“Did you know about it?” Kampol asked in a whimper, which made Chong pull himself together.
“No…I’d never heard anything about it,” Chong said. “Do you know what contraceptive pills actually are?”
“Yeah,” Kampol said adamantly. “If a woman doesn’t want to have a baby she takes contraceptive pills to keep it from happening.”
Chong nodded. “Right, right—what you’ve been told is correct.”
Kampol’s face crumpled, and teardrops fell on his dinner plate. He didn’t have a lot of fried rice left, but not a single piece of the gunchiang edging his plate had been touched.
An alarm went off in Chong’s head. It had suddenly dawned on him what the boy thought the story meant, so he lifted Kampol onto his lap and tried to console him.
“Why are you crying, huh? I think you’re misunderstanding it.”
Kampol half spoke, half sniveled, but Chong was able to glean the sense: “There was no need to resort to the pill. It’s not like I wanted to be born.”
“Oh, Boy, you’ve got it wrong. You’ve got it all wrong.” But the grocer couldn’t come up with a good way to explain it. “It’s not like that, all right? It’s not like that at all.” He dragged out a long sigh, buying himself some time. “Trust me, all right? It’s not like that. I was there. I went to the hospital to visit you right after you were born. Your parents were both over the moon. And do you remember when you first started kindergarten, your mother going with you and sticking around until you got out? She even did it the second day, and the third.”
Kampol stopped sniffling. Chong’s words had transported his mind somewhere else.
“Today, Hia Chong, a bunch of the new kindergartners’ parents came and hung around the whole time, too. There was this kid named Piag. His grandma was one of the ones that stayed, and you could hear her calling him, ‘Granny’s Piag, Granny’s Piag.’ And she pounded her betel nut right there, just outside the classroom, and kept spitting out the juice—ptui, ptui—into a potted plant.”
Kampol, laughing at his own story, had Chong chuckling as well.
“My mother stayed with me on my first day, too?…”
Chong was about to say more, but realized that he should stop. Instead, he exclaimed, “Oh! Why aren’t you eating your gunchiang? Don’t you like it?”
“I do…I was saving them for last.”
And then Kampol dug into his gunchiang flower, savoring it a single petal at a time.
A Detective Story: Kids’ Edition
“The story goes that once upon a time, there were two friends, Juk and Klae. Juk had a top knot and Klae had pigtails. They were temple wards, and their duty was to carry lunchboxes as they followed the monk on his rounds for alms. One morning, the two found ten baht lying along the side of their route. Juk was quicker to pick up the money, but Klae claimed that he had seen it first, so the money ought to be his. Juk protested and they got into an argument. The Venerable Elder turned around and told them to stop fighting—they could settle the matter back at the temple.
“Once they’d returned, Juk immediately put the lunchbox down and ran off. He went into the banana grove and looked for a good place to hide the money. He dug a hole and buried the ten baht. Fearing that Klae might figure out where he’d hidden the money, he pondered what to do. Then he bent down and wrote in the dirt covering the hole: ‘No money is hidden in this hole.’
“Klae watched Juk as he came out of the banana grove, though he pretended to be minding his own business. Then when Juk had gone, he ran into the grove. He hunted around for a while before eventually spotting the words: ‘No money is hidden in this hole.’ Immediately, he knew that Juk had buried the ten baht there, so he dug up the hole, pocketed the money, and filled the hole back in. Fearing that he’d be found out, he pondered what to do. Then he bent down and wrote in the dirt covering the hole: ‘Klae didn’t steal the money.’
“When Juk returned for the money, he saw Klae’s note and figured out right away that it had been Klae who had stolen the ten baht.”
It was Dum who told the kids this story. Afterward, they tried to decide who was smarter, Juk or Klae. They had a heated debate as they strolled over to the grocery to buy themselves some snacks. As they approached the store, Jua, wanting to have his money ready, pulled it out of his pocket. But he wasn’t on guard, and the ten-baht coin was snatched right out of his hand.
