Chapter 11

“Nice going, Shih Tzu.”

Serene’s voice was not just sounds: They always felt like needles and whenever I heard her voice, I would feel like dodging.

“You’ve got fans now. Wanna set up a Linda Lim Fan Club? LLFC. Sounds so nice.”

I balled my hand into a fist and looked away.

“I told you. You wanna survive,” she leaned towards me. We were walking towards the Lecture Hall after our flag-raising. “You be a predator. You can’t be a prey to survive in this dog-eat-dog world, Shih Tzu. You can’t survive walking and licking others’ feet-”

I never see it coming; all I could hear were the sounds of someone clearing his or her throat, spitting and wheezing and then a hand swinging towards Serene’s left ear. I thought it was just fragments of my imagination until Serene backed two steps and almost all the girls around us screamed. Heads turned, people oohed and aahed like they were watching some movie with very dramatic special effects. The attacker yelled too, rubbing her hands together.

“Stop your bullying!”

The attacker was in a blue shirt with one layer of her short sleeves folded up. I could not tell who it was until she turned, faced me for a nanosecond and wheeled back to Serene.

Chew Ling. What the hell?

Serene capped her struck ear with her hand and glared at Chew Ling with the sides of her eyes. That expensive Tag Heuer watch took the sunlight’s reflection for a while. She then stepped towards Chew Ling.

“Cedar.” she whispered.

“I’m warning you!” Chew Ling yelled and stepped forward towards Serene.

“I never get warned, bitch. I warn people.” Serene said loudly and strolled towards Chew Ling. This time, Chew Ling took a step back. Then two. Three. Turned to cough three times and wheeled back to face Serene. I could tell that without the element of surprise, Chew Ling was afraid. Serene is almost two heads taller than Chew Ling.

“Don’t make me fight you.” Chew Ling said.

“Fight? Now, who started it, Cedar Bruce Lee?”

“Chew Ling, back off!” I said. More students were crowding around us like we were actresses in a new MediaCorp drama filming in the school. There were no lecturers around.

“Cat fight!” someone yelled in the crowd.

“She needs,” Chew Ling said, then two more steps backward. “to be taught a lesson.”

“Chew Ling!”

“Lesson, Cedar Lee. Taught a lesson indeed. Wise words from a very unwise girl.” Serene was drawing an imaginary circle with her lower lip as she moved towards Chew Ling. Chew Ling wheezed, took a deep breath and did not exhale until a few seconds later.

“Give me your best shot, missy!”

When Serene and Chew Ling were within an arm’s length, two guys – JC2, as they wore NYJC uniforms – grabbed them and pulled them away from each other. Chew Ling did not resist; she just glared at Serene. Serene was cursing every vulgar word she could remember and trying to push the guy away.

“Stop!” both guys said together without a cue. When Serene continued to struggle, the guy holding her grabbed her away, saying something like “you don’t stop now and you’re in deep trouble…”

Serene hissed words like “pathetic” and “fuck” to the guy. I darted my eyes at Chew Ling, who was panting and smiling at the same time. She coughed a few more times and when the guy released her, she thanked him and spat on a piece of tissue.

“Gosh, Linda, I did it. I had a fight!”

I walked past her without saying anything, as if I did not know her.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Violence had never brushed past me before: The closest I got was the netball game that I had when I was in Secondary One. The girl pushed me, I yelled and walked off. Other than that, violence seemed like a fantasy that only occurred in Jackie Chan’s movies.

Chew Ling did not seem like someone acting in an action movie. She had a small frame, a face that craved for pity instead of anger. She coughed every few minutes like she was suffering from lung cancer and that she would die before she could touch someone. But just an hour ago, Tan Chew Ling had just slapped – hit – whatever she did was too fast – Serene, the girl who was untouchable. Just an hour ago, Serene, the girl with a credit card that never busted, was attacked.

“Are you crazy?” The silence between Chew Ling and me was too dominating in the Lecture Hall. Mr. Lim was talking to the students but we all knew he was just talking to himself. “You have no idea what Serene will do to you.”

“Like what?”

I thought of the flyers pasted around the school. Should I lie once more? “Trust me.”

“You know what? This is the first time I got into a fight without my asthma acting up! I’m so proud of myself! When I was fourteen, someone kept on cursing my asthma and I wanted to hit her. Before I could do that, I felt breathless and almost fainted. Last year, a friend of mine said I could transmit some lung disease to her. We had a quarrel, she wanted to attack me and when I raised my hand trying to hit her, I felt my chest tightened again. Today, I got into a fight! How cool is that?”

Since I was fourteen, I knew trying to find out how another person think was an impossible task. “Just get out of the school after the PAE. Trust me, avoid Serene at all cost.”

“Linda, why should my choice be influenced by another person? Why care about how other people’s shadows look like, when we got our own?”

Mr. Lim’s boring lesson dragged on for another thirty minutes and during the thirty minutes, I was pondering on Chew Ling’s words: Why live in others’ shadows?

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