Chapter 3

Ling

The falls used to be Charlene's and my favorite spot in Paki-bato. Papa said that it used to be very secluded, where lovers had rendezvous, friends shared bottles of beer and sang songs with a guitar in private. But a lot had changed after many years, and many people had built their houses close to the falls. The water had turned murky and there were less fish to fish, but Papa said it was still the most beautiful part of Paki-bato.

            Even though the water wasn't the best of quality, I used to fish and swim with my little sister, while Mama washed the clothes and Papa looked over us.

            Those were better times, and those times were from ten years ago. I still fished, though, and Papa still looked over me, but we were two persons short, and I never had contact with those two since they left.

            I put the straw basket down and touched the water. Since the morning was getting late, the water temperature felt slightly warm.         

            “Doing laundry?” Maring asked. She put her laundry basket beside mine and dipped a tiny, red shirt into the water. “I woke up late this morning, and even forgot it was my turn to do laundry.”

            I smiled and scrubbed my bar of soap on the wet, faded blue pants Papa loved. “I was helping Pa prepare his lesson plan for today. He's going to teach the parts of the cell.”

            “Is that why you're late in doing laundry?”

            “Well, I got busy relearning parts of the cell and forgot I had to do laundry.” A blush crept on my cheeks.

            Maring knew I was always eager to learn, anything was fine as long as I learned something. I only finished until high school, same with Maring. She was given a chance to go to college but she declined because working seemed more beneficial to her family, rather than sending her off to the city and spending money on college.

            Papa would have given me the chance to go to college but we didn't have enough money right after I graduated high school. He said I might go to college next year.

            “I can see you as a great teacher, Ling, just like your Papa,” Maring said.

            It was almost lunch time when I finished doing the laundry. I ran back to my house and put the laundry basket on the kitchen table. I hurriedly grabbed a pan by the shelves and put it down on the gas stove. I opened the pot beside the gas stove, and guessed there were about two cups of cooked rice left. One and a half cups for Papa's lunch, and just a half for me.

            I hurriedly fried three tiny galunggong fish, two for Papa and one for me. I sliced a tomato into pieces, put the pieces into a tiny plastic container and added soy sauce and a dash of vinegar into the mix. I dried the fish with a sieve and put it in a container along with the cooked rice I reserved for Papa.

            I placed all plastic containers and utensils in a plastic bag, and changed my wet shirt for a dry, tattered, two-sizes too big I ♥ PH shirt I bought from a thrift store in the wet market for 10 pesos.

            I locked all doors of the house and ran with Papa's lunch to the public school he worked at. The school was seven houses away. Each partially cemented and wood termite-infested house was six to ten meters away from each other.

            I passed by the last house and came across the town hall, a wooden building which was infested not just by termites but by mold as well, and the town's tiny chapel, a partially cemented hut with straw and galvanized iron sheets to make the roof. Next to the chapel was the public school, an all-wood building with galvanized iron sheets for the roof. On the roof it said, “PAKI-BATO PUBLIC SCHOOL”.

            By the school gate I met Manong Yael, who was the on-duty security guard for the main school entrance. He sat on a tall, wooden stool by the rusting crisscross bars of a gate and tipped his cap when he saw me.

            “Hi Manong Yael,” I said with a smile.

            “Hello Ling,” he said, “are you here to bring lunch to your dad again? It's still 11:50. He might be teaching in class right now. Just drop it off at the teachers' office.”

            “Thanks Manong,” I said.

            I rushed into the school campus and looked around the grass area where the children planted a number of bushes and vegetables near a small fish pond. Next to the fish pond was a wooden, one-storey structure meant for the library and teachers’ office.

            I didn’t go straight to the office; instead, I went ahead to the library.

            If there was one word to describe the library the moment I stepped in, it would be sad.

            There were only five bookshelves, and three out of five shelves were full of holes, thanks to termites. Two of the shelves had nails sticking out of the boards, a safety hazard for children.

            The books were in worse condition. They were yellow, old, and bug-bitten. Most of them were impossible to read with the faded letters and crinkled pages. All of them were dated two or three decades ago. The textbooks were completely obsolete and useless, while the storybooks were a few pages short.

            “The school has been looking for sponsors, or just anyone to adopt it.”

            I flinched and turned around. Mr. Gonzaga, or kuya Ronny, smiled to which I smiled back. His left eye was a lazy eye. Guessing whichever way he was looking was always a bit hard to figure out. I assumed he was staring at the door frame, or probably at me, which made me blush at the thought.

            “It would be nice if someone donated some books,” I said.

            “It’s not easy looking for donors, Ling,” he said.

            He stood next to me, eyeing the spines of books and the holes of the shelves. I inhaled his cologne, a sweet scent of what seemed like lavender and lilies.

            “You brought lunch to your father again, right?” he asked.

            The plastic bag crinkled and I nodded my head. “Galunggong and tomato bits,” I said with a smile.  

            A bell rang from the distance, which signalled the end of morning classes and the start of lunch break.

            “Let's bring that food to your father,” kuya Ronny said. He went to the next room and I followed suit.

            He stood by the door, pushing his thick, red frames closer to the bridge of his nose. I sat on the mono bloc chair beside him and listened to each tick and tock of the clock right above the door.

            My heart followed the rhythm of the clock and just savored the quietness between kuya Ronny and me. To me, I felt closer to kuya Ronny in silence. Maybe because all the bad things which had happened to us, like me losing a mother and him having an almost blind left eye, were discussed in silence.

            When the clock ticked, Papa came in through the open door and grinned. “Ling!”

            I put the bag of food on his desk and helped him put the stack of Lesson Plan notebooks by the desk's leg. “There's galunggong and tomato bits, Pa,” I said.

            “Mi hija, thank you,” he said. He sat on his mono bloc chair and turned his eyes towards kuya Ronny. “There's good news, Ron, very good news!”

            A small smile lingered on kuya Ronny's face as he walked to his own desk, where he rummaged through his bag for his own food. “Good news? What kind of good news, sir?”

            “A phone call—” Papa gathered a spoonful of cooked rice and a piece of fish into his spoon, “—from a sponsor!” He put the spoon into his mouth and chewed noisily. “Isn't this great news?”

            Kuya Ronny jumped from his seat. “A phone call?”

            “He will come here tomorrow to personally inspect our school's library.”

            I blushed when kuya Ronny turned his eye to me and smiled lopsidedly. “Very great news you have, kuya Ronny,” I said evenly.