I have always been a good girl. Just ask my mother and father, they will tell you. I am not like those ah lians , with their shirts tight-tight and their skirts high-high, whole day only think of skipping school to go to the shopping center to eat McDonald's ice-cream or drink Starbucks coffee.
No, even though I study in one of Singapore's lousiest secondary schools, I am still a good girl: always the first to hand in my homework, stay back in school for remedial classes, help my teachers carry books to the office. I am not smart but I try my best to do well, to make my mother and father proud.
They earn little as hawkers, and selling chicken rice can be tiring. That's why I want to study hard and buy them a big-big house in the future, so that they won't need to wake up so early to go to the market every morning.
Mr Tay knew that about me too. The first time we met, I thought he was very young and hand-sum. All my other teachers were the old-old type, like one foot into the coffin, but there he was, fresh out from the Ministry of Education. He walked into the classroom nervously, the back of his light blue shirt wet with sweat, and his forehead too, which he kept wiping with his handkerchief. Who even uses handkerchiefs nowadays? I thought. He must be very traditional. The class was very noisy that day.
The other students gave him no respect because they saw he was green-green. They threw paper balls in the air, ran around like monkeys, but I stood up. I stood up and told all of them to shut up. I was in my final year and wanted to do well. Mr Tay looked at me gratefully, as if I had just given him a medal, and I felt good inside.
