Before her mother could respond, the front door burst open violently. Paako stood there, his eyes bloodshot, his breath heavy with palm wine and rage. He looked from his wife to the girl in uniform and his face twisted. “So this is what you’ve done behind my back? You registered her for school? You’ve decided that I’m no longer the man of this house?” Mama Kamsi fell to her knees immediately. “Paako, please. She’s a child. Let her learn. Education won’t stop her from being a good wife later—”

He slapped her so hard she fell sideways. Kamsi screamed and ran to her mother. Paako’s eyes locked on her next. “Remove that nonsense on your body!” he roared. “You think you’re better than your mother? You think you’ll become a nurse? Foolish girl! You will marry Chief Igbudu today!”

Kamsi froze. “What?” she whispered. Her slate dropped from her hand and cracked in half on the ground. “But I’m going to school today… please, Daddy…”

He stormed toward her and yanked off the oversized uniform. “You’ll wear a wrapper like a proper bride. The chief is already on his way. Do you know how much he’s offering? You will not waste my money chasing chalk and paper!”

Her mother held onto her daughter, weeping. “Paako, don’t do this. She’s only six. Don’t destroy her life.”

But the drums had already started outside. Women were ululating, preparing local drinks and spraying perfume in the air. Chief Igbudu’s convoy had arrived—three rickety jeeps filled with loud men and laughing women. Chief Igbudu, a man old enough to be Kamsi’s grandfather, with grey patches on his head and a wide belly that shook when he laughed, stepped out, adjusting the lace around his neck. He grinned when he saw Kamsi. “Ah! My bride is beautiful. Small, but she will grow.”

Kamsi tried to run, but Paako held her. They wrapped her in red and white traditional cloth, covered her tiny feet with beads, and forced her to smile. “Don’t embarrass us,” her mother whispered through tears. “Just endure it. One day, maybe, you’ll find a way out.”

That night, they took Kamsi away.

They said she would be back after the ceremony. But she never returned.

In the early hours of the next morning, one of the chief’s housemaids ran into the village screaming. “She’s dead! The little bride is dead!” Her voice shook the trees. The elders gathered, but no one dared speak against Chief Igbudu. They said the girl was sick. Others whispered about bleeding and pain, about her small body unable to handle what the old man had done. They buried her quickly under the mango tree beside the village stream. No ceremony. No songs. Just silence and shame.

But her slate—what was left of it—was found beside her body. And scratched onto it with trembling fingers were the words:

“I just wanted to go to school.”

The news broke the village in two. Some whispered in fear, insisting the matter was closed. Others wept openly, knowing what had really happened but powerless to challenge the chief’s wealth and authority. Mama Kamsi was inconsolable. She tore at her clothes, sat at the mango tree for hours, and refused to eat. Her neighbors brought her water, but she would not drink. “My child,” she wailed, “my Kamsi. She wanted books, not beads. She wanted chalk, not chains.”

At night, strange tales began. Children said they saw a little figure near the stream, dressed in yellow, holding a broken slate. Her voice was soft, repeating the same words again and again: “I just wanted to go to school.” Fear crept through the village. Even Chief Igbudu, behind his fortified compound, could not sleep. He claimed a child stood at his bedside, staring, unblinking, silent except for the scraping of chalk against slate. Servants whispered of his screams echoing through the night.

The elders urged everyone to stay quiet. “The chief is generous,” they warned. “He feeds this village. Do not provoke him.” But Mama Kamsi refused to be silent. She traveled to the neighboring town and told her story in the church, holding up her daughter’s cracked slate as proof. The congregation wept. The pastor vowed to spread the word beyond the village. “The blood of the innocent cries louder than fear,” he said.

Soon journalists arrived from the city. They interviewed Mama Kamsi by the mango tree. They filmed the shallow grave, the cracked slate, the grieving mother. Her voice, raw and broken, played across television screens: “She was six years old. She wanted to be a nurse. They killed her because she wanted to learn.”

The story went viral. Newspapers carried headlines: “Little Bride Dies Before First Day of School.” Activists marched through the capital with placards that read: Education is not a crime. Child marriage is death. Hashtags trended online. Politicians who once ignored the practice were forced to speak. The chief’s name, once respected, became a curse.

Back in Okechi, the villagers grew restless. Mothers began whispering to each other: “No more. We will not lose our daughters too.” Fathers started to feel shame. Even the schoolteacher, who had been powerless to stop Kamsi’s fate, gathered children each morning to remind them: “You are here because of her. You must learn for her.”

Chief Igbudu’s wealth could not shield him forever. The government sent investigators. Witnesses stepped forward—maids who had seen, neighbors who had heard the cries, even Paako, drunken and broken, who admitted selling his child. The chief was arrested, paraded before cameras, his proud lace now stained with sweat. The village watched in disbelief as the man they had once feared trembled in handcuffs.

Paako, disgraced, fled the village. No one offered him shelter. He was branded a murderer of his own blood. At night, he too claimed to see her—his daughter in yellow, standing at the foot of his bed. He screamed until his voice broke, but no one came.

Mama Kamsi, though hollowed by grief, became a voice for others. She joined women’s groups, traveled to other villages, and told Kamsi’s story again and again. “If my daughter had lived, she would have been one of you,” she told children in classrooms, pointing at their uniforms. “She wanted to wear this. She wanted to learn. Do not forget her.”

Years passed, and the mango tree where she was buried became a place of pilgrimage. Students placed flowers there at the start of each term. Teachers told her story as a lesson about courage, injustice, and the price of silence. On the trunk of the tree, someone carved her words: I just wanted to go to school.

The tragedy of little Kamsi spread far beyond Okechi. Laws were tightened, child marriage prosecuted more aggressively. Campaigns for girls’ education gained new strength. And though one child had been lost, millions began to march in her name.

But for Mama Kamsi, the loss was personal, eternal. Every evening, she returned to the mango tree with fresh flowers. She sat on the ground and whispered into the dusk: “My Kamsi, they know your name now. They chant it in the streets. They carry books because of you. You never reached the classroom, but you are teaching us still.”

They said that sometimes, in the quietest part of the night, if you walked near the stream, you could hear the faint scratching of chalk on slate. And always, always, the words came out the same:

“I just wanted to go to school.”