Sunday, January 30, 2005 5:31 PM
sat down to lunch with ex-classmates. primary school friends. a couple i have not seen in about slightly less than 7 years. catching up with what we are all up to these days. and the recollections, the shared reminisce.
the turnout was small. just a handful. the old clique from past, if you can call that. thinking back, i don't quite understand how i got mixed up with them. most were giants in the class, tall kids who were remembered for their height and who all sat at the back. i sat in the front. i was probably the very disillusioned tall-kid-wannabe.
and then there were some i'd like to meet but they could not make it. overseas. busy or out of reach. but they made us promise to have another one. would we?
conversation ran fluid. naming names and wondering aloud what happen to these people. sometimes someone would know the whereabouts of certain people we talked about. sometimes all of us drew a blank. sometimes i can't even recall faces to pin the names to.
but the fun part was when we dug up silly old school kid grudges and silly old school kid crushes.
confessions of our pre-adolescence selves.
accusations fly. albeit in a friendly manner.
we laughed at him for ratting out on her for singing in class.
he said she was irritating him.
they fumed at having their names written down on the board by the monitress when they were caught talking in class. not once. but many many times.
she said once, i was mean. i told another girl not to talk to her because she was talking too much.
i said i don't remember that. i had to laugh. i did that?
us girls. we relived our glory days. we were great as a team. we won all the captain's ball and netball inter-class games there were to play. we even triumphed over the alumni or old girl's team when we were invited to play in an event a year after graduation.
we were the pioneer netball team to represent the school. but that was not too glorious. we got our asses kicked. big time. and it was funny, somehow.
we had the jock among us. the popular guy who broke one too many young girls' heart. the one who left a girl's farewell gift under his table on the last day of school. only to be picked up by another friend who didn't want her to know and so she took it home. she wanted to know if he wants it back now. of all the girls we listed out to be smitten with him, he admitted he did like one of them. he was not so heartless after all.
she talked about the guy she had a huge crush on. someone we neglected to invite this time, but probably not the next. and she never understood why she liked him of all people. eyes pasted with stamps. we couldn't help but to agree.
they linked me to every single guy i sat next to, over the course of 7 years in our school. even linked me with a guy i didn't know i was ever in the same class with. and they concluded at the end of the day, that i was scandalous. but don't believe them, it is all pure exaggeration.
every single one of them said i was a prefect. but i never was. i wondered if they mixed me up with somebody else. maybe i seemed like the prefect kind. yes, i know i come across as the good kid. but i'm the good kid who was never good. i got punished in kindergarten, made to stand outside the class. i got spanked in pre-primary for not following instructions. and i remembered being made to stand outside class at primary 4 for being a distraction. and now, i can't believe that was me.
but the revelation that shocked me the most was when she said last time, i was the biggest influence in her life. i showed her life like she has never seen, brought her to places she has never been, taught her things she never knew. she said that was exactly what i did. i would never imagined to have such an effect on someone. and the thing is, in my memory, she was the wilder child than i ever was.
we had seven dollars change but no small notes to break the change. they decided i was to keep the money until the next time we meet. because they thought i was the most responsible of the lot. i chuckled. oh how they never knew, how they never know.
we said the next time, we would ask a couple few more out. we said the next time, we would enjoy a more explosive confession and confrontation.
we said the next time, we would...
we said the next time...
the next time...
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