It was Od who’d nabbed Jua’s coin. He held it up high and said to Jua, “Just let me borrow it—you can have it back later.” Od suggested the whole gang play a game of hide-the-coin. Jua was frowning, but he didn’t have the guts to stand up to Od, who was a lot bigger, so he grudgingly went along.
Curious, a group of girls that was watching TV at the grocery turned to watch. Eventually, they came over to see what the boys were up to. Only Penporn hung back, absorbed in the television and not to be distracted by anything else in the world.
Chong saw the kids assembled over by the sandpit. There’d be a ‘Hooray!’ and then a ‘Yippee!’ Even Penporn took her eyes off the TV to see what was happening. And then, as if she were hypnotized, her gaze latched onto something outside as it had been latched onto the TV, and her body moved toward it, getting up and walking on its own, as if defenseless against some unknown force. From the sound of it, the boys were having a great time. Shortly thereafter, Penporn returned to the store, bought herself a candy bar, and went back to watching TV, again cut off from the rest of the world.
Chong had been idly watching. Now, though, he sensed that something had gone wrong. The “hoorays” had turned into squabbling and crying. He saw Jua wiping tears from his face as he hobbled home. Chong couldn’t keep still any longer, so he called Kampol over for an interrogation.
“Jua’s money got lost,” Kampol told him. “Od, Rah, and Chai were playing, hiding Jua’s ten-baht coin in a hole in the sand. They’d then dig a bunch of fake holes and have Jua guess the right one. On his first turn, Jua guessed right, so he challenged them to another round. The second time, he guessed right again. So, the third time, Od said everyone—all of us watching—had to close our eyes, too, because people kept staring at the hole with the money, which helped Jua guess the right one. That third turn, Jua didn’t get it right. Not on the fourth or fifth times either. Od told him that once he guessed right again, he could have the money back. Jua tried again, and got it wrong again. Then, when Od went to reveal the right hole, there was no money inside. He said it was gone. We dug up all the holes but still couldn’t find it.”
Chong sent Kampol to go find Jua, and called all the other kids over to the store. With everybody convened, he launched his investigation.
“Everyone else had their eyes closed, Od, except you. And you were the last person to have the coin in his hand, the last to lay eyes on it, and the one who buried the money, isn’t that right?”
“Did all of them really have their eyes closed, though?” Od responded. “Maybe someone peeked. Then, after I hid the money, I was busy digging all the other holes so I wasn’t paying attention. Someone might have snatched the money while I was doing that.”
Chong ordered everyone to empty their pockets and lay out their coins and bills. Most of the kids didn’t have any money, though some did. But there was only one person with a ten-baht coin: Rah. Jua bent over the coin to inspect it, but he shook his head, saying no, his ten-baht coin had been much newer than that one. Then Chong suddenly realized: Penporn had used a ten-baht coin to pay for a candy bar after she came back from watching them play!
“I got it!” Chong announced excitedly to everyone. “It must have been Pen. She just paid me for a candy bar with a ten-baht coin. I remember—I gave her back five.”
“Nah, Hia Chong,” Penporn’s older sister Ploy said. “Pen had a ten-baht coin, too. Granny gave her one this morning.”
“Well, in that case, the money couldn’t have gone anywhere. It must just be buried somewhere in the sand.”
Chong found a sieve, shovel,
and bucket, and everyone swarmed the sandpit. The kids threw themselves into the task of shoveling and sifting and were having a blast. Chong stood by, watching them work. Suddenly, Penporn was standing next to him. She still had the five-baht coin he had given to her in change held tightly in her fist. He leaned down and told her to put the money in her pocket so it wouldn’t get lost. As she slid it into her pocket he heard the clink of coins.
Chong’s ears perked up. He laughed to himself, but didn’t let on. At that moment a customer happened to be calling for him from in front of the shop, so he hustled back. When he returned again, he jumped in and helped the children.
