The Oddfits (3 page)

The boy, still dazzled from the experience of the Great Freezer, nodded. He had no idea what Uncle Yusuf was talking about. But it sounded very exciting.

“What’s your name, boy?” Yusuf asked. He had never asked before. It hadn’t been important before now. “I’ll need to include it to send word.”

The boy uttered something unintelligible.

“Eh? Come again?”

“Murgatroyd. Murgatroyd Floyd.”

Yusuf frowned in perplexity. “Are you sure?”

Murgatroyd nodded.

“How do you spell that?”

Murgatroyd stared at him in panic.

“Oh, sorry. Uncle forgot you haven’t learned to spell. Never mind.” He gave the boy a pat on the head and chuckled. Don’t look so worried, boy. Uncle Yusuf will take care of everything.”

Later that evening, after a simple dinner of curried vegetables and rice, Yusuf made his way to his desk. His sat down and took out a sheet of red paper. He stared at the blank red sheet for a while as he composed the letter in its entirety in his head. Then, dipping his pen nib in the inkwell, he began to write:

Dear Former Colleagues,

The time has come.

Please be informed of one Oddfit, ready for retrieval.

Name: Murgatroyd Floyd

Location: Singapore

Course of Action: We will be waiting at the corner of

Yusuf put down the pen. He felt very tired all of a sudden. Positively sleepy. But this was very important business. It was time, and it was one of those rare occasions when it couldn’t wait until tomorrow morning. He made his way to the kitchen to make himself a cup of instant coffee. After he put the kettle on the stove, he sat at the kitchen table, leaned forward, and rested his head on his folded hands. Just for a little while. The water was almost boiling
. . .

Two days later, a little yellow-haired boy ran towards the Tutti-Frutti, crying and bleeding profusely from the nose. It was Murgatroyd Floyd, and he had just experienced his first day at school. To be fair, his schoolmates hadn’t intended to shed any blood, just rough him up a little. But in such situations, things get out of hand, and when the
ang moh
(as they called him) curled up into a ball on the ground for self-defence, what was meant to be a harmless foot tap in the face turned into a mighty, bloodletting kick. Being obedient, studious, timid children in all other respects, they promptly fled the scene, leaving their victim to pick himself up and run to the one place he felt most at home in the world: Uncle Yusuf’s Tutti-Frutti Ice Cream Shop.

The interior was dark. The “closed” sign was hanging in the window. Murgatroyd tugged on the doors. They were locked. He peered inside. The stools and tables had been taken away. Big cardboard boxes were strewn here and there. The ice cream display case was lightless and empty. There was a handwritten sign pasted to the right of the front doors, which Murgatroyd peered at uncomprehendingly, for he didn’t know how to read:

Dear Respected Loyal Customers,

We regret to inform that Yusuf bin Hassim, owner of the Tutti-Frutti Ice Cream Shop, has passed away.

Murgatroyd didn’t need to know the meaning of the words in order to know that something terrible had happened. He collapsed in front of the shop, sobbing uncontrollably. He thumped his fists on the concrete until they were sore and bruised. He let loose a cry of anguish and sorrow and pain—the soul-chilling, excruciating cries that only children are capable of giving shape and sound. And when there were no more tears left, no more strength left, nothing left but the bitter dullness of having had a good cry, he took a deep breath, picked himself up and trudged back to his home. His “real” home.

CHAPTER 3

Before Murgatroyd had experienced that terrible first day, it actually had long been his dream that he would one day have the privilege of going to school. In all of his nine years of existence, he had never even so much as stepped foot inside a classroom. He harboured the sneaking suspicion that, like other children his age, he should be wearing a uniform, toting around a knapsack and water bottle, and hanging around bus stops. School uniforms, school chums, knapsacks, and water bottles were conspicuously absent from his own life, he had no idea how to ride the bus, and he was never given money, so he couldn’t take the bus even if he wanted to.

So disturbed had he been by this disparity between his life and that of other children that one morning, when he was eight, he had dared to break the cardinal rule his family lived by—“Children, especially you, should be seen and not heard.” He approached the dining table where his mother sat drinking a cup of tea and reading the newspaper.

“Mum,” he had begun tentatively. “Why don’t I go to school like all the other children?”

Mrs. Floyd had turned to him with a sleepy, weary sort of motion, and regarded her son with a sleepy, weary sort of gaze before answering him.

“Because you’re too stupid, my darling,” she had said, ruffling his blonde hair in a cautiously affectionate-like way before turning her attention back to the news story she had been reading.

