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Short story: Alice, the ‘game changer’

Alice started her new school amid fear and uncertainty. She had heard many horrid things about the school and was ready to experience the worst.

Alice used to live with her parents in Kumasi. However, when her father got a lifetime opportunity to work in Canada he left.

Four years later, Alice’s mother had to join him so arrangements were made for Alice to live with her uncle and his wife in a town in the Central Region.

The town had two schools. Students in one school were studious and obedient to authority while most of the students in the other school were recalcitrant and were feared even by their teachers.

It was the latter school that Alice enrolled in and she was filled with trepidation on her first day at school. She had wanted to attend the first school but they had closed admission and the headmaster of the school could not make any promises because the class Alice had to join was already full.

However, he asked Alice and his uncle to return during the second term because at that time, they would have known the vacancies available after the students had reported. Alice’s uncle enrolled her in the second school with the intention that when there was a vacancy in the first school she would be transferred there.

The first thing Alice noticed in her new school was that most of the children in the various classes were older, apart from that, they could not speak or write good English and because of that, they found it difficult to understand whatever their teachers taught. Because the students were disrespectful, the teachers never went the extra mile to assist them in their academic work.

 For instance, in her class, JHS Two, more than half of her mates were 17 years. Some of them lived on their own, they schooled and worked at the same time to fend for themselves and also pay their fees.

Her first month in school was a disaster. Nobody spoke to her and when she starts a conversation, she was ignored because she spoke English while they preferred to speak Twi.

 Alice did not give up but in the second month, she started speaking Twi too. One day, she boldly walked up to the student everybody feared, Danso, to chat with him. Alice thought that if she became friendly with him all the others can also become her friends.

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