Aunty Lee's Chilled Revenge

Dedicated to Rajeev Doraswamy, Ram Doraswamy, and Aaron

Mali, with thanks for the amount of time and attention your

wonderful mothers devoted to the birthing of this book

They had opened the clinic doors at nine as usual. Dr. Samantha Kang had just escorted an obese corgi with breathing difficulties and its worried owner into the examining room when she heard the crash and Lisette, the receptionist, shrieking.

The corridor was full of black smoke and the smell of kerosene when she opened the door and saw a fireball blazing in the reception area. Lisette stumbled into her, coughing and tearing. “I don't know what happened!”

“Get them out the back.” Dr. Kang pushed Lisette and the corgi and its owner through the animal holding area to the goods entrance. They had three dogs, two cats, and a rabbit in the back room. Gino, the veterinary assistant, was already putting the second cat into a carrier, and Samantha started
leashing the dogs. There was no point rescuing terrified dogs from a fire only to be run over.

Somehow they got all the animals out. Coughing and dizzy from smoke, the vet stumbled around to the front of the clinic and sat on the grassy patch that separated it from the main road. Normally she avoided even walking here, given that it was where many of her canine patients relieved themselves. She held a shivering Chihuahua on her lap, and a brown “Singapore Special” mutt laid a grateful, moist snout on her leg. A curious crowd had gathered but the fire was already out. Within ten minutes of the alarm, two Singapore Civil Defense Force fire bike riders with compressed foam backpacks had arrived and extinguished the blaze. Now two red rhinos and a full-sized generic fire engine arrived from the SCDF to find only sodden, black-streaked walls and smoky dampness.

“Dr. Samantha Kang? I am Emergency Response Officer Sarah Hisham. How are you feeling?”

“Yes, I'm Samantha Kang,” Samantha said to the uniformed woman squatting in front of her. “I'm sorry.” The Chihuahua gave a halfhearted yap but subsided when she put a comforting hand on its head.

“Sorry?”

Samantha indicated the main road, where a traffic officer was directing cars around the stationary fire engine. The rhinos had driven off the road to park on the grass slope, their flashing lights giving the place a festive air.

“We got you all over here for nothing. It was just a small fire. I don't know how it happened.”

“Calling us was the right thing to do,” Sarah Hisham said. “The best fire is no fire. Second best is small fire.” It sounded like a standard joke, but Samantha could not smile.

“There should be some way of saying it's a small fire, just send one or two firemen. Don't waste resources. You shouldn't be wasting resources.”

“Better safe than sorry. Now come with me so we can take a look and make sure you are all right.” The emergency officer gestured to what looked like a white school bus with a red stripe, almost hidden by the fire engine. “That's the ‘transformer' vehicle. It functions as a mobile hospital.”

“I'm all right. I'll just sit here awhile.”

“Can you walk?”

“Of course.” But she couldn't seem to make herself stand up.

The uniformed woman gently lifted the dog off Samantha's lap, holding it competently in the crook of one arm as she held the other out to Samantha.

“Come. Let's get you to the trauma station and test you for smoke inhalation . . .”

But Samantha suddenly scrambled to her feet, squinting through smoke-stung eyes at someone among the curious bystanders who should not have been there.