And so Murgatroyd’s life had continued the way it had ever since he could remember. Every morning, after his parents left for work, he would tidy up the flat as he’d been taught, making the beds, cleaning the bathrooms, sweeping the floors, putting away the clean dishes and washing the dirty ones. For lunch, he would eat a slice of bread with butter or jam and then, more often than not, he would go wandering outside in the wide world of Singapore. He would go as far as his own little legs could carry him and as far as he dared to go. He meandered past community centres and schools and through endless HDB blocks. He strolled through public gardens and parks, and sometimes visited the giant lake near the flat. He often visited a sprawling building complex with gaily painted roofs topped with dragons and many rooms housing great golden statues of seated, serene men. All he carried on these excursions were the coins he would occasionally discover on the street and the key to let himself in and out of the flat.

But now, at the age of nine years, four months, and three days, he had at long last attained a measure of intelligence deemed sufficient by his mother and father to begin his education. In honour of this momentous and glorious occasion, his father had even given him a haircut the night before, though it had turned out to be a very peculiar one. The fringe on the left side of his forehead remained long and had been combed straight so it nearly covered his left eye, while the fringe on the right side of his forehead had been lopped so short that it jutted out of his scalp like a partial crew cut. While holding the electric razor, his father’s hand had slipped and accidentally shaved off all the hair in the middle of his crown in a neat, circular patch, leaving Murgatroyd looking very much like a juvenile monk who had been attacked by a blind sheep shearer. Murgatroyd’s father had also accidentally shaved off half of one eyebrow.

“I look funny,” he said, staring at his reflection in the bathroom mirror.

“Well, nothing can help that but plastic surgery later in life,” his father had answered cheerfully. He gave his son a manly slap on the back before accidentally sprinkling a liberal fistful of hair down the back of his son’s shirt.

The next morning, his mother laid out a frilly pink girl’s blouse and woollen dress trousers for him to wear.

“Where’s my uniform?” Murgatroyd asked.

“We’ll get one for you later,” she said.

“Can’t I just wear my regular clothes?” he asked.

“Out of the question,” she replied. She opened her mouth as if to explain why, but instead gave a great yawn.

Murgatroyd tried one more time. “It’s too hot to wear these trousers.”

“Why are you always complaining?” his mother snapped. “If they’re too hot, just don’t wear any trousers at all.”

Even without proper schooling, Murgatroyd knew that to go around in one’s underpants was simply unacceptable. With great reluctance, he got dressed.

Murgatroyd’s first day at school was not actually the first day of the school year. School had been in session for seven weeks, and all the boys had already formed their particular friendships and cliques. But Mr. and Mrs. Floyd had managed to pull a few strings to get their son admitted a little late into the school year at Da Qiao Primary School.

“I’m sorry, we really didn’t know. We do things a bit differently in England, you see,” his father had explained to the principal in a charming drawl.

“We do things a bit differently in England” had always been a winning excuse for the Floyds. So when the charming, lanky Mr. Floyd flashed his charming, lanky British smile and explained the misunderstanding in his charming, lanky British accent, what could the principal do but shake her head at these clueless British expatriates and make an allowance?

“Okay, lah. We’ll make an exception this time.” Privately, the principal of Da Qiao Primary had her doubts about whether the Floyds’ decision to enrol their child in a local Singaporean school was a wise decision, even though the child was technically a citizen. But who was she to meddle in others’ affairs?

Not only had Murgatroyd’s parents decided that their son should enter school seven weeks into the school year, but they had also decided that he should make his first appearance at school well into the school day. It was half an hour before lunch break when the principal strode into the classroom, ushering in a blonde-haired, blue-eyed boy—an
ang moh
—who looked older than all of them by at least two years. He had a funny haircut. He wore pink lace.

The principal, remembering the instructions she had received from Mr. and Mrs. Floyd (“Don’t give him any special treatment.”) announced to the class, “This is a new student. His name is
. . .
” And here, she paused not so much for dramatic effect as to concentrate on the pronunciation of his name.

“Murgatoy Froy.”

This pronouncement sealed little Murgatroyd’s fate. For the twenty-five children staring at him from their desks, Murgatroyd, taken as a whole, was simply unforgiveable.

Needless to say, Murgatroyd’s first day went very badly. The worst of the bad events of the day were as follows:

- Three attempts to pull down his trousers. All three of which were successful.

- The bestowal of several derogatory nicknames. Among them: “girly-girl,” “big nose,”
“xiaojie”
(which means “Miss” in Mandarin), and of course “little
ang moh
.”

- The hurling of his shoes high into the big tree behind the school.

- The dunking of his head into a toilet bowl.

- The physical beating of his person, including a kick to the face, resulting in a bloody nose.

Murgatroyd’s mother returned home from the office that day and found her son curled up into a ball on the living room sofa, his face stained with dried blood and tears. She was, of course, thoroughly outraged—so outraged, in fact, that she apparently lost all control of her facial muscles. Strangely enough, her expression involuntarily contorted into a broad grin suggestive of mirth or amusement.

