CHAPTER FOUR- HIS SIDE OF THE FENCE
1644 Words
Khalid Ibrahim never liked Victory Boys College.
Not the early-morning drills.
Not the senior prefects who acted like they owned the world.
Not even the dusty football field.
But the fence?
The tall, wired, ugly barrier separating the boys’ compound from the girls’ school?
He hated that the most.
It reminded him of everything he was supposed to forget.
He was tying his shoes behind the dining hall, preparing for football practice, when the girls’ bell rang from across the fence. The “first-day–new-girls–settle-in” bell.
He knew that bell.
His sister, Maryam, used to tell him stories about it.
Stories about… her.
The girl from 2014.
The girl who vanished.
The girl whose name made Maryam’s face go quiet.
He swallowed hard. He tried not to think about that story anymore.
But today, the air felt different.
He looked up — and saw her.
A new girl stepping out of the girls’ hostel. Small. Carrying a bucket like it was heavier than her whole body. Confused. Definitely JSS1.
Nothing special.
Until he saw the name tag hanging around her neck.
HALIMA BELLO.
His breath just… stopped.
“What’s wrong, Ibrahim?” his captain shouted. “You deaf?”
He didn’t answer.
Impossible.
The same name.
The same surname.
His heart thumped, slow and heavy.
No. It couldn’t be. That was just a coincidence.
He chased after his football, which suddenly rolled toward the fence, like it had a mind of its own. As he picked it up, a voice drifted over the wire mesh.
“Excuse me… is this the way to the tap?”
He turned sharply.
There she was.
Up close.
Wide-eyed.
Nervous.
Halima Bello.
A different girl… but something in her face felt like an unfinished story.
He stared. He knew he was staring. He hated that he was staring.
“Why are you looking at me like that?” she asked, frowning.
That broke the spell.
“I wasn’t staring.”
“You literally were.”
“You’re blocking my ball.”
She stepped aside, muttering something he didn’t catch.
He should’ve walked away. He wanted to. But instead, he heard himself say quietly:
“The tap is behind you. Follow the path.”
“Thanks,” she said. Then, with that suspicious look he already disliked, “Do we… know each other?”
“No.”
Too fast.
Too sharp.
He turned and walked away before she could ask anything else.
But as he rejoined his team, he looked back once.
Just once.
Because even if he didn’t believe in curses, or ghosts, or old missing-girl stories…
Something about Halima Bello — this new one — felt like the beginning of a storm he’d been avoiding his whole life.
And storms never stay behind fences.
Khalid tried to shake off the feeling, but it clung to him like dust after harmattan. He jogged back to the field with the football tucked under his arm, but his mind stayed behind at the fence—staring at the new girl with the familiar name.
Halima Bello.
He hated how the name echoed in his head, stirring old stories he’d buried so deeply he hadn’t even thought of them in years. His chest tightened with a pressure he didn’t want to understand.
His team captain blew the whistle. “Warm up!”
The boys groaned and spread out across the field, stretching and complaining like they usually did. Khalid dropped his ball on the grass and joined them, but his movements were half-hearted. His muscles felt heavy, distracted.
“You’re off today,” Musa said beside him, bending down to touch his toes. “Did the seniors flog you again?”
“No.”
“Then what? Your face looks like NEPA took light inside your brain.”
Khalid shot him a look. “Mind your business.”
Musa raised his hands in surrender. “Okay o. I’m just saying.”
But the thing is… Musa wasn’t wrong. Something had gone dark in Khalid’s mind. A shadow. A memory.
He could still hear Maryam’s voice in his head, soft and shaking the night she first told him the story.
“Khalid… that girl didn’t just disappear. Something happened in that dorm.”
He was younger then. Too young to understand fully, but old enough to hear the fear in her voice. Old enough to know when someone wasn’t telling the whole truth.
And now…
Now, a girl with the same name was standing in the same school — looking confused, lost, too innocent for the kind of story Maryam whispered about.
A chill crawled up his neck.
“IBRAHIM!” the coach barked.
Khalid snapped back to reality. “Yes, sir!”
“Ball control! You’re moving like an old man!”
“Yes, sir!”
