Timothy and the Phubbers

by Ken Kwek

  “The who?”

  “Bullies. In school. Killing me. Also, Rudy.” Timothy was trying to speak to his sister in short phrases so his words would register with her. It seemed to work.

  “I don’t know. Just cry.”

  “That’s your advice? ‘Just cry’?”

  “Mum gets whatever she wants when she cries,” said Tara. “Whenever she cries, Dad tells her to buy something nice online. And that’s like every hour.”

  “Insane.”

  “True, though.”

  “Can I borrow your phone?”

  “No!” whined Tara.

  “Please?”

  “I said NO! Now will you stop bugging me? You’re such an annoying PEST!”

  Tara harrumphed loudly and retreated to her bedroom, leaving her brother alone at the dining table.

  Timothy looked at the empty seats around him. Despite his best efforts not to feel sorry for himself, he felt sorry for himself. All he was to his family was a pest. He thought about the taunts he and Rudy had endured, all the food and money the bullies had stolen, the innumerable times he had eaten mud in just one short month of secondary school.

  Life sucks! he thought.

  He stared miserably at the fried rice on his plate and the wontons floating in his soup. He fidgeted in his seat trying to distract himself, but, before he could stifle it with a wonton, he let out a long, thunderous: “WWWWWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!”

  He cried so loudly that even Christina Aguilera, who was in the kitchen washing the rice cooker (and singing Nicki Minaj’s “Super Bass” while twerking at Casper), could hear him. She rushed into the dining room.

  “Ohmygaad! What is wrong, Teemothee?”

  But Timothy could not manage a reply, other than: “WWWWWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!”

  “Siiirrr!” Christina Aguilera shouted as Mr Pong reappeared from his study to see what had happened.

  “What’s going on?” he said, with his iPhone still glued to his left ear and his Samsung Galaxy held to his right.

  Mrs Pong scrambled into the living room with half a fake eyelash drooping from one of her eyelids. “What did I miss?”

  “Siiirrr! Maaam! I don’t know why but Timothee is crying so berry budly!”

  Mr and Mrs Pong never got to the bottom of why Timothy was crying so “berry budly”. But they did manage to calm their son by offering to buy him a phone.

  4

  Triple S Project

  “That is sick!” said Rudy.

  “And I wasn’t even forcing it,” said Timothy, explaining how his parents had bought him a phone. He wasn’t proud of bawling his eyes out, but Rudy was someone Timothy could share his most embarrassing experiences with.

  “What model did you get?” asked Rudy.

  “ASUS.”

  “Cool. All I’ve got is a Nokia. It totally sucks and––”

  “Wait a sec,” said Timothy. “You’ve got a phone?”

  “It’s my dad’s old phone. It has buttons and a non-LED screen that’s the size of a stamp,” said Rudy.

  “Still! How come your parents can’t give you lunch money, but they can afford to give you a phone?”

  “Duh! ’Cos food is a luxury but a phone is a necessity.”

  Timothy thought about this. Were Rudy’s parents phubbers too?

  “Besides, even if they gave me food, I wouldn’t eat it,” said Rudy. “Their cooking tastes worse than caterpillars.”

  Timothy frowned, knowing Rudy had literally eaten caterpillars so knew what he was talking about. Their conversation ended abruptly when everyone in morning assembly stood up to sing the national anthem, which everyone sang off tune.

  The school principal, Mrs Agatha Oei, a cheerful woman with big, wayward hair that always looked like she’d spent an entire two seconds pruning it when she got out of bed every morning, stepped up to the rostrum to make a few announcements:

  “Pupils of Bangsvale, it is my pleasure to announce two exciting events that are coming up in the school calendar. They are the biggest events for us this year and the reason why I haven’t announced them sooner is because I forgot.”

  This evoked a ripple of laughter among the one thousand students gathered in the assembly hall. Everyone loved how forgetful their principal was. They thought it was hilarious when she turned up at school on Sunday mornings.

  “The first event is the Drama Society’s production of Romeo & Juliet, which will be staged on the last day of school before the June holidays.”

  Rudy was a keen member of the Drama Society, he nudged Timothy excitedly.

  Timothy smiled. “Let me guess: you’re going to audition for Juliet.”

