chapter 26

Girl

INTHEEND,the hardest part was convincing Mama to let her go to

school.

It was dinnertime when she decided to broach the subject, and

even then, she ran over fivepossible conversation starters before

she decided on the best one.

"Mama," she began as her mother spooned fried rice into her

mouth and grimaced.

"Too salty," Mama said shortly, taking a sip of water.

"Sorry," she said. "So, Mama, I was thinking . . . I'd like to go back

to school tomorrow."

Mama turned sharp eyes on her, peering closely as if trying to

see what was going on inside Suraya's brain. "Is that really wise?

Are you. . . well?" Mama never referred to Pink if she could help it;

she only talked in roundabout ways about Suraya's "episodes," as if

she were a TVseries with neatly portioned out doses of drama, easy

enough to endure as long as her issues only lasted sixty minutes or

less.

"I'm feeling much better," Suraya said, trying to infuse her voice

with as much enthusiasm as she could. "I mean, I've been home for

a few days now, and you know, I haven't been hearing or seeing anything . . . different. . . . I think the rest really helped. And I miss

my friends."

"Hmm." Mama took another mouthful of rice, her face

unreadable. Suraya could smell the familiar scent of Tiger Balm

wafting gently from where Mama had massaged it into her neck and

shoulders to take away the accumulated aches of the day; the

potency of it made her sneeze.

"Please, Mama." She shuffled the rice around her plate, making

patterns out of carrot cubes and chicken slivers. "I think it would be

good for me. Honestly."

It seemed to take years, but finally her mother let out a heavy

sigh. "All right. But the minute anything strange starts to happen,

anything at all, you're coming straight home and I'm calling the

pawang there and then, full moon or no full moon. Got it?"

Suraya felt her heart constrict at the mention of the pawang. "Got

it," shesaid, and they ate the rest of their meal in familiar,

uncomfortable silence.

Jing's face when they met in front of the school the next morning

was alive with exactly the kind of barely suppressed excitement you

might expect from someone about to do something she isn't

supposed to do. "Oh my gooooood, I can't believe we're doing this!"

Her squeal was so loud several girls turned to look at them.

"Shut up, Jing," Suraya hissed, trying her best to look nonchalant.

"Everyone's going to know we're ditching."

In her shirt pocket, Pink sighed and rolled his eyes. You will be

caught before you even makeit five steps away from the school gate

at this rate.

"Youshut up," Jingwhispered to Suraya, her face indignant. "I

can be stealthy, okay? Like aspy, or like . . . like . . . Leia disguised

as a bounty hunter to save Han."

She is speaking in tongues again.

"If we're going to make it through today, you guys really have to

try and get along," Suraya told him sternly.

"Get along?" Jing shot Pink a suspicious look. "Did he say

something about me? What was it? Was it rude? I bet it was rude."

Suraya ignored her and glanced at the gate, where dozens of

girls in varying states of sleepiness were milling through to the hall,

waiting for the school bell to ring. "Come on, let's go."

They began walking briskly in the other direction, heading for the

shops across the street. "Walk with purpose," Suraya said to Jing

under her breath. "If anyone asks, we're just going to go buy some

buns because you forgot your lunch."

"Okay, okay, ya, I know," Jing whispered back. Together they

walked, step by step by step,and the farther away they got from the

school, the more Suraya felt her stomach tighten, expecting to be

caught at any moment.

Instead of heading for the sundry shop, where brightly colored

bouncy bells in net bags hung suspended from hooks over the

entryway and all sorts of sweets clothed in lurid packaging were

displayed in a way calculated to tempt even the most levelheaded

child into parting with her pocket money, they slipped into the little

used alleyway behind the shophouses and pressed their bodies

close against the wall, just as the school bell rang in the distance.

It was the custom for prefects to be stationed at the gate during

assembly, keeping a sharp lookout for fugitives and stragglers. Pink

hopped onto the worn handlebars of a nearby motorcycle and kept

up asteady stream of updates. There is a tall one with metal on her

teeth; long, straight hair; and a way of looking at everyone else as if

they were worms, he supplied.

"Farah," Jing whispered. "She's a form 4 prefect, remember? She

modeled one time for an Insta shop that sells fake handbags

imported from China or wherever, and ever since she's called herself

a model. Carries around a Chanel wallet that she says is real." Jing

snorted. "Someone should tell her Chanel isn't spelled with two l's."

