My sister KN was organizing our old photo albums the other day while we were chatting on the phone. She came across one of my photo albums during my first three years at a boarding school. I asked to see one of my previous photo with my two best friends, Nani and Shariff.
"You have about 20 photos with the same two girls here. One is skinny with large glasses and the other one had a lot of freckles." I could hear her flipping the pages.
"The one we were on a stage singing" More flipping.
"Oh....here it is, is this the one you you were singing Senyap dan Sunyi (Extremely Quiet) ?"
"Yeah....that's the one. Does it still look okay?"
"Yes, it is."
It was a last minute decision. All we wanted to do was to watch and make fun of every girl who got on the stage. Three of us were excellent on the field. Nani was school long jumper, Shariff could beat anybody on the school ground in table tennis while licking her Cornetto Drum Stick ice cream and we played field hockey for school. But we never got on the stage. We sneered at everybody on the stage. Stage for kaki bangku. How cocky we were.
We had seen an invitation in Bulletin Board for all Form Three and Form Five students to participate in Malam Dalam Ingatan - A Night to Remember, two weeks before our final exam. We rolled our eyes and got on with our lives. But the eyes rolled back to us when Nani suggested we should take part in it.
"What? Are you out of your mind?" Shariff and I stopped dead in our track while Nani didn't slow her pace. When she sensed she was running by herself, she retraced her step back to us. Shariff and I had our hands on the hips and looked at her as she was crazy. It was not only an annoying idea, it was pure offensive. Us on the stage?
"Did you hear what you just said?" Nani had this silly smile on her face that made me wanted to put my hands on her shoulder and shook some senses into her.
"Do you have an idea what will those stagers say to us?" Shariff reminded her off all the offense remarks we had made.
"Since when we care what they say about us?" She got the point there.
We lost count the trips we made to Mr. A a Principal office every time we broke the school rules and regulations. We became immune to the warnings from Assistant Principal. The only thing that made a difference was we never did anything that involved other students, teachers or school properties, and we always kept our grades among the best. We thought those were the reasons they never actualized their words except once.Three of us were shuffled into the Principal's office one Monday afternoon. We were caned three times on the soles of our feet. That made six each. 18 canes for three girls who were not afraid to break the rules.
"This is going to be fun. We always say we should have fun in everything we do. And this is one of those." Nani seemed excited about the idea, it scared us. She looked like she was being hypnotized by some witches or something.
We walked to the far side of the field where the grass was thicker and greener and sat.
Nani was right. We looked at almost everything in a funny way. We laughed at the wrong time, we chuckled and giggled when others thought it was not funny.
"We'd probably not going to see each other again." Nani and I looked at Shariff. The idea didn't hit us until she said it. Or it did. We thought about it, but we were too terrified to even bring up the subject. We knew we were going to make it in our SRP (Lower Certificate Education), but we might be going on separate ways.
"Let's do it." I was hoping Shariff would agree with me. I wanted three of us to do something silly. Something outrageous in our 15 year old minds. Sure we had been doing a lot of silly things to ourselves. But this was an ultimate fun.
Nani looked at me and land turned to look at Shariff. We turned to look at Shariff. As usual Shariff took a freaking long time to say anything. Shariff got up, deliberately picked up the grass off her short one by one while Nani and I turned blue holding our breath.
"So what song are we going to sing?"
We squealed and jumped under a glorious purple evening sky.
Our plan was to have fun and not a perfection. We chose an old song, a song we knew would crack a smile, to stir fond memory from our teachers, especially to our most beloved teacher Cik Gu WZ. We chose the song with her in mind. We wanted to dedicate the song for her.
The next few days we breathed on our song. Nani was a natural born dancer while Shariff and I were retarded hands-feet-eyes coordination. It took us two full days to do a simple 1-2-3 cha cha steps.
A night before a performance we had a final rehearsal. Cik Gu Tahir an adviser for the event was pleased with students choices of songs and performance except one teacher, Cik Gu FS who decided to take a peek at the last minute. All the students were merenyam, tergedik-gedik -saucy- except the girls sat quietly at the back of the class, the audience, the girls who kept staring at their hands on their laps when she was in one of those mood of attacking us.
Our group was not fortunate enough to escape her scrutinized when she wiggled her wide behind through school auditorium.
Right in the middle when we hit:
Perempuan yang tak pandai menjaga badan
Suaminya tentu lekas menjadi bosan
Mengerbang rambut macam hantu dalam hutan
Suami memandang hampir pengsan.......
She lifted her hand and waved at Cik Gu Tahir. Her fair complexion turned into a roasted eggplant.
"This is unacceptable. The song is inappropriate for the young girls."
She had a habit to puff up her cheeks when she was angry. She looked exactly like a gold fish blowing bubbles in a fish tank.
We didn't have a chance to complete a third round of our 1-2-3 cha cha steps. All eyes traveled from us on the stage to an angry gold fish stood facing Cik Gu Tahir. The auditorium was completely quiet we could hear our own breathing.
We knew it we would never had a chance. Cik Gu Tahir was a wonderful teacher, but he never liked a confrontation especially with someone like Cik Gu Gold Fish's character.