He forced himself to focus. He passed the ball. He dribbled. He ran. But every mistake he made got worse, and every shout from the coach dug into him sharply.
By the time practice ended, sweat soaked Khalid’s shirt, and embarrassment soaked the rest of him. He wanted to disappear before anyone commented again, but of course, Musa was waiting for him at the sideline.
“You need cold water,” Musa said. “Or cold slap. Something is wrong with you.”
“I’m fine,” Khalid muttered, grabbing his water bottle.
“Lie.” Musa leaned closer. “You’ve been acting strange since we saw the new girls.”
Khalid froze. “What do you mean?”
Musa shrugged. “Don’t know. You just… looked like you saw a ghost.”
Khalid’s heart lurched.
A ghost.
That was exactly what his sister used to say…
That the girl who vanished from the girls’ school was never seen again, but people whispered that something still lingered.
He forced himself to laugh. “You watch too many t****k horror videos.”
But Musa didn’t laugh. “Just be careful, sha.”
Khalid rolled his eyes and walked off the field. But deep down, the warning stuck to him.
As he headed toward the hostel, a group of boys were gathered near the fence again, talking loudly and pointing at the girls’ side.
“Have you seen the new girl from Victory Girls?”
“They said she fainted.”
“No, they said someone fainted because of her.”
“Some senior from their side mentioned her name—what was it? Something Bello.”
Khalid stopped walking.
Even the boys were talking about her already?
He stepped closer. “Which one of you said that?”
The boys turned. Bello from SS1 grinned. “Ah, Ibrahim! You heard it too? They say the new girl looks like a girl who disappeared years ago.”
Khalid’s stomach twisted.
“This school people sabi gossip,” the boy continued. “They don’t even clean their dorms, but they know every gist inside this fence.”
One of the juniors added, “My sister is in Victory Girls. She said some girl saw a shadow in the dorm yesterday night.”
Khalid felt his breath stop.
Shadow.
Dorm.
New girl.
His chest tightened painfully.
“Did your sister say which dorm?” he asked carefully.
The boy shrugged. “Dorm 7, I think.”
Khalid closed his eyes.
Dorm 7.
The same dorm Maryam used to whisper about.
The same dorm she begged him never to go near.
The same dorm the missing girl stayed in.
His heartbeat hammered in his ears.
He walked away quickly, ignoring their calls. He didn’t even know where he was going — just away from the noise, away from their careless gossip. His feet brought him to the one place he never liked: the fence.
The tall, wired barrier loomed in front of him, separating two worlds that pretended not to touch — but always did. He stared through the small squares in the metal mesh, his eyes searching.
The girls’ compound bustled with activity. JSS1 girls carried buckets, seniors shouted instructions, and a matron waved a broom like a weapon at some girl running late.
Then, he saw movement by the corner of the hostel block.
A scarf.
A familiar scarf.
He squinted.
It was her.
Halima Bello — the new one.
She was walking slowly, her head turned slightly like she felt someone watching her. She clutched her books too tightly against her chest, and her steps looked unsure, like she didn’t know where she was supposed to be.
Khalid swallowed hard.
Why did she look so much like the photo Maryam once showed him?
Why did she have the same name?
Why did she arrive on the same kind of day the other one vanished?
He didn’t believe in curses.
He didn’t believe in ghosts.
But for the first time in years, he wished he did — because then he’d have something to blame for the heavy dread pressing on his chest.
He leaned closer to the fence, watching her carefully.
She paused suddenly, turning sharply like she heard something behind her. For a moment, she looked right at him — or right through him — her eyes wide with a kind of fear he couldn’t name.
Khalid stepped back instinctively, his breath catching.
Did she see something?
Or someone?
Before he could think too much, a senior boy slapped his back.
“Ibrahim, move. You’re blocking the path.”
Khalid blinked, and when he looked again, Halima was gone.
The space she stood in was empty — too empty.
He stared for a few seconds longer, then whispered under his breath:
“You need to stay away from that dorm, Halima Bello.”
But even as he said it…
He knew she wouldn’t.
He knew something had already chosen her.
He knew storms were already forming.
And storms…
Storms never cared about fences.
- Writer
