In a conference room, the board of directors turned to each other. They were done watching Trevor and now begun discussing issues with the school principal.

They sat behind a long oval marble desk. The head, Susanne sat at the head. Her brothers, namely; Chris, Elvis, Brian and Edgar bordered the desk, two at each side. The Principal, Mr. Archibald a stout man sat at the end opposite Susanne.

“Please give me something to tell the kids.” Mr. Archibald said nervously. “Trevor already eased things for all of us. We can’t let him down now.”

“Electricity ey?” Chris who had been in France for the past three years reckoned. “We can just call an electrician. I don’t think it’s a big problem to have all of us here.” He turned his head toward his sister who seemed lost in deep thoughts. “Sue?”

“It’s not an electrician that is a problem to get.” Susanne replied. “You know Chris, Elvis and Brian that our school is too big to run on the Government’s power. Edgar and Archibald were together with me when we were paying GRAM SHIELDS … Edgar, do you have the figures?” she said and glanced at her brother seated on her right.

Edgar was sharp. “250K”

“Yes.” Susanne said. “250K pounds.”

“That’s a lot of money.” Brian commented.

“Yes but, we could handle it as long as we didn’t have to pay the revenue.” Edgar explained. “Now GRAM SHIELDS is detaching itself. The owner, I think has been changed or something. The government stepped in and if we don’t do anything then, this school will be closed and its reputation ruined.”

They all remained silent digesting the pending doom.

“So, what did you think of doing next?” Elvis, the serene and youngest of the 5 spoke for the first time.

“We have to pay our revenues. We owe the government funds from 18 years ago.” Sue said.

“Until now we have already paid a quarter of the whole debt. In fact, someone in there has done us a favor that our issue is not known to the public.” Edgar added.

“So it’s the government power that we’re using for the school currently?” Chris asked.

“For the past three months already.” Archibald replied.

“How much figures are we talking about here?” Brian asked.

“More than a million pounds. We could raise it but only in a year or more.” Susanne said. “Archibald, Edgar and I were thinking of taking a loan from ECO. We already half exhausted other branches of HAMERTON in Manchester and Edinburgh in Scotland. Edgar begged me not to borrow money from his own branch in Africa.” She turned to Edgar at this and they giggled altogether.

“Edgar you built our branch in Africa?” Chris asked.

“Yeah, but it’s still small and not too expensive to help the many disprivileged kids in Africa.” Edgar defended.

“Owing a bank can be worse than owing the government.” Elvis added. Closing the Africa topic. “And we can’t afford to bankrupt all of our branches.”

“I agree with Elvis.” Brian said.

“So, what about this mother school? A lot is at stake. We can’t close it down.” Chris reminded.

“How much can you all gather?” Edgar asked the boys who hardly took part in governing the schools.

 The boys remained silent a while, most probably calculating their wealth.

Archibald gave each of them a glance in turns, recalling years ago. Instead of 5 however, the family used to be eight. When all in the room, except himself of course, were young, they lost their youngest sister and Elvis’ twin. Shortly after that, their parents were involved in a car crash that took their lives. At that time HAMERTON was only two classes of very few kindergartens. Archibald undertook the five in his care and together, they went through difficult and joyous times as HAMERTON evolved to what it was that day. Sue herself did not study much as her brothers. She only administrated the school the way she could.

Edgar the second born followed her footsteps, but he had a Masters in business administration. He was Sue’s biggest support. Chris and Brian, after marrying, dispersed to live their own lives. Chris to France, Brian to London. Elvis, the little one was studying aviation in Miami Dade College.

“Okay.” Chris spoke first. “Perhaps I can raise two hundred thousand. In two weeks.”

“I can top up just fifty to Chris’ figure.” Brian spoke next. “Two fifty. I can just shift it to your account.” He was looking at Sue.

“No. Just deposit it to my account.” Edgar instructed. “You too Chris.”

Chris nodded.

“That’s four fifty already, thank you boys.” Sue said oddly concluding before Elvis had a chance to contribute.

“And me?” Elvis jumped in. “I can do something.”

“Elvis. I understand your concern, but, we’ll be fine. If we pay that 450K we can finish the rest even in two years. We have the chance to do so.” Sue said.

“Allow me to help sis. I have my savings.”

Sue, Edgar and Archibald looked at each other then, Sue sighed and turned to him. “Okay. Thank you. I’m hearing you out.”

“I can give in 300K.”

Edgar’s mouth dropped open. There were similar shocked expressions on the other’s faces.

“How?” Archibald asked for everyone else.

“I have my savings.” Elvis repeated.

“I think that this case is closed.” Chris, who even started the meeting said to conclude it. He turned to his sister and the others. “Sue, Edgar, Archibald, thank you for this gathering. I’m happy that I had the chance to be in England once again.” He rose.

“Chris, please.” Sue begged.

“My dear sis I have to catch my daughter’s baptism.”

“But, that’s not until next week.” Edgar pointed.

“Preparations start early.”

Sue waved him off and he left. Brian was the next person to leave the room, but, he took a tour within the campus before completely departing.

After Elvis signed a cheque he also left but, he promised to stick around in Hamerton for the next few days.

After Elvis left, the rest exhaled. It was a relief to be able to pay off even a part of the school’s debt. They relaxed on their seats.

“Archibald we can tell the kids to be patient for just a few days.” Edgar said rising.

Archibald nodded then added. “In any case, I had that engineer look up into the fluctuation of electricity. He should be giving us feedback at any moment-”

Crr

A landline phone close to him at the table rang.

Archibald stretched his hand to pick it. “He must be here already.” He put the receiver against his ear as Edgar sat back. “Yes? … allow him in Sophia.”

He replaced the receiver as the door opened.

A tall built man walked in with a briefcase. After greetings, he opened the briefcase and dispersed documents to everyone in the room. Neither of them understood anything and the electrician could notice that from their expressions. He cleared his throat and they all paid him attention. “You had power cuts from your power source but, it was only two times. It was all two weeks ago. The exact time that the whole of Hamerton was facing power cuts.”

“So how can you explain the recent cuts. Yesterday night, this morning?” Archibald asked for everyone.

“Surely, nothing is wrong with your cables or switches. But, I have been to your computer lab in level 16 of the chief building to realize that,” The engineer said and paused. He looked at each of them in turns and broke the news. “Somebody’s tampering with your electricity.” 

who's that? why? stay tuned to find out..