The last February 14th at FHIS

Valentine's day celebration is prohibited in my school, now my Alma mater. The school administration laid down the rule that, on no account should students gift eachother on valentine's day within the walls of the school compound.

This is due to the fact that students tend to go overboard with their show of love. Even at that, it was quite annoying going to school on February 14ths with no gift expectation, making it look like it's just any other day. Which it isn't.

We kept to the rule to avoid 15 strokes of cane on the assembly ground, kneeling for two hours and three days suspension.

---

My set however, decided to differ in our last year, afterall we had just few months left to step out of their uniform. Using the hat method, everyone just had to pick a paper and the person whose name is on it becomes your Val.

Given that there were always three non-teaching staff at the school's gate whose jobs were to thoroughly search the bags of students for the presence of non-academic materials, our plan would have failed woefully but guess what?
My Alma mater isn't just day but also a boarding school.
So we purchased our gifts ahead of time and smuggled them into the hostels and on the Dday, the boarders amongst us manoeuvred the gifts to our class.

During recess, we brought out the gifts and began the lovely exchange all the while singing songs like Wande coal's Again, Kizz Daniel's Twe twe and Fave's Baby riddim not minding the fact that our vocal ranges were echoing throughout the school.

It wasn't until the school's disciplinarian, who is known to have been wearing a stern face since the death of his wife stepped into the class that all lips tapped shut. We all knew what we bargained for but reality dawned on us when he stared at our faces, tension filled in the air.

---

The next moment he was screaming off our ears, going on and on about how disappointed he was. He was angry that we, who were meant to be role models to the juniors were the ones behaving so shamelessly and went on to say we were the worst set ever.

The same English he told the previous setssss😏.

When he stopped talking, my classmate who was the mastermind behind it and also the school's MC during students activities told him it was because we love him. Then she brought out a heart-shaped package and extended it to him saying,

"A token of our love sir".

An uncontrollable laughter exploded in the class and for the first time in how many years, Mr Joe cracked a small smile.
He didn't leave without a few words...... and the package of course.

So it wasn't just Valentine's day, it was more like the day we made Mr Joe smile.

---

I would like to invite @cious, @youngezeblinzz and @sommylove to share their entries here.

Images were generated using Meta AI

🌟