LOST is an original Lapatutu fiction following Henry’s life journey. All characters, locations, and events in this work are fictional; any resemblance to real entities is entirely coincidental. [Click here if you missed Part 2]
The following Monday, during the full school assembly in the Chapel, the Head Teacher called Henry forward to receive his award for Most Eloquent Speaker. Built in 1904 by the Church Missionary Society, the Chapel stood at the historic heart of Adinkra.
It was a massive, red-brick architectural feat and its vast floor plan easily accommodated all 3,500 students and staff. The newly installed, state-of-the-art public address system ensured that no matter where a student sat, the speaker held their absolute, unbroken attention.
This moment was all the more captivating because it wasn’t just a few classes in attendance. From Senior One to Senior Six, every student, teaching, and non-teaching staff member was present to hear his name echo over the public address system: HENRY ZAMUNDA. And the sound of the applause, followed by a standing ovation, would live in his mind forever!
His name was now known by everyone in the school.
With his prize money, his first priority was clear: a fancy pair of shoes. He was in a rush to look like the rich students he had once envied, and shoes were a major status symbol at Adinkra. Indeed, those new shoes quickly became the ultimate symbol of his power. Every time he put them on, he felt like he was truly part of ‘them.’ Of course, it was only one pair, which brought a challenge of its own if you know what it means to wear the exact same pair of shoes day after day. But that aside, every step in them was a moment of pure pride.
As a result, he started spending more time with students from well-to-do families. What he lacked in inherited wealth, he now made up for in debate excellence. At this point, a more calculated step was taken. Henry asked his father to stop coming for Visitation Days. His new strategy was simple: on those Sundays, he would spend the entire day in the library, a place that had become his new sanctuary.
The explanation he offered his parents was noble in its phrasing, but entirely untruthful. He told them that instead of spending precious money on the journey to see him, they could use it to cater to his younger siblings’ needs.
Due to their family’s persistent financial strain, his parents received Henry’s suggestion as a genuine gift, his father promising to keep sending letters throughout the school term. His father, in particular, felt deeply proud that his son was taking on such responsibility.
In truth, Henry never wanted his financial background to be seen anymore, and he felt his parents were showing it too much. His association with this new cluster of friends—the ones he so deeply desired to belong with—made him ashamed of his own people.
This moment marked the subtle beginning of a darker facet to his character: lying to get his way. His newfound acceptance among the people who mattered, won through his debate fame, coupled with this emerging willingness to manipulate the truth, felt like a superpower he had just unlocked. It was a powerful combination—a tool he could now wield to reshape his reality exactly the way he wanted.
Slowly but steadily, Henry was reshaping how people perceived him. He changed the stories about his family, crafting them however he desired. For instance, he explained to his friends that his parents couldn’t visit because his father had secured a lucrative contract to work on China’s Belt and Road Initiative and was currently in China for training.
He even used the moment to clean up an old embarrassment, knowing a few classmates had seen his parents arrive on a boda boda before. He smoothly claimed that motorcycle ride was merely a practical test run to inspect the rough local terrain before the major project began. He had armed himself with sharp details, having read extensively about the initiative while studying Chinese foreign policy.
For Henry, a good lie was not simply vague excuses—it required real facts, flawless delivery, and complete conviction.
Whenever he told these tales, he’d drop in an undisputed fact or statistic, making the fabricated narrative sound utterly convincing. He would casually say something like, “It’s amazing how 47% of all labor on this initiative is coming from Africa because of China’s strategy of geopolitical positioning. So most of the sharpest minds in Africa are being lured with great opportunity. One wonders whether this is the new colonialism at play.”
No one would dare question the authenticity of his story after that!
Such was his life at Adinkra. Henry had learned to strategically speak his way into status, and it was working. At home, he was heralded as a responsible, selfless son; at school, his fame grew with every passing year as he led the debate team from one victory to the next. It was the latter honor he cherished most.
Six years of secondary school at Adinkra all led to one defining moment in Senior Six: the Prom Party. From the moment a student first stepped onto the campus in S1, the grand Leavers’ Ball was the event everyone dreamed of. On this day, they adorned themselves in the most majestic of garments: the boys in the finest tuxedos and suits, the girls in their very best dresses. The Prom Party was the undeniable, unfiltered display of status.
The stories from past proms were legendary. One year, a student arrived wearing a gold-plated belt with his name inscribed across the buckle. That single belt was worth 49,000 Shanga (about $2,450 USD). To put that in perspective, it was more money than Henry’s entire family spent on meals in six months.
The student in question was none other than the son of Johnson Matembo Obiga—the billionaire titan behind JMO Enterprises, a powerhouse that held an undisputed monopoly as the official distributor of Rolex watches across Africa. Matembo once casually bragged in an interview that if he sold just seven watches in a whole year, it was enough to cover all his operating costs.
Whenever tales of this kind were shared, the fascination was always on the parents—as if true wealth was only validated by family legacy. Whenever someone displayed a sign of influence, the lingering question was always the same: Who is he? And the answer would usually seal it: He is a Matembo. It was the massive flaw in Henry’s strategy. He could fake the shoes and the charisma, but his father’s name carried no weight—and no power.
For all his eloquence, he couldn’t talk his way into a designer suit. His rich “friends” spent weeks discussing which designer brands they would wear, casually dropping names like Gucci, Hugo Boss, and Ermenegildo Zegna. Yet Henry couldn’t even afford a decent brand-less suit for the event.
He had spent six years building up his profile. He had won the trust of students from powerful families. He had become the top undisputed debater in the entire school. But this was different. To pull off the look, he needed, at the very least, a decent suit, a proper pair of dress shoes, and a watch. For the boys at Adinkra, a watch was an absolute non-negotiable on such an occasion—it was the final missing piece of the puzzle on such an outfit. This was a completely different ball game. He couldn’t even think about calling home for help. How could he?
One day before Prom Day, Henry feigned sickness, claiming a debilitating headache, and spent the entire day confined to the school clinic. The headache, he claimed, was purely stress-induced: his father had shipped a custom suit directly from China, but an infuriating shipping delay was keeping it stuck at customs.
He blamed a sudden surge in the U.S. Dollar, explaining that fluctuating exchange rates had caused a massive clearing backlog at customs. He made sure to throw in enough supply-chain jargon to sound like a victim of international logistics, hiding the simple truth: he had nothing to wear for the biggest event of his school life. But this time, his performance fell on deaf ears. His “friends” didn’t care to ask questions—they were far too consumed by the glamour of the Prom.
He remained in the clinic through the night and into the following day.
In the suffocating quiet of that small room, his mind boiled with a slow, bitter anger over the money he didn’t have to have a designer suit. All his debate trophies, his eloquence, his calculated reputation—none of it mattered at that point.
Fame without actual wealth was just a louder form of poverty.
To make the moment more painful, not a single one of his new “friends” came to check on him. They were far too absorbed in the pomp and luxury of their own privileged lives to notice his absence. Quickly, he made up his mind not to blame them. It wasn’t their fault—they were simply living by the rules of the world they belonged to.
Over six long years, his mindset had drastically shifted: in a society that worshiped wealth, poverty wasn’t merely a circumstance—it was a personal failure, a character flaw he had inherited. Sitting alone in the clinic, that shame took deep root in his mind.
He would never forget the humiliation of being left behind. One day, he would ACTUALLY belong. One day, he would have the suits, the watches, the status.
One day… One day…
The high school chapter is officially closed. Next week, we step into Henry’s university life as he begins building the foundation for the life he swore to achieve. Can a boy with no name make himself impossible to ignore in a whole new world? Click here to go to Part 4
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