I grew up here, with the coconut trees in the front garden. Mornings, there is a bird who calls cu-cu-cruu.

We are sticky all the time. Our necks are sticky. The insides of our elbows are sticky. I grew up sticky all the time. Schoolchildren in Singapore have a smell about them – not a bad smell, just a particular one – that is a combination of humidity and stickiness, canvas shoes and concrete floors. There is a respite from the heat only when the rain comes, and at night, when the lizards click and buzz outside.



There is respite, too, in a cold, eighty-cent glass of soybean milk from the drinks auntie at no. 34. We escaped into the Maxwell Road hawker centre this afternoon, Mowmy and me, and sat in the shaded cool for noodles and soups. We were in full view of the you char kway stall, where one uncle rolled the long strand of dough and folded it in half, one uncle deep-fried the pastry, and one auntie fished for the golden you char kway and drained it on paper towels. Two stalls down, the biscuit uncle did a fine trade in knotted plastic bags of butter biscuits.