About three phones have gone missing in our room in the past five months. When we reported to the School’s security, they only told us that it was a roommate that is responsible.
Everyone of us in the room was waiting for the day we will catch the culprit.
Last Tuesday, when we were all asleep; I think it was about 2 am, Ben woke up suddenly and his phone was gone. His phone was the
most expensive of us all. When Ben woke up and couldn’t find his phone, he sprang up from the bed and quickly opened his cupboard.
He rummaged the contents, even removed his clothes but could still not find the phone.
I was in the room when it happened; sitting and reading before I dozed off with my heading resting on my books. So when Ben couldn’t find his phone, he gently shook my shoulders until I woke up. ‘It has happened again’, he told me.
I didn’t even need to ask what happened as I could see the panic and loss written in his eyes.
This is the second time his phone had been
stolen. So I took my phone and dialed Ben’s
number; just to be sure it had not been misplaced. ‘Error in Connection’ was what I saw on the screen of my phone. I dialed it again and it started ringing not just on my phone, but the actual ring tone of Ben’s Samsung phone was faintly audible.
We were both surprised when we heard the tone. I beckoned on Ben to keep quiet as he was visibly ready to ‘finish’ the person who took
his phone. I continued dialing as we moved
silently, following the direction of the ring tone. There were four bunks in the room, each with two bed spaces. Ben and I use the same bunk just beside the door and the sound was coming from the last bunk at the extreme left corner.
We tiptoed, Ben and I, like Jack Baeur until we
traced the sound to the top bed space on the last bunk. ‘So it is John who had been stealing phones in this room’. Ben whispered to me.
We shook his leg and woke him up only to find out it was not John sleeping on the mattress. Neither of us had ever seen the guy
before. To make matters worse, the ringing was coming
from the bag he was using as pillow.
When he woke up, he looked at us strangely as if he didn’t know why we were there.
We opened the bag and found not just Ben’s
Samsung, but three other phones. ‘So, you are the one who’s been
stealing our phones!’; Ben shouted at him.
Before he could find an excuse, Ben slapped him on his left cheek and walked out looking for anything to break one or two of the guy’s bones. I don’t know; but there was something about the guy. So I asked him,
‘Oga, what are you doing here?’ ‘What are you doing with Ben’s
phone’. He was just looking at me without
saying anything, so I slapped his right cheek with my left hand.
‘ANSWER ME!’, I screamed at him; waking up the roommates who were around. John had obviously gone to night
class to read and I assumed the other three roommates who
were absent had also gone to read.
The two guys remaining in the room
with me and Ben came and gave their own round of slaps. The accused was now staggering when Ben came back with a long wood hard enough to kill the guy. As he raised it up, the three of us, the roommates, held his hands so he wouldn’t murder the accused. Ben dropped the wood and swept
his right leg against the thief’s legs and he fell
down. Ben had told me before that he had
attended the Soldiers’ recruitment training but failed the medical test. I believed him right then.
I looked at the guy crumple on the floor and before Ben killed him, I decided to interview him, at least to know who he is. He was now sitting on the ground where he landed from Ben’s force. ‘Who are you?’ I asked him again; this time gently.
He was crying but it was only the tears that were
coming out. It was then I realized he had not even uttered a word since it all started.
Not even when he fell to the ground. ‘Why are you in our room’?
I asked again. ‘Can you even talk?’ He shook his head then.
I was now confused. Why was he shaking his head?
So, I asked again, ‘Can’t you talk?’
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