Heyday of Go Astray
By Adam Luke
Copyright 2013 Adam Luke
Chapter 12 New Comers
The new school term had commenced for more than a week. The slacking aura behoved hang-over from school holiday. Everyone was getting ready to embark on a fresh start; two male students were transferred from some unknown school.
The vice principal showed them to their classroom personally. The lofty guy was almost a head and a half taller than our matronly vice principal; whereas the other chubby guy was almost a mimic of her fleshy outlined.
She introduced the lofty guy as Ricky. His undulating face was bestrewn with pockmark; gruesome pus was at the verge of squirting onto anyone. He exuded a friendly misaim; both ends of his lip were liked hung to the ear lobe to feint a permanent smile.
The other petite guy was Alan; well fed and well fat were all about him. He was grumpy; pouted expression with drooping cheek. The crabby mood made him looked like the bull dog in the cartoon character.
Both of them resembled a grocery delivery man or coffee shop assistant instead of looking like anyone of us. They never ceased to jiggle the body as if swarm of ants had ingress into them. Another conspicuous characteristic was that they never button the top two buttons.
Their combination had best attested the aphorism, 'bird of the same feather flocked together.'
Before the principal had left the class, he reiterated to the two guys that they have to discipline themselves and thrived for this impending examination, or else it could just be their farewell to school forever. After the introduction, the principal bade them to find a seat before the next lesson.
There were two empty seats at that juncture. One was Ah Pid's original place right in front of the teacher. The other vacancy was right beside Ah Pid.
Ricky swaggered to the rear towards Ah Pid while Alan was treading behind.
Ricky ranted, “Hey! You move to the front, we want to be together.”
Alan, “Today is our first day; we don’t want trouble.”
He then fling the bag on the desk, slumped the fat butt on the empty seat.
Ah Pid droop the head fondling with his school bag. He was probably contriving a shrewd ploy to obviate the intentional provocation.
After a while of stalemate, they seemed to realise Ah Pid did not show sign of subjugation.
Alan stooped forward to nudge Ah Pid with his paunch, “Do you have any idea who the fuck we are?”
Ricky followed up, “Have you ever heard of the gang of Temple Street?”
Alan ranted, “We are well connected over there, …”
Before Alan had done with the splattering, Ah Pid leered to them a stern gaze then swopped his school bag, walked forthright to the front seat.
Ricky ranted, “That’s a good boy.”
I gazed at Ah Pid hoping he could retaliate like he used to be. But the day had ended just like that. He was not the same Ah Pid anymore.
After school, he disappeared; I walked home all by myself. I knew something had happened to him. I never had a chance to pry for the truth until one night.
That night, I was in the midst of my good dream; I woke up by an auricular conversation. Mom was tattering with someone. I wallow a turn to peek at whoever had disrupted my sweet dream. A familiar figure of an acquaintance convulsed me to a shock. She was Ah Pid;’s mom.
She was bestrewn with an invincible gauzy of melancholy. I knew this was going to be an important dialogue that I had been waiting for. The conversation was fitful instead of usual prattling. I could hear conspicuous sighing, sobbing, sneezing, coughing, hissing and hushing. After all those prologues, there was an interlude before adjourned to another bout of meaningful natter.
Mum placated, "Don’t think over it."
Ah Pid's mom sobbed, “We did not mean to be nasty, you knew how hard it was for us to come this far, he ruined everything."
Mum, "Yah! We all knew is not easy for you both."
Ah Pid’s mum, "We could not stand to see him, especially his dad, he brought to us all this painful memory.”
Mum, “It is ok, just put him with the grand mom and uncles for the time being, the uncles will look after him.”
Ah Pid’s mum, “Look like he has to be away even for the weekend, his dad could not tolerate his presence.”
Mum, “This is not all his fault, he is still a kid.”
Ah Pid’s mum, "He was angry that we had gave him everything, but he repaid us like that.”
Mum, “He did not mean it, he was a kid.”
Ah Pid’s mum, “You see, till today, he could not tell us where the sister was?”
I did not continue to listen to the rest of the conversation; instead I covered my ears with pillow. That was also my last eavesdropping for my entire life. I did not want to have all these painful memory anymore.
