The third term began with a lot of changes. A lot.
20cm
It all started when we arrived on Sunday. As usual, Smizzle, Eben, and the assistant house prefect, Elorm, sat outside the house behind a big table with their notebooks open.
After two terms, I was used to this scene. Today, however, something was different.
Heaped, so out of place, on the floor next to the table was a pile of khaki trousers.
It hit me like a blow to the gut: 20cm! I had completely forgotten!
Anyone who has attended Motown within the last decade knows what 20cm represents; and it’s something that leaves everybody asking the same question, “Why?”
Beginning from the third term of that year, a new rule took effect: the bottom cuff/ bottom hem (whatever it’s really called) of every boy’s trousers was supposed to be a minimum of 20cm wide. Anything less and the trousers would be confiscated.
No, it’s not a joke, it’s an actual thing. Ask anyone.
I told you you’d ask “Why?”
Well, short answer, skinnies were in fashion, and fashionable is almost always non-school. If you keep asking why I might never end this paragraph. The school rules simply hated fashionable. Heck, almost everyone who ever won the SRC award for ‘Most Fashionable’ had some sort of rap sheet with the school’s disciplinary committee over non-school clothes.
Looking fly and being law-abiding were like oil and water: they didn’t mix.
But chale, boys refused to hear. They would get their clothes seized and proudly walk back to their dorms in their ‘creamy’ tɛgɛɛ singlets because the title of ‘Most Fa’ was to die for. As if they would put it on their resumes or something.
Anyway, back to the table in front of Aggrey House.
“Ametewee, your father is not with you?”, Smizzle grunted.
“No sir.”
“Where are your house dues?”
This man. Straight to the money matters. At least, pretend to be concerned about my well-being mpo eh.
Daddy had learned by now that Smizzle could smell money He dropped me off in front of Aggrey House like Snoop Dogg dropped whatever hot thing that song was about, and sped off.
I understood him. We both knew Smizzle could invent expenses to add to the house dues when he saw parents. For the first time, I was facing Smizzle on my own.
As soon as I finished counting out the money, Elorm, the assistant house prefect had me open my trunk and went straight to the business of meticulously measuring my trouser cuffs with his unnecessarily long ruler in hopes of confiscating them. The length of his ruler baffled me. I mean, you need exactly 20cm of a ruler to measure 20cm of a trouser cuff. Ah well.
He seemed genuinely disappointed when none of my three pairs of trousers met the criteria for confiscation.
I have previously painted a really mean picture of Eben, and while he certainly was a blood-relative of the Grinch, I have done him a disservice: Elorm was worse.
There were days he would get me, but not in this trouser war. Even though I’d forgotten the 20cm rule, I had a superpower: I was a ‘jon’ boy. Nobody was gonna take me down for looking too good!
“Take your stuff upstairs”, he commanded. As if I wasn’t going to take them up anyway.
Obodai was less fortunate. Missing the mark by a measly 5mm, he had his newly ‘pimped’ trousers seized by a very satisfied Elorm. The poor boy would have to wear one of my trousers until the next visiting day when his parents could bring him another pair.
I was at least six inches taller than Obodai. When he put my trousers on, you couldn’t tell whether he wore the trousers or the trousers wore him. 
Apaa Dede
Pythagoras’ Theorem says… on second thought you already know what it says, or you don’t care. At the very least you should remember that it has something to do with the sides of right-angled triangles.
Apaa Dede was the barber on the western compound. If Apaa Dede touched your head, we could use your hairline to teach Pythagoras’ Theorem. I don’t know how or why, but once you were sent to Apaa Dede for having bushy hair you would come back with a hairline at some odd angle.
There are three schools of thought:
1. Apaa Dede didn’t have steady hands.
2. He actually thought he was being stylish. Or…
3. He was paid extra by the school to ensure that his victims regretted coming to school with bushy hair.
My money’s on 3.
During the course of that first week, it was common to see his victims pass by every now and then.
Oh, the hairlines I saw; angled and sinusoidal. The worst part was these people actually paid money for these haircuts! High school really teaches you that life is not fair. 
The D-Hall Swindle
Another change happened in the D-Hall that week. This was actually a change that was proposed to us, which we foolishly accepted.
Back in my early years in Motown, our dining hall boasted of something only private schools had on their breakfast tables: chocolate spread.
Depending on whether or not you are a dadaba, you might be thinking at this point, “Wow! Chocolate spread?!” or “Oh. Just chocolate spread?” Either way, there was chocolate spread… and margarine, and groundnut paste. In a school where you’re not allowed to skip dining, or bring your own food into the dining hall, our breakfasts were not dry, and we loved it.
However, some people felt that the money spent on these extras would serve better use in increasing the quantity of rice in our meals.
Also, two of the five bolus slots on the d-hall menu would give way to yam with kontomire stew and another slot for gɔbɛ. If you know me, you know I welcomed another gɔbɛ slot wholeheartedly.
(It was the chocolate spread and margarine going away that was a bad call. Less than a month later, the rice levels would dwindle back to normal, and we would be left with neither chocolate spread nor extra rice. No wonder so many politicians attended Motown. We were hoodwinked… easy koraa.)
The New Prefects
The last major change was the announced appointment of new prefects. In Motown, only senior prefects are voted for. Everyone else is appointed.
Since there was no WASSCE exam in 2010, on account of the move from a three-year to a four-year high school system, there would be no new election.
The few prefects who wanted to step down were free to do so, and whatever changes were made by the school administration were implemented.
And So The Term Began…
I didn’t do as well in the second term as I did in the first. It was the start of my rather unfortunate decline.
Although I would never be a below-average student, as the lines were drawn between the various kinds of sea creatures, I would soon leave the realm of the sharks. If there was ever a group of students known as dolphins, I would find myself in those ranks for a few years. Better than being a goldfish though.
After our meeting with Azotobacter, our form master, to review our performance from the previous term, we had our first lesson, and school was in full swing.
The only obvious difference was the empty seats of the students on internal suspension for reporting to school late. The poor children were out in the bush chopping down trees like Paul Bunyan.
(If you were reading ‘Snake Girl’ in primary school, I won’t blame you for not knowing who Paul Bunyan is.)
Very soon the bell rang for the snack break. I spent about ten minutes finishing an assignment, and then I legged it upstairs to see Akua — I’d missed those dimples, chale.
Akua was not there. Weird. Ama wasn’t there either, and she was the only one I’d care to ask of Akua’s whereabouts.
Considering I’d lost a significant chunk of my snack break already, I headed over to the snack square. The term was still young, she’d surely turn up.
I bought a bottle of coke and four sausage rolls — because everyone is rich during the first week of school — then I moved to a bench in one corner of the snack square and sat down to eat.
I bowed my head, said a quick prayer, and raised my head only to see a sight that made me lose my appetite.
Just four benches away, there sat Akua and her posse. She was not in her school uniform. She was in the Baeta House working attire. On the floor next to her was a cutlass.
I couldn’t believe it. My Akua was on internal suspension!
Just then she looked up, and our eyes locked. She gave me what can only be described as a sad smile as I took in the rest of her beautiful face.
My countenance dropped even more… not only was my Akua on inte, she was also sporting a Pythagorean hairline. Apaa Dede had laid hands on her head.
Talk about a sucky way to start a term!