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  I took her to the sick bay, where I asked a colleague on duty to watch over her. I told Zhuang Jing I was going to make arrangements at the hospital, but in reality I raced to report the matter to the school administration. An emergency meeting was convened and a consensus was reached: her mother had to be notified before we could even contemplate our next step.

  I called Mrs. Seetoh and asked her to wait for us at her house.

  “Has anything happened to my daughter?” she asked with palpable anxiety.

  “We’ll talk about it when we get there.”

  I put down the phone, jumped into the car, and rushed to their house with Mr. Teo.

  “What’s happened?” Mrs. Seetoh demanded the moment she saw us. “Why are people at school always picking on my daughter?” Then she became nervous when she noticed that her daughter was not with us. “What’s happened to Zhuang Jing? Why isn’t she with you?”

  We told her everything. Her initial reaction was one of disbelief. She even loudly accused us of slandering her daughter, and threatened to sue us. When she finally believed us, however, she turned wooden from the shock.

  “Mrs. Seetoh, you’d be driving her straight to her grave if you said anything critical right now. She’s your only daughter, and you must do everything you can to help her get past this major obstacle in her life.”

  4

  Mrs. Seetoh personally made the arrangements for her daughter’s abortion.

  I believed that it would be in Zhuang Jing’s best interests to leave her rumour-rife environment and move to a different school where she could make new friends, continue her studies and have a fresh start. Zhuang Jing and her mother agreed with me, and with the school’s recommendation, she made a smooth transfer to another secondary school.

  The day before she left, I took Zhuang Jing to a fast food restaurant near our school for lunch. I ordered barbecued chicken for her. She had a good appetite and polished off three large pieces of chicken in no time. Sunlight streaming in through the windows landed on her fair, flawless face. As Zhuang Jing smiled shyly at me, her dimple danced quietly. She seemed to be brimming with dreams for the future. She had gone through a terrible ordeal, but with the help of people around her, she had been given a second chance. Of course there would be a scar, but it would fade with time and might even disappear one day. Most importantly, Mrs. Seetoh had learned a lesson she would never forget as long as she lived, and had changed the way she treated her child.

  Shortly after Zhuang Jing’s transfer, I read an exciting report in the newspaper: The Singaporean government was adopting multimedia sex education materials for lower secondary school students, who could begin to learn the correct approach to sexual relationships through innovative pedagogy. I approved this preventive approach.

  A card from Zhuang Jing arrived around New Year’s Day. In it, she had written, “Madam Tham, I really like my new school. I’ve made many friends, so please don’t worry. I’ll take good care of myself.”

  Sunlight remained quietly outside my window, but inside I could smell its sweet fragrance.

  The Witch and the Fairy

  1

  THE EARLY MORNING sky was a vibrant blue, and the emerald green lawn was bathed in sunlight imbued with vitality. Like a sprouting mushroom, a dark shadow appeared suddenly on the scene. As I walked closer, I realised that the mushroom was shuddering.

  It was a girl.

  She was resting on her haunches. Her head was hanging so low that her long hair engulfed it, but I could see her shoulders heaving. She was sobbing and the profound, heavy sorrow seemed to weigh down the air around her.

  It was the first week of school, a joyful time of welcoming new students. What had so upset this newly arrived junior college student to make her sob like that out there? To ask about the cause of her suffering at such a moment would have been to pour salt on her wound, so I crouched down and gently put my arm around her.

  “Come, I’ll take you to the sick bay,” I said softly.

  She shook her head, remaining as motionless as a fossil. But she could no longer hold back the flood of tears that spilled out as she collapsed on my shoulder. I stayed put and let her cry as much as she needed to. After a while, I said, “Come with me, let’s go and freshen up.” Perhaps exhausted from crying, she stood up listlessly, and I had to hide my shock when I saw her face. A large patch of her left cheek was blood red as if bruised, and the uneven surface resembled a lava field. It was a disconcerting sight. Without looking at me, she walked slowly with her head down, and when we reached the girls’ restroom, she turned and bowed slightly. “Thank you,” she said in a mosquito-like voice, “I’m fine now.” I didn’t believe her, but I had to respect her desire to be alone. So I let her go in by herself. Then I went to find a member of the Student Council and asked her to keep an eye on the sobbing girl.

  Later, after speaking to a few students, I learned what had happened.

  That morning, the junior college had hosted a big dance for the several hundred new students on the field. At first, boys had danced with boys and girls with girls, but soon the students began dancing with the opposite sex. After this girl made a twirl, she discovered, to her surprise, that her dance partner had fled in the rudest and most inconsiderate manner, leaving her frozen on the spot alone. The students who had witnessed the incident giggled, and a wicked boy even joked, “The prince was frightened off by the witch.” After the dance, the new students filed into the auditorium for more orientation activities—everyone except her, who like a wounded animal, crouched in dejection, licking her wounds.