We dragged our shattered desire to the back of the stage defeated. Nani sat on the floor near the stage stairs. Shariff and I stood and looked at our shoes while Cik Gu Tahir haltingly explained to us why we couldn't sing our chosen song. Cik Gu FS stood next to Cik Gu Tahir. She looked at us with her eyes that reminded me of a wolf's eyes, a character in a children story book. The wolf killed and ate a little girl's grandmother.
"But you like the song. You said it yourself." Nani's tears raining down her face faster than her hand could wipe them.
"I know, but we have to consider.........."
I didn't hear the rest of Cik Gu Tahir's words. I squeezed Shariff left hand who was sitting next to me.
"Cik Gu, can we still perform if we tone down the lyric?" I held my breath. I didn't look in Cik Gu FS's direction.
Shariff looked at me with question mark expression. Nani wiped her smeared face opened her mouth and closed again when I gave them I-tell-you-later looked.
We weren't going to let Cik Gu FS crushed our plan. The song was for our teacher and we planned to make it happen.
"Yes, I think it would be fine." This time Cik Gu Tahir didn't give Cik Gu FS to jump in.
We said good night to both of the teachers and left the auditorium. I told Nani and Shariff about my plan. Both of them thought it was a brilliant idea.
"I couldn't wait to see Cik Gu FS's face tomorrow night." Nani clapped her hands and circled around Shariff and I with her cha cha steps. Shariff and I stopped and joined Nani. We laughed all the way back to the hostel.
The next night, while waiting for our turn behind the heavy dark curtain I was so nervous I made a trip to a bathroom until I felt hollow in my bladder. Looking at the audience when they were facing me was a new experience. It was a nerve wrecking. It like my stomach was being punched over and over. It was a different feeling when I ran on the track. I didn't know how those debaters could do it. That night I looked at those girls that I smirked at them in a different light. I never felt so ashamed of myself.
"Cik Gu WZ sits in the front row, number seven from right," Shariff said to herself. We already knew it. Nani pointed her out. When a DJ called out our group, Tiga Langkah Tak Sama - Three Uneven Steps, and our song was Senyap Sunyi - Extremely Quiet, we stepped out with our hearts hammered our chests. "Take a deep breath, take a deep breath." Shariff reminded us as we walked to a center of the stage. We heard the thunderous applause from From Three A class and a short, short and long wolf whistles I was positive came from a junior girl in my dorm. She was the only girl in the school who could whistled like a boy.
When the applause quiet down, I told the audience our song was dedicated to our class teacher Cik Gu WZ who made us wanted to be in the class and completed her assignments in time. I was so nervous I was talking to an empty space above the audience's heads. But I was sure Cik Gu WZ understood us. I walked toward the DJ and gave a mike into her hand. She looked confused and surprised. "We don't need it tonight."
I moved back between Shariff and Nani who were ready to take my cue.
"Ready...........one , two , three."
Shariff brought up her hands with ten fingers formed like claws as she was holding a saxophone. She puffed her cheeks as she was blowing.
Nani was a left handed bass guitarist and I pretended holding a mike. Only three of us could hear I was singing the same song we sang last night. The audience saw me opened and closed my mouth with an invisible mike in my hand, Nani with her invisible bass guitar and Shariff was blowing an invisible saxaphone.
Pandanglah, lihatlah,
Rupaku yang cantik dan
rambutku yang ikal,
marilah tuan-tuan dan nyonya
Sama-samalah pandang
perempuan yang cantik bikin hati goyang
The teachers looked at each other trying to figure it out, but by these times, most of the students had figured it out. They began to enjoy our performing and I heard a few clapped coming from front row. With my heart jumped all over my chest, my eyes fell on Cik Gu Tahir. I knew it by the look on his face and his nodded head, he got it too.
Pandanglah, lihatlah
pinggang ku yang ramping (I made an hour-glass gesture)
dan dadaku yang bidang
Inilah selalu menjadikan
Orang hilanglah akal
rumahtangga tak kekal
Gilakan bayangkan
When I hit this lyric, Shariff and Nani 'put away' their instrument and we were already into the cha cha mood. We were enjoying ourselves and an incredible feeling being on the stage, we didn't care if we were thrown out of school the next morning.
Perempuan kalau tak pandai jaga badan
suaminya tentu lekas menjadi bosan
mengerbang rambut macam hantu dalam hutan
suami memandang hampir pengsan
Perempuan kalau sayangkan suaminya
Pandang sini, hai tirulah seperti saya
jaga bentuk,
jaga kulit dan jaga rupa
Senyum sayang kau berikan dia
Pandanglah...lihatlah....tiru macam saya........
We were delirious with thunderous respond from the audience, none of us heard anything the DJ said. There was no need to go into a great detail of what happened next. We became school celebrity for a while before everybody packed and went home for a long holiday. We went to Cik Gu WZ to say good bye. She told us she knew about the song and she was touched by our persistence, but looking back at our records, she wasn't surprised. As for Cik Gu FS, we didn't really look at her way since that night.
For Nani and Shariff, where ever you guys are, you are always on my mind.
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