“The gods are angry!” his voice boomed, supressing the graveyard silence of the school compound. It was his first visit to Doloms, yet he knew the headmistress’ office without asking for directions. Pa Fakunle, the village witchdoctor, who lived alone in a square mud hut surrounded by giant trees and tall grasses at the west end of the village– and would only be seen when the gods had someone to threaten and sacrifices to demand – came to the school in a grass skirt, his face covered with white powder. No one should drink from the taps until further notice. He ordered an autopsy on all the bodies he came with his stern-looking gloved men who took sand samples around the bore well, and some water from the reservoir. The police chief investigator who came to the school after the third death thought the water reservoir behind the staff room might be contaminated. She fell like a log, right there, before the concerned teacher said all that was on her mind. The albino girl complained of a headache after the morning assembly on a rainy Monday morning, and her class teacher was still suggesting a walk to the school clinic across the football field. She had her head on her desk her classmates had thought she was sleeping. One girl died in the classroom at break time. She wanted to see her favourite musical show to the end she sang along with P-Square before her dad said it was bedtime. One girl died on her bed at home she had eaten garri with her parents the previous night. She had sat on the can with her underpants down to her ankle she must have been taking a dump. A teacher and three pupils brought tears to many. The second person died two days after the first the third person died five days after the second and the fourth person died a week after the third. When Pastor Onyeachonam pointed out the eerie strangeness of four deaths within two weeks in a learning community of less than a hundred people, he was received as a sage. But they were like natural strange things. Strange things had happened with stunning suddenness in a short time. There had been no blood, there had been no drama, no crime scene in the real sense of the word strange things had called for questions – no doubt about that. Doloms High School was neither a killing field nor like a slaughterhouse.
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