Flying Burger (2 page)

Chapter 2

Two months before the Metametica Space Academy Open House.

Inside the Metametica Space Academy, Mr. Arumugam the Manager of Spaceship Department, was discussing with his Deputy Manager regarding student enrolment for the next academic year. They were both seated comfortably in Mr. Arumugam’s private office. This year’s student intake was below expectation. The student calibre was also disappointing, with more than fifty percent having failed in at least one major academic subject. Mr. Arumugam wanted to find ways to attract the best students to sign up for next year’s Spaceship Course. His Deputy Manager, Roger, suggested to publicize the Spaceship Department in the upcoming Academy Open House. Roger wanted to have the most entertaining programme, the smartest person to represent the department and the most unique incentive to attract attention and enrolment. In short, he wanted everything to be the best in order to increase student enrolment next year.

“I agree with you in principle, but what is your plan?” Mr. Arumugam wanted to know more.

“Okay, the plan is this. Deep-space mission, travelling on the ultra-modern star-ship. I can’t remember the model name of the star-ship, kind of funny. Get Chen Wei ‘The Hunk’ to perform on stage. He will attract the crowd. Tell everyone that to be eligible for this space mission, he or she has to sign up for next year’s Spaceship Course. Afterwhich, set a quiz to select the top winners to go on this space mission. Simple.”

“You call this simple?” Mr. Arumugam was incredulous.

“It sounds complicated but it is simple. I will take charge of everything, don’t worry,” Roger reassured him.

“Who’s this Hunk? I didn’t know we had one.” Mr. Arumugam was curious.

“He’s a final year student. An outstanding young man.”

“You sure this going to work?” Mr. Arumugam was sceptical.

“Definitely. The Hunk received ninety-nine stalks of red roses yesterday, a giant panda stuff toy the day before that and a hand-knitted sweater two days before yesterday.”

“Is that so? You seem to have confidence in this young man. All right, I will let you handle this programme. Budget has been approved, so don’t worry about money. Just get me the students.” Mr. Arumugam gave his verbal approval. His Deputy Manager nodded and left his office. Much work needed to be done.

Two months passed by quickly.

On the day of the Academy Open House, just when the morning sun rose from the eastern skyline, a middle-aged woman alighted from a flying saucer and stood at the main gate of a school building. A large sign, ‘Metametica Space Academy’, was hung on top of the school gate. It was visible from afar. She was glad that she came early ahead of the morning rush traffic. The number of flying saucers on the road had already increased noticeably. She stood still for an instant and gazed at the magnificent building in front of her. It had a main campus with several affiliated campuses nearby. The building architecture was endorsed by the Inter-Planetary Architectural Society, for its energy-saving features and aesthetic appeal.

Melissa walked hurriedly towards the direction of the canteen. She had not eaten breakfast yet and her stomach was rumbling. She woke up late this morning, for she had stayed up all night watching her favourite wrestling videos. Inside the academy canteen, many students were already seated. Many were eating their breakfast under their parents' watchful eyes. The canteen transparent glass doors showed the interior to be fully-packed with people.

The kitchen was situated a short distance away from the canteen. Food vendors stayed out of customers' sight. They stayed inside the kitchen, preparing food according to customers' orders received. Customers' orders were received via the computerised canteen menu system, detailing the food items, the table number and seat number. The cook-in-charge of preparing that particular dish would get down to work. Once the dish was ready, it would be sent to the customer via a hidden conveyor belt and this dish would pop out of the table, right in front of the customer who placed the order. Payment for food was done beforehand by electronic means using debit card. This canteen menu system was available on every canteen table, on the right-hand panel.

Grace was at the drink vending machine. She got herself two cups of hot coffee. She walked back to her table and settled down next to Bruce, putting down the cups on the table. Bruce thanked her. He handed a cheese burger to her and began to munch on his burger. The hot coffee aroma wafted through the air.

Trevor had ordered two bowls of chicken broth from the canteen menu system. He had punched in his orders on the right-hand panel on his table and scanned his debit card using the attached card-reader input device. He also requested the canteen vendor to add more pepper to one bowl of chicken broth and to add more ginger to the other bowl. Vivian loved ginger like crazy. He knew his girl friend’s taste too well.

