Sending My "Son" To School

As soon as I finished marking the final test papers and keying in all the marks, I was again in the mood to do something special for the Calvary Care Home (CCH) children.

Last Sunday evening, I brought Luke back to my place. As I had little idea of how much time he would spend the next morning to get ready for school and how long it would take me to drive to SMK Ayer Keroh, I set the alarm at 5.45am. It often occurred to me to automatically open my eyes even before the ringing. This time at 5.30am, I already left my room.

When my siblings and I were studying in school, Mum used to get up as early as us to prepare some food, so that we had breakfast before the school bus came, or packed lunch for the recess time.

Now I was taking over this role which Mum had stopped playing after Ping had gone to the college ten years ago. For a start, I decided to make sandwiches, knowing that the boys loved to eat bread and crashed hard boiled egg mixed with mayonnaise.

There were ten long buns. After keeping two for myself, I put the rest two by two in small plastic bags for Luke, David, Paul, and Matthew who was probably going to share with Albert P.

I had woken Luke up before 6am as scheduled. After he took a shower, changed into his uniform, had a simple breakfast and guided me to his school which was at a fifteen minutes' driving distance from Paya Rumput, I told the sleepy boy that next time I would let him stay at least half an hour longer in his bed.

I parked my car outside and followed Luke to enter the compound by a small side door. A prefect stared at me but did not say anything. He must be wondering if I was a new teacher.

I immediately saw Albert who had just arrived with Matthew. The symbolic father of the CCH children who was also teaching physics in this secondary school smilingly asked me, "When did you sneak in?" Later I realised that I actually should haved passed by the security guard at the main entrance and filled in a form for visitors.

Paul and David who were sent by the guardian Joshua with the CCH van recognized me when they were walking towards my direction. Paul politely shook my hand like he usually did in church.

It was a pity that I was not allowed to visit their classrooms, certainly for fear that I might create havoc while taking pictures and interviewing students everywhere!

Albert gave me a breakfast treat at the canteen after the assembly as part of the reward for my second winning in his physics quiz in his blog. When we encountered his colleagues, he introduced me as the symbolic mother of CCH. I had the impression that two of us were meeting there to have some peaceful negotiations over the adoption rights of the CCH children, like those scenes in dramas...

When it was about 9.20am, I continued my journey to my working place at Hang Tuah road. Since I did not have to rush to classes, I did not find the driving too long even though the campus was on the other side of Melaka Tengah.

When holiday was in the air, everything began to look rosy.