Chapter 5

CHAPTER 5

I can’t get my hands on my phone fast enough. As soon as I retrieve it, I swipe up and check my notifications. There are almost 100 messages in the Bad Betches WhatsApp group between Cassie and Sharlot. A mess of emotions swirls through me. I’m torn between feeling happy that my two besties are getting along so well, but also ARGH! that I’ve missed out on so much conversation. I locate my car in the lineup of idling cars, get in, say a quick hi to Pak Run, and scroll all the way to the top of the messages.

Kiki, look how buff Axle got over summer

Image sent of previously scrawny Axle looking like a mini Hulk

Sharlot:Holy…

Cassie:Right?

Sharlot:He’s kind of rly hot? Lol, sorry George

Cassie:Eh, only if you’re into that whole broad-shouldered, chiseled-jawline look, I guess. I heard that he went to LA and worked out on Muscle Beach the whole summer. I bet he was chugging protein shakes and taking steroids

Sharlot:Welp, they clearly worked on him!

Cassie:Yeah, but they’ll also make his penis smaller

Sharlot:What? Srsly? No, you’re messing with me

Cassie:I’m serious! I read about it in this article. Steroids affect your hormones. If guys take them, their voices get really high and their dicks get tiny!

Sharlot:ROFL

My eyebrows are all the way up in my hairline by now. My thumbs hover over the screen, ready to type a reply, but instead, I scroll lower and see that the conversation has already moved on to Cassie telling Sharlot about Mrs. Prasari, our notoriously eccentric biology teacher, who wears two pairs of glasses: one over her eyes, the other perched on her forehead. Even after two years of biology, we still don’t know if she’s aware of the second pair of glasses on her head. Apparently, she brought a dead pig to lab, and nobody was sure whether it was school-sanctioned or Mrs. Prasari bought it at the wet market earlier that morning. Knowing Mrs. Prasari, it could really go either way, and the thought of her compared to Ms. Tian makes my breath catch. I never thought I’d miss Mrs. Prasari with such ferocity, but oh, how I do.

Again, replies fly through my mind—already I can think of at least four jokes I can make out of the situation—but as I scroll, I see that the conversation has moved away from that and on to something completely different. By the time I reach the end of the messages, Cassie and Sharlot have covered at least five different topics of conversation, and I’ve missed every single one of them. All because of Xingfa’s rule about keeping phones in a stupid basket outside the classroom.

There’s a surprising lump in my throat, and I gaze out the window, taking long, deep breaths that come out ever so slightly juddery. My thoughts keep coming back to It’s not fair. Not fair, not fair. Not. Fair.

I’m fully aware that this train of thought makes me sound about four years old, but truly, this is such a great injustice. I had friends at Mingyang. Good ones, girls I can see myself growing old with. But what if I’m wrong? What if Cassie and I were only ever so close because we just happened to be in the same class for years and years? And now that I’m no longer there, maybe she’ll decide that we never had that much in common before. Why did Mami and Papi think it would be okay for them to yank me out of the only school I’ve known for the past ten years and plonk me into a cold, unwelcoming environment where I’d have to start from scratch. Why? All because George Clooney goes there and so it must be the premier school in Jakarta. It’s not fair. Why should I be punished for my parents’ ambitions?

By now, I’m so upset that I can’t even muster up the energy to respond to the messages. What’s the point? The last message was sent over an hour ago. Cassie is probably doing her extracurriculars right now—she plays the cello in the school orchestra. And Sharlot’s probably in bed. I plop my phone onto my lap and rest the side of my head against the car window.

As soon as I get home, Mami is all over me.

“Kikiii!” she cries, swooping down on me and dragging me through the living room and into the kitchen. “I got ube cheesecake, your favorite, and an oat latte—I know how much you love those. Come in here and tell me everything about your day!”

I look at her, and the awfulness of today crashes down on my shoulders. With it comes the anger, glowing like hot coals. “My day was shit. I hate my new school. I still don’t know why I had to switch out of Mingyang—oh wait, it’s because you want me to be a social climber like you.”

The smile freezes on Mami’s face, and I feel a stab of guilt, but it’s quickly flattened by my anger. Because where’s the lie in what I just said?

