As Boakov was plotting in his mind, when and how he will see Miss Nkong and tell her what he wants, or in clear terms, that he wanted to date her, he accidentally met her in one of the lobbies of the administrative building of the school. Was it a telepathic coincidence? Boakov asked himself. Since he was very superstitious, he said to himself, it was now or never. He had to tell Miss Nkong now, the affection that he has for her and possibly book a day for a date. Boakov was not romantic, he was brutal. He authoritatively asked Jeanne Marie Nkong to come see him in his office. And because Boakov was the type of man who besides his academic and administrative functions, commanded respect from students and his colleagues alike, for he was a solidly built man. He was intimidating naturally, he measured 2.5 metre tall and weight about 150 kilograms. He was truly a beast you don’t joke with or you risked being mangled. In his youth, he was an accomplished sports man. He was a wrestler, who had defeated all wrestlers in West Cameroon and Eastern Nigeria. But his aspired career in sports, as he likes to say himself, was to become a heavy weight boxer in the mould of Hogan Bassey. But all that were botched because of the reunification between West Cameroon and French-speaking East Cameroon. The invitation that he (Boakov) offered to Jeanne Marie in his office frightened the poor girl.
She really never knew what to expect. For she thought that, perhaps she had had very poor exam results and was to be dismissed from school or were not to get any posting at the end of her studies. It was an expected bad news. And for a student of the School of Administration and Magistracy of Cameroon, whose parents or family members might have indebted themselves to raise the lump sum of CFA Franc 1 million to bribe the school’s administration in order to get admission of their son or daughter, into a school that graduates are assured of a job at the end, a spectre of dismal because of poor results or no postings upon graduation is synonymous to disaster. She began shivering like a hen that has been beaten by a torrential tropical rain and her knees began knocking each other. She could not stand by self any more and decided to seat on bench that was in the lobby, and leading to the office of Boakov. Why? In order to gather some strength and courage and also speculate on the fate that awaited her. And when she had come back to herself, she decided to meander into the office of Boakov and knocked on his door and a roaring voice indicated: “come in.” she pushed the door and went in. And to her greatest surprise, the man who seldom smiles was now smiling from ear to ear. Boakov’s smiles exhibited his clean white teeth attached to his reddish/purple-like gums. He asked her to seat in one of his armed chairs and gave her some of his photo albums to look at. Then as he discovered that, Miss Nkong who was flipping through the photo albums in an uninterested manner, he thought his plans have failed. He started thinking to improvise a new scheme on how best to placate the girl.
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