Finally, a ten-baht coin was caught by the sieve. It came up in some sand scooped by Chong. The children were as thrilled as can be. None of them had noticed that Penporn had disappeared. Chong scanned the neighborhood with his eyes, trying to find her. He finally saw the little girl moving toward something as though a force were drawing her to it. She stopped in front of an oleander bush, where a large caterpillar clung to a chewed-up flower.
Studying the creature, Penporn was not to be distracted by anything else in the world. And the rest of the world took no note of her comings and goings either.
Our House
Kampol and Oan shared one dream: they wanted a tree house of their own. They’d gotten the idea for it from an American movie they saw on TV. Of course, they kept it a secret. Only when they were alone did they talk about their dream house, and even then they spoke in whispers.
In the mornings before they went to school, the two would stop under the poinciana, gaze up into its great big branches, and picture their fort. For several days, the two boys, their eyes full of hope, had been scavenging the neighborhood for miscellaneous scrap materials. They skipped nothing. Whatever they happened to turn up, that object instantly revealed itself as a potential component of their little house. They dragged all manner of odds and ends over and piled them next to a bush behind Mrs. Tongjan’s house. No one could figure out how they would turn all that clutter into anything. But the two of them had precise plans—from the materials they’d gathered, they’d already developed a clear mental image of the house.
But the next step had them dismayed. They couldn’t figure out how to actually build the fort. Where should they even start? Plus, they needed to be up in the tree to do the construction. They could climb the poinciana when they had their hands free, without any building materials, and all they could do once they got up there was sit in the fork, hugging the trunk. In the tree, they would dream and dream until they tired themselves out, and then they would climb down. In their scheming they focused on Chong, as a person they trusted to help them.
The next night, Kampol and Oan, newly even more hopeless, commiserated over their situation. They had placed their trust in the wrong person. They had allowed Chong in on their secret, but he crushed their dream. When they had brought him to the tree to show him, his expression was still optimistic and enthusiastic. But once he saw their pile of building materials, Chong just shook his head. No matter how desperately the two of them begged, Chong just said it was impossible, and stuck to that. The two kids got mad at him, wanting to preserve their dream. As deflated as they were, they were not going to give up.
On their way home from school one day, Kampol and Oan passed a junk shop. They both slowed down at the same time. Hearts thumping, they stopped and stared: a giant cardboard box just the size of the house they’d been picturing was sitting on the bed of a pickup truck in the parking lot. Height-wise, it came up to the chin of the adult who was next to it. The man was reaching into the box and pulling out bundle after bundle of mixed paper. When he couldn’t reach any more of them, he tipped the box over, ducked low, and went into the box to get the remaining bundles. The shop owner was looking at the scale and scribbled in his ledger. Finally, the giant box was placed on the scale, too. Money in hand, the man pulled off in his pickup truck. Kampol and Oan dug in their pockets, pooled their money together, and counted it up. Then they marched into the shop like they were important customers.
Oan was in the front and Kampol was in the back—the box balanced on their heads. Their yelps and laughter resounded all the way to who-knows-where. Chong ran out of his store to see when he heard them.
The “house” was dropped onto its side in the middle of the neighborhood’s vacant lot. The bottom of the box, which was taped shut, faced west, while the “door” opened to the east. When they tried going inside, they saw that they could easily lie down side by side—it didn’t feel cramped at all. The two agreed that they would take turns watching over their fort. Oan went home to change and then came back to do his homework in their new house. Kampol changed, too, went over and gave Dang his massage, and then came back to do his homework in their new house as well. Everyone who passed by ducked low to look inside and say hello. Their friends gave them envious side eyes. Jua came over and hung out by the entrance. Mon called the two new homeowners for dinner, but they yelled back that they weren’t hungry because they didn’t want to abandon the house. Eventually, she had to deliver plates of food to them there. The two boys were completely caught up in the world of their new house, opening the door one minute and closing it the next.