Mami takes a deep breath. I can tell she’s trying to control her temper. She hates it when I talk back, will usually remind me I’ve become too westernized. Still, she rallies on, forcing a smile. “Well, I’m sure it was just first-day jitters. It’s not at all like you to be cowed by other kids. I know you: you’ll learn to fit in just fine.”

“Not sure if I want to fit in with this bunch.”

The corners of her mouth twist down. “Kiki—” she sighs.

But I can’t deal with her, not right now. So much resentment is festering in me. My entire head is pounding, my heartbeat a constant rhythm of All her fault, all her fault. I mean, I just got called “crazy,” for god’s sake. Who does that? “I’m going up to shower,” I say, interrupting Mami. Then the guilt overcomes me and I add, “But thanks for the cheesecake and the latte.” Before Mami can argue, I hurry up the stairs and breathe a sigh of relief only when I’m inside my bedroom. No doubt Mami is going to complain about this whole exchange to Papi, and then they’ll both tell me off for being rude to my elders blah blah blah.

Just then, my phone beeps. It’s the Discord notification tone, which makes me jerk straight up and snatch my phone out of my pocket.

How was your first day at the new school? Survived it?

I suddenly understand the saying “My spirits lifted,” because everything inside me feels a little less heavy at this. Smiling, I type out a response.

I’m literally flopped all over my floor, that’s how soul-sucking my new school was

Sourdawg:Haha, what was so bad abt it?

Dudebro10:Where do I even begin? OK, first of all, there’s this ass in my class who’s, like, this ridiculous misogynist.

I pause. I almost said that Jonas was sexist toward me, but that would be giving myself away.

There’s a new girl in our class and he called her “crazy”

Sourdawg:Srsly?

Dudebro10: Right? I mean, it’s not just me? That’s pretty freaking offensive?

Sourdawg:It’s not just you. I would’ve called him out on it. What did the girl do?

Dudebro10:She told him where to stick it, basically. And she was, like, “Next time you wanna talk shit about me, do it to my face.”

Sourdawg:OK I’m kind of falling for her

I abruptly take my fingers off the keyboard and stare at the screen, my face tingling. Ugh, I hate this feeling. So slimy. I’m literally talking about myself in the third person to my online bestie. That’s super creepy, right? But what else can I do? And after the events of the day, I really wanted to talk to Sourdawg about it, even more so than to my WhatsApp group. Maybe because I wanted to make sure that he wouldn’t react like one of those guys. I already know how Cassie and Shar would react. They’d explode into indignant cries of “How dare he mistreat you, Queen?”

Haha, dork

Sourdawg:I’m just saying. She sounds cool. Anyway, what’s the rest of the school like?

Dudebro10:Omg, unbelievably strict. For example, we have to call the teachers “Teacher,” not even, like, “Miss Chan” or whatever

Sourdawg:Okay, well, that’s what we have to do at our school too

Dudebro10: And none of the girls shortened their skirts, WTF?

Sourdawg:Uh. Okay, kind of creepy that you want the girls to shorten their skirts

Shoot. I’d forgotten that I’m supposed to be a guy. Okay, coming from a guy, that comment about girls not shortening their skirts would sound really creepy. Although I can totally see Jonas saying something like that. Not great.

I didn’t mean for it to come off that way. I just meant, like…it’s weird not to see any sort of pushback on the uniforms. Back at my old school, we were always pushing the boundaries on our uniforms

Sourdawg:I get it. My school has really strict rules when it comes to the uniforms too. When we first started in Year Seven, a handful of us rebelled, but we’re in Year Eleven, we’re used to it by now

Dudebro10:Oh, and get this: We have to bow to the teachers and to the prefects whenever we pass them in the hallways. And when classes begin, the prefect says, “Class stand.” And we stand, and then the prefect says, “Greet the teacher.” And we have to bow and say, “Good morning, Teacher.” And when classes end, we have to go through the whole thing again: “Class stand.” “Thank the teacher.”

Sourdawg:You’ve just described my school to a T. Except the prefects here say, “Please greet the teacher.”

Dudebro10:Seriously? And you’re all okay with this?

Sourdawg:Yeah. Why wouldn’t we be?

Dudebro10: Because it’s like…

I pause midsentence and midbreath, trying to find a way to convey how weird I’m finding all this.

