When she opened the door of the lab and stormed in, the association that immediately conjured up in Adam's mind was the graceful Virgin in Raphael's Cowper Madonna - the hair combed back and tied up in braids to reveal a prominent and intelligent forehead, the straight, small impeccable nose, the resolute lips, and -
Wait. Did she "storm" in?
- and those fiery eyes that definitely do not belong to Raphael's sanguine Madonna -
And before he could drag himself back to reality, reality banged hard on his table and threatened to topple a few precariously placed beakers. He quickly steadied two that were most in danger of splashing not-so-hazardous biological materials all over the table.
"I want something done, and I want it done NOW," she demanded, in a clear silvery voice that, again, conjured up the image of the Virgin -
O, snap out of it, will ya? he quickly checked his wandering imagination.
"What...? What do you... um... you want what done?"
"Your sheep. One of them has found its way into our nursery more than once!"
"Your nursery?" What would sheep want in a nursery? To play with the kids? O, that's a good one: sheep playing with kids. Kids, as in, you know - wait. Focus. Keep your focus!
"Yeah, nursery. Hello, is anybody at home in that thick head of yours?"
"Wait a sec, just hold on and give me the details, all right?" He was aware that as she was referring to his head, her hand was beginning to lift up that heavy tome on horticulture that she had just banged on the table, and he quickly raised his hands in front of himself in case she decided to wield that weapon again -
Wait. Horticulture. Of course. That's what she meant by nursery. She must be a horticulture major. Now it came back to Adam that he had seen her before during some of the common subjects in the first year. Adam went on to major in Animal Science with pre-vet option, so their paths never crossed again. That is, until today.
"O, nursery! I get it."
At that, she rolled up her eyes. It was as good as saying "moron".
"OK, so, you were saying that one of my - er, what? sheep? - was getting at your saplings?"
"'Trampled' would be a better word." She said with as much acid as one can put into six words.
"O, that must be awful..." He tried to sound sympathetic, but knowing what he was going to say next, it was hard to pretend to be anything but amused.
"More than awful! So, what are you going to do about it?"
"What am I going to do about it? Well... I guess, um, nothing." He said that with an indifferent shrug, deliberately done to annoy her.
"Nothing?"
"Yeah. Nothing."
Her hand was lifting up that 500-page tome again.
"Wait, let me explain," he quickly raised his hands up again to ward off that hardcover killer, "you see, it can't have been my sheep."
"Explain." Her eyes were now spewing flames.
"We don't keep sheep." He said very, very slowly, not because he wasn't sure she would understand his words, but because he was absolutely enjoying the moment. "The few goats we had were culled a month ago because of some contagious disease. We haven't received a new batch, yet."
The fire suddenly died and in its place was confusion and panic.
"Well, then, it must have been a pig or a cow or whatever four-footed things that you keep," she insisted, with more panic in her voice than conviction.
A pig? In a university in Malaysia? You've gotta be kidding, right? But he suppressed his urge to blurt this out.
"OK... um... so, it was first a sheep, and now it's a cow. Are you sure about what you saw? I mean, the two things are very different in size," he said, stretching his hands sideways to demonstrate the size of a cow, and quite unable to hide the sarcasm in his voice.
There was no immediate retaliation this time, so he looked steadily at her with as amiable a smile as he could produce while suppressing the urge to burst out laughing, hoping that the smile came across as encouraging.
Then she finally admitted with a mutter, "well, it wasn't me who saw it."
"I beg your pardon?" He heard that perfectly well. He could be a devil when he wanted to.
"I said, it wasn't me who saw it." It was almost a growl.
OK, I've got you cornered. Adam thought. Now, close in for the kill.
"Well, then. Perhaps you were mistaken about it being my animal, don't you think?" He said that with a courteous smile, but he knew she couldn't possibly miss the underlying tone of triumph. O, what he would give to have his coursemates return from lunch 10 minutes earlier to witness this!
