On the page of her book, Pink saw one tear fall, then another.
The girls were openly laughing and pointing now, and Pink’s anger had grown from a spark to a flame. He had to hold on to his antennae to keep himself from casting a spell he might regret. He’d seen people like this before in his travels: people who needed to step on others to raise themselves up, people who took delight in causing others pain. Many had come to the witch’s door seeking out ways to do just that; heck, the witch herself had often indulged in a good old hex or two and laughed long and hard about it. He just hadn’t realized they could start so young.
“Maybe that’s how they do it in the kampung. Hey, Kampung Girl!”
The shout was aimed at her, but Suraya kept her eyes firmly on her book, refusing to look their way.
“Hey! You, with the torn shoes and that dishrag of a uniform!” More giggles, and this time Pink could see Suraya bite her lip, hard. A single drop of blood pooled beneath her teeth, and she quickly licked it away.
The book was suddenly snatched from her hand. “What could you be reading that’s so interesting you can’t even reply when someone calls you, Kampung Girl?” This girl was clearly the leader, her long straight hair tied back in a high ponytail with white ribbon, her uniform still crisp and clearly new. Her shoes were white canvas, but designed to look like ballet slippers instead of the plain old Velcro or lace-up sneakers the others had. A shiny gold K dangled from a chain on her bright pink backpack.
“I didn’t know you were calling me,” Suraya said finally, her voice calm and even. “That’s not my name, after all.”
“Your name is whatever I choose to call you.” Pink heard a thunk as the book was tossed to the floor. “It could be Kampung Girl. It could be Smelly. It could be whatever I want. Understand?”
Suraya said nothing, and K’s eyes narrowed. “I said. Do. You. Understand.”
One of the girl’s minions, a pretty girl with dark skin and a mass of long curls, tugged on Suraya’s long braid once, hard, so hard that it made her yelp and brought tears to her eyes. But Suraya nodded very slightly—at least enough to satisfy K.
“Very good.” The girl leaned in close, and Pink smelled bubblegum-scented shampoo and baby lotion. “You don’t belong here,” she whispered. “And I’m not going to let you forget it.”
The bell rang then, signaling the start of assembly, and the girls scattered to line up with their classes, leaving Suraya breathless, scrambling to get up and gather her things, her eyes still glassy with unshed tears.
As she walked quickly to her line, she left a trail of white dust behind her.
Thankfully, K and her minions weren’t in Suraya’s class, and Pink could feel her body relax as she slipped into the familiar routine of a school day: new books, new teachers, new things to learn. Suraya’s mind was a sponge, and she never seemed to mind what was put in it so long as there were interesting things to soak up and absorb along the way.
The bell for recess sounded, and Suraya made her way to the canteen, gripping a plastic container she’d hastily filled that morning with a banana, a boiled egg that her mother had received at a wedding and left on the kitchen table, and three bahulu from the heavy glass jar on the kitchen counter. The banana was riper than she’d thought, and she had to peel it carefully so that it wouldn’t fall apart; even so, when she took a bite, she somehow managed to spill a huge chunk of banana mush down the front of her pinafore. It looked like she’d been sick.
From a table nearby came a chorus of familiar giggles, and Pink turned to see K and her gaggle of girls looking at Suraya and laughing. He turned back, his face contorted in his most ferocious grasshopper scowl. He could tell Suraya was trying not to cry as she dabbed at the stain furiously with a tissue. Eat the bahulu, he told her gently. You’ll feel better.
She shook her head slightly at him.
Suraya. Eat.
This time she obeyed, though not without a small sigh. The round, seashell-shaped little sponge cakes had always been her favorites, but now all she could do was turn it around and around in her hands, nibbling at the edges. As she did, Pink saw her steal a glance at K’s table, and at K’s brilliant turquoise lunch box, adorned with stickers of the latest K-pop boy band sensation. When she opened it, they could also see that each of the lunch box’s sections was filled with food: a heap of fried noodles, still steaming slightly; a slice of yellow butter cake; a handful of cookies studded with chocolate chunks; picture-perfect orange slices, plump and juicy. “Oh look!” K’s face somehow managed to look both pleasantly surprised and unbearably smug. “My mother is so thoughtful. Isn’t it nice when someone cares enough about you to pack you a proper lunch?”
That, Pink decided, was quite enough. If he had to sit here one more minute and watch Suraya’s cheeks burn and her eyes water, he might actually scream.
Instead, he flicked his antennae.
K’s table was in the middle of laughing raucously at yet another one of her not-that-funny jokes when one of them happened to look down at her own lunch box.
The screams echoed to the rafters and shook the bats awake from their slumber as girls jumped up and tried to get as far as they could from the table, their faces pale. Some were retching; K made a great show of heaving dramatically over the closest dustbin.
Suraya stood up, bewildered, trying to see what was going on.
And then she saw, and blinked, and looked again.
Because if you weren’t concentrating, you could have sworn that the food in those abandoned lunch boxes was moving.
Except then you looked closer and you realized the terrible truth: that every lunch box on the table was so full of worms and maggots that if you stayed quiet enough, you could hear the sticky squelch of them writhing and wriggling through noodles and fried rice and porridge and cake and whatever else those unsuspecting mothers had so lovingly put in them this morning.
Suraya pushed her own container with its meager lunch way, way back onto the table.
Then she walked quickly away from the shrieking girls and the chaos, past the frangipani trees that bloomed beside the cafeteria, slipping carefully into the narrow passage between the row of classrooms and an old building that was mostly used to store broken furniture and assorted bits that the school administration wanted to get out of the way. Back here, there was one more frangipani tree all on its own, light filtering through its spreading boughs and dotting the ground with puddles of sunshine, and this is where Suraya stopped. There was nobody else here; it was as if nobody even knew it existed.
Pink felt her hand slide carefully into her pocket, and he jumped onto it so she could draw him up into the light. In the place where his heart would have been there was a hammering and a pounding that rattled his tiny body and made him jumpy. Would she be grateful? Would she understand that he did things only for her protection?
Instead, she was frowning, and the pounding inside him turned into a strange sinking feeling.
“Why did you do that, Pink?”
They were harming you. He tried to maintain a defiant pose, sticking up his little grasshopper chin, but to do so to his master felt like insolence. I did only what they deserved.
“But I never asked you to. Didn’t I tell you that before? Not to hurt anyone unless I ask you to?”
Well. Um. Suraya’s eyes never left his face, and Pink began to feel horribly hot and squirmy. Yes, he admitted finally and—it must be said—reluctantly. Yes, I believe I recall you saying something like that, now that you mention it.