Closer and closer we get to the execution date, and yet there’s more we have to finish before the D-Day on 21st May. Examinations really do sap off all your energy, especially Additional Mathematics. The normal vigour and upbeatness we had for our project was replaced with the dull tenacity to finish test papers. The Crew-deemed-Not-too-Sane hasn’t spoken to each other for the whole week already, only exchanging brief looks with each other before our attention were drawn once more to our textbooks.
That changed when I stubbornly decided to spent some time relaxing at the murals after a particularly taxing Add. Maths paper. It seems after spending so much time there over the past seven weeks, the toilets already felt like a second home to me. In fact, I could spent hours away in there, feeling happier scintillating at the wall than being stuck in some horrid, boring class. I sat alone in the girls’ toilet, staring at the wall; thinking; humming to myself .
“HEEEEEEEEEEEYYYYY!!!” A very familiar and loud voice rang through the hallway, shattering my long-found silence. “WHERE ARE YOU?!”
I sighed. “Over here!” It’s always best to answer Always Hungry when she’s calling you, or if you let her go through hell and back just to find you, she would roast you alive.
“There you are!” She exclaimed out loud when she spotted me in the toilet. “I couldn’t find your little sister at all!” She took a step to beside me. “What time are you planning to go back, huh?”
“4 o’ clock,” I looked back up to the geisha mural before me, thinking and wondering what was amiss about it. Was it the eyes? Or the face? Or the moving cloth? “What about you?” I asked, turning my attention back to Always Hungry after pondering for a short while. “Weren’t you supposed to go back now? I mean, it’s History test tomorrow. Wouldn’t you want to study?”
She grinned like a Chesire cat (really, it’s one wide grin) at my question. “Felt like staying back and walk to the LRT station with you guys today,” Her eyes scanned at the murals around here. “Is there anything you want me to help you paint?”
I sighed again. “Yeah,” I replied as I dipped my paintbrush once more into the paint can. “Do the Egyptian Mural, hmm?”
Her face fell. Really, really fell. “You know I can’t draw,” She answered a bit crossly. “All this bits left in the mural has to be drawn. What else can be painted?”
“Do the head then. That’s probably the most important part.”
So she complied and went to paint the head portion of the mural while I went into the girls’ toilet to finish up the geisha-and-phoenix painting. That was until several times I had to come out of the toilet after she screamed my name (for help).
(First time) “COME HERE!”
“Whaaaaat?!”
(Go into toilet again)
(Second time) “COME HERE PLEEEEEEASE!”
“Whattttttt, huh?”
(Go into toilet once more)
“WAH…! COME HERE QUICK!” (Third time)
“WHAT?!”
After a while I sat outside with her.
I watched as she went on quite well with the mural already. I let out a breath of relief. “Hey,” I finally said.
“What is it?”
“I started a blog you know,” I continued. “About this project. I even included you in. Do - do you mind if I used…your real name?”
She stopped painting.and looked back down at me. “You mean…you didn’t use my name? Then what did you use?”
I wrote it down at the table she was standing on. She peered over me.
“Oh.” She said.
“You can change it if you want, you know.”
She got up. “I don’t mind,” Always Hungry gave a reassuring smile. Then she wore an evil smirk on her face. “But I won’t mind if you do give me a cooler name, hehe…”
I laughed at her words. Always Hungry then flopped back down from the table to have a break from painting. She paused for a moment, before stating, “After all these exams are over, we could do more of these.”
“More of what?”
“You know, more of these activities that we close buddies can do.” She grinned. “It will be fun. Real fun.”
I smiled to myself. To tell the truth, I had never gave any thought what would happen after my Form Five - what would happen to the toilets after we left; what would happen to my teachers after we are no longer here; what would happen to the people I gotten to know, laughed with and quarreled with.
What would happen after this project is over? Who knows. I don’t know, but I hope whatever I had done here would last for along time.
“Heeeyyyyy…” Always Hungry broke through my thoughts. “Can we stop painting.already?”
“Huh? Why?”
She rubbed her tummy. “I’m feeling reeeaaal hungry.”
The moment she said that, my stomach gave an agreeable growl. Urk. I forgot I haven’t even eaten lunch yet.
“I think I will follow you to the canteen too…” (Was thinking about hot dogs and milk cartons already).
Decisive Perfectionist out.
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