Chapter 4

Life without Brian for a day sure was peaceful, I have to admit that even our form teacher Mr. Lim seemed relieved. Well, that was the problem, no one wanted to find Brian. In fact, some people were even harbouring thoughts of leaving Brian kidnapped. That was bad. Lugging myself towards the school bus, I took ravenous gulps from my strangely appetizing chicken bun. I hadn’t eaten since this morning and I was definitely famished. Back on the bus, my bus friends were quarrelling over some Anime character as the bus took off with the noisy ‘fish market’ in it.
“Aunty! Someone is eating chicken bun!” an obnoxious Primary Five boy yowled as I was prepared to take another bite. To heck with the boys. Can’t they see that I am famished and need to eat something least I faint? Guess they aren’t so compassionate. But that was the least of my worries. Arikei and Koir were in the midst of creating another bus war. By accident, Koir had licked Arikei’s finger and was desperately trying to rub the saliva off on Sienna’s T- shirt.
“Aunty!” Sienna screamed as the bus aunty whipped her head around in annoyment. “What is it now?” she spat in Chinese. Sienna crouched over to my shoulder, pushing me towards the window. Unprepared, I licked the glass wall, scowling and all. The very next thing I knew, Sienna had removed her shoes and was trying to retaliate if Koir was to do a sudden ‘attack’. The battle took a turn temporarily, the next minute, I was facing the wall, staring at a lady who shot me a ‘are you nuts’ look. Well, it’s time I participated as well. But apparently taking Sienna’s file as a shield wasn’t very erm… threatening. In the very next minute, I found myself staring intently at the soles of a pair of shoes. Yucks. Did I mention that I have yet to finish my lunch?
The bus had stopped to allow some pupils to alight but we were still at it. Some how, I had managed to shake off the pair of shoes and shield myself from being pulverised by a pair of stinky trailers. The bus engine went into a full roar and the bus had barely moved an inch when it braked setting off an overwhelming commotion at the back.
“My shoe!” Sienna cried as she lunged forward to grab it.
“My chicke…” I tried to yell as I banged into the metal pole, leaving my chicken bun to fall onto the floor. Good thing it had a plastic wrapper, that bun caused me a dollar!
“Koir! Get off my knee,” Arikei whined with a disgruntled look. Koir just stared at the front with a dazed look. Just then I realised that everyone else on the bus looked thunderstruck as well.
“I hate to break the silence but… What happened?” I recited my catchphrase. Koir turned around with anxiety written all over her face. “Haven’t you noticed? A sports car hit us!”
All of a sudden, shoes and chicken buns flying all over the place didn’t seem like a problem. “Was anyone hurt?” I enquired as Sienna wore her shoe. “Well, no one except for the bus aunty, she slipped and bruised herself,” Christine replied.
“Could you just get off my knee?” Arikei moaned desperately trying to get up. “Oh,” Koir realised with a laugh and fell back on the chair. “One thing’s for sure, the sports car uncle doesn’t seem too pleased,” Koir exclaimed with a shrug. I got up and pressed my nose against the window on the left side.
A black sports Honda car had collided with our school bus’s front rear. Its window had been smashed into smithereens and it was very fortunate that no one was seated at the passenger seat. A middle aged man got out from the car and stormed over towards our bus. He wore a grey T- shirt, matched with a pair of beige Bermudas. The first word I could think of to describe him was… short. And a little bit of a pot belly. Hey, I have my reasons okay? Firstly, he looks short, like around 1.5 to 1.6 metres; secondly, he really was on the plump side, or at least plumper than one of my classmates from TAF club. (If you read it the other way round, it would be read as fat, with a lot of emphasis. No offence to those TAF members though.)
From the look of Mr. Pot Belly’s face, high chance he wasn’t here to apologize. His face was flushed as red as a cooked prawn and his mouth was arched into a scowl. Scary. “That guy is giving me the creeps,” Sienna whispered, cowering in fright. “I don’t think he’s here to apologize either,” I added. Koir, Arikei and Sienna shot me a scowl. “What?” I blabbered as the others shook their head from side to side despondently.
Meanwhile, a heated argument had started between the bus driver and Mr. Pot Belly. My life sure is interesting. First, I get roped into gangster catching organisations, then, I get involved in a mini car –bump –bus accident, which by the way includes a grumpy and unreasonable Mr. Pot Belly. This is so not my day.
“Pose, Jennison,” Koir chirped, waving her arms frantically. I glanced ahead; Mr. Pot Belly was taking photographs of the vehicles that had collided. Trust Koir to come up with such wacky ideas during car ‘accidents’. Of course, the bus uncle didn’t step down, grabbing his phone, he took photos of the ‘accident’ as well.
“Forget posing, lets just write down the car plate number,” Sienna suggested as Airkei whipped out her handphone and recorded the number down. “G… 4… 4… 1… 2… C” she muttered as her fingers stretched to key in the numbers.
“It’s no wonder he is so unlucky,” I blurted out. “Why?” Sienna queried. “His car plate number has so many 4s and one C. In Cantonese, the number four means die. Obviously he is unlucky,” I reasoned. Sienna nodded her head knowingly.
“Ai yah, not fun already,” another Primary Five boy sighed audibly. “Why?” I beseeched. “They just exchanged phone numbers and the Honda car driver just drove off,” he explained. “I was hoping the police would come, I want to be on National television,” Koir whined. “Yah lor,” I muttered sadly.
Out of the blue, an idea thwacked me in the head. National television. Oh why hadn’t I thought of it before? My eyeballs rolled around in their sockets in excitement, I could feel adrenalin surge through my body. This idea was so crazy, it might just work! A smile rose from the corner of my lips. A plan had formed in my head.
“Are you alright Jennison? Why are you smiling all of a sudden?” Sienna implored. “Oh nothing, I was just thinking about a mean joke I saw on TV,” I replied. Yup, tonight, I am going to put this plan into action. And hopefully, get on TV.