It’s the kind of thing I would expect from a YA dystopian movie, you know?

Sourdawg:LOL, okay bro. We don’t get sorted into different factions or districts, if that makes you feel better

Dudebro10:You sure about that?

I smile as I type that. Only Sourdawg can make something like an overly strident system sound okay.

Are all schools in Singapore that strict, or is it just yours?

Sourdawg:??

I frown. Did I just say something weird?

What’s up?

Sourdawg:Why Singapore? I wouldn’t know

Dudebro10:Uh, don’t you live in Sg? Your location says Sg

Sourdawg:Oooh. My location just says Sg because I was there visiting my mom over summer break when I downloaded the game. But the rest of the time I live in Indo.

Wait, what?? To say I’m in shock would be the understatement of the year. I can barely feel my hands as they move across the keyboard and start typing. I don’t even really know what I’m about to type until I hit Enter.

Cool. Which sch did you say you go to again?

Sourdawg:Xingfa, why?

What. In. The. Hell?! I sit there, frozen, gaping at the screen for what seems like ever, my fingertips hovering over the keyboard, not moving a single inch. My breath is held completely still. Scrambled thoughts whizz through my mind like broken bits of asteroids, crashing and exploding into smithereens.

U there? Are we gonna play or what? I rly want to hit Silmerrov Gulch tonight.

Somehow, the mention of Silmerrov Gulch wakes me up enough to move my fingers across the keyboard once more.

Sorry, I gtg. I have a ton of homework. From school.

Oh god. Of-freaking-course any homework I have would be from school. Where the hell else would it be from? Before I can say anything dumb and accidentally out myself, I hit close on the app. I lean back in my chair and release a ridiculously long breath. Holy shit. What just happened? I try to slow down my thoughts. Okay, so Sourdawg is at Xingfa—

Just the thought of it triggers my mind into a hundred thousand squealing thoughts screaming Omigod whaaaat!

Yep, this is it. This is how I perish. Through my heart climbing up my rib cage and esophagus and lodging in my skull and then exploding. Because of course. Of COURSE Sourdawg is at Xingfa, where I am considered the loseriest loser that ever lost. And he’s definitely going to find out that I’m Dudebro10 and that I’ve been lying to him this whole time. Then another horrible thought crawls its way into the center of my brain: I know at least one other person at Xingfa who plays Warfront Heroes. Jonas. GROSSS ARGGGH ARGH ARGH! What if Sourdawg is Jonas?!

Oh god, this is a huge freaking mess, and I have no idea how I’m going to fix it.

This is hopeless. I need help. I can’t process this on my own. I pounce on my phone and send a text to Cassie: SOS!!!!

Cassie’s reply is almost immediate: Meet at Cake Ho?

Despite the explosions going off in my head, I have to smile at that. There isn’t much that can’t be made better by a cake from Cake Ho and a good scream with my bestie.

---

According to Papi, Jakarta’s food scene used to be pretty boring—nothing but traditional Indonesian and Chinese restaurants everywhere. I mean, not to say that Indonesian and Chinese food isn’t good, but there was very little variety. Here and there, you’d find the odd Italian or French restaurant, but they weren’t well-known, and they were really overpriced. When I was a kid, Mami and Papi only ever took me to Chinese restaurants. But in the last few years, Indonesians who went to college overseas came back and opened up new restaurants, and suddenly, the food scene in Jakarta exploded. We went through a fusion phase, where everything was fusion—Italian Japanese, Indonesian Vietnamese, Indonesian Italian, Chinese Indian, Korean American, and so on. Then we went through a café phase, where you couldn’t throw a stone without hitting a picturesque shop boasting local, artisanal coffee. Now we’re in the cake phase, and I fully approve of the cake phase. I mean, I fully approved of all the previous phases too, but the cake phase is particularly delightful.

Because there isn’t much to do in Jakarta other than eat, restaurant owners pour all their money into making sure their restaurants and cafés are beautiful places you want to spend hours at. Take Cake Ho, for example: it looks like Willy Wonka’s dream come true, if Willy Wonka were French and had actual good taste. Okay, so maybe not at all like Willy Wonka. The walls are painted a luxurious green, and there are soft pink peonies everywhere and hardcover books with pastel spines lined neatly in the bookshelves. Then there are the cakes. Towering behemoths slathered in rich buttercream, displayed proudly in their glass cases, the cakes look almost too pretty and too decadent to eat. Each has at least eight thick layers, and usually, Cassie and I would go straight from Mingyang after school and share a slice between the two of us and still have enough to take home.

