It was Joanitah who told me.
We were twelve, counting pennies
under the thin tin roof of our dormitory,
watching the bursar’s list pinned outside
like a judgment we could not bribe.
My name was there.
Three months unpaid.
“Don’t cry,” she whispered,
as if the sky might overhear.
That evening, under mosquito nets
that drooped like tired clouds
she pulled a card from her worn Bible.
A child in silk,
crown too large for His small head,
one hand raised in blessing,
the other clutching a tiny globe.
“Baby Jesus of Prague,” she said.
“He listens to children first.
He carries their words Himself.”
I almost laughed.
“What does He know about fees?”
She tapped the picture.
“He was a child once. Children understand being small.”
So we began.
Nine nights.
Nine stubborn evenings.
“O Jesus, who has said, ask and you shall receive.”
My voice stumbled over belief.
I asked for fees.
Nothing holy about it.
Just money.
Just enough to keep my mattress,
my place in class, my small pride.
By day three, I felt foolish.
By day five, desperate.
By day eight, silent.
On the ninth night, the headmistress called my name.
I walked toward her office
with the weight of all the nights pressing my
shoulders.
“A payment has been made,” she said,
shuffling papers without looking at me.
“A relative.”
The ceiling fan whirred, steady as breath.
No choir descended.
No lightning.
I knelt beneath the mosquito net,
fingers grazing the laminated card,
tracing the crown,
the globe,
the tiny hand raised in blessing.
And for the first time, I believed
that even a child’s words, whispered in the dark,
could move the world.
⸺
This article appears in July/August 2026.
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