Lousy Friend

Even though I could read and write, I didn’t show my ability. I was popular enough already with my pee and wet skirt, so no smartness was additionally required.

One day a small friend had a headache. Miss Sumalee, my teacher, couldn’t find anybody but me in the classroom. She sent me to see the headmistress to get some medicine that could suppress the headache.

I was small then and my memory was limited. It was a long way from my classroom to the headmistress’s office. The headmistress herself looked like a witch. Her look frightened me so much that I forgot what my teacher had told me to say to her. All I could remember was it’s something related to the head...maybe brain. Whatever but it should be close.

The witch headmistress asked me what I wanted. Well, I told her I had been sent to get some medicine that could suppress Neurosis (yeah even now I'm still surprised from where I got the word!?!) The headmistress, after hearing that, was dramatically shocked. She asked me who wanted the medicine. I said my teacher and added urgently.

Snatching her handbag, she hurried to my classroom. When she saw my teacher, she asked her why she hadn’t told her she was suffering from the mental sickness. Confused, my teacher kept saying no and asked the headmistress why in the world she thought she’s suffering from the mental illness. The headmistress said I told her she was.

One of the rules teachers should keep in mind: never ask your little students to run errands for you, especially when it’s about medication. They can’t even recite A-Z fluently so you must not trust them with prescription.

Everything seemed to be alright until I hated being awakened by my mother as early as 5 am. The reason was my sister and I were the first kids the school bus driver came to pick up at 6 am. He was a nice man aged around 50. His name was Choo, but I called him Patorachoo. He seemed to be impressed with the cute name I had for him. However, I couldn’t let him know that the name belonged to a dog in a cartoon series I watched on TV.

What I disliked most as a kid was when it’s time to take a nap after lunch. I think it’s not for the sake of the kids, this siesta thing, especially in Thailand. It actually was to help teachers relax and have more time to gossip about their kids’ parents and, most of the time, about each other.

One of the teachers who took care of the sleeping hall made me sleep side by side with a lousy girl. Well, I am not rude, but she was lousy indeed. Her head was an ideal habitat for the tiny blood suckers. I had never realized that any living things could live with us until I knew her. I lay next to her without knowing that soon I would be as lousy as her.

The girl was transferred to my class. I didn’t know why. Maybe she’s the weakest link of her previous class (because she was lousy). Much to my surprise, we became best friends to each other. Our friendship was based on her lice. It started from threatening and developed into coaxing.

Each day she gave me a lousy show to illustrate the nature of lice (as if I wanted to know!) She said I must help her kill them or she would throw some on my head. In the end, she said if I helped her, she would let me marry her brother. Somehow, I agreed. The cordiality went so well that each day I delightedly helped her get rid of the lice and nits.

One day I woke up with a terrible itch on my head. My mother had a close look and found that my friend’s lice had officially relocated to my head. The lousy friendship didn’t last forever, though. My friend moved to another kindergarten a month later. The rumor was the headmistress had forbidden her from coming back unless she killed all of the blood suckers on her head.