Listen to the author reading this story:
Junwei will be caned later today. We saw him this morning stomping away from us. In a sweltering third-floor classroom muggy with afternoon heat, we huddle together, hearts thumping, mouths glistening, his name burning our tongues. Ceiling fans whirl but sweat pools under our arms, trickles down our backs, between our legs.
They say he smoked in the boys’ toilet, he played truant, he hit Mr Phee, well and good, for groping him. Yeah right, we say. Everyone knows Junwei collects virgin girls. He’s seventeen, eighteen, got held back for failing his O-Level. But he gets them fresh because he handsome what, looks like Nicholas Tse. In a different life, he’d model Calvin Klein jeans while we simmer and stew in our stuffy classroom.
They say he knocked up a girl, the nerd in the front row, the vegetarian no one wants to eat with, the weirdo with the skirt smothering her knees, waistband hoisted to her chest. He sauntered up to her, smirking, the hem of his shirt grazing his groin, a slice of chest exposed. No one else would let him put his lanjiao in their cheebye bareback.
Now broiling, now salivating, our body odour fills the air, but we keep dishing. They say she bled so much she stained his mattress, and he was so turned on he didn’t pull out. He threatened to tell her parents, dragged her by the hair to the abortion clinic, painted her body black and blue, like his laopei had done to him.
But, someone says, wasn’t it weird, what happened with Mr Phee? We recall the morning: Junwei skulking in two hours late, his shirt rumpled, his hair sticking out in all directions. How Mr Phee stopped barking at us to run faster, you fatsos. The way the bad boy flinched when our teacher gripped his shoulder. And how Junwei wrenched away, shouted cheebye, don’t touch me and stomped off.
We scoff. Please lah. Everyone knows Junwei’s a bad boy. That’s why he’ll be caned. No need to make up stories.
Originally from Singapore, Ya Lan Chang lives in Cambridge, United Kingdom with her husband and son. Her work has been shortlisted for the Oxford Flash Fiction Prize, and has been published in The Disappointed Housewife, SoFloPoJo, Northern Gravy, Litro Magazine, among others. She works as a law lecturer and is a writer at heart.
She can be found on Bluesky: @yalanchang.bsky.social.