Max ordered two bowls of fish-ball noodle and punched in his orders. He paid for his orders using debit card. He also requested the vendor to add black vinegar to one bowl of noodle. Elaine liked to eat fish-ball noodles with black vinegar. The menu system began to sound an alarm, "oinng...oinng...oinng..", with flashing lights. Everyone looked up and stared at him with big eyes, as if he was an alien from outer space. Max smiled, he was used to this kind of expression whenever he ordered fish-ball noodles with black vinegar. He found his girl friend’s taste a bit strange too.

Nikita was eating her breakfast by herself. There was a large crowd in the canteen already as it was the Academy Open House today. Out of a sudden, someone spoke to her, asking whether she could share a seat with her. There was no more empty seat available in the canteen anymore. She agreed readily and shoved her books aside to make way for her.

“I’m Melissa. Nice to know you.”

“I’m Nikita. Nice to know you too. You look familiar, have I met you somewhere before?”

“I don’t think so, I’m afraid.”

“Wait. Let me think. Oh, I remember now. You danced during one of the morning school assemblies. The cultural folk dance, the costume was very colourful.”

“I performed last week.”

“I like dancing too.”

These two girls who just got to know each other found they had something in common. They went on to talk more about dancing and forgot to notice that time just wheezed by.

There was already a large crowd at the academy main entrance, curious parents, toddlers, students, prefects, teachers on duty, even maids could be found. It was the Academy’s Open House and enough publicity had been done beforehand to attract a roaring big crowd. Many parents wanted to know more about this premiere space academy. Everything from the course curriculum, school facilities, admission criteria, to the intangibles, such as teaching staff qualifications and credentials, principal’s charisma and support staff’s credibility, fell within the parents’ areas of concern.

Suddenly, an announcement came on the air, “Ladies and gentlemen, please board the speedboats to get to the academy’s auditorium. We will be waiting there for you.” A short while passed before many gliders, approximately fifty of them, approached the main gate. They looked like large speedboats, and could easily accommodate twenty people at any one time. These gliders flew low and slow. Teachers on duty and prefects were ushering the people onto the speedboats. Very soon, the main gate became relatively empty of people. Mrs. Andersen boarded the last speedboat glider and made her way to the academy auditorium for the morning assembly.

It took only a short while to reach the school auditorium. Mrs. Andersen stepped down from the speedboat glider and made her way into the auditorium. Many parents and students were assembled there already, sitting comfortably on red-cushion chairs. Before long, the School Principal walked up onto the stage and made a long opening address, as was usual his style.

“Ladies and gentlemen, I want to thank you for taking the time off to attend our Academy Open House. Many exhibits have been put up for you specially by our team of dedicated staff who have worked very hard for the past few months. Our academy has the excellent tradition of producing top students every year and this year is no exception. We achieved outstanding results in the field of Astronomy in last year’s National Examinations. We scored the highest in terms of individual and level rankings, beating the National Average by more than ten percentage points. A remarkable achievement! Once again, I must thank all the teachers for their hard work and the students for their perseverance. Let’s all put our hands together. Bravo!“ The Principal raised his clenched right fist in a sign of victory.

People began to get up from their seats and walk to the exhibition hall which was joined to the auditorium by a well-decorated path. There were three main exhibition areas, namely the spaceship sector, the alien sector and the galaxy sector. Each exhibition sector was the fruit of labour by the respective Department Manager, who had spent many hours of planning and coordination work on this project.

At the galaxy exhibition sector, a young professor was busy introducing the galaxy map to the curious bystanders. “Welcome to our galaxy sector. This is the map of the galaxy. Here, you have the Orion Constellation and that is the Crab Nebula. Can you see the shape of this star cluster here that looks like a crab?”

“Oh yes,” Melissa said.

“Really look like a crab,” an interested mother was looking closely at the star map as if she was inspecting a crab at the market.