That evening, Oan went back to his old house. He rummaged around until he found a candle. Mon had him stand it up inside a glass and lit it for him, and now their new house glimmered through the cracks around the door. When the candle burned low, Kampol ran over to fetch pillows and a blanket. Tonight, they thought, they would sleep in their new home for the first time…but their plan was foiled.
“Put those pillows back,” Mon told Kampol sternly. “And go get Oan. Playtime’s over.”
Kampol delivered the bad news to his friend, but Oan refused to leave. The two of them mulled over what to do about the fact that Mon wouldn’t let them spend the night in their new house. They hadn’t come up with a solution yet when someone’s hand opened the door. Noi poked his face in. Their hearts sank. But before they managed to say a thing, they heard Mon yelling at them from afar.
“Your mama’s calling you,” Noi said.
“Let’s bring it with us and put it inside the house for now,” Kampol said to Oan.
Noi quickly chimed in, “How the hell are you going to get it in there? It’s wider than the front door. Just leave it. I’ll sleep here and guard it for you. Come out! Your mama’s coming this way with her cane, you see her?”
Kampol and Oan dragged themselves out and Noi crawled in, taking their place. It pained them terribly to leave, but they didn’t dare put up a fight. Noi shut the door.
“That bastard gets one night, that’s it,” Oan said to Kampol in the dark as they lay on their mattress in the house.
“Tomorrow’s Friday. Before school, we should leave it with Hia Chong.”
“This weekend, we’ll spend both days at our fort.”
“I think at night we should carry it over and put it in front of your house. Your mama probably won’t mind if we sleep right outside.”
The two of them chatted until late. Once they fell asleep, they were dead asleep. Even as the next day broke, they were oblivious to the heavy rainstorm that had passed through during the night. Noi had bailed out of the little house hours ago. It had drunk up the water like a sponge. All it took were three nudges of the westerly wind, and the fort fell flat on its belly.
Liberty Beach
Most of the children didn’t have very much pocket money. Therefore, they managed their finances with prudence, but the hour just after school was when they blissfully ignored their budgets. Just outside the fence of the Baan Huaykapi School was a parking lot where, among parents in their cars or trucks or on their motorbikes waiting to pick up their children, trailers and pushcarts offered snacks and toys. Some of the kids were willing to forego candy and peanuts and such at lunchtime in order to save their money and buy goodies after school. The ones who’d spent their money would throw tantrums at the parents who had come to pic
k them up. Some of those parents, though, could only shake their heads with eyes that were more disappointed than their children’s.
One day, Kampol, munching on some prawn chips, saw how all the other children had boundaries imposed on them. Without knowing why exactly, he suddenly felt superior.
“Not having parents isn’t all bad,” Kampol told Oan as they walked home.
“Why not?” Oan asked him.
“I have more freedom than other people, that’s why. I don’t have to keep asking my mama for money. I can buy all the snacks I want, I can play wherever I want; I don’t have to ask permission from anybody.”
Oan thought for a moment, then asked, “But…what if you run out of money?”
“If I run out of money, I just go give Uncle Dang a massage, or I fetch people when they have phone calls.”
It was true that since the start of the term, Kampol had pocket money for school every day. A stomach and face pinched by hunger wasn’t something he’d had to endure, not really. His means of earning money evolved as he went along, but the amount was rather steady. Dang, the man who needed massages, was his number one source of income. Then there was his post staffing the telephone, notifying people when they had calls. He also did whatever general tasks people from Mrs. Tongjan’s neighborhood hired him for.
“But what if Uncle Dang doesn’t want a massage, no calls come in, no one needs anything from the store, and you’ve got no money?”
“Then I’d go find some other job, obviously. I can do anything I want, go anywhere I want.”
“And where would you go? You don’t have the nerve to go anywhere.”
“You want to bet? I could take off now if I wanted,” Kampol said, his voice cracking. “You want to come? Anywhere—the flea market, Ang Sila, even all the way to Bang Saen—any place is a possibility.”
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