  “Or Juliet’s nurse,” said Rudy. With his high voice, he thought he stood a good chance at landing a solid female role.

  “What happens if you hit puberty before the show?” said Timothy.

  Rudy considered the possibility and frowned.

  “The second event,” continued Mrs Oei, “is the Science and Social Studies Fair, or ‘Triple S Fair’, which will be held at the end of the year. The classes with the best project will win a trip to the ArtScience Museum. Both events will be ticketed and all proceeds will go to the Bangsvale Alumni Association, which, as we all know, is still bankrupt since its formation in 1975.”

  It was now Timothy’s turn to get excited. He was a self-professed science geek, with a passion for robotics. Several ideas began germinating in his mind.

  “I can see the gears turning in your head,” said Rudy, spying the glimmer in his friend’s eyes.

  “Yeah,” said Timothy. Then, with less certainty, “I just need to convince Miss Chin.”

  To be selected for the Triple S team, Timothy would have to win the approval of his form teacher, Miss Harriet Chin. Achieving this would be no mean feat, given Miss Chin’s reputation as the toughest and loudest teacher at Bangsvale. Timothy had never spoken to her on a one-on-one basis, out of fear of being eaten alive.

  “EVERYBODY LISTEN UP!” said Miss Chin at the start of class in her usual high-decibel manner. “If there’s one thing more essential than presenting a brilliant project, it’s presenting a WINNING project. It’s not the Nobel prize, but still. A win will bring honour and respect to your class, and nothing – I repeat NOTHING – IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN EARNING THE RESPECT OF YOUR PEERS.”

  A few pupils felt their chairs vibrate from the soundwaves emanating from Miss Chin’s mouth.

  Miss Chin’s steely competitiveness was matched by her sturdy build. She was nicknamed “Hairy Chin” because she sported a thin beard. She had an angular jaw and a masculine physique which she tried to conceal with flowery blouses and pleated skirts.

  Some of the meaner kids called her “Smelly Hairy Chin”, as Miss Chin had a distinct pong, a mixture of garlic breath and durian body odour.

  “WELL?” she said, surveying the thirty pupils before her. “IS SOMEONE GOING TO GET THE BALL ROLLING, OR HAVE YOU ALL TAKEN A VOW OF SILENCE?”

  The pupils remained silent.

  “SOMEBODY SUGGEST SOMETHING!”

  By now, the hair of the pupils sitting in the front row had shot up so they looked like Trolls.

  The class monitor, Sheryl, an intelligent but unimaginative girl, stood up. She proposed doing a presentation on the government’s massive campaign to clean up the polluted Singapore River in the 1970s.

  “It was a major historical event,” said Sheryl. “And they had to use all kinds of chemical and industrial methods to get rid of the waste and grime—”

  “WHAT’S WRONG WITH A BIT OF GRIME?” Miss Chin cried. She folded her arms so that her hands cupped her armpits. “WHO’S GOING TO CARE HOW MUCK WAS DISSOLVED TO CREATE A RIVER TOO CLEAN FOR FISH TO SWIM IN?”

  Sheryl sat back down, dispirited.

  A boy named Teo Gee raised his hand. He wanted to find out if oolong tea could be used as a cleaning agent, since the Chinese drank it after greasy meals to emulsify fats in their digestive tracts and remove oil from the mouth
. Miss Chin rolled her eyes and vetoed Teo Gee’s proposal as well.

  “NEEEEEEEEXT!”

  Miss Chin saw a boy sitting at a desk in the middle row who looked like he wanted to say something but was too shy to raise his hand. Then she realised his hand was raised, only he was so tiny she had not noticed him before.

  “TIMOTHY, I HOPE YOU HAVE A PROPOSAL MORE SCINTILLATING THAN THE PURIFICATION OF SEWAGE OR THE CLEANSING OF PEANUT OIL.”

  “Erm…yes,” replied Timothy. He suddenly felt the burn of thirty pairs of eyes gazing at him.

  “I’D LIKE TO HEAR IT BEFORE WE ALL GROW OLD.”

  “Rudy and I were thinking of building a robot,” Timothy blurted out. “A robot that can be programmed to feed our class pets automatically.”

  Rudy looked at Timothy, puzzled. His friend had not mentioned anything about building a pet-feeding robot. In fact, Rudy had been thinking about eating the pet food himself during recess.