At the alien sector, a large crowd was present. Many curious parents and students flocked to this sector to find out more about aliens. They wanted to know how aliens looked like, how tall were they, what kind of food do they eat and whether they were hostile. In short, everything about aliens. Antonio and Samuel were fascinated by the different kinds of alien life-forms on display. They did not know there were so many different types of alien in the Universe.

“Are these aliens for real?” Antonio asked the professor on duty. He looked up at the aged old man with his innocent big eyes.

“Of course. These photographs were taken by our unmanned space probes. One hundred percent genuine,” the professor replied.

“Oooo, this alien has got two horns on its head,” Antonio said excitedly, as if he had discovered gold.

"Eeee...," somebody said in disgust.

"Yucks!" another person blurted out.

“Look, this one has got five eyes and two tails!” Samuel broke into a laugh. Soon, many joined in the laughter.

Melissa and Nikita walked close together viewing the different exhibits with great interests. They were attracted by a commotion over at the spaceship exhibition sector. They walked into this sector to take a closer look. Many people were standing by the sides of the spaceship exhibits but nobody paid any attention to them. There were simply too many people present. There was hardly any standing ground. Many students and parents were seated comfortably on chairs, facing a mini-stage. On the stage, there was a white grand-piano. Dressed in a bright green long-sleeve shirt and white long pants, Chen Wei was sitting next to the grand-piano. He was getting ready to perform for the audience.

Roger, the compere for this performance, walked up on to the stage and took the microphone.

“Ladies and gentlemen, our two most outstanding students in spaceship faculty are going to sing a song for all of you. The song title is ‘Amigos Para Siempre’, meaning 'friends forever'. Let's welcome Chen Wei and Diana!” Diana walked onto the stage wearing a yellow evening gown. She looked stunningly beautiful. Immediately, someone screamed at the back of the crowd. Another softer scream followed.

Silence.

Chen Wei struck the piano keys skilfully. A soft melody filled the air followed by a shrill, feminine voice. Diana sang beautifully. Chen Wei sang the next stanza, with his clear masculine voice, which was a low tenor. Together, they sang the ending part in perfect harmony.

Grace, Vivian and Elaine were standing close together at the back of the crowd as they came late. Their boyfriends also came along with them.

“What are they singing?” Grace whispered to Vivian.

“I’m not sure,” Vivian said.

“I like this song,” Grace said.

“You don’t know what they are singing and yet you like it. I find this odd,” Bruce said.

“But I really like this song,” Grace insisted.

“If you like that song, you can listen to the song. Don’t talk to me,” Bruce was jealous. He was a rather good-looking macho guy and could not tolerate his girlfriend admiring other guys.

“Okay, okay, I don’t listen to the song. Please talk to me,” Grace uttered these words without even thinking. She was afraid to antagonise Bruce, for she had gone to great length to secure his affection.

"Give me your hand, we'll listen to the song together," Bruce said in a rather commanding tone.

"Errn," Grace uttered softly and complied.

“Look, he has a dimple on his left cheek. So cute!” Vivian exclaimed softly.

“Vivian, I also have a dimple on my left cheek, am I cute?” Trevor was jealous.

“Yes,” she replied.

“But you never even look at me!” Trevor complained.

“Chen Wei is a snob. He seldom talks to people,” Trevor continued.

“That’s what you think. He’s a very nice guy,” Vivian defended The Hunk.

“So far from here, yet you can see his dimple. You never cease to amaze me,” Trevor was very jealous.

Vivian turned her head and glared at him.

“Okay, okay. I zip my mouth,” Trevor gave in at the end. He made the corresponding ‘close the zip’ action, pretending his mouth to be the zip. Whenever Trevor and Vivian had a disagreement, it was always Trevor who raised the white flag at the end.

“Look at his porcupine hair, so ugly,” Max muttered to himself.

“What did you just say?” Elaine asked in a rather harsh tone.

“Ooops. No, no, no, I did not say anything,” Max shook his head and waved both hands frantically. Before he knew what happened, he received a slap on his shoulder from his girl-friend, Elaine. He felt sorry for himself and pouted. He kept very quiet henceforth.