Amidst The Stars

Away and Astray Again

  "What is primary school like?"

  Leon shrugged, scrawling down another sloppy answer in his exercise book. "It's harder than kindergarten."

  "I know that," Ling said indignantly, "everyone says so."

  He rolled his eyes. "Okay, okay, it's harder because you have more classes, like general studies, and you have to take tests. There's a lot of homework, too. Oh, and you can't play much."

  Ling pouted, watching as he roughly slammed his book shut and tossed it into his backpack. "Primary school doesn't sound fun."

  "It's not," Leon muttered under his breath.

  "I don't want to go to primary school," she declared, placing her hands on her hips, "I'm going to stay in kindergarten forever and ever."

  Hidden behind a stack of worksheets, Vicente highlighted a line in his textbook with bright yellow ink. "Primary school is tougher than kindergarten," he said, "but it's also more fun. You'll make lots of new friends and learn lots of new things."

  "Really?"

  Vicente rummaged through his pencil-case for another highlighter. "Really. General studies is an interesting subject, and you get to play lots of games in sci — "

  A deafening "SLAM" echoed throughout the apartment and made them all jump. Vicente dropped his highlighter and crept towards his parents' room, wincing at another "BANG" and a flurry of shouts.

  He didn't understand half the things his father was yelling, accusations about "sleeping around" and "being disloyal" and, strangest of all, "bringing home another brat". Taking a deep breath, Vicente raised one hand to knock on their door when Yao burst out of his room, looking half-dead with exhaustion.

  "Ah, they're fighting again?" Yao forced a smile and pushed him away from the door, leading him back to the dining room. "And right after Father's back from work, too." He looked at the clock, tugging at his blazer. "And it's already seven o'clock. We should start making dinner."

  And that was his cue. Closing his half-highlighted textbook, he followed Yao into the kitchen. He bit back a sigh and put his slippers back on. Looks like I'll have to finish my work tomorrow morning.

  The next hour saw the brothers washing vegetables, steaming rice and frying eggs, trying desperately to put together a decent meal. Yao and Vicente flurried around the kitchen, spilling sauces and dropping peels as the clock ticked away.

  While reaching for the bottle of oyster sauce, he bumped his wrist against a vegetable-filled pan and stifled a yelp of pain. He ran the burn under the sink, staring dejectedly at the red stripe forming on his wrist. How am I going to explain this tomorrow?

  "Brother," he called while wiping his wrist dry, "can you pass me a bandage, please?"

  No reply.

  He looked around the kitchen, at the still-cooking rice and the meat in the steamer. Yao was nowhere to be seen. "Yao?"

  Nothing.

  He switched off the stove and reached for a dish, arms straining to take the porcelain plate from the cupboard above his head. Vicente spooned the pan of Chinese cabbage into the plate and drizzled a spoonful of oyster sauce over it, before turning off the steamer and grabbing a pair of metal claws to retrieve the bland-looking steamed pork. His hands shook as he placed the heavy dish on the countertop.

  Running outside, he saw Leon and Ling poring over a book. "We had to read this for English class this year," Leon said, "it's about the beach." He looked up, noticing him wrapping a bandage around his wrist. "Oh, hi."