  Miss Chin pursed her lips. She stroked the wiry hairs on her chin and considered Timothy’s suggestion. She was pleased it did not involve any form of public or personal hygiene. Miss Chin sometimes conveyed glimpses of newfound confidence in her students by speaking in a non-deafening volume. This didn’t happen often.

  “I like it,” she said. “I’m putting you in charge, Timothy. Pick your team.”

  5

  Stingy Old Fool

  The Pongs were all sitting together around the dinner table. They were having a family meal out at a Korean barbecue restaurant and it had taken over two hours to discuss going to the school play. Life with a phone was awesome. Timothy was finally on the family WhatsApp.

  On the way home from the restaurant, Mr Pong made an unexpected detour. It took Timothy, who was fast becoming a phubber himself, a full ten minutes to pry his eyes away from his phone and notice that the car had stopped moving. He looked out of the window.

  Mr Pong had parked along an unfamiliar road, outside a row of shophouses. The dim lights along the five-foot way flickered so Timothy couldn’t read the sign above the shutters his dad was pounding on.

  A panel of the shutters rolled open. Timothy could just make out a dark figure, tall and stooping, in the doorway. He was wearing a black silk robe that made him look like a Japanese assassin.

  Mr Pong took something out from his pocket and held it up to the Japanese assassin. It looked like a wristwatch. The man pushed aside his bangs, like he was opening curtains, and put on a pair of large round spectacles to examine the watch.

  Less than a minute later, Mr Pong stomped back to the car, muttering angrily to himself. He got into the driver’s seat and slammed the door.

  “‘Retro but not vintage.’ What’s the difference?” Mr Pong said as he fired the ignition. “Stingy old fool! Still the same after all these years!”

  Mrs Pong and Tara paid no attention to Mr Pong, but Timothy was curious. “Who was that?”

  Timothy realised his mistake and tried again.

  In fact, Mr Pong’s cousin wasn’t an old weirdo, or a fool. He was younger than Mr Pong by two months, for one thing, and he was of perfectly sound judgement. However, Mr Pong and his cousin had never seen eye to eye. They’d grown up together, in a four-room Housing Board flat, where Mr Pong’s money-conscious mother had lorded over them both like Napoleon (not Napoleon the tiny French Emperor, but Napoleon the bossy pig in Animal Farm).

  Mr Pong was like Squealer – always involved in the action and, as a young boy, spent a lot of time being loud and squealing (to the annoyance of his cousin). His cousin, on the other hand, was more like Benjamin, the donkey – not willing to get caught up in any dramas or nonsense, and much happier with the simpler things in life.

  As they grew up from squabbling boys to mutually mistrustful adults, their paths grew further apart. Mr Pong became the go-getting money man: a striker of deals, counter of cents, owner of multiple mobile phones.

  By contrast, the cousin avoided the world of high-value stocks and high-tech gadgets completely. He preferred ruminating over dusty amulets, rusty samurai swords and other unwanted things – but not just any old rubbish, like a broken Casio watch.

  Timothy looked out of the window again. Mr Pong’s cousin had stepped out into the light of the street lamp. He was staring straight at them. Dad’s cousin is creepy, thought Timothy. He was glad when his dad finally put the car into gear and sped off in a huff.

  Mr Pong’s cousin stood in the street and shook his head, disapproving of the ghostly shadows he could see in the car. He couldn’t see their faces as it was too dark, but the outlines of their heads and shoulders were garishly illuminated by the LED screens each of them held in front of their faces.

  6

  Pretty Girl

  Luckily for Timothy, the greatest scientific minds (or science geeks) in his class were keen to come on board his team to work on his pet-feeding robot. These were, namely, Gilbert and Wacky.

  Gilbert wore thick spectacles and had a nervous demeanour. He was a theoretical expert in robotics – that is, he was an expert in theory and had yet to put his skills successfully into practice.

  Wacky was a young inventor, with huge eyes and jug ears poking out of her long tresses so she looked like an African galago, or a Furby, with hair. Wacky had a proven track record. Her previous inventions included an eraser for erasing invisible ink, a can opener for opening fizzy drinks while bouncing on a trampoline, and a machine that sorted Fruit Loops according to colour.