"Shhh," Suraya hissed, looking around nervously. Jing had a

tendency to raise her voice when she got excited. "Who's the other

one, Pink?"

The other girl is stout and has shoulder-length hair that she

wears swept into combs on either side of her head, and a mole at

the corner of her mouth.Hepaused tolisten before continuing.She

seems to take great delight inbarking out orders to smaller students

who have the misfortune of being late.

The two girls exchanged looks. "Bulldog," they whispered at

exactly the same time. Bulldog's real name was Maria; she was

sixteen and believed that if she enforced the school rules to the

letter, she'd have a real shot at being head girl when she was

seventeen. Being head girl was the dream of Bulldog's heart, and

she threw herself into her prefectorial duties with all the enthusiasm

and ferocity of the animal that was her nickname. Being caught by

Bulldog, they knew, would mean a brisk march to the principal's

office and the end of their mission.

"Can't let her catch us," Jingsaid softly, looking as worried as

Suraya felt. Suraya nodded.

And then Jing's phone rang.

The tinny notes of the Imperial March blared through the quiet

morning air like a foghorn. "Stop it, quickly, turn it off!" Suraya hissed

as Jing's eyes widened in panic, and she fumbled to get her phone

out of her pocket. "Why do you even have it with you?! That's

against school rules!"

"YOU try tellingmy mother she can't contact me during the day!

Want me to die is it?"

The stout one is looking this way, Pink said warningly.

"Jing, TURN OFF YOUR PHONE." If a whisper could also be a

shout, Suraya's was a bellow. In her confusion, Jing accidentally

pressed the green Answer Call button, and her mother's shrill voice

wafted through the receiver. "Ah girl? Can you hear me? You forgot

your lunch lah, you need me to bring to you? Hello? Hello?"

"Jing!" Suraya's voice was imploring.

Jing finally managed to locate the button that powered her phone

down and Aunty Soo's voice fizzled into silence.

They waited, holding their breath.

They are conferring,Pink said. They keep looking over here with

puzzled expressions. The tall one is saying, "But there is nobody

there."

A pause. Then Pink: The stout one is walking this way.

Oh no. "Bulldog's coming," Suraya whispered, and Jing shot her

a look of pure despair. Suraya cast around desperately, looking for

somewhere they could hide. But except for the wrappers and

cigarette butts scattered carelessly along the alleyway, there was nowhere to go. Instead, she pressed her body as close to the wall as

it would go and prayed for Bulldog to lose interest and go away.

She is getting closer.

They could hear her now, walking toward where they stood

hidden. Bulldog's steps weredistinctive; she didn't walk so much as

march everywhere she went, the steady thud of herfootsteps

announcing her arrival well before you actually saw her face.

"Maria!" It was the high-pitched voice of their discipline teacher

Mrs. Ng, laced with a generous dose of irritation. "Maria! What ARE

you doing?"

"I heardsomething just now, teacher!" Bulldog yelled back. "I just

wanted to check it out."

"Nonsense! There's nothing there but rubbish and bad smells."

The teacher's sniff carried all the way to where the two girls stood,

their hearts pounding, Bulldog just steps away. "Get back here at

once. Assembly is over, and classes are about to begin."

"Okay, teacher." The reply was grumpy, but Suraya knew Bulldog

would do as she was told. The rules were too important to ignore.

Sure enough, the heavy steps thudded back toward the school,

getting fainter and fainter until they couldn't be heard at all.

They are gone,Pink said at last. It is safe for you to come out

now.

They changed in a scrub of woodland by the shophouses, fishing

their regular clothes out of thebottoms of their backpacks and taking

turns, careful not to glance at each other's bodies for fear of

embarrassing each other (and themselves). Jing had turned her

phone back onas soon as the coast was clear, and it took Suraya

fifteen painful minutes to stop her friend agonizing over how to

respond to her mother("I HUNG UP on her, Sooz, she's going to

KILL ME") andput on the baju kurung Suraya had brought for her

from home and insisted she wear. Jing was fine with this; what she

wasn't fine with was the factthat nothing about it fit the way it was

supposed to.

"These sleeves are too long," Jing moaned, waving her hands so

that the excess material flapped about. "The waist is too big. The sarong is dragging on the floor. I feel like a little kid playing dress

up."

