Eleven years ago.

Back when I was eight, I was in this class called 2 Durian. I have no idea why the school management decided to name our classes with fruits. I mean, the usual schools had the flowers for their classes names. But fruits? We had rambai, mata kucing, durian - dan saya tak ingat yang selainnya.

When I was in standard two, I hated the toilets. It was supposed to be a private school and all, and our folks had to pay like what? 2k++ per semester, and yet, the toilet stinks like hell. And also, it had only three cubicles per floor. Macam Sekolah Kebangsaan je.

We had fun during recess, playing those getah and catching grasshoppers at the field during our Breakfast and Lunch breaks. We also had fun playing at those little spaces along the window seals pretending it was home, and each of us are family. The whole, 'I don't like you' and 'I like you' friendships seem to not really matter, we were playing a game. And in that game, we are a family. Family sticks together.

My friend, NJ and I always have toilet trips together after school to wait for our rides home. I never really liked her, for some reason. I was young. I guess it was the norm to pick the people you like, and the ones that you don't really fancy. But I talked to her occasionally, for some reason.

Probably one of the reason I didn't really fancy NJ was because she always talk nonsense. Ridicuolous, absurd stuffs. Bragging about how 'classy' her mother is. Bragging how her mother is called manja. Talking about how the father buys her fancy stuffs.

The kind of people that you would know that the stories are somehow unreal.

But I perfectly remember one day in the toilet changing into our P.E clothes. She told me about how the uncle told her that girls have breasts. At this point, I thought to myself, I mean, we are only eight. Why on earth would you worry about growing breasts? We're supposed to be playing and discover our imaginary skills.

But she did. She talked about breasts. Growing them. She also told me that the uncle said that when a guy touches that part of the chest, it would help the growing process better.

Somehow, through her subtle words I felt that there was an underlying meaning. Well, so I thought and questioned to myself, "Was the uncle molesting her?". The whole thing was just weird, weird. Sick, gross. You name it. I was eight, what the hell was I supposed to do?

I saw her last year. Not pursuing college, working at some store at the local mall. Said she was enganged to be married, to some older guy. And so I thought, what ever happened to her fancy life? Why not college? I still wonder, did the uncle do something awful to her?

You see, that was the year 1997. I knew about the whole "intimacy" thing then. I heard my friend speaking of growing breasts at the age of eight. What do you think the kids at school do today? Do they still play getah during their breaks or probably lubang tikus? Do they exchanged games drawn in exercise books? Do they still talk about cartoons that they watched the day before?

Or are they busy learning the rowdy words that the parents try so hard to forbid us from, bodoh, fuck, bangang, sial, asshole, bitch. Etc. Etc.

Do they go home to their parents and ask, "Mama(Papa), what is sodomy?"

The same question I asked mama when I was nine, a word I learned from the news.