Blind, Deaf is my second manuscript. This love story centers on a fairy tale, which is made for three teenagers, but meant for two persons...
Chapter 1
A Pretty Girl
Once upon a time, a girl, not quite twelve, wandered to foreign land. She was in a school prefect uniform – crisp, white, short sleeved blouse, a red tie, dark blue skirt, white socks and white canvas shoes. Bread crumbs to guide her back to where she came from weren’t necessary. After all, her place, an all-girls’ school, was merely across the street.
That girl happened to be me.
‘Woi!’
I ignored the call. Yet I spied its source, standing diagonally no more than eight feet from me. A bespectacled, fat Chinese schoolboy dressed in a uniform a size too small, that was who he was. Probably a good three inches shorter than me, he, almost neckless, reminded me of Humpty Dumpty.
Seconds later, he cupped his hands around his mouth. ‘Woi! Woi! Woi! Here! Look here aaa!’
I pretended to ignore him while I paid the vendor for my favorite ice cream potong: a thick slice of delicious sweet corn ice cream wedged between two crispy, thin wafers. As soon as the spindly ice cream man handed me my purchase, I held it by the wafers and began licking the edges. The rotund butterball waved his hands toward me similar to one transmitting semaphores. By habit, I’d head straight back to my school after buying my treat. That late afternoon, I changed my mind. I was charmed by the boy’s antics. Something else too about him piqued my interest. Yes, the roundness of his belly. It reminded me of the pudgy dwarfs in Snow White.
But whose belly should it be, I pondered, Grumpy’s, Sneezy’s or Happy’s?
I was standing near the entrance to the all-boys’ school, where the ice cream man had made himself a permanent fixture. I decided two minutes there would be luxurious enough. Then, I’d scram. As a cover, I pretended to examine with interest the multicolored representations of flavors on the vendor’s ice box. From the corners of my eyes, I observed the hyper boy. Fatso persisted in getting my attention with yells and movements. A little later, he gave up trying to communicate in English, the common language trendy teenagers in Malaysia, a multi racial country, would normally converse in. He moved on to Mandarin. I believed he assumed I was Chinese; he called me Amoi – Chinese girl – and spouted Mandarin words at me. Without doubt, he was seeking my attention for there was no other girl that side of the street. I couldn’t blame his innocent assumption. After all, I looked Chinese. With my fair skin, I could easily pass for one despite my Malay last name: Abas. In a while, the repeated shouts from the boy started to tick me off. For all I knew, he might be ridiculing me at best, cursing me at worst. I tried to remain uninterested, ignoring him like he was absolutely not worth a dime and my time. I was about to return to the other side when he blundered; he switched to Bahasa, Malaysia’s national language, my mother tongue. As far as I could remember, the first word he uttered made me feel like punching him.
‘Buta?’
My mouth hung loose as anger swelled within me. How dare the halfwit ridiculed me as buta – blind! I instantly thought the boy probably had failed the national language too many times at school. His report card must have permanent red scores for Bahasa.
‘Uh-huh. Buta!’
His confirmed view I was blind incensed me and brought out my ugly side. My ice cream held in front of my flat, pre pubescent chest, I sternly marched straight toward him. Not expecting such retaliation, he stumbled backwards, chanting ‘Gostan!’ – Go astern! – repeatedly. His arms waved agitatedly in front of him as if to ward me off. He simultaneously glanced over his shoulder. His cries grew louder. I wasn’t certain whether they were meant for me or signifying his distress. Nonetheless, I didn’t relent in my approach until he couldn’t move anymore; he was fully pressed against another boy who stood behind him. The fellow schoolboy – tall, thin, hapless and handsome – couldn’t budge any further as he was totally pinned against the red brick wall bordering the school ground. At a standstill, I was mere inches away from fatso. His arms were flailing by his sides like a lardy bird trying to fly, but too heavy to do so. He reminded me of an overstuffed butterball turkey.
‘Woi! Woi! Woi!’ he cried out, panic written all over his face.
Lashing out in Bahasa, I scolded him for calling me blind instead of deaf. I rubbed it in by insulting he was probably unschooled for not comprehending the meaning of blind and deaf.
Unruffled by my cutting remarks, he gave me his frank opinions in the same language. ‘I go to school, I can not go to school. Can’t you see I’m wearing a school uniform?’ He animatedly pointed his fingers at different angles to his outfit. ‘Little kid, you blind?’
His latest statement made me blow my top. First, he had the nerve addressing me as little kid! I suspected our age difference wouldn’t be too far. Second, his repeat accusation of a disability I didn’t possess further stewed me. What a gall he had! I fumingly shouted back at him, literally telling him his face was beautiful. I used a Bahasa idiom which figuratively meant he had the gall to call me blind. My sarcasm didn’t stop there; I threatened to smack him so that he’d be sorry for his remarks.
Unfortunately, sorry was the last state he’d ever be. Baring his teeth in a huge grin, he eagerly admitted his face was beautiful. Of course it was, he told me, because he didn’t have any Jelawat! I thought hard and assumed he had trouble pronouncing the r in jerawat – pimple. Such conclusion made sense instead of Jelawat, a type of local fish. He expressed he was sympathetic I was jealous of his beauty. Of course, he explained as his eyes darted on my flat chest, that it was all due to my teenage hormones beginning to work overtime. Pity, he said. Noticing my confusion, the turkey explained my face was shiny, a sure sign my oil glands were overburdened. Soon, I’d have pimples and I’d look ugly. Shortly, I’d hit puberty. My pimples would happily erupt like Krakataus, and I’d turn hideous. Today, he reminded me, was just the beginning of such a painful journey into ugliness. As I scowled at him, he paused to scratch his head. He asked me if I was Malay and not Chinese.