Shortly after, Ah Pid’s family moved out of the apartment.
Over the years, their apartment was vacant most of the time. A couple of families move in and out; unfortunately most of them did not last long. There was one particular family; moved out within a week.
Ah Pid dwelled at Temple Street, his parent moved out and the sister remained mysteriously missing in putative view, but not my view. The only thing left was the empty apartment; occasionally occupied. There were snippets of gossip smattering around regards to fast turn-over of their apartment. I did not bother with it; my vow to evade from eavesdrop was still as adamant as a mountain.
Once in a while, the same nightmare would still funk the shit out of me. It was ok; ok in the sense that the frequency had dwindled significantly. At least, I could have a few good night sleeps till first day light. I believed that time would be the best medicine to heal the memory defilement.
The boisterous clique never ranted like last time anymore. Instead of roam around; I had found a refuge. I beguiled in reading that brought me equanimity; then a whole new depiction started to lure me into all sort of evocation. I weave dreams like travelling to some of the distance country that was narrated in the saga. I imagined myself contrived a shrewd coy to snare the foe in the battle.
I kept out of the street for two reasons. The primary reason was the absent of Ah Pid.
The secondary was the dreadful memory. Both were linked to Ah Pid; but once in a while, I still joined the clique by following the stipulated rule from my folk. They had laid down two rules for getting out of the apartment. During school term, I was not allowed to exit unless the apartment caught fire. Whereas during school holiday; I had only one chance of maximum two hours to roam the street.
As for Ah Pid, he was not seen at this part of the town anymore. I had attempted to catch up with him during lesson; but he was hardly seen in class. Sometime he shown up with a medical certificate to excuse; but most of the time he was chided for truant. Even when he was in class, he became reticence. After some time, we estranged even further.
The callous time elapsed relentlessly. The first term test had finally befallen. During the test, my eloquence of providing rejoinder was so graceful like running water from runaway tap. No frowning, no grasping of glabella, no straining of brain, the answer was like a printing machine without fluster and hesitancy. I completed all the papers in advance of everyone else.
Finally the last paper was done, dismissal bell finally blared for blithe of freedom. I grape the bag, strode towards the door. While on the way to take an exit of the school, I strut pass the general office window. A glimpse to the room, Ah Pid was standing with drooping head like those bean sprouts. Teacher brandished a stack of paper while chiding in dour. The door and window was shut, I could not hear a sound from the fervid expression of the teacher. Both of them resemble the performance of a mime. Anyway, t
hese were pretty common scene lately. Just not long ago, the math teacher was so pissed off with Ah Pid on his swoop of performance. It was swoop, not decline. He was going all the way down.
The result had finally published. My average score had taken leap improvement to an average of ninety. I had made the top position in the class. My head was buzzing in dizziness. Six years of school life to receive my first accolade. When I strut forward to receive my test paper from the teacher, I leered towards Ah Pid wondering how he had done for this particular paper. He was not even present in the class.
Years before, I was still hovering around the passing mark. Ninety used to be Ah Pid’s minimum score. I did not even dare to think of getting close to it. Teacher praised me for the excellent improvement in the class. I felt like the centre of the world, the state of forlorn had been replaced by throng of bewildered compeers greeting in my favour. I gazed at some of them who had ever thrown me that sight of placate and whiff of contempt.
How I wished that Ah Pid would be around to witness this precious moment. His words of ambitious bragged to be part of the prestigious institution still lingered in my ears. His tincture to be the elite still whiffed on my nape. Since our birth, he had always culminated in every aspects, this was the first time I had emulated with a clean and clear margin, no fluke, no hap and without assistance of any sort.
By making an educational judgment, I sincerely would think that he might not even make it for the secondary school promotion, let alone the prestigious institution. His yearn to be part of the elite might as well ended up to be a mere fey and chagrin. I would think this was what the historian had described about falling of a prosperous epoch, the end of a heyday. But usually, following after every fall, there was a heave that rose to replace the previous reign. Sometimes, the new reign would last longer and stronger than the previous one. That seemed to be the rule of the nature. The next question was; what happened to the fate of the previous reign? Our day was still far, who would be the better one at the end. I was pretty confident about myself at this point of time.
End