Ugochukwu Nwachinemere walked briskly from Unity House to the central auditorium, the morning sun casting long shadows across the dew-drenched grass fields of Federal Academy, Uzioma. His school sandals tapped rhythmically on the stone path, his heart light. Today was the long-awaited Induction Ceremony—the official welcoming of first-year students into the life and lore of the academy. To Ugo, it was more than that. It was a ritual—no different, in spirit, from the whispered tales his uncle once told about secret rites under the Ikuku Tree. He had come prepared to soak in every word, every chant, every coded lesson.
Maybe, just maybe, he'd get a chance to ask someone—anyone—about leopards. Real ones. Or the ones from dreams.
But his hopes started to unravel the moment he entered the hall.
There were no prefects in sight. None of the admired seniors with their gleaming uniforms and stoic expressions. Instead, the room was filled with new boys like himself and a throng of form two students, visibly bloated with pride at the single year of difference that now allowed them to wield power.
"Maybe the seniors are waiting to surprise us later," Ugo thought, clinging to optimism.
At the stage, a tall form two student stepped to the microphone. His trousers were slightly too short, revealing long shins that looked as though they'd been carved from bamboo. He didn't need to shout for silence. His smug expression and exaggerated gestures already commanded attention.
He pointed a long finger at Emeka, the American-Nigerian boy with high cheekbones and a swagger that spoke of another world entirely.
"You there! Yes, you. Come up and take the Fag's Oath."
Emeka hesitated. By all logic, others with names before his alphabetically should have been called first. But logic was on vacation.
The MC didn't care for alphabetical order—or logic. He simply wanted to start with Emeka. And in this strange new world, defiance meant punishment.
As Emeka approached, the MC sneered, "Don't plant your stinking mouth on the mic. Some of us still value our lungs."
Emeka recoiled slightly, caught off guard. He hadn't spoken a word. The insult was pure invention.
"Say after me," the MC continued, "and say it loud. And don't nod like a mute spirit. You answer with 'Yes, please.' Got that?"
"Yes, please," Emeka said flatly, swallowing the urge to roll his eyes.
"Good. Now, repeat after me. 'My name is Professor…' and then give your bush name."
Emeka raised an eyebrow but complied. "My name is Professor Emeka."
The MC's grin widened. "I come from the mudhole of—what's that village again?"
"Palo Alto," Emeka muttered, annoyed.
"Palo Al–what?" the MC mocked. "Call that a village? What bush grows there? Cacti? Rats? Imported toads?"
Emeka half-smiled and reached out with a hand, jokingly trying to pat the MC's shoulder. A peace gesture. But the boy flinched and recoiled as though touched by rot.
"Who do you think you are?" he spat. "Keep those faggish, lotion-slick hands away from me!"
"I ain't stinking!" Emeka said defensively.
"Shut up!" the MC snapped, stamping his foot. "Bring me Solution A! This fresh goat thinks he's a prince."
One of the form two boys produced a reused glass bottle labeled Orange Squash. From it, the MC poured a yellowish liquid into a cup that once held beer. The smell made Emeka's nose twitch. Then his stomach turned.
"Drink this!" barked the MC.
Emeka barely touched the cup to his lips before gagging violently. He retched into his palms and bolted from the stage, stumbling out of the hall. The bitter scent of urine still clung to his nostrils.
Out of instinct and sympathy, Ugochukwu chased after him. They found a broken-down latrine behind the hall where Emeka slumped against the wall, gasping.
"This place is mad," he whispered, his voice hoarse. "They're mad."
Ugo said nothing. His silence said enough.
Back in the hall, the MC was moving on.
"My name is Professor Obi," a new voice echoed nervously.
"I come from the bush village of Onitsha," the boy continued, voice trembling. "Where people eat toads for supper. I am a stinking fag. I am to be seen, not heard. And from today, I promise to discard all rustic and outlandish behavior…"
It was a script rehearsed over generations, written not on paper but in cruelty.
"I will now sing to entertain you with a piece titled Swing Low, Sweet Chariot…"
The audience burst into raucous laughter, not because the performance was funny, but because the boy survived it.
Ugochukwu left the hall numb.
He had expected a ceremony. What he got was a spectacle of shame—a theatre of humiliation masked as tradition. His first day as a student had felt like an ambush. He hadn't even spoken and yet had already been marked, labeled, measured.
His English—though fluent—was laced with the tonality of Obeledu. To the boys from cities and foreign lands, it sounded "local." "Igbotic," they hissed. Some even mimicked him, shouting appropinquo each time he stumbled on a syllable in Literature class.
It stung worse when he saw classmates—those he'd shared akara with the night before—joining in the laughter. A line had been drawn, and he was firmly on the wrong side.
When it was his turn to announce that he hailed from Obeledu, the MC cut him off.
"You? You think we don't know you're from Okija, the mud village where students sit on banana trunks and write on their thighs with charcoal? SMG told us."
That stung. Ugo remembered Wale—his guardian—telling him that SMG had a habit of teasing every new student. But how could such mockery be turned into open ridicule?
"Curious school," Ugo mumbled to himself.
A school where you could get punished for speaking your mother tongue. Igbo, Efik, Ijaw, Yoruba—all forbidden in corridors, dining rooms, dormitories. You even had to dream in English, if possible. The rules were clear: speak only in Queen's English, no matter how your tongue twisted.
Even the way one ate was policed. Ugo had grown up eating with his hands or with a spoon when guests came. But here, forks and knives ruled. You had to grip the fork with your left hand and knife with your right, all while slicing plantains as though performing surgery. It seemed absurd, especially when the spoon—sitting untouched—could do the job faster.
But the seniors? They made it look like art. They held their forks upside down, scooping rice as though it were sacred grain. Not a single grain fell. Not a glance was spared.
"Colonial ghosts," Ugo thought bitterly.
Still, Federal Academy was no ordinary school. It was the most prestigious in Eastern Nigeria and the Cameroons, a place where dreams were forged. Every child from every hamlet, town, or estate wanted to wear its striped blazer and polished shoes. Getting admitted was seen as salvation—almost royal. His family had ululated for hours the day his admission letter arrived.
"This school," Mazi Agbu had said, "will turn you into a man who commands rooms."
And yet here, at the heart of this great forge, he felt like scrap metal.
Still, he resolved.
He would endure.
He would master this strange culture of polished abuse and learn its language. Because beneath all the hazing and the hierarchy, he sensed something else—something pulsing quietly in the corners of the school, like a shadow in the woods.
Something that had nothing to do with cutlery or colonial polish.
Something… leopard-like.
He was here for answers.
Let them mock him now.
But they would soon learn—
You cannot laugh at the boy who walks with shadows.