The bell above the door chimes as I enter, and the owner, Tessa, glances up from behind the counter. She smiles when she sees me, then cranes her neck with a quizzical expression when nobody comes in after me.

“Where’s Cassie? You two usually arrive together.”

My throat closes up ever so slightly. I know it’s stupid to get emotional over such an innocuous question, but it’s been a long day. “Oh, Cassie will be here in a minute.”

She must have caught something in my voice, because her expression turns soft, understanding lighting her eyes. “Take a seat. The usual drink?”

My usual drink is what Cassie affectionately calls the Embarrassment of Indonesia. It’s an iced latte but with just half the espresso shot. No self-respecting Indonesian café serves decaf, and if I drink coffee past noon, I’ll stay awake the rest of the night, so as a compromise, I order half shots.

“Yeah, and Cassie’s usual, please. And can we have a slice of…” I hesitate, scanning the glass display case. There are the usual favorites: carrot cake, red velvet, German chocolate, nastar crumble (nastar is an Indonesian butter cookie filled with thick pineapple jam), and pandan coconut. Today, there’s also a giant cake that’s a deep purple.

“Japanese ubi,” Tessa says, following my gaze. “With palm sugar frosting.”

“Ooh, yes, that one.” Of course, as soon as I say it, I realize my stomach is in such a tight knot that I don’t really have much of an appetite, not even for one of Tessa’s magical cakes. Still, no harm in trying to fix my problems with cake.

“Okay, coming right up.”

Cassie arrives just as our drinks and stupidly huge slice of cake arrive, and I practically leap up from my seat to hug her.

“Uh-oh. Okay, so it’s a real emergency. Oh god. Are you—please tell me you’re not, like, seriously ill.” She actually looks like she’s about to cry.

“No! God, nothing like that.” Great, now I feel terrible for making Cassie worry. “It’s just—Sourdawg.”

“Oh?” Cassie looks confused for a second before understanding dawns. “Oh no! Did your starter die?”

“My starter?” Now it’s my turn to look confused.

“Your sourdough starter. Remember? We all made one during the pandemic, and yours was the only one that’s lasted this long. Aww, I would hate for Francine to die!”

“Oh, right. No, Francine’s okay…I think.” To be fair, Francine’s probably close to death. I wouldn’t know; I threw her in the freezer a couple of months ago and have pretty much forgotten about her. “This isn’t about sourdough, it’s about Sourdawg.”

“Sour…dog.” Cassie eyes me warily. “Is that some weird sex position you just read about on Reddit?”

“Oh my god, you perv. No, Sourdawg is my online friend, remember? The one in Warfront Heroes?”

“Ooohhh. Right, yeah. The rando you’ve been chatting with for—what, a year now? The one who thinks you’re a guy? You do realize he’s probably a fifty-year-old dude living in his mom’s basement in, like, Arkansas or something?”

It’s been an ongoing joke between Sharlot and Cassie that my online bestie is some old creeper pretending to be a teenage boy. I guess, on the bright side, I’m about to prove them wrong.

“Actually, he’s a bona fide teen boy.”

Cassie’s eyes widen. “Ooh! You finally have a photo of him? Yasss! Oh my god, is he hot?”

“No!”

“Oh.” Her shoulders slump. “Yeah, I should’ve known that a gamer guy wouldn’t be hot. No offense to you. Gamer girls are, like, scalding hot. But the guys, eh.”

I have to laugh at that, because it’s kind of painfully true. “I don’t know what he looks like.”

“Then how do you know he’s not a fifty-year-old man?”

“Because—” I take a deep breath. Here it comes, the unlikeliest news of the year. “He’s in Year Eleven, like us. And…he’s a student at Xingfa.”

Cassie’s jaw thumps to the floor. “Whoa, wait—”

News out, I lean back, spent. Even saying it out loud feels ridiculous, like, seriously, what are the chances?

