Once, Cody asked Wee Boon to join in the football game, and he reluctantly agreed. The leader of the team chose Wee Boon last, eyeing him with a suspicious stare, and commanded him to take the defender position. Unathletic and uncoordinated in his movements, Wee Boon was slow to chase after the ball and too timid to block anyone who charged at him. Unlike him, Cody had learnt to hide his fear, to steel himself against any shot that was thrown in his direction, masking his clumsy footwork with a slide. He was never good at the game, but that was hardly a reason for not playing it. Wee Boon only played that one time and never again, and Cody did not ask him to join in any more.
Being an only child, Wee Boon was doted on by his parents and grandparents, and had everything he wanted: sticker cards for Dinosaurs of the Past, a box of rubber erasers that featured the flags of the world, new pencil cases and school bags every year. While Cody had to save up to buy a new pack of sticker cards every other week, skipping his recess break once or twice a week, Wee Boon would get a pack whenever he went out with his grandparents. His Dinosaurs of the Past book was three-quarters full within two months after they started, while Cody’s was still patchy, with many empty boxes. Wee Boon would give him any sticker cards he needed, though he was too shy to ask. In time, their booklets looked almost similar, lacking only those phantom sticker cards that never appeared in any packet they bought.
After school each day, Wee Boon’s grandmother would be waiting for him outside the school gates. With her white hair held tightly in a bun, and wearing a rosewood samfoo with frog buttons, his grandmother was a gentle, smiling woman, who would reach first thing for Wee Boon’s school bag and water bottle when he came out of the gates. She would smile at Cody and, in a spiel of rapid Cantonese, ask whether they had been good. Wee Boon would look embarrassed and tell her that he was hungry and ask for a snack—an ice-cream or some White Rabbit candies from the provision shop. Since the boys lived in the same neighbourhood—their flats were only two blocks apart—they would walk home together, and Wee Boon’s grandmother would buy Cody whatever Wee Boon was having. When they reached Wee Boon’s block, he would sometimes invite Cody up to the flat, where he had his own room and several large boxes of toys and shelves of comic books. At his place, he would show Cody his latest toy figurines and allow him to play with them, and they would stage epic intergalactic fights that often ended with everyone but one last hero massacred. When they got bored with these fights, they would lie on the floor and read the latest Old Master Q comics. When it was time for Cody to leave, he would borrow a few comics, and promise to return them after he’d finished reading them. When he forgot or wanted to hold onto them, Wee Boon did not say anything or remind him to return them.
In class, Wee Boon was the kind of student that the teachers liked: obedient, quiet, giving all his attention to what was said or written on the chalkboard. He handed up his homework on time and his name was always among the top when the teachers announced the results of a test or examination. He was the form teacher’s pet student, the one she would count on to be reliable and submissive. This naturally meant that he was intensely disliked by the other students in the class, especially the boys, who would ransack his school bag and hide his textbooks. He, however, never did tell on anyone, and would bite his lips and smile away any discomfort or annoyance. Some of the girls would tease him for his shyness, but most of them would befriend him and invite him to join them for zero-point or hopscotch. Because Cody sat beside him in class, he would often copy Wee Boon’s homework; his parents had hired two tuition teachers, one to teach only Chinese, and the other English, maths and science. Cody had to seek help for his homework from his two sisters, who were less than helpful, being too impatient or busy. When Cody was ill-prepared for a test, Wee Boon would tilt his test papers in such a way that made it easy for him to see, and in this way, and many others, they became fast friends, with a hoard of each other’s secrets.
On weekends, after tuition classes, and if Wee Boon’s parents allowed, they would play at the void deck under his block, kicking a ball or taking turns on Wee Boon’s new bicycle, which he had received as a present for getting the highest marks in the midyear examinations. They rarely ventured farther than the void deck or the playground in front of the block of flats, coming up with imaginary battles and using the playground as the battlefield, dividing it up into different lands, fighting against each other, the hero against his enemy. Once, Wee Boon clamoured to be the hero, and Cody pushed him to the ground, telling him that he was too weak to be one, and Wee Boon turned away, his eyes brimming with tears. Sometimes, Cody would let him win the battle, only because he had pitied him. When it was time for dinner, Wee Boon’s grandmother would come down to fetch him, and he would shout at her to leave them alone. Cody would never have dared to raise his voice at any adult, especially his elders; the few times he had done so, he was punished with strokes of the cane. Wee Boon’s grandmother would wait patiently for their game to end, and when they were done, she would draw out a handkerchief from her pocket and wipe down Wee Boon’s reddened face and damp hair, which he would shake off with a brusque shrug.
Their friendship was never a balanced or fair one. While Cody often sought peer approval from the more popular boys in class, joining them whenever they asked him to play football or other games on the school pitch, Wee Boon would seek out only him when he wanted someone to play with. Even at that age, Cody knew better than to be seen playing with him all the time in school, and from time to time he would shun Wee Boon deliberately, or push him away whenever he saw the other boys glancing in their direction. They would make jokes about Wee Boon behind his back and tease him to his face, and even if Cody were standing there, he would pretend not to see or hear anything, and let their laughter run their course and die off. While he was sometimes angry with himself for not doing anything, he was angrier at Wee Boon for being such a pushover, a weakling with no backbone. During these times, in Cody’s dark moods, Wee Boon would stare at him, a look of hurt and incomprehension in his eyes. But Cody learnt soon enough to ignore these looks, pushing them into the background.
It was Cody’s idea to take up swimming as their extra-curricular activity in Primary Six. The swimming lessons were held twice a week after school, at a swimming pool only five minutes’ walk away. After lunch at the school canteen, Wee Boon and Cody would walk there and flash their school passes to gain free entry to the pool. They would change into their trunks at the changing room, and head for the main pool where the coach, a pot-bellied man with leathery skin, would be waiting, along with other students of the school’s swimming club. While Cody learnt to swim the breaststroke adequately after only three lessons, able to complete a lap without panicking, Wee Boon was still struggling to keep his body afloat and to regulate his breathing. After each lesson, he threatened to quit, though he never did. The boys were taught other strokes—freestyle, butterfly, backstroke—and practised these by swimming a few laps. While they swam, the coach would bark out instructions from the side of the pool, correcting arm or leg posture, or telling them not to slow down. When they finished their assigned laps, they would hang onto the edge of the pool, splashing water at each other or competing to see who could hold his breath underwater the longest. Sometimes they would tickle or punch each other in the water to make the other person give up, to let go of his breath. In most cases, Cody was the winner, but during those times, when they really wanted to know who could hold his breath the longest, without any trick or disturbance, Wee Boon would emerge the winner; his longest record: two minutes and fifty-one seconds.