Sea Park secondary School, Form Two - Part Two

FORM TWO, 1976 – PART TWO

When they dressed us up like lambs, we naturally behaved like one.

Minus productive term holidays, refreshingly snooze time, non-stop babbling time, grazingly canteen time, and wow-wee puppies gawking time; we spent the remaining times of 1976 blankly staring at the teachers, who seemed to blend with the walls. After a while, we couldn’t tell which is which. We were like on pause mode or energy saving mode; in a way, we reduced our carbon footprints. 

With such systematic and non-violent behaviors, I feel this nation of ours has a great future to look forward to. None of us have the disposition to demonstrate or join any opposition political agenda; as proven in our formative years, we were just content with our happy-dopey, dilly-dally, shilly-shally lives. So, peace will rein – this country needs more citizens like the lambs of 1976.

However, there was one event which was supposed to be a culmination of a reunited and sexy year, but sadly, became the finale of a penned and pent up year. It happened on the last day of school, the 11^th of November. 

We went on a field trip, our first, to places that the teachers said would be fun. Everyone showed up, no one P'd. Some of us were dressed in our best – males in long bell-bottoms pants and unbuttoned silk shirts, while females shined in their bare backs and maxi skirts. Of course, some were unable to smuggle out their preferred clothes and had to wear what their mothers selected. And, they declined to have their photos taken. This was so historic, let me repeat once more – lambs and puppies sat together, rolled in the same direction as the bus turned, and later ran through the fields, hand-in-hand, limb-in-limb, and fleece-in-fur. Ah, finally, all of us mingled and mangled in three buses.

But before the buses could roll off, all hell broke loose! 

Freddy went up to each bus and pulled out a bunch of lambs whose blacked fleece on their head was overgrown. He mercilessly used something that buzzed like a chainsaw and sheared a deep patch of two inches by two inches on one side of their heads before parading his artwork among the puppies. On a day when they were dressed in their best clothes, how could he use his powers to destroy their image! He shamed them for not following his hair style . . . why? Everyone was so damned hurt by this bullying. Bang balls man. There’s no more laughter. I clearly remembered his scheming face as he proudly put his parting words “Have a nice hair day”. 

Then, the bus rolled. We sat silently and sadly.

After a long hour journey, our never-die spirits slowly came back. We reached the Rubber Research Institute in Jalan Ampang and were greeted by the strongest of smell which woke us up. Touring the huge place, we saw how rubber is turned into condoms, and they ushered us into a dark room to show us the Swedish movie on how they are used. But, they took a long time to set up the projector with the guy apologizing, “Harap Maaf, Siaran tergendala”*. So we waited with the puppies. Some of the richer lambs with cameras, in excitement, went out to buy some more rolls of film. Soon, our broiling imagination rushed some of us to the toilet. And we waited . . . and . . . waited. But by mid noon, we had to leave emptied as the bus had to roll again. Bang balls man. 

*”Sorry, transmission disrupted”

We took a long journey to Kuala Selangor and Jeram just to burn up the time allocated for this trip. There’s nothing much to see except for some old canons up a hill and an oily beach, with the highlight being a huge two mile-long conveyor belt at Port Klang that transported sand to somewhere. Nothing Swedish about it. Finally at 6:20pm sharp, our buses reached home base and everyone alighted.

Then, all hell broke loose again!

The bunch of lambs, with their long fleece blemished with a sheared patch on their heads, grew horns! Emboldened, they walked into the toilet, and in unison, turned on all the taps before adjourning to the Remove class. What they did next was explosive like the reruns of the TV show Combat. They kicked all the chairs and tables Bang! Kaput! Achtung! Bagialo! #@$%, sprawling them all over @!&# tiuneahsing! Baaa..ah!, and smashed the notice boards and !@#$ blackboards – the symbols of Freddy and his gang. They went looking for Freddy’s Volkswagen Beetle, but it was not there. Imagine what would have happened if the car was there – definitely, no flowery hippie signs will be painted.

When the guards heard the assault and reached the front line, the lambs ran in all directions – jumped over the tall barbed fencing, some losing their testicles, and galloped straight home to their night pen. With blood, torn fleece and mangled balls (the fence was too high, bro), they ran into the comfort of their mamas. 

The puppies cried and howled all night . . . wooooo. . .ooooo . . .

This incident was infamously recalled as the 1111 or ‘one eleven one’ incident as it happened on 11^th November. Some lambs call it eleven eleven; others say it as one one eleven. I’ve even heard a wise guy call it eleven one one. But the best one is one one one one! That one is so confusing. Can you count how many ones there are in this one paragraph? Or eleven paragraphs if you one. 

What caused this shocking, shiocking incident, almost an uprising, a defiant of powers, a settling of scores, or the underground version “What a good one”? Most likely, due to the intense pressure of studies and abuse of power by Freddy, plus the balls breaking year-long ‘see all the puppies you one but no touch’, they just freaked out. Yes, just totally, completely amok. It’s like the silence of the lambs, a time bomb waiting to fly off the handle. So, don’t blame the exploded lambs but, blame it on the powers that be. Or, maybe the Swedish movie they didn’t see?

Over time, the howling stopped. 

When we talked to each other over the holidays, we strongly felt the masters of the school should have treated us with more respect. We came to learn, not to be disciplined and treated like kids; we’ve already got that at home. All our naughty tantrums, lack of concentration, wild ramblings, and rebellious hairstyles were actually just manifestations of our need for individualism, expression, freedom and respect. Didn’t Freddy, with all his experience and training, see that in us? So, if school had been more understanding and conducive to us, we would spend more time in class rather than joining the Shakespearian P programs. We concluded that we needed the right stuffs like more interaction less separation, more games less train, more silence less teaching, more action less talk, and more homework less schoolwork. But, the most needed is to just show the damn Swedish movie.  

During the holidays, we went to the barber shop to restore thick fleecy coats to our heads again. While there, we rummaged through Galaxie, Fanfare, Movie News, and even an old copy of Journal of Rubberlogy, in search of Swedish pen pals. Bang balls man. The richer ones, still with their extra rolls of film, camped outside the Sweden embassy. I was smarter; I went back to the rubber institute. 

… to be continued.

Note: I know you have laughed at my Form One and Two, but will you cry with me when you read my Form Three post? It’s gonna be a sad story . . .