Cassie’s mouth closes a little, then opens again, then closes. Then opens. “But—” she sputters.

“Yeah, exactly.” I’m glad I’m not the only one freaked out by this.

“Shit,” she whispers, then out of nowhere, she giggles. The giggle turns into a laugh, and before long, it morphs into a full-body cackle. And I can’t help but join in, because really, what else is there to do aside from laugh-cry? “Are you freaking serious?”

I nod, and the two of us devolve into yet more bone-shaking laughter.

“Oh my god. Oh my god!” she shriek-laughs. “Wait, but—oh my god. Who is he?”

“I don’t know!” I moan. “He could be anyone. Xingfa is a huge school! There are, like, three hundred students per year group.”

Cassie dissolves into laughter again. “What are you going to do? He thinks you’re a guy!”

“I know that. I don’t need you to remind me of that. Every single time I talk to him, I’m reminded of the fact that my online best friend thinks I’m a dude.”

Cassie’s laugh softens into a sad smile. “Aww. Your online bestie! That’s so cute. It’s so, like, circa 2000. Like that ancient Meg Ryan movie that our moms are always watching.”

“Okay, it’s kind of different from You’ve Got Mail.”

“Really, in what way?” Cassie cocks her head to one side.

I narrow my eyes at her. “Well, first of all, Sourdawg and I actually do something together? We don’t just sit around emailing each other.”

“Oh, right.” Cassie smacks her forehead dramatically. “Sorry, how could I forget, you guys play that shooter game together. Yeah, total couple goals.”

I glare at her. “Anyway, that’s not the point. The point is, what am I going to do? We’re in the same school! In the same year group!” I repeat, just in case the direness of the situation hasn’t sunk in.

Cassie nods. “Okay. Well, anyway. Here’s what you do. You ready?”

I lean forward, ready to absorb whatever suggestion she comes up with.

Cassie takes a deep breath. “Nothing.”

I blink. “Nothing?”

“Nothing. He doesn’t know who you are. Does he know you go to Xingfa?”

It takes me a minute to consider this. “I don’t think I mentioned it by name, no. I just told him that it’s one of the biggest Chinese schools in Indonesia. He might’ve figured it out—”

“Dude, how many Chinese schools are there? Like, a freakton. There’s Huayang, Nanyang, ACS, SIS, National High, Tzu Chi—actually, Tzu Chi is probably the biggest one. Or maybe ACS? So he’s probably assumed it’s one of those two.”

I nod slowly, digesting her words. Despite Cassie’s cavalier attitude, what she’s saying actually makes a lot of sense. “Okay, so Sourdawg doesn’t know I’m at Xingfa. But what if he asks Dudebro to meet up?”

“Who’s Dude—oh god, is that your screen name? Seriously?” Cassie grins.

“I wanted to pretend to be a guy, so…”

“So you used the most stereotypically male nickname ever? But I get it. I would never have guessed that someone named Dudebro is a girl.” Cassie gives me this You did well smirk. “Okay, so let’s say he asks Dudebro to meet up. You could fess up? Nope, never mind. Too big of a risk. Okay. You’ve got a couple of options. One: Be a normal person and come up with some excuse, like ‘I can’t, because I’m panicking in introvert.’ Or two: Send some guy to go and pretend to be Dudebro.”

“Right, because it would be so easy to find someone to pretend to be Dudebro.”

“It is, actually. We could ask my brother. He’d do it for a fee. He games too, so he’ll know what he’s talking about.”

I shake my head. “I already feel awful enough about duping Sourdawg into thinking I’m a guy. I really don’t want to have to take the con any further than that.”

“Okay, so just come up with excuse after excuse. You got food poisoning, because this is Jakarta and we get food poisoning every other month. You have an exam coming up, because you go to a super-competitive Chinese school. Your parents are stereotypical tiger parents and don’t let you go out of the house, ever. There are myriad reasons why you can’t meet up with your online friend.” Cassie looks satisfied by her reasoning, and I can’t blame her, because they’re actually really good excuses. Listening to her makes me feel like I can pull this off, that Sourdawg being here isn’t even that big a deal.

But that night, as I lie in bed wide awake and staring up at the ceiling, my confidence melts away, and the fear laps at me once more. What if Sourdawg finds out the truth?