"Stop complaining lah." Suraya reached over and began to fold

Jing's sleeves."Look, see? We fold this up, then we fold at the waist,

it'll be fine. We want people to believe we're sisters, right? And

anyway, it's a sign of respect."

Jing frowned. "Respect of what? A sign to who?"

"When we visit a cemetery. It's a sign of respect to the dead to be

dressed modestly. Right, Pink?"

The ghost shrugged.Ido not know. It sounds like a very human

rule to me.

Suraya looked at him. "Really?" It was a thing she'd been told

almost her entire life, and it unmoored her slightly to hear that it

didn't really seem to matter to a ghost himself.

The dead don't really think about what you're wearing,he said

matter-of-factly. Mostly on account of being dead.

"Well, whatever the ghost thinks, I don't have any other clothes,

so unless the dead are okay with me being naked, this is what we're

going with," said Jing.

The dead definitely do not want that.

"I'm not sure the living want that either," said Suraya.

Jing sighed noisily. "I may not be able to HEAR him, but I KNOW

when you two are making fun of me, okay?!"

They walked to the bus station in town, keeping close to walls and

shadows when they could and trying to be as inconspicuous as

possible.

Inside, the little building was stifling; the walls bore flaking off

white paint, travel posters peeling at the corners, and an aging air

conditioning unit that groaned and belched out stale gusts of air

every couple of minutes. Jing had booked their seats online, so all

they had to do was find theright counter and collect their tickets.

Still, they couldn't risk getting sloppy, not when they were so close.

"Let me do the talking," Suraya said, shifting her backpack so that

it sat more evenly on her shoulders. Jing still had the highly excitable

look of exactly what she was: a kid skipping school.

"Okay," she said agreeably.

They walked up to the counter, where a bored-looking woman in

a pink headscarf tapped away at a game on her phone. Technicolor

shapes beeped and boopedand erupted in explosions of rainbow

pixels as Suraya stood and waited to be acknowledged.

"Excuse m—"

"Wait ah." The woman held up one finger, her eyes still glued to

her screen, her thumb moving rapidly.

"Umm. Okay." They shuffled their feet awkwardly and waited.

Every minute that dragged by, Suraya's stomach knotted itself even

further, until she thought she might throw up from sheer anxiety.

More beeps and boops and one final explosion later, the woman

sighed and put her phone down. "Can I help you?" she asked. The

tone of her voice implied that she was doing them a huge favor by

asking.

"Umm, we booked tickets online?"

"Booking number," the woman said gruffly. "Please," she added

as an afterthought.

Jing fished her phone out of her pocket, and Suraya quickly read

off the string ofletters and numbers as the woman entered them into

her computer.

"Two tickets to Gua Musang, Kelantan?" she asked.

"Yeah."

"Hold on." More tapping, and then the steady screech of an

ancient printer. The woman's eyes finally flicked over the two of

them, and shefrowned slightly. "A little young to be traveling so far

all by yourselves, aren't you? No school today?"

Suraya froze. Beside her, she saw Jing's arm move. "These are

not the droids you're looking for," Jing mumbled, and Suraya quickly

kicked her in the shin. "Ow!"

Suraya fixed her most winning smile on the woman with the pink

headscarf. "Our grandmother is sick, and our mom left us with our

dad and went to take care of her," she said, her mind racing. "But

now, uh. . . Opah is REALLY sick—like, dying and stuff—and our

dad can't take time off, but she really wants to see us, so . . ." She

trailed off.

Jing let out a theatrical sob. "Poor Opah."

The woman had already lost interest. "Whatever. Here you go.

Platform 2." She slid the tickets across the counter and Suraya

grabbed them eagerly. "Just be careful. Don't talk to strangers," she

added as an afterthought.

"We won't. Thank you!" They scampered away as quickly as they

could, before she could ask them any more questions.

Not that they needed to worry. She is playingher game again,

Pink observedonce they were a safe distance away. And she is

losing. She is not very good.

"I wonder if I should have told her the cheat code for that level,"

Jing mused at almost exactly the same time. "Because she really

sucked at that game, man. Oh well. Come on, let's go find platform 2

before she thinks of more questions to ask us."

In their hurry to get away from the disinterested ticket lady, they

didn't notice the plump figure of a man just a few steps away.

On a bench in a corner near the dustbins was the pawang,

watching them intently.