Corridor

ever. He never tells the same joke twice. I think the day Omar tells us a joke we’ve heard from him before will be the day he finally passes his ‘O’ levels. This year he is taking it as a private candidate, for the third time. The other guys like to tease Omar about it, and keep asking him when he’s ever going to become a corporal. Once in a while they call him Private Omar, but the good thing about the guys is that they know just when to stop.* * *I first met the boys one day while walking home from school with Salmah. They were playing skateboard under my void deck. At that time, Salmah had her hair long and I must say she looked good with her two ponytails, one on each shoulder. Like a decent girl, hugging her file to her chest. When we were near the void deck I asked Salmah if she wanted to walk near the grass slopes, but she said, “Don’t care about them, we can walk wherever we want. Anyway, those boys all blind, cannot see the sign that says ‘No Skateboarding’.”

So Salmah and I walked towards the void deck, and my heart was beating a little faster because I didn’t like the sound of the skateboard wheels being dragged across the cement floor. I got the feeling that something was getting spoilt and worn out. Suddenly, one of the boys, Firdaus, the eyebrow-ring guy, glided up in front of us and very consciously arched his pierced eyebrow. He wiggled it up and down.

“Just got back from school?” he asked.

Salmah and I kept silent. We could have walked ahead but it seemed as if there were now three boys, poised on their skateboards, in front of us.

“Yah, unlike some people, we got school,” I replied. I didn’t know what made me talk back to them.

“Wah, this one, so fierce,” the fat guy said.

I looked at Salmah. She was looking away, irritated. Then she started placing her chin on the edge of her file. She sighed. She looked as if we were going to be there for a long time.

“Yah lah, a bit fierce,” said the third guy, the one in a singlet.

I knew it was all up to me. I knew how it worked, but the thought made me a little sad. Usually when two girls are confronted, the one who will speak up, who will defend both of them, the fierce one, is the less pretty one. The prettier girl gets to keep quiet, because if she opens her mouth then pearls will drop out, and their harassers will all scramble to pick them off the ground. Then the guys will never leave them alone, and they will do everything to hear their princess speak again.

“You all got nothing better to do ah?” I asked. “Blind or what? Cannot see the sign over there, that picture, no skateboarding?”

“Eh, she’s scolding us lah,” the singlet guy said. Then the eyebrow-ring guy spoke.

“Miss, you look at the sign again. What is there? This black person. One leg long, one leg short. He is riding a skateboard, ok, fine. But you see us. Which of us is black? Which of us is crippled? See, the sign only means: Black and crippled people cannot skateboard. Black people cannot, because at night, people cannot see. Crippled people also cannot because later fall down.”

I had never until then heard something more stupid in my whole life. I turned to my right and saw Salmah smiling slightly. She was going to sabotage my efforts. Suddenly I told the boys, in the rudest tone I could find, “Hey, we all don’t go for you Mats˚ under the block. At our school got so many better people, people who can study, who don’t waste time in the void deck. You all think, skateboard, very cool ah? Make noise only. Disturb others.” And then I tugged Salmah’s sleeve and walked off with her, never turning to look back, whispering things in Salmah’s ear. I left the boys behind us. I had a princess to safeguard. I also left my house behind me, to walk Salmah all the way to her home.

Three weeks after that, we were back again at the void deck. Salmah had met a new member of the skateboarding group. He had dimples and his hair always had this wet look. He was the only one among all the skateboarding boys who had really clear skin. When he told Salmah that he was studying at the polytechnic I could see her eyes light up. I was wrong, there were some void deck Mats who went to school.

The boy’s name was Sazalie.

Not long after, we would hang around regularly at the void deck, four guys and two girls, and one day I saw Sazalie’s arm behind Salmah’s back. At that time, I had one foot on a skateboard and I was pushing it back and forth, back and forth. And then it suddenly slipped from my sole and went off on its own. It hit a pillar, bounced off and stopped.

Soon, because I hung around so much with Salmah, I found myself hanging around with the boys too. And when Salmah and Sazalie decided to get together, Salmah left me at that void deck with the rest of them. One thing though, I never shook off that fierce image I had since the first day I met the boys. Sometimes I think that wasn’t even the real me, when I spoke so loudly on that day, my heart was actually beating very fast. I was trembling. But words still came out.

Nowadays I’m fiercer than ever, so the boys can call me what they want and give me nicknames. I sit around with them and sometimes I laugh like mad when one of them falls doing a skateboarding stunt. And then with that loud voice I’ve learnt to use, I’d go, “Ha! Serves you right! Do again, I want