The year is 1983. In the sleepy town of Johor Bahru, Malaysia, three
unlikely teenagers become fast friends.
Amelia Abas is a liberal Muslim Malay who’s mad about fairy tales; she
won’t touch anything that’s not Grimms or Perrault. Wong Ruo Li, a Buddhist Chinese who goes to
school opposite hers, is tall, handsome and smitten by her. He unfortunately is deaf. His brother, Wong Jian
Fei has problems with his speech yet revels in mercilessly teasing Amelia for
her love of fairy tales. Fat and short Jian Fei secretly adores Amelia,
but hides his feelings out of respect for his brother. On Saturdays, the
teenagers read, play games and converse by a stream. Rumor mongering, where the participants
pretend to either be blind or deaf, is one of their favorite games. Amelia devises special names-Jack and Bean-
for the brothers on one of the afternoons they spend together. She too can't help concocting a fairy tale
for the group and tells them they'll share sad rainfalls and everything
nice. Her fairy tale has a happy ever after and Amelia blissfully
imagines her tall and handsome Prince Charming and her cutting a multi-tiered
wedding cake. Jian Fei, the skeptic, ridicules the whole thing as crap
but Amelia doesn’t care. At year end, the good friends make a pact to
meet as usual on Saturdays even though they’ll be in distant high
schools. Fate intervenes; Amelia and her family disappear from town in
1984.
Twenty three years on, the grownup Bean
serendipitously finds Amelia in California. Both have changed: Amelia,
now a single mother with a deaf child, disbelieves in fairy tales and Bean,
surprisingly tall, handsome, yet still smitten by Amelia, is polite, far from
the philistine he was. The adults exchange stories to learn what the three
friends have been up to over the lost years. Thus begins a journey of
discovery into startling coincidences they experienced which initiates Amelia
to remember her long forgotten tale.
But like all fairy tales, what are the bitter
and sweet parts Amelia will discover?
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| Possible cover art for my second book |
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