Jane Vejjajiva by Unknown Page A

of his bicycle. Kati liked hanging on tightly to Grandpa’s back. She liked the smell of his cologne that came from the bottle with the sailing ship on it. She liked the little breeze that dried away her sweat. The bus would be crowded with children because it was only a short way to the school, and Grandpa would call out for the passengers to make room for Kati and tell Uncle Loh to drive slowly and not to lurch about. ‘You’re taking them to school, not driving in the grand prix, so make sure you don’t end up spilling them out the back in a heap,’ Grandpa instructed, but Uncle Loh just laughed in reply.
    The children put their lunch containers in the dining hall before putting their bags away in the schoolrooms. The lunch containers stood together, big and small, tall and short, and many different colours. They probably conversed about the food they each contained: how tasty and spicy their food was and who had cooked it, and whether the rice had been served out lovingly or only dutifully. Did they hold just enough cold leftovers to fill the owner’s stomach, or the most delicious secret recipe from a market stall so popular the stallholder could hardly dish out the food fast enough? Some containers had a sticky rim, still unwashed from the day before. Some had ants. Some were battered and dented because they’d been handed down many times. Finally, the lunch containers would probably whisper about that really flash lunch container and whether she would turn up to strut her stuff as usual.
    Flash was the air-conditioned car that drove up to wait in front of the school. Flash was the lunch container that came with the maid wearing a uniform like a servant of some aristocratic family. Flash were the embossed designs on that lunch container, which would open to reveal piping hot rice, steaming clear broth and exotic dishes the other lunch containers never knew about because they never had the chance to discuss these things with the flash lunch container. She only arrived at the school just before lunchbreak and was whisked away with the start of the first period of the afternoon.
    The school bell clanged for lunchbreak. Kati raced her friends downstairs and ran past Tong walking in the opposite direction. Tong was three years older than Kati and in Year 7 at school. He smiled at her before he left on his way home to the temple. Tong said that at lunchtime he had a whole buffet meal waiting for him from the varied offerings people had made to the monks.
    In the afternoon when Kati got home from school she washed her lunch container and placed the sections in a basin in the kitchen to drain. Later, in the evening, she would dry them and put them by the stove, handy for Grandma in the morning. Perhaps at night the lunch container would strike up a conversation with the stove to pass the lonely hours, asking how Grandma spent her day, and if she did anything else but get angry with Grandpa.

The Washtubs and the Pegs
    In the house there were no photos of Mother.
    Kati’s job was to take the clothes from the line and put them in the washtub for Grandma to sort. This had been her chore even when she was too small to reach the clothes pegs on the line. Grandpa had made her a little set of moveable steps with a basket attached to hold the tub. He would push Kati and the steps slowly between the clothes lines. The wind blew,
    fluttering wildly, filling with air and straining against the coloured clothes pegs like birds that spread their wings but could not fly away.
    The clothes pegs had been plain wooden ones when they were bought, but Kati had coloured them with crayons, pencils and paint progressively, as she mastered each medium. It had started one day when Grandpa said that as a young man he had been a children’s art teacher. The funny look that came over Grandma’s face only encouraged Grandpa to go on about primary colours, warm and cool colours, complementary and opposite colours. He finished by reaching for the