  Rudy did not have a great scientific mind – he didn’t even have a good scientific mind – but, as Timothy’s best friend, he was on the team anyway.

  All members of the Triple S team were huddled around Timothy’s phone trying to fix a flawed code on a robotics app they were using called AutomateIt. Phones and tablets were generally banned in school but Miss Chin had made an exception for them.

  The team were allowed to use their phones for the purpose of developing their pet-feeding robot. If they were caught using them for “any other nonsense”, Miss Chin had warned, they would be severely punished, most likely with detention.

  “I don’t understand,” said Gilbert. “The code looks right to me.”

  “Well, it’s obviously wrong,” said Timothy, scratching his head.

  “I don’t see why we can’t offer the animals a varied menu,” said Wacky.

  “It all looks so tasty,” said Rudy.

  “Aaargh, this is killing me!” said Gilbert, sinking into a chair.

  The robot they were building was a foot high with tennis balls for legs. It had small spades for arms to scoop food. The team called it Eat-Z (“Eat-zee”).

  Eat-Z was programmed to feed the fish, then the hamsters, and lastly the terrapins. But Eat-Z had just scattered fish food into the terrapin tank, dropped hamster food into the fish bowl, and dumped terrapin food in the hamster cage.

  “Maybe we should take a break, start again tomorrow with fresh minds,” suggested Timothy, as he retrieved a snail from the hamster cage. The others nodded.

  “Hacky sack or capteh in the B-ball court?” said Wacky.

  “I suck at both,” said Gilbert.

  “You won’t get any better if you don’t practise.”

  “Fine,” said Gilbert.

  “Rudy? Tim?” said Wacky, grabbing a feathered shuttlecock from her backpack.

  “Nah, you guys go ahead,” said Timothy.

  Ignoring his own advice, Timothy looked back at his phone and turned on AutomateIt. He wanted to have another go at fixing the code.

  “I can’t think when I’m hungry,” said Rudy. Timothy looked up and saw Rudy ladle a soggy cabbage leaf out from the fish bowl and put it in his mouth.

  “Buddy,” said Timothy, pulling out some coins from his pocket and tossing them to his pal. “Get us some chicken sandwiches from the canteen?”

  “Yeah, sure! Thanks!” said Rudy.

  “And Rude…”

  Rudy turned and looked at Timothy.

  “Be careful out there
.”

  Rudy nodded. He took a deep breath and left for the canteen.

  A minute later, Timothy heard someone walk into the classroom. Wow, that was fast, Rudy! he thought.

  He turned around to face the door but it wasn’t Rudy. It was an older girl who had wandered in. She had long eyelashes, rosy cheeks and long wavy hair that was bundled up in a yellow scrunchie. Timothy looked at her and his mouth fell open.

  She was the prettiest girl he had ever seen. An angel, in fact. There was even a halo of light that shone out from behind her head (it was just the glare from the sun that had reflected off a window pane).

  “Hi,” the girl said. “Can I take a look at the hamsters? Rudy told me about your project at drama and I was soooo excited. I just love animals.”

  “Go ahead,” said Timothy. He propped his elbow on top of the cage in an attempt to look relaxed, even though his heart rate had increased.

  “I’m Bella, by the way.”

  “I’m Timothy. Which class are you in?”

  “2F,” replied Bella. Timothy thought she looked way more mature than a second-year. (Then again anyone taller than a toddler looked grown-up compared to Timothy.)

  Bella peered into the cage at the two hamsters. One was running in the wheel. The other was sniffing around a pile of his own poop.

  “So cuuute!” cooed Bella. She turned from the cage to look at Timothy, as if she was saying it about him. Trying not to blush, Timothy pointed at the hamsters.

  “That’s Duke and that’s Orange,” he said.

  “You guys are so lucky to have a pet corner.” She made smoochy noises at the hamsters and laughed.

  Orange jumped off the wheel and scurried over to take a drink from the upside-down bottle tied to the cage.

  “I’m thirsty too,” said Bella. She reached into her tote bag, fished out a water bottle and was dismayed to find it empty. “Oh, sigh.”

  She turned to Timothy. “Could you fill this up at the cooler outside for me? I really want to stay and play with these cuties.”