  2

  School started after a week of orientation activities. As luck would have it, the girl was placed in my class. She sat by the window. Long hair covered her left cheek, exposing the right side of her face which was pale and cold, like frost that had formed over thousands of years. Yet I knew that beneath that off-putting façade lay a heart which had never stopped bleeding, and it was my job to help the wound heal. But how was I to wrap the festering wound with the invisible gauze in my hands? Before finding the right strategy, I knew better than to make any rash moves, because a single misstep could make an irreparable mess of things.

  I kept an eye on her. She was focused in class and meticulous with her homework, which she clearly wanted done with perfection. When I read her essays, I noticed that she preferred analytical topics. She had a logical mind and expertly wrote long essays that were well organised and convincingly argued—all evidence of her strong language ability and advanced analytical skills.

  What bothered me was her reluctance to socialise. She kept quiet all day, like an ancient hermit who preferred isolation from the rest of the world. On those occasions when the class did group work, the other students would be in high spirits as they looked for partners. She, on the other hand, would sit impassively in a corner and ignore me no matter how hard I tried to talk her into joining a group. Every once in a while, she would force herself to sit with a group, but she would never participate in the discussion. While the other students would be engaged in animated conversation, she would act so aloof, she might as well not have been a member of the group. Sometimes she would even turn and look out the window at the sky or the clouds as if her group mates were transparent. This naturally upset the others, and they grew to dislike her. When they heard her name, they inevitably developed feelings of rejection. In the end, a vicious cycle was formed.

  A week into the semester, the teacher in charge of co-curricular activities came to tell me that this girl, whose name was To Man-Ru, had not handed in an activity form. The rules of the junior college required every student to participate in at least one activity, but Man-Ru had ignored the teacher and refused to hand in her form. Since the teacher-in-charge didn’t know what else to do, she came to see me.

  I decided to begin by learning about Man-Ru’s family background. After class that day, without informing Man-Ru, I called her mother and asked her to come and see me.

  I was stunned
when I saw Man-Ru’s mother. She was a beautiful, middle-aged woman with delicate, flawless features that looked as if they had been painted. Her most attractive feature was her skin, which was smooth, glossy, clean and soft, like silk or jade or flawless marble. Mrs. To had no sooner taken her seat when she asked stiffly, “Has Man-Ru caused trouble again?”

  “No,” I said. “She’s a good girl.”

  “Good girl?” She laughed softly and mirthlessly. “You’re the first teacher to say that.” She paused and frowned, then released a burst of talk. “I must have owed this child big time in my previous life. She has been tormenting me since the moment she was born. Why else would she have that big, ugly birthmark, which makes her look more like an unsightly ghost than a human? Do you know, her sisters are all pretty girls? But she’s like an alien! With a face like that, it wouldn’t be so bad if she were gentle and easy-going—but no, she’s difficult. Everyone in our family suffers from her temper.”

  By then, it was clear to me that Man-Ru had a difficult time at home. Her family was quite obviously the breeding ground for her low self-esteem.

  “Mrs. To,” I said earnestly, “Man-Ru isn’t very sociable. She seems quite unhappy. Do you think we could work together to help her gain some self confidence?”

  “She has a worry-free life at home,” said Mrs. To in a cool voice. “She eats what she wants and gets what she likes. What reason does she have to be unhappy? Her father spoils her simply because of her disfigurement. So what else does she want?” Her words had a hateful ring to them. “Nothing pleases her and she has no sense of gratitude. Day in and day out she’s in a bad mood, and her teachers are forever complaining to me. What a headache.”

  As the saying goes, even a single word is excessive with people who don’t share your view. This woman did not understand, and refused to enter, Man-Ru’s inner world. It looked like our conversation had been a waste of time. But I received a glimmer of hope when she mentioned Man-Ru’s father, so I called him the following day and asked him to come to school.

  He was a big man with broad shoulders and a strong back. Two prominent dimples danced when he talked, which gave the impression that he was always smiling. When we met, he reached out and shook my hand vigorously.

  “Man-Ru is a studious girl. She works hard at her studies, even though she does have a bit of a temper. Please don’t be hard on her.” He paused before continuing frankly, “Her fundamental problem is low self-esteem, which makes her unsociable. She and her mother don’t get along very well, and I’m too busy with work to talk her around. Madam Tham, I truly hope you can help me.”

  With an understanding and open-minded father, I would not have to fight the battle alone any more, and I felt as if a heavy weight had been lifted off my shoulders.

  I mentioned Man-Ru’s refusal to take part in co-curricular activities. He considered the situation for a while, before saying, “She’s a loner and not much of a talker. But she likes to read. Her English and Chinese are both quite good, so could you consider letting her join a reading group or something of that nature?”

  What a terrific idea! I went ahead and urged her to join my Chinese language study group. To my happy surprise, she actually nodded and agreed without hesitation.

  3

  At the study group’s first meeting, I wrote the title of their first essay, “My Self-Portrait”, on the whiteboard and asked the students to try and convey a complete, unadorned picture of themselves on paper. Through this sort of self-analysis, I hoped to encourage them to understand both their positive and negative attributes.