“Oh no!” she exclaimed, thoroughly outraged with a big smile on her face. “Poor dear, what in heaven’s name did they do to you?”

Murgatroyd burst into tears and ran into his mother’s arms. And as any loving mother would do, Mrs. Floyd patted her son on the head, sat him at the dining table, and went into the kitchen to fix him a hot cup of Milo. So distressed was she over Murgatroyd’s predicament that instead of sugar, she absentmindedly added two heaping spoonfuls of salt to the chocolate malt drink. Such mistakes were not uncommon for Mrs. Floyd. She was always making silly mistakes when it came to preparing her son’s food—mistakes that anybody could have made, really. Like sprinkling chilli powder instead of cinnamon into his birthday cake batter every year, or accidentally spreading crushed cockroaches instead of tuna onto his tuna sandwiches.

“Now,” she began tenderly, sitting next to him at the dining table. “Why do you suppose they were so nasty to you?”

Murgatroyd sniffled and thought hard before finally arriving at an answer. “Because I’m different. I’m not like them and so they think it gives them the right to bully me.”

The innocent and childish truth of his answer hung in the air above their heads for one brief, shining moment before Mrs. Floyd shot it down with a metaphorical rifle.

“Wrong. They wouldn’t be so nasty to you if they didn’t have a very good reason. It must be because there is something wrong with
you
.”

Murgatroyd stared into his mug of salty, hot Milo and felt thoroughly ashamed of himself.

His mother continued. “Now you must try very hard tomorrow to be a better boy and get them to like you. Try to make yourself more agreeable, all right? There’s my brave boy!”

She gave Murgatroyd a light squeeze on the arm and lovingly stirred more salt into his drink. Murgatroyd supposed that he felt a little less miserable, but he also felt a little guilty, for he hadn’t told his mother the other reason for his misery: the mysterious closure of the Tutti-Frutti and the disappearance of Uncle Yusuf. In fact, Mum and Dad knew nothing about his home away from home. He hadn’t spoken a word to them about Uncle Yusuf, the ice cream, and certainly not about his recent visit to that glorious Great Freezer or what Uncle Yusuf told him about things being underway. Some inexplicable child’s instinct had always prevented him from telling them, and not telling them had been made easier by their never asking him how he had spent each day.

That night, before Murgatroyd went to bed, he stepped out onto the balcony of their flat and stared long and hard up at the heavens above. They lived in a well-to-do neighbourhood flanking a large nature reserve, and it was as quiet as anywhere in the rapidly developing city could be. But even at that distance and that height, the collective illumination from faraway high rises and shopping hubs tinted the dark sky purple and lessened the radiance of any visible stars. By squinting very hard, Murgatroyd could make out a few of them scattered here and there in the great expanse of the universe. Stars—Uncle Yusuf’s favourite flavour. So powerful was the memory that he could still taste the fiery explosion of that twinkling shard on his tongue, and felt—as he had at that moment in the Great Freezer—the magnificence of the universe unfurled before him, fluttering proudly on the mast of the great night sky.

For a moment, he imagined himself up there wandering among the stars, and he had the strange sense that the far, unknown reaches of space were where he truly belonged and where he would feel at home. This feeling came as a surprise to young Murgatroyd: his home was here, with Mum and Dad, wasn’t it? He reflected on this new feeling and whether it had any connection with the recent and strange developments of his life. Uncle Yusuf had said that there was more to come, that things were underway. What things? What was there to come? And what had happened to Uncle Yusuf? Would he ever see him again? What would life be like now that there was no ice cream shop, no Uncle? Now that he had to go to school? What was to become of him?
Things are underway!
The echo of Uncle Yusuf’s words still reverberated within Murgatroyd’s person. It made his heart tremble with joy.

Something was underway, it would seem. Or at least that’s what Uncle had said. Murgatroyd wasn’t sure what it was, but he felt sure that it was something very extraordinary. Something extraordinarily stupendous. Standing in the humid night air, eleven storeys above the hustle and bustle of the city, timid little Murgatroyd dared to take all of the emotions and feelings swimming around inside him and form them into a single, very bold thought:
Something extraordinarily stupendous is waiting for me
. This sudden and stubborn conviction first planted itself, then snuggled itself in the depths of his nine-year-old heart. There it would remain until some day in the future when Murgatroyd’s prediction eventually came true. What Murgatroyd didn’t know, and had no way of knowing, was that the extraordinarily stupendous Something had been interrupted with Yusuf’s death. It was not until much later in his life, long after the visit to the Great Freezer had been swept underneath the rug of memory, remembered only dimly as a strange childhood dream long past, that the Something would finally find him.