Kite-Flying Alone Is Not Much Fun

The Malaysian “cherry” tree can grow to about twenty feet tall. It has numerous lateral branches which grow horizontally. As such, from afar, it resembles an umbrella. It has small white flowers which bloom throughout the year. The flowers give rise to the small cherry fruit. The unripe fruit is hard and green but turns soft and succulent with a thin red skin on ripening.
When I was a kid I spent a lot of time up in the cherry tree which grew beside our house. It was my sanctuary. Whenever I had a fight with my brother, I would climb and stay up in the tree while he would be stamping around on the ground, fuming. Sometimes, he would pretend to go home but I was not that easily fooled. Soon, he would be furtively peeping from behind our neighbour’s house.
Up in the tree, I can lie down on a bed of branches with the foliage providing ample shade and I can watch when the bees, butterflies and birds drop by. The bird that I liked the most is small, fluffy, apple - green in colour and has a long, curved beak. It would hover and dart around the flowers and cherries with its wings flapping rapidly. I think it is a humming-bird. Sometimes I could spot a fellow “watcher” amongst the leaves. It is the tree lizard that we called the “tocket”. It is green in colour, about a foot long and has a fine, long tail. It has ridges on its back and a red patch on its cheek and is rather like a small salamander.
At times I would day-dream about Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn along the banks of the Mississippi, the fairies, elves and leprechauns of Ireland, fishing in the South Sea Islands and so on. Sometimes I would even doze off.

You are most probably wondering why my brother did not climb up the tree after me. Let me explain. The wood of the cherry tree is hard and elastic; as such, the branches do not break easily and, in fact, are quite flexible. If one were to climb towards the end of the branch, it would just bend downward and if the branch is long enough, the end of the branch would reach the ground. Hence if one were to do it backwards, it is very much like climbing down a ladder. Many a time I have climbed down the tree this way.
The one time that my brother had climbed up the tree after me, I waited until he had almost reached me before quickly climbing down via a branch. When I stepped off the branch, it sprang back up and the whole tree shook. I could see my brother clinging to the tree for dear life, his face as white as a sheet and his eyes filled with terror as I scooted off to the hills.
My brother is one year older than me and my grandpa had named him after our town, Tai Ping, which in Chinese means “everlasting peace”. He was always prim and proper and neatly dressed with his shiny hair plastered flat onto his scalp with “Brylcreem” while I preferred the “Born Free” look and the only time I combed my hair was when I had to go to school! My brother was also all the things I never was; he was the class monitor, a school prefect, librarian and badminton captain. Sheesh! He was also so stuffy! And, being the first-born, he was also my father’s favourite. Of course, I was not envious of him! Okay, okay, maybe just a little.

Actually, I did not really want to fight with my brother; I just liked to tease him. The truth is, he is not a bad brother and we had had some good times together.
I remember during one Lantern Festival, our parents could not afford to buy lanterns for us so we decided to make our own. It was just candles stuck onto half a coconut shell and nothing like the pretty and colourful lanterns that the other kids had but, we were happy.
There was also the time when our father bought us a battered old bicycle. It was too tall for us but that did not prevent us from learning how to ride it though we fell many times. However, despite the scrapes and the bruises, we enjoyed ourselves.
Then there were the times when we secretly went swimming at Austin Pool. To reach the pool, we had to walk about a kilometer along a deserted path lined with Simpoh Ayer and Monkey Apple trees. (The Simpoh Ayer tree is short with bright yellow cup-shaped flowers, similar to the Buttercup, and large leaves which are often used for wrapping meat, fish and char koay teow (fried noodles with egg, prawns, clams and bean sprouts). The Monkey Apple tree is short with large, broad leaves and small, green, apple-shaped fruits which turn yellow when ripe. The ripe fruit has a soft, reddish flesh with numerous seeds. I now know that it is also known as the fig fruit). Mother had forbidden us to go swimming so, when no one was around, we would swim in the nude. Otherwise, we had to wait until our shorts dried before going home.
Then, he changed. He only wanted to be with his friends and I was left to play alone. Why, he even did not fly my kite with me; the kite that I made! Heck, kite-flying alone is not much fun.