Ghost
AFTER THE LICE incident, Kamelia and Divya's reign of terror seemed
to lose steam. They didn't exactly stop being their mean, bullying
selves, but they seemed to shrink slightly, as if losing their hair
meant losing some of their power.
For Suraya, this meant happier, lighter times. She could often
make it through entire school days with nothing worse happening to
her than a tug of her braid or a small shove in the chaos before
assembly. It didn't mean making friends became any easier—
unpopularity is a leech that's hard to shake off once it sinks its teeth
into you—but she accepted this as she always had, and was
content. She put her head down in class and concentrated on her
work; she spent every recess with Pink in the secret spot they'd
found on the first day of school, in the dappled sunshine that filtered
through the frangipani leaves. Slowly, Pink could feel her
unclenching, settling in, settling down, and he was glad.
In fact, Suraya and Pink could quite happily have gone on this
way forever, if not for the new girl.
She appeared one day about a month into the school year,
standing quietly next to their teacher Puan Rosnah as she made the
introductions. "Class!" Puan Rosnah clapped her plump hands hard, and the sharp cracks brought an abrupt stop to their chatter. "Class!
We have a new student. Her name is Jing Wei, and I'm sure you'll
make her feel very welcome." There was an obvious emphasis on
the last two words, and the class snickered. Suraya looked with
interest at this new girl, who was gazing back at her new classmates
in a way that seemed entirely unconcerned. She was small, this Jing
Wei, with black-rimmed glasses that seemed to take up half of her
face, a sunburned nose, and hair cropped short like a boy's—a rare
sight in this school, where hair served as a sort of status symbol, and
the longer and shinier it was, the better.
Introductions over, Jing Wei slipped into a seat in the middle of
the class and took out her history book. If she was aware of the
curious stares and hushed whispers of the other girls, she didn't
show it.
It was pouring with rain when the bell rang for recess, and the
girls raced for the best spots in the canteen and the school hall.
Suraya followed slowly, her hands clutching her plastic lunch
container, her eyes on the new girl. Jing Wei walked serenely among
the boisterous crowd, carefully staking out a spot for herself in a
stairwell just off the hall, away from the noise and the damp. She had
a book in one hand and her own lunch box in the other.
Pink could feel Suraya hesitate. Go and talk to her, he said. Go
on. Why not? We've got nothing to lose.
(Later, Pink would think back and wonder why he'd said this; why
he hadn't just said Come, let's go sit over in that corner, just you and
me, like we always do. But big moments don't come with price tags,
and Pink would have no idea how much this moment cost him until
much later.)
Her chest heaved as she took a deep breath, and Pink almost
lost his balance in her swaying pocket.
"Okay," she muttered under her breath. "Okay. Let's do this."
She walked over and stood awkwardly in front of the new girl,
who looked up from her book. "Hullo," Jing Wei said cheerily. "I'm
Jing Wei, who're you?"
"I'm Suraya." She shuffled her feet. "Is it okay if I sit with you?"
"Ya, of course." Jing Wei slid over to make room for her on the
step, and Suraya sat down, smiling shyly. "I got pork in my lunch though. Is that okay?"
"Ya, it's okay, I don't mind."
"I know some Malay girls don't like when I eat pork near them."
Jing Wei shrugged, spooning another heap of rice into her mouth.
"But I dunno why. Not like I force you to eat it also, right?"
"Right." Suraya took a small bite of the kaya and butter sandwich
she'd made for herself that morning and glanced down at the other
girl's book. "What are you reading?"
Jing Wei's small face lit up. When she smiled, her eyes crinkled
up until they almost disappeared. "It's a great book! It's called A
Wrinkle in Time. You know it?"
"Know it! I've read it like four times!" Suraya's smile was so wide
it nearly cracked her face in two. "It's one of my favorite books."
"Wah, four times! It's only my first time, but I'm almost halfway
through already. I like that Charles Wallace, he's damn smart."
Suraya nodded, wiping a spot of kaya from the side of her mouth.
"You like to read?"
"Oh ya." Jing Wei scraped the last of her rice out of her container,
which was black and shaped like Darth Vader's helmet. "My mother
said that's how I ruined my eyes, because I read all the time. As if
that's a bad thing. You read a lot too?"
"Yes. I . . . don't have many friends, so I have a lot of time to
read."
"Hah? No friends? Why ah?" Jing Wei regarded her with frank
curiosity, pushing her glasses back up her nose, and Suraya
shrugged.
"I don't know," she said. "I'm new to this school, and I live pretty
far away. But even back home I don't have many friends. I guess
other girls just . . . don't like me."
"You seem okay to me." Her smile was wide and friendly. "And
you like to read too! If you like Star Wars then we're definitely going
to be friends."
"I've never seen Star Wars," Suraya confessed, and then began
to laugh at Jing Wei's expression of open-mouthed dismay.
"Ohmygoooooood, never seen Star Wars? You serious? You
have to come to my house and watch it, I've got all of them, on Blu-
Ray somemore."
It was the first time Suraya'd ever been invited back to
someone's home, and Pink thought his nonexistent heart might burst
with happiness and pride.
"Okay," Suraya said happily. "Okay, I will. And you can come to
my house and look at my books."
"Cool!"
"Hey, are you done?" Pink frowned; Suraya's own container was
still half full of the soggy sandwiches she'd put together that morning.
"Ya, why?" Bits of rice flew out as Jing replied through her last
mouthful.
"I want to show you this secret spot I like to go to during recess,
before the bell rings. You know. To get away from people."
Their secret place? Pink felt his heart sink. Their own special
spot, the one place they went to for a little peace during the chaos of
the school day?
She was taking this strange new girl to their secret place?
Pink felt it then: a shimmer in the air, a ripple that told him change
was coming, a hot flame of anger licking delicately at his insides. We
have nothing to lose, he'd told Suraya, but suddenly he wondered:
She has nothing to lose. Do I?
But Suraya and Jing Wei noticed nothing. They raced happily
toward the frangipani trees, secure in the knowledge that they'd each
found a friend.