Three hours of hard labour later, Brandon surveyed his room with pride. He had excavated a foul-smelling bundle of unmatched socks under his bed, hung up the clothes which lay in a forsaken heap at the back of his wardrobe and placed all his books on the bookshelves and in the cabinets. He had also set aside some books and toys which he felt he could live without. He was getting too old for Pokémon figurines, he thought loftily.
I'll donate the books and toys to the community club, decided Brandon. They are still in good condition. And now, onward to Ah Gong's room!
Brandon contemplated Ah Gong's room with an expert eye. Aha! Ah Gong did not have many cupboards.
Great, I should be done in an hour! He thought happily. Perhaps there'll still be time to ask Edward whether he wants to go for a bike ride in the neighbourhood.
Ah Gong was dozing in his customary cane armchair next to the window. He was wearing a singlet and shorts, which meant that it was a good day. Sometimes, Ah Gong would forget to change out of his sleepwear and spend the whole day in pyjamas.
"Er...Ah Gong, are you sleeping?" whispered Brandon.
Ah Gong opened his eyes and looked at the boy.
"No, not really, just having a rest," replied his grandfather.
"Mum wants to finish the spring-cleaning by today. Shall we get started with your room?" asked Brandon.
"All right, if that's what your mother wants. But why is she doing spring-cleaning all of a sudden?" Ah Gong looked confused.
"Chinese New Year is coming, Ah Gong, and we do spring-cleaning every year in the week before Chinese New Year," explained Brandon. Poor Ah Gong, not knowing that Chinese New Year would be happening soon, in spite of Mum having put up all the gaudy red and gold Chinese New Year decorations around the house.
"Chinese New Year!" exclaimed Ah Gong, "and I didn't even know." For a moment, Ah Gong looked sad but then he rallied. "Your Ah Gong is old and blur, but you are a good boy, Brandon, very kind to this old fogey," he murmured, patting the child's head.
Blushing, Brandon covered up his embarrassment by opening one of the cupboards with more force than necessary. To his dismay, the cupboard was packed to the brim, with the items all higgledy-piggledy.
Guess this means I won't be able to go cycling with Edward, Brandon thought in dismay.
Brandon was in the midst of removing the things from the cupboard, when a few of them, dislodged by his efforts, came loose and fell out of the cupboard.
"Careful, Brandon, there are treasures in there," admonished his grandfather, leaping up from his armchair to make a grab for the articles before they hit the floor.
An hour later, all of Ah Gong's possessions were laid out on the floor. With the old man delivering instructions from the comfort of his armchair, Brandon sorted the objects into two piles - Keep and Throw.
He was particularly interested in an old-fashioned camera that Ah Gong had told him to include in the Keep pile. The camera was covered with a leather casing containing many bald patches where the skin had worn away. Used to the large display screens of digital cameras, Brandon found it difficult to look through to look through the tiny viewfinder. He pressed the shutter experimentally several times, but the button seemed to be stuck and could not be depressed.
"Why are you keeping this, Ah Gong? It doesn't even work!" he grumbled.
"I got that a long time ago from an antique shop in Chinatown," reminisced Ah Gong. Ah Gong used to love trawling through old shops in Singapore's ethnic areas and was fond of a good bargain. He had a habit of coming home laden with bags of junk and then proceeding to sort his purchases out in the living room, much to Mrs Chan's despair.
The seller of the camera had sold it to Ah Gong cheaply as he could not get it to work. Ah Gong had bought it as he liked the look of the old camera.
"You can keep it if you like. Maybe you can figure out its secret!" Ah Gong chuckled.
Brandon placed the camera on his desk and went back to Ah Gong's room, helping him to reinstate the contents of the Keep pile into his cupboards, much more neatly than before. As for the items in the Throw pile, he tossed them into trash bags ready for his mother's disposal.
Having decluttered and cleaned up Ah Gong's room to his mother's expectations (she checked for dust with a gloved finger), Brandon slouched back to his room, his muscles screaming in pain. Picking up the camera in idle curiousity, he saw that it was covered in dust and grimaced. Ah Gong has been conned again, it's a dud, he thought. Tossing the camera into the back of his cupboard and wiping his palms on the back of his pants, he went for a shower.
"Ah Gong! I'm home!" yelled Brandon as he came through the front door after school a few weeks later and dumped his school bag on the floor. He kicked his shoes off and started rummaging in his school bag.
"Not so loud, Ah Gong's sleeping," warned Brandon's mother, coming out of her bedroom. "Brandon, how many times have I told you to bring your school bag to your bedroom once you come home from school?" she nagged.
"Oh hello, Emma," Mrs Chan continued upon realising that Emma was behind Brandon, "are you here to work on the Social Studies project with Brandon?"
Emma gave a shy smile and nodded, her long fringe obscuring part of her face. It was an oval-shaped face with large eyes and a button nose. Emma knew that it was silly to be bashful of adults and Mrs Chan in particular, but she could not control her thoughts, which unfortunately had an inevitable tendency of affecting her behaviour.
Mrs Chan was kindness itself, and would no doubt start offering her Khong Guan biscuits and an ice-cold Milo before long. Mrs Chan always tut-tutted when Emma came over, believing the slender girl to be malnourished. In the past, Emma had tried to tell Mrs Chan politely that being skinny was in her genes as both her parents were beanpoles but to no avail. Mrs Chan herself was comfortably round and had a horror of children wasting away, which led to her invariably pressing food upon young guests with the aim of fattening them up.
Emma was vexed with herself for being self-conscious around Mrs Chan, especially since she had been coming to Brandon's home to play since they were in Primary One. As the years progressed and school projects beckoned, they always contrived to be assigned to the same project team. Being timid was a nuisance but her parents had assured her that she would not be a mouse forever. She could not wait for the day when she could indulge in easy camaraderie with strangers.
Due to her withdrawn nature, Emma did not have many friends in school. Fortunately, Brandon had taken her under his wing. From their first week in primary school, ever since their form teacher had made them partners (her surname being Chua, she appeared in the class list after Brandon), Brandon had taken to heart their teacher's instructions that he take care of Emma.
"Why are you home today, Mum?" asked Brandon, continuing to delve into first one side pocket, then with increasing frustration into the multiple side pockets of his school bag. Max had given him a packet of prawn crackers on the school bus. Now if he could only remember where he had stashed it. He knitted his brows in concentration as he thought. Aha, there it was! He brandished his loot triumphantly and tore open the packet. He munched away noisily until he noticed his mother's glowering glances, upon which he stopped stuffing his face and offered some prawn crackers to Emma and his mother.
"No, thank you, dear. I just had lunch," Mrs Chan declined Brandon's offer. Likewise, Emma shook her head. "I'm home today because I know your Social Studies project is due next week. I thought you might need my help with it. In any case, I'm glad Emma is here to work on the project with you. She'll make sure you do your work and not laze the afternoon away. The two of you should be old hands at this, since you've partnered each other on several projects in the past. Well, I'll be in my room resting if you need me," answered Mrs Chan. Mrs Chan worked as a sales promoter for kitchen appliances and spent the whole day standing, so whenever possible, she liked to put her feet up.
"Come on, Emma, let's go to my room," urged Brandon, who had finished his snack by now and was licking his fingers with relish. He loved the seasoning granules that lay at the bottom of savoury snack packs, and was about to tip the pack into his mouth to get every last grain of MSG when Emma's words gave him cause for pause.
"One day, you're going to keel over from an overdose of MSG," Emma said matter-of-factly. "Anyway, now that you've finished, can we get started?"