Chapter 16

An hour later, when I stepped through the main door, my mother was sewing some yellow dress. John was chewing bread that he seemed to dislike. The air-conditioner was yawning at full blast. My hand was holding on to the results slip – my proud achievement – but I just went towards my mother and said: “Mummy, I’m one of the top students.” and went to my room.

In the background, I heard the sewing stopping, my mother talking on the phone and then the end of my announcement of my results.

It’s not about getting good results, she had said.

It is. She’s the next me. He had said.

We got to groom her to be the best.

She’ll be perfect. Trust me.

Hey. I had said to myself. Please. Define perfect.

Oh. When everyone looks at you with envious eyes. That’s perfect, right? When people know you and you don’t know them.

Really?

Yeah.

“Perfect.” my father said when he saw my results slip. “That’s a very good result. So where do you want to go? With this kind of results, you can go to top schools like Raffles, Hwa Chong or Victoria. Or you prefer to stay at that Nanyang?”

When I answered him, I was not looking at him. “I wanna stay at Nanyang.”

I was expecting surprise stares from the lecturers and students. No one must have expected me to stay on after my reputation was stained by those flyers.

The ironic truth is that I wanted to stay on in NYJC because they already knew.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

A month later, when the posting was released, almost everyone in College was, as I expected, surprised at my decision to stay at NYJC. We all purchased our brown uniform when we were enrolled into the College. When Serene saw me in my NYJC uniform, she stared at me for a few seconds before strolling off. Chew Ling was the only person who showed no signs of shock. She was beaming happily when she knew that I was staying and said that I had “made the best choice in the world because I will be in the same school as Miss Tan Chew Ling”.

Chew Ling had to tailor her uniform as the smallest size, XS, was still too big for her. She looked like a primary school student with the all-brown ensemble and if not for the badge on her collar, the security guards would not have let her in. She volunteered to be the Orientation Group Leader for Orientation Two 2007. The Orientation Two 2007 was for the old and new students enrolling into NYJC after getting their ‘O’ Levels results. That would mean I had to go through the hellish orientation programme again, like I was some primary school kid in a fun camp.

On the final day of the orientation, Chew Ling came up to me. We had seldom talked to each other during the week as she was busy with her group. “I think this brown uniform suits me so well! Gosh, you no longer look like a nurse without your RV uniform! Hey, my group is awesome, right? I think they like me. One of them said I got a very special leadership skill. I think I’m going to join the Student Council. You know, organise things. It’s in my genes! I will organise the best events in the school. You know something?”

I shook my head. It was boring listening to my OGL shouting the whole week, but it was even more boring listening to Chew Ling’s sentences.

“I’ve bribed all my Orientation Group members to vote for me to be a Student Councillor! Cool, eh? Right? Right?”

I kept quiet. Chew Ling seems to be so free; she can do those researches like she is going to join Who Wants To Be a Millionaire, participate in the Interaction Club, talk to a person for more than an hour without stopping and now she wants to be a Student Councillor.

“Hey, right? Right? Answer me!”

“Yeah.” I said. “Right.”

She then skipped away like a six-year old and seriously, she can easily pass off as a Xinmin Primary School student.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Orientation Two 2007 was something like Orientation One 2007. Students like me had to go through the orientation twice and played all these silly games twice. We only got to know what class we would be in the second week of school. Most of the members in our Orientation Group would not be in the same class as us, which was, of course very stupid. We spent a week trying to play bonding games and then they wanted to split us up. Whoever came up with this idea must be pretty sick in the mind.

My class is 0735 again. During the morning lecture, when Chew Ling told me what class she was going to be in, I gasped almost aloud.

“0735! You know, a few years ago, the class names were called something like 05s6d or 05s6e. Now they have just four digits instead; nice! My mother absolutely loved the new class names; she can buy 4D with the numbers! I asked her to help me buy as well. One dollar big and one dollar small. You know what is big and small in 4D?”

“Yeah.” I whispered and looked around the Lecture Hall. Anyone around us could be our classmates in the next two years.

“Cool! It’s kind of stupid to buy small, but then again, what if the numbers come out as one of the first three prizes? It’s…”

I looked away from her. How can someone be so talkative?

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Some people’s voices sounded like music, no matter what they said. Chew Ling’s voice sounded like noise. On our way to our tutorial classroom, Chew Ling was blabbering about her stint as an OGL and that she was born with the genes to be a leader.

“I’m going to volunteer for the Student Council thingy soon. I know this is going to sound very crazy, Linda.” she was saying as we went up the stairs. “But seriously, I am thinking of becoming Singapore’s first female President. Just imagine me in NDP 2027, standing in the jeep that circles the National Stadium. It’s not about status, you know. Or money. Or politics. It’s about for the good of Singapore.”

I was eyeing the students in front of and behind me. Anyone of them could be my potential classmates. Whoever had entered the classroom that I was about to go in would be my classmate for the next two years.

“First things, first; I’ll change the public transport system. Come on, waiting for twenty minutes and then when your bus comes fully packed is not exactly the term for a ‘world-class public transport’, right?”
In front of me was Zen, the Bowen guy who loved Levi’s to the core. Beside him was Jo, a long-legged girl who could have altered her skirt to make her legs looked longer.

“Secondly, COE. Why a need for COE for cars, right? If you’ve got fifty thousands dollars, who gives a damn about the cost of COE, eh?”

We finally reached our classroom. One by one, people looked at each other and gave a forced smile.
“Hey, Zen! Jo, yo, yo! Kai Wen, you’re here as well! Oh my god, can’t believe a week ago I was shouting at you! Holy duck, Fann Wong and Christopher Lee, you couple are in the same class? That’s really fate!” Chew Ling was shouting here and there as people just smiled at her and walked pass her like she was the door-girl.

“Linda, your twin!”

I turned. Looked at the threshold of the entrance. There, walking in with a red Crumpler bag and a Tag Heuer watch, was Serene.

She stared at me and I stared at her. If we were in a Channel 8 drama serial, the credits would run down now with our images as the background.

Next (Chapter 17) >>>