Ride on Time

Chapter 97

"So where to now?" Shree asked Mitsuo as she drove out of Old Town, driving down the busy Jalan Penchala.
"I dunno, I'm not the local here," Mitsuo shrugged. "We can't have lunch yet too since we just had breakfast." He suddenly got an idea. "Are there any nice parks nearby? The Taman Jaya was good."
Shree frowned for a moment and nodded. "Sure, that sounds good."
So she drove straight to Jalan Gasing, entering the park through the back entrance and parking at a spot.
"Alright, come on," Shree said, hooking the steering lock to the brake pedal and wheel. "Let's go."
"We're bringing this, right?" Mitsuo asked, holding up the plastic bag of taufufah and cold soya milk.
"Oh! Yeah. Let's eat it in the park."
The two of them got out of the car and made their way into the park. The sun was blazing too and Shree was glad since the soya milk had a cooling effect.
"Let's sit here," Shree said when a bench came to view.
Mitsuo sat down and put the plastic bag on the table. "So what shall we have for lunch?"
"You're hungry?" Shree asked doubtfully.
Mitsuo immediately shook his head. "No, no. I was just asking, in case you had a plan."
"To be honest, I have no clue," Shree sighed, painstakingly trying to untie the plastic bag. She eventually ripped it open and pulled out one plastic container and spoon, handing them to Mitsuo before helping herself. "This is good for this weather." She chuckled. "Actually, it's still the cold season. It's supposed to be hot, but this year's weather is a little messed up because of some earthquake, I think. But it's supposed to be hot this time of the year."
"But it is," Mitsuo pointed out.
Shree gave him a knowing look. "Was it yesterday?"
"No," Mitsuo nodded. He opened his container and started to eat his taufufah. "How often do earthquakes happen here?"
"Quite rarely," Shree said. "The last one was last year, and I'm the only one in my whole family who felt it. I think it was just an impact since a big one happened in Sumatra the same day."
"Was it that mild?"
"In Malaysia, yes. Sumatra, no. The only reason I felt it was because the couch I was sitting on was shaking. My grandma didn't realise a thing, she was still asleep."
Mitsuo nodded. "Oh wow... imagine living in a country with very little natural disasters..."
"Oh come on, we get floods every now and then," Shree reasoned. "Besides, the northern beaches like Penang and Langkawi got get Tsunami. Tornado also got."
"Oh..." Mitsuo nodded again.
They ate the pudding and sipped the cold soya milk which went well with the hot weather. After that, Shree brought Mitsuo to the Petaling Jaya Museum where he got to see the history of Petaling Jaya.
"See, that's the first school," Shree pointed at a very old picture of Assunta Primary School for Girls. "They only had one block back then, but this is my school. I wonder where the boys went back then, considering how this was the only school in PJ at the time. Bukit Bintang school wasn't established for another three years."
Mitsuo nodded and took a few pictures, noting the rest down in his little notebook.
"That's the first hospital," Shree gasped, pointing at another old picture which showed the Assunta Hospital. "Darn, Assunta is like one of the first in PJ."
There was even a model of the first house ever built in Petaling Jaya, a wooden house in Section 1. Of course, Mitsuo had to get pictures of it.
The information he gathered also inspired him to write a book that would take place in this very town.

"You wanna follow me to pick up Vasu?" Shree asked when they made their way back to the car. "His school finishes in ten minutes and it isn't that far off."
Mitsuo shrugged. "Sure. I'm okay with that."
"Great," Shree chuckled as she got into the car. "Let's go."
Vasu's school was at the other end of town, towards the south of Petaling Jaya. It seemed a lot more different than the side of Petaling Jaya he hung about for the most part. For one thing, they had to take the highway and even go through a toll gate before finally arriving there. It was more of an industrial rural area too, with a lot of lorries and motorcycles bustling about. The drivers seemed more aggressive too, giving Shree a hard time as she drove. Mitsuo had no idea how she even did it, the sight of lorries always made his skin crawl.
"Now this, is like the South Town of PJ," Shree chuckled as she parked in front of the Form Six College.
Vasu immediately came out before his sister could even text him to know of their arrival. He seemed sulky too, almost enraged. But he soon softened upon spotting Mitsuo and his sister.
"Hi Mitsuo," Vasu greeted as he leapt into the backseat with his heavy bag, jolting the car. "You guys still on your outing?"
Mitsuo smiled. "Yeah. How was school?"
Vasu immediately turned grumpy again. "Terrible."
"Eh, what happened lah?" Shree asked as she made a U-turn to leave. "What that Musang feller said? Did he check your assignment or not?"
"Well, he still hadn't this morning and I told him to get it done quick since I gave him weeks ago and he hasn't even touched it. And do you know what he did instead of checking it?!" Vasu leaned forward angrily. "He projected it in front of the whole class to see and corrected it in front of everyone! What made it worse was that he made me look up the errors in that lame textbook, which I didn't bring, because we're supposed to be revising Semester One topics for the exam in just two weeks, and he seems completely oblivious to it and thinks we can study ourselves for an exam that we failed the first time!"
Shree shook her head in disgust. "Oh my god... then?"
"I borrowed my friend's book and looked up the errors. What made it worse was he kept giving me this sneering gaze as if he was mocking me for pestering him to check it. I was beyond embarrassed, especially since I kept stuttering out the answers he was asking. I eventually took cover in the bathroom and look what happened."
"What happened?" Mitsuo asked.
To his surprise, Vasu stuck something to his face from the back. It was his phone, the screen filled with cracks. "I dropped my phone and the screen broke! My hands were shaking when I texted you just now, Akka, and I accidentally dropped my phone face down. Apparently, I found that my phone case protects only the back of the phone, complete with shock absorbers, but not the most important part of the phone."
"Aiyo...." Shree frowned sympathetically, stopping at the long queue for the traffic light. "Can use or not the phone?"
"Can, but... the screen is lifting up," Vasu sighed. "Can still use nicely. Wait, let me show you."
He handed his phone to Shree who gasped upon examining the cracks, gently touching the broken glass with her fingers. The light suddenly turned green so she quickly handed it to Mitsuo who had his own examination. "Darn... I'm sorry for what happened today. Crappy teacher and broken phone..." he handed it back to Vasu.
"Never mind, we go to phone shop now and repair," Shree said, turning the steering wheel to turn right.
"Now itself ah?" Vasu asked in surprise.
"Better lah," Shree reasoned. "Some more, that shop close at six. Don't know whether can finish today also or not. We give now and maybe can finish by then. Okay or not?"
Vasu frowned for a moment before smirking. "Can I not go to school tomorrow?"

-in Malaysia, most people refer to tofu as tau or tauhu. I think it's the Chinese dialect since I heard that Malaysian Chinese have their own special dialect. Or was it just Cantonese? I know that taufufah is the Cantonese word for douhua but not really sure of the tauhu and taufu thing. Someone told me that tauhu is the Malay word for tofu but when I asked my Chinese friend, she told me that tauhu was the correct word. I have no clue so let's just say that different Chinese languages call it different things but tau is the universal word for soya since most of soya products have the word tau at the front like taufu, tauhu, taufufah, and tauchu. Then again, I may actually be wrong🤣🤣