Chapter 5 [Mars and Pluto]

It's a Saturday morning and I'm having choir practice in school.

Joining the choir isn't my initial intention, joining the NCC is. However I went for the first NCC meeting and was disgusted by how the seniors taught us nothing constructive and only made us do push ups and run around the school compound like monkeys. Following that, I had a compulsory choir audition during one of my music lessons and I was chosen. The next thing I knew, I was in the choir, just like that.

I actually asked Joseph to join the choir together with me. I requested for him to sing for me during one of my birthdays and he sang Jacky Cheung's "Xin Ru Dao Ge", and I was astonished to hear him sing so well. He never looks like one who has a nice voice to me.
He came for one Saturday's practice and then no more. He told me later that it's too 'inactive' for his tastes.
I understood what he meant. He's a person so energetic, he cannot bear to keep still for a few minutes. What's his source of boundless energy? I wonder to myself so many a times. The sun? Panapop perhaps.

Or maybe he's just so dense, he doesn't know he's actually tired. Haha.

3 hours of practice ends and I head towards the field. There's only one person on the field playing soccer alone.

"Joseph!" I call out to him.

He turns over, smiles, kicks the soccer ball in my direction and jogs towards me.

Joseph doesn't have anything on Saturday mornings. He just accompanies me to school, sending me here on his bicycle and waits 3 hours for me to end. Every week without fail. During those 3 hours, he'll play soccer with himself. I've told him before that he doesn't need to do this but he says it's ok since he has nothing on and he doesn't want to stay at home by himself (his mother works on Saturdays as well) and do nothing.

"Where should we go now?" He asks when he's beside me. He asks me this every Saturday and it has become sort of like a routine question.

Normally I'll say 'Anywhere' and he'll start throwing me his suggestions that I believe he comes up during that 3 hours of wait. No matter how ridiculous some of his ideas were, I'll go along with him, sort of like compensating him for making him wait.
Once, we went to a park nearby to pluck mangoes. I was so nervous the whole time, afraid of getting caught, but we managed to pluck 4 juicy ones and we had a mango feast at his place after that.
Another time, we went to the canal behind our school to catch fish. We got ourselves wet and dirty while playing with the drain water and playing catching in the canal. At the end of the day, we caught zero fish. I remembered I got a scolding from my mum later that day, and Joseph got it from his mother.
Other times we would just laze at his place or mine, to play video games, to watch VCDs, or just to do nothing. It's like it doesn't matter what we do, as long as we do them together we're happy.

Today, however, I don't feel like going anywhere and I ask him whether we can just stay in school. I am hoping that he'll not feel disappointed.

"Ok." He says. With a smile. Phew.

We choose a spot by the field, under a tree, and lay on the grass side by side.
I look up at the sky. Today is a cloudy day. The clouds look like scales and covered the entire sky. There is a slight breeze and it's making the leaves on the trees around us rustle. Somehow, the rustle is comfortable to the ears. And the breeze is so refreshing and cooling, it doesn't feel like a summer afternoon at all.

"Hey boy. I did some research on L.Y. " Joseph says suddenly.

He did what? Did I hear 'research'?

"I've checked the year book and I found only 3 girls in our batch bearing the initials L.Y. There are 2 in the sec 2 batch. Sec 1 batch, I couldn't find anything because our year book doesn't have them yet. I didn't bother to check the sec 4 batch because I don't think you'll be interested in girls older than you."

He got to be joking. And did he decide for me that I'm not to be interested in older girls? Smart aleck.
I am quite amused actually.

"So now, we've narrowed our targets to 5, currently. And that should make our plan an easier task." He reasons.

Yes, I remember. This is the kind of things that makes Joseph serious. Though I honestly feel that the plan will not become any easier since L.Y may not be initials of names, it can be purely made up. And L.Y may not be a girl, but I hope that is not the case.
I try to comprehend all the things Joseph just told me and I chuckle to myself. I am really really amused.

"Hey boy, say something leh. Do you want to find out who L.Y is or not?" He questions me.

No. I've no interest to find out who L.Y is from the start. I carry out his plan just to play along with him.

"I don't know." I reply him. I don't know why I lie.

We continue to laze down there and just enjoy the moments.

"Do you think there are aliens out there?" He asks after some time, pointing to the sky.

I turn to look at him and nearly burst out laughing.

"I think there are aliens living on Earth even." I tell him.

He turns to look at me and smiles, like he knows that I'm referring to him.
No, he wouldn't know. I hope.

"I think so too." He says.

His reply surprises me. Surprises me that he thought about 'whether there are aliens on Earth?' before. I always think of him as a person who doesn't give much care to the things around him, let alone caring 'whether there are aliens on Earth?' I'll already be surprised if he cares something like 'whether there is a test tomorrow?' But 'whether there are aliens on Earth?' It is so not something to be up his head.
More importantly, I am surprise that Joseph and I are more similar than what I thought we were.
Seems like he still surprises me after these 7 years.

"If I'm an alien, which planet do you think I'm from?" He asks.

"Mars."

"I think you'll be from Pluto if you are an alien." He says.

I want to tell him that Pluto is no longer a planet, but I never. I don't think he cares.
Actually... maybe he does. Never mind.

"Why?" I ask.

"Because it's so far away... "

I don't understand what he is trying to say. I feel that there is more to what he wants to say, but he never say anything after that. And I never ask.

"Don't you think it's better if Mars is next to Pluto?" He asks.

"Yah."

And after that, the both of us never say anything to each other. We just lie on the grass side by side and look at the sky, enjoying the clouds, the breeze, the rustle.
I remember once, we also laid side by side, to look at something. But that happened a very long time ago.

It is a wonderful afternoon and we spend it doing nothing, but it doesn't matter.
We're happy.


~End of Chapter 5~