  Perhaps Man-Ru had been touched by my friendly attitude and genuine concern, because she was brutally honest in her depiction of herself in her essay. One section, in particular, seemed to have been written in tears:

  “I am a scary witch. This is what my mother says and what others think of me. Heaven handed down a death sentence the moment I was born and I grew up under the repellent gaze of others. Love is an unfamiliar word to me. Sometimes I feel like killing myself, but I cannot bring myself to do it because I know it would hurt my father deeply. He is probably the only one who would shed tears over my death. I envy turtles and snails for their hard shells, which give them a place to hide when they are unhappy or need to escape the malicious gaze of others. They needn’t worry even if the sky were to fall. I have no future. I study hard, but that is merely a way to pass the time as I have nothing else to do.”

  It was unbearably painful to read those words and I felt as if a needle had been thrust into my heart. Occupied with thoughts of the poor girl, I couldn’t fall asleep that night.

  After class the next day, I asked her to see me in the counselling office, where I’d laid out three eggs—a duck’s egg, a salted egg and a century egg. When she sat down, I picked up a knife and told her to watch carefully. I raised the knife and sliced the first egg in half. After repeating the process twice more, I showed her the three different inner worlds of the eggs.

  “Look,” I said. She looked on with wide eyes.

  “These eggs have no say in what they’ll eventually become. Take the century egg, for example. It’s inky black and has no beauty to speak of, but it doesn’t give up on itself. Instead, it shuts itself in for self-cultivation until it creates its own unique beauty and glamour. Now everyone is taken by its delicious taste. Who would refuse to eat, or even taste, it because it’s black and ugly?”

  She didn’t say anything, but a nearly imperceptible light began to slowly shine in her eyes. Inspiring words can sometimes exert tremendous, even life-changing, influence on intelligent people, and I knew I had to seize the opportunity and keep going. “Man-Ru, some things are predetermined in life, and we might not have the means, the ability or the power to change them. We need to face these things first, then accept them and finally forget their existence. Then we must try our best to discover and develop our good qualities. Sometimes self-confidence gives us a unique charm. Do you understand what I’m getting at?” She hung her head, not saying a word, but I could see that she was thinking and coming to some kind of understanding.

  I have found that the rigid format of assigned essays can, over a long period of time, afflict more creative students with writing fatigue. So I decided to experiment with a series of more innovative and interesting curricula for the students in my Chinese language study group. I titled our first activity, which involved going out of the classroom and into the field for interviews, “Spring in Winter”. I took the students to visit members of the Spastic Children’s Association so the students could interview the children and write about their struggles. At the same time, I hoped to show how these disabled members of society were learning to support themselves and live independently, and disprove the misconception that they were worthless to society. To be honest, I’d also created the assignment with an unspoken ulterior motive: I was hoping that Man-Ru would open her eyes and see how she had magnified her own misfortune.

  On the morning we arrived at the association, a gentle sun was weaving its thousands of golden filigrees into a net which sheltered the earth. The students walked spiritedly into the walled grounds as if they were going on a hike. The moment we passed through the gate, we were greeted by a patch of pleasing greenery on which some children with rigid muscles and uncoordinated movements were straining, and not always succeeding, to kick a ball with their stick-like legs. They were squealing with happiness. Quite a few children were standing around—some with hearing aids, some with thick glasses, some with a missing ear, and others who appeared mentally disabled. They were all staring blankly at us, the uninvited guests.

  My students, who had been talking and laughing, were taken aback and grew silent when they entered this strange and unfamiliar world, coming face to face with this group of children who were less fortunate than themselves.

  Before the visit, I had read everything I could find about the association and gave a detailed explanation to the students. There were many causes for the children’s disab
ilities, but all were related to birth, particularly premature births. Premature babies’ heads are too soft, which diminishes their breathing capacity, and this in turn affects their brain development and leads to convulsive disorders. Disabilities can also be caused by birthing complications such as a blow, a fall or prolonged labour. It can happen when a fetus is underdeveloped, or if the newborn infant contracts jaundice, high fever or meningitis. Over forty percent of the children at the association had underdeveloped brains. The Spastic Children’s Association was formed to provide them with special education and skills training so they could learn to lead independent lives.

  In one of the classrooms, we saw a teacher pointing to the letter A and tirelessly repeating it for a thin boy. His face was bathed in sweat as he forced his mouth and tongue to cooperate, but he kept failing to say it correctly. We were told that he had been trying to pronounce the letter for a month, but still had not managed to do so. In addition to impaired intelligence and poor eyesight, he also had twisted arms, which he could not use freely. He had a bad temper and often flew into a rage for no apparent reason. But his teacher had an endless store of patience in teaching, caring for and comforting the child. She hoped that he would know the world had not abandoned him simply because of his learning disabilities. Another child was having trouble controlling his hands. His teacher gave him a sheet of paper and a brush to dip in paint. Although it was placed right in front of him, his uncooperative hand kept moving to the left, and only after several tries did he manage to dip the brush into the paint can. His hand, however, refused to return to the paper, forcing him to smear the desk with dripping paint. Yet his teacher wore a smile the whole time, encouraging him and saying, “It’s all right. Let’s try again.”

  These students had embarked on a long, hard road in their studies and might never reach their destination, but their teachers neither regretted their choice of profession nor complained about the exhausting work.