, some of our school teachers.
Our class teacher was a tough huge man with emerging grey hair. He always carried a whip: a one meter black piece of thick hose pipe which he used to discharging discipline. He scarcely liked football. In fact, he often discouraged his pupils from taking up football as a career. For this reason Poke and our teacher would never get along.
“I want to see many of you become doctors, accountants or engineers. These are careers that will offer you life-long skills, not football. Football may make you famous for a few years, but soon or later you get your legs broken, you finish like bath soap and, before you know it, you are a destitute,” he often stressed with disarming wit.
I happened to be the smallest, if not the youngest, pupil in class. I’m not sure if it was for this reason that Poke developed interest in me. I was the first classmate whose name he came to know. At break time, he’d fondly tow me by my arm like his younger brother to buy me toba umutwe (homemade crackers) and fritters.
Soon, I became his cholaboy (messenger): carrying his football boots, school books and running errands to those he forced to be his girlfriends. In return I received protection, no one dared to harass me because I belonged to the toughest character in school. In no time, I came to be known as Poke Toholo’s boy and was feared by my peers.
My class teacher was deeply concerned and opposed to my association with Poke. “James, u wenda na Ngoshe no ku mubeya e umubeya. You are a bright pupil; please break your association with that troublemaker. One day he will get you into trouble.”
I never listened to this advice. But my teacher’s prophecy happened sooner than I anticipated. As the Easterners say, mau ba a kulu akoma akagonera (words of the elderly mature or come to pass with time).
One day when our teacher was attending a staff meeting. Poke said to me: “I want to smoke in the ablution block, escort me.”
“Ba mudala, it is better you wait for break time, you can do it outside school premises. It’s an offence to smoke in school,” I stated the obvious.
“I don’t care about those silly school rules,” he retorted, “I want to smoke now. Smoking is such an addictive habit that it doesn’t give you mettle to wait when you feel the urge. Come on let’s go.” He seized my hand and dragged me out of class.
When we reached the ablution block he said, “I don’t expect any teacher to come in here, they are all in a meeting. But just in case it happens, remain at the entrance to keep vigil. If some foolish teacher appears from nowhere shuffle your feet or cough five times to alert me, understand?” He bent down, his hand searched his socks and he fished a white cigarette stick with a brown cock. He disappeared before I could protest.
Minutes crawled by. The smell of Peter Stuyvesant infiltrated the air around the ablution block. As I stood guarding Poke, I dreaded over the consequence of not reporting a pupil committing such a grave offence.
Failing to report or aiding another pupil to commit an offence attracted instant expulsion. The only reason I tolerated Poke’s affability towards me was the special protection I enjoyed, otherwise I valued school very much. Expulsion would wreck my ambition to become an engineer.
My thoughts were suddenly disrupted by the appearance of a huge shadow cast on the concrete floor at a corner only two meters away. The shape of the shadow registered a figure of a familiar person. The hand of the shadow held what looked like a whip. My heart begun to sprint!
“What are you doing here?” the deep voice of my teacher thundered as he swung his whip near my chin. The shock I experienced was so profound that my voice froze.
“I have been watching you and that troublemaker. Now where has he gone to?”
“In..in the lavatory, Sir” I managed to find my voice.
“And what is he doing?”
My voice froze again. Betraying Poke was suicide.
The teachers’ head shifted upwards, his nostrils widened. He inhaled deeply. Quickly his suspicious eyes fell on me.
“He is smoking, isn’t he?”
I stayed mute.
“He is smoking and you are here acting as his sentry not so?”
He pushed me aside and slowly walked towards the lavatory. I wanted to run away, but I was curious to see what would happen. I trailed the teacher.
There were ten lavatories in the block and nine of them had their doors open. The furthest room had its door closed. The space above the closed lavatory had a cloud of smoke ascending from below. The teacher briskly walked on and came to stop at the door. He thrust his knuckles on the panel.
“Open this door immediately. I know you are in there!” he yelled.
No reply came.
He hammered twice more with increasing rage.
The sound of a lavatory flashing followed. Seconds later the door swung open. Poke Toholo came out, his hands fiddling with the zip of his school short.
“What is it?” Poke looked genuinely stunned by the fuss.
“Don’t pretend you were using the lavatory. I know you were smoking,” the teacher barked.
“I don’t know what you are talking about.”
“Stretch your hands!”
When poke stretched his hands the teacher grabbed them and brought them close to his nostrils. He sniffed. His eyes beamed.
“I knew you have been smoking. James, come and smell this boy’s hands. You will be my witness!”
The smell of tobacco on Pokes’ hands was so strong that even those with a weak sense of smell could pick it.
“Okay now you two come with me to the headmaster’s office.”
Outside the headmaster’s office he paused.
“You remain here while I report, don’t run away” He went in and closed the door behind him.
“Bamudala what shall we do now?” I whispered when we were alone.
He didn’t reply. His mind appeared to be engrossed in manufacturing a clever way out. Meanwhile, I visualised the headmaster hammering a school date stamp on a brown envelope that would contain a letter condemning me to the streets. Expulsion was inevitable.
Suddenly Poke beamed.
He unzipped his shorts and inserted his hand in his underwear, reaching between his buttocks. His hand fiddled inside. Then he brought his hand up to his nose and sniffed. He did this a couple of times with both hands. He zipped up when he seemed satisfied with the results of whatever he was trying to achieve.
The door opened, our teacher beckoned us in.
The headmaster drilled straight into Poke’s eyes.
“Mwewa, I am told you were smoking in the boys’ lavatory and this little boy was your sentry?”
It’s during this interrogation that I found out that Poke Toholo was Mwewa.
“It’s not true, Sir. I was just relieving my bowels.”
“Bring your hands here.”
Poke unveiled his hands without resistance. The headmaster took a deep sniff.
He suddenly ejected the hands as if they were hot. His face twisted. He grabbed a newspaper that lay on his table and waved it in the air, stirring the air around him.
“Nonsense, the hands stink of human excreta,” he protested.
Astonished by this action, our class teacher grabbed Poke’s hands and sniffed, too.
His face contorted. He rushed to a nearby window and opened it wide to let fresh air in.
The headmaster looked at our teacher, disgusted.
“I don’t want these boys in here. Send them away before they spoil my forthcoming lunch”.
As we walked away triumphantly towards our classroom, Poke put his hand on my shoulder and said: “James, if you really want to be an engineer, don’t let anyone stand in your way. Use human excreta if need be to shield your goal and move on.”
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