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| To commemorate Roald Dahl's Day, Bet fancied herself as Matilda Photo taken from AMightyGirl |
It wasn’t til
February
When we got our placements in schools
In the period
in-between
We unpacked the
boxes of story books
Prizes we won from doing
well in final exams
Or tomes tossed
aside by wealthier cousins
They were all eager
to leave the confines of their prison
And share their content
Adventures to
faraway lands and ancient kingdoms
A handy escape from
our humdrum existence
I flipped the pages
of the glossy, hard-cover, full-colour book
That I had won for being third in class at Teluk Kurau West
A
Sword in the Stone recounted the trials and tribulations
Of young Arthur who
was destined to be the King of old England
With the help of Merlin
the Magician
He freed Excalibur
from a hideous stone
And led the Knights
of the Round Table
From Camelot to
Sherwood Forest
I snooped into the
exploits of Robin Hood
And his band of
Merry Men
Who robbed the Sheriff
of Nottingham
And hurled his gold
to the peasants
Farewell to Medieval
England
Off to a life as a
cast away on a tropical island
Marking the long,
lonely days
With my chums Robinson
Crusoe and Man Friday
Another shipwreck, another
tropical isle
To marvel at how the
Swiss Family Robinson built their
tree house
In their frocks and
breeches
And used their
rifles and explosives to fight the natives
From the West Indies
to Wonderland
Sitting by the
riverbank
With Alice and the
Principles of Logical Calculus
Walking away from
that "horrible place"
Trailing a talking
white rabbit
Wearing a waistcoat
and a pocket watch
Falling deep into his
rabbit hole
To open a tiny door
leading to a race
Where a small snail beat
the other animals
Odd characters like
the Duchess and her Cheshire Cat
The March Hare at
the Mad Hatter’s tea party
The Queen of Hearts
and her game of croquet
And the Knave of
Hearts accused of stealing the tarts
I had to escape the
wrath of the Red Queen
To follow Philaes Fogg
on his bet with his friends
In Around the World in Eighty Days
Along with Passepartout,
his French valet
And Aoda whom he saved
from the funeral pyre
Back to Victorian London
I tried to outwit Dr
Watson
In the Adventures of Sherlock Holmes
And solve the
mystery of Jack the Ripper
Who disappeared in
the foggy winter
Along with the split
personality
Of Dr Jekyll and Mr
Hyde
On to the Arabian Gulf
I boarded the dhow with Sinbad
To the banks of the
Euphrates
And witness the
splendour of old Baghdad
Onto the magic
carpet with Aladdin
Transported to a secret
cave with treasure chests
Overflowing with
rubies, sapphires and emeralds
And held my breath
as Sheherazade kept her head
By captivating the
Sultan with her enchanting tales
Of A Thousand and One Nights
My voyage took me
to the land of the Minangkabaus
I shed silent tears
for Siti Noerbaya
Who was married
against her will to the cruel Datuk Maringgeh
My lips uttered
every word in the letters written by Syamsul Bahri
To his lady love in Tenggelamnya Kapal Van de Wyck
My mind trekked the
steps taken by the ill-fated protagonist
Who sought his
fortune in Merantau ke Deli
From Deli to Padang
and Bukit Tinggi
Where myths of
princesses who turned into fish with golden scales
Flourished in famous
Sumatran folktales
Which Mak had
collected from her days at the highlands
