THE YOUNG ROBEN HOOD

WU Ying Ching

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Another MTR story, for today.

 

Standing within the crowd of people returning home from work was the secondary-three student Ben. Being around 5ft 10” tall, Ben was extremely skinny, which made the joints of his arms and legs look particularly protruding. Jacked up on a slender neck, his head was embellished with a flattop like a police apprentice. The slightly puffy cheeks served as a finishing touch for his eleven-to-twelve-year-old look. Sometimes in the school corridor teachers could not hold themselves from lifting their arms up to give Ben a soft cheek pinch. His childish face seemed mismatched to his rangy body, which was still great fun to look at.

 

Mrs Cheung and Mrs Lee went home together after a party of Mahjong battle. In the middle of the meat-packed train, they loudly “reproached” their sons-in-law. One talked about how busy hers was at work. But, what she intended to say is how grand he was as a banker. He gave massive, accurate insider information on stocks trading and handled large-scale investments. Another boasted about her competent nephew. His house in Manhattan Hill was so huge that the rooms for the Filipino maids were bigger than regular rooms in average households. And it went on – blah, blah, blah. Their hoarse voices rose and fell in the air, running afoul of each other. They left no chance for the other person to finish her turn before yelling out another gossip. Actually, Mrs Cheung knew well that Mrs Lee lived in a cheap public housing estate, and Mrs Lee also knew that whatever shares Mrs Cheung invested in, the stock prices always fell. The two were competing on two levels: on the surface, they were expressing admiration, but in fact, they were diminishing each other. They spared no effort putting on fake smiles while raising their voices up which made them sound even harsher.

 

Red lipsticks were dabbed on their lips. Ben found it extremely irritating to look at their mouth opening and closing, so he averted his eyes. A piece of memory sprung to his mind. His Liberal Studies teacher once said that the limitation of individual rights is on the boarder of others’ rights, a balance should be struck between them on the basis of fairness and stability. However, was it possible for him not to look at their lips or overhear their conversation? Having ducked his head, he caught a glimpse of their toes – what a terrible sight! Every summer, there are two types of passengers. The first type are those who wear sandals showcasing their toes. The other type are the ones forced to watch their toes. These twenty toes were rounded and fat. They could be divided into two groups, just like the passengers. The first group of toenails were painted in red. They were red spots squeezed in the middle of the chubby toes. They looked like Hong Kong steamed buns with small seedless red dates in the middle. The new-grown part was not yet painted but the nail polish was already chipped off. The toes peeked through the tiny colourful leather upper platform sandals as the Japanese national flower. Another group of toenails were painted in purplish-blue. The toes were rounded but toenails were in V-shape. They were 1cm longer than the toes and the toes were 1cm longer than the sandals. When casting a glance at them, they looked like fried crab claws served for Chinese banquets. Obviously, they were poisonous weapons of mass destruction, just like in Chinese chivalry novels, where colours between the spectrum of purplish-blue and black denote toxic. Passengers who glanced over them automatically took a step backwards.

 

Mrs Cheung and Mrs Lee were occupying the handrail all by themselves. How could that be possible? It turned out Mrs Cheung, with dark blue toenails, was an enthusiastic person whose head was holding up and body was moving forward while she was talking. When she spoke, she took a step forward, as if she was trying to be nice. Mrs Lee, with red toenails, could not help but step backwards. It was already a packed train, and it got worse when they kept moving back and forth with hands holding onto the handrail. All of a sudden, someone was standing in the way of Mrs Lee. She stopped moving immediately, yet she accidentally bumped into Ben who had his hands in his pocket.

 

Ben was waiting patiently for Mrs Lee to apologise. She didn’t, though. She turned around and stared at him. Ben did not look back. This made her so angry that she scream out, “kids are so rude these days. When they run into someone, they don’t even apologize. What a dick!”

 

Mrs Cheung added, “that’s what I told you. My niece is so nice she gives me money every month so that I can have fun. She even checks the stock market for me to make sure I earn money. If I don’t, she pays the difference all by herself. Isn’t she sweet?”