I rolled my eyes and offered my acerbic opinion, in Bahasa still. My sentence, if translated literally, meant he was as deaf as a rhinoceros. Simply from the way I talked, anyone with half a brain could pick up I wasn’t Chinese. My diction and pronunciation were unmistakably that of a Malay, a native Bahasa speaker. Moreover, like any typical Malay teenager that time, I used Bahasa idioms for sarcasm when making a point. I had figuratively insulted the portly boy he was dreadfully deaf, for he didn’t register I wasn’t Chinese simply from the way I spoke and the words I used.
Fatso’s reaction surprised me; he hopped a bit like a spastic child. Unable to control his excitement, he exclaimed my face looked Chinese. Given his reaction to my comment, I accepted he actually had some intelligence. What I meant by some was anywhere say between a quarter and half a brain. His IQ would probably hover no higher than upper fifties. I squinted at him as I internally debated the actual amount of his gray matter. On catching my grave expression, he tried to support his claim in broken Bahasa: ‘Skin much white, like hit by Kolox!’
I wondered whether he was complimenting or disparaging me with his latest statement. ‘Kolox? What’s Kolox?’
With his motor mouth, he excitedly explained, ‘Yes, that Kolox, you don’t understand? Little kid, you where from? Outer space? You ET? That Kolox much famous, for washing use aaa!’
I suddenly understood what Kolox stood for. Fatso had mispronounced Clorox as Kolox. Thus his earlier statement meant my skin was fair, it looked as if it were bleached by Clorox. Yet, I considered it a waste of time to argue on the point of bleached skin with the tactless dimwit. He, I felt, could’ve been more courteous by describing my skin was as white as snow, as mentioned in one of my favorite fairy tales.
‘Yes, that’s right, mister,’ I shot back in English. ‘I look Chinese and my skin is fair. You have a problem with those points, mister?’
‘Haiya!’ The boy’s voice was fat with wonderment. His gaze widened, too. ‘Can speak English! Why didn’t you tell me so minutes ago?’ To express annoyance, he had his arms akimbo. ‘Eh, wasted my time only! Called you out many times, first in English, second in Mandarin, third in Bahasa. Then, also got called a pekak by you.’ He obviously was irritated being tagged a pekak – deaf. ‘Woi! I’m not old, don’t mister mister me, OK!’ he complained, wagging a chubby finger at me.
I held down a rising laughter. A drop of fast melting ice cream on my fingers distracted me. I gracefully stepped back a good distance from the twosome. I concentrated on my treat, catching sides requiring the next lick. Secretly, I kept watch on both schoolboys. The duo by then had moved further out for more space. Fatso spread his arms wide to his sides, twisted his torso to the left, right and left again as if making himself limber in a Physical Education class. The tall boy folded his arms, and slowly shook his head as he observed the stuffed butterball.
Fatso stared at me. His lips slowly puckered in distaste of something I didn’t know. His whole reaction made me imagine a pimple had suddenly appeared on my face. Not only that, the protrusion was slowly mutating into a mini Krakatau.
‘What?’ I crossly blurted to the fat boy after growing uneasy by his unblinking watch.
Startled by my outburst, he cried ‘Aiya! Solly aaa, pleetty girl!’
Solly, I assumed, was sorry, an apology to me. I figured he meant to say pretty girl. I guessed I was supposed to feel flattered. However the tone in his voice and his earlier teases made me think he was joking. I wouldn’t be surprised he was practicing saying words with r, which seemed to be a challenge to him. Fatso called time out with the local lingo ‘choup’ and his hands making the T sign. He turned around to the boy behind him. To my surprise, both began to feverishly converse in sign language. As I quietly slipped away from the duo, I caught the stumpy boy’s mouth moving in tandem with his hand moves. In contrast, the tall boy only worked his hands. I understood he had lost a great deal more than I’d initially suspected.
I had caught sight of the lanky, handsome boy many times before. After school was over, come rain, come shine, an ice cream potong would be my indulgence. Every instance I ventured across the street, he was there, watching me. I considered the tall, fair-skinned boy, a school prefect by his red tie, similar to mine, and a ‘Prefect’ tag pinned to it, was among some of the good looking boys I’d ever encountered. Except for his atypical large eyes, he appeared Chinese to me. His eyes made me wonder from which side of his family he inherited them. That evening, the further I was from the two boys, the more I thought of him. I couldn’t help feeling sorry by my discovery. His good looks were marred by his disabilities – being deaf and mute. My imagination began to run wild. Perhaps similar to the tale of Briar Rose, his parents forgot to invite the thirteenth Chinese fairy godmother for his one month celebration. Did the boy therefore have to pay for the lapse with his loss of senses?
Many times before, I caught him spying on me even before I crossed the street. When I neared the ice cream man and his vehicle, the boy would stare at me. While I bought my favorite treat, he continued admiring me from afar.
A proud girl on the outside, a shy person inside, I never returned his gaze.
*
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