 

Her giant body kept moving towards Mrs Lee. Mrs Lee couldn’t dodge so she went along with Mrs Cheung and walked backwards at the same time. What happened to Ben? He didn’t even bother to move.

 

Mrs Lee couldn’t keep her temper anymore. Suddenly, she turned around and yelled in a high-pitched voice and frowned. “Excuse me! Kid, what’s wrong with you!”

 

Ben hated being called “kid” so much that he grinded his teeth while trying to keep his lips closed. His face might have still looked calm, but his hand was pulled out of the pocket “unconsciously”. Something metal and heavy slipped out of the pocket. “Bump.” It dropped right on her blood red toes.

 

“Ouch! My goodness!”  Mrs Lee screamed out.

 

An Office Lady in a midi-skirt, with a smile on her face, picked Ben’s electronic dictionary up and returned it to him.

 

Mrs Lee wouldn't stop the drama.

 

 “Oops! Are you alright? I‘m so sorry granny!” Ben acted nervous.

 

Mrs Lee couldn't believe what she just heard. Her eyes were open wide and her facial muscles twitched in sync as if she was too shocked to be angry.  

 

“Granny? Did you just call me granny?”

 

 The passengers around had to control their facial muscles as well in order to stop giggling.

 

 “Just forget it. At least he said sorry. It isn’t easy for a teen to apologize these days.” Mrs Cheung, however, remained calm and gentle, and seemed to be satisfied with Ben’s “apology”.

 

In the meantime, the door opened as the train stopped at the station. Mrs Cheung kindly pushed Mrs Lee out and said, “You are getting off here. This is your stop.” Ben didn’t look at Mrs Lee and express no emotions on his face. But he darted a glance at the frustrated, finger-pointing lady outside the glass door who was shrinking as the train moved away.

 

Once Mrs Lee had gone, half of the space around the handrail was available again. Not long after, Mrs Cheung heaved a sigh of relief and immediately laid back against the pole. Her excessive, smooth back fat was being squeezed out and looked like it was absorbing the metal bar under the cover of her outfit. Other passengers had no choice but to take off their hands, trying to stand still like trees. As the train was moving unstably, it was difficult for people to remain in balance. Somebody grabbed her boyfriend while the other had to impolitely hold onto a stranger’s backpack.

 

“Who? What are you doing? What do you want?” Mrs Cheung screamed unexpectedly.

 

The passengers turned and saw ten skinny and sharp fingers raising and then sticking all into a roll of fat on Mrs Cheung’s back.

 

“Kid, do you wanna feel me up?” Mrs Cheung condemned, pointing to his nose.

 

“Kid” again. Ben held the pole so tight that his fingertips became green, but, he did not show any emotions. Ben remained silent. “He touched me! He touched me!!” Mrs Cheung started to yell.

 

All of a sudden, the compartment which resembled a silent library, was filled with unstoppable laughter. At last, a middle-aged gentleman asked peacefully, “Who would like to touch you? Did anybody see it? We only saw you occupy the entire pole. You might as well call the police.”

 

“Yeah, they’ll charge you with ‘obstructing a public officer’ if you call them in vein.”

 

“Your whole body was literally leaning on his hand, lady.”

 

Everyone was kicking up a dust. They looked at Ben’s childish face and spoke their minds. Mrs Cheung looked a little pathetic. Originally she prepared to go into hysterics, though she stood alone, but realized the train had arrived at the station and she had to get off. However, she still shrieked “bad boy”, “little sucker” and “freakin kid” while leaving.

 

Everybody took a sigh of relief and began to chatter and twitter together. Ben took off his hand from the pole, walked to a place without any support and started his daily Zhanzhuang exercise. Nobody knew he joined the Chinese Martial Art Society and practiced the Eagle-claw kung fu. He also had unquestioning obedience for what his master said: never eat anything sweet, be hardworking, and follow the demand that hones the Zhanzhuang skills every day while taking the round trip on the MTR as someone who practices kung fu should not need any handrail.

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