There was now a very distinct blush all over her face, as she desperately searched for the right words to say without sounding too apologetic. A full minute passed, and she was unable to come up with anything clever.
Finally, she gave up, turned her heels and stormed out of the lab, leaving Adam grinning from ear to ear with a smugness that deserves a boot in the face.
***
The lab door swung out violently and almost rammed into the face of someone who was obviously eavesdropping there.
"Sue Yin! What are you doing here?" Great. Evelyn thought to herself. I just had the biggest embarassment in my life, and what do you know? A witness!
Realizing that she had been caught red-handed, the perpetrator just smiled sheepishly at her enraged coursemate.
"A fine mess you got me into! Why did you tell me it was a sheep? And don't give me that sheepish look; you are not going to get off so easily this time," she landed a torrent of slaps on Sue Yin's shoulder, "next time you have a complaint against those animal boys, you deliver it yourself!" And with that, she smacked the 500-page tome square onto Sue Yin's ample derrière.
Despite receiving her much-deserved punishment, Sue Yin started giggling uncontrollably, and could not stop until they were well outside the Animal Science building.
When she finally managed to catch her breath, she asked Evelyn excitedly, "So, what do you think of Adam?"
"Please, he is the last person I want to think about now."
"But you have always been interested in him, haven't you?"
Evelyn stopped dead in her track. "Him? You think I'm interested in him?"
"O, don't feign innocence. I've noticed the way you looked at him."
"I don't believe this. So this was all a set-up? This whole trampled nursery business was your ruse to get me to talk to him?" Her hand was again raising that formidable publication.
"Wait, no, the nursery was indeed trampled by some animal. I didn't exactly see what animal, but I figured if I claimed it was an animal that belongs to Adam and his friends, it would be a perfect excuse to make you go talk with Adam..." again, she wielded her sheepish smile as the perfect defense. Well, almost perfect; it works better with the boys, and here, it did not stop the hefty book from landing on her behind.
"You are a hopeless romantic fool. I wasn't interested in Adam at all! I mean, not as a boy... o, you know that I am with the arts club... we are constantly on the look-out for interesting subjects to paint. And, Adam, he has a very interesting profile..."
She knew Sue Yin wouldn't buy into any of that, but, she was really saying it more to herself than to Sue Yin...
***
On the following Saturday morning, the door to the Arts Club swung open unceremoniously, and 14 pairs of eyes shifted from the heap of mutually irrelevant objects posing under the glamorized name of "still life" to the handsome young stranger that had just intruded upon their sacred homage to the eternal art of pencil sketches.
Well, to be precise, stranger to 13 of those present, but not to Evelyn, who was stationed near the entrance.
"Just what do you think you are doing barging in like that?" she rose to confront him indignantly.
Adam mocked a chivalrous bow and announced in a dramatic voice he deliberately raised to make sure everyone in the room heard him, "Well, I'm here to offer myself as a model." He flashed a toothy grin, and continued in an exaggerated French accent, "In another word, to deliver you, my damsel in distress, from the clutch of that pile of vile and unsightly still life." Then he took a comically executed pierce at that far-away pile of innocent objects with an imaginary rapier. The whole room burst into laughter and giggle.
Sue Yin! She and her big mouth! Evelyn thought to herself. Just wait till I get my hands on her--
Adam was now bowing to the applause and laughter from his newly acquired small audience. Does his arrogance know no bound? "O, how very kind of you, my young knight on water buffalo. But--" she caught hold of his arms and was beginning to turn him around, "--this damsel has decided that you are potentially more distressing than that pile of horrendous things, so, no thanks. I'll wait for the next knight in shining lab robe."
To her surprise, he suddenly grabbed her wrist with his other hand and quickly dragged her out of the room. "Come with me, I have something to show you."
She tried to resist the pull (in her own mind, she was rather ashamed that her decision to resist had come after a good 30-second delay. What was I thinking letting him drag me off like this?) but the "cowboy" was evidently too strong for her delicate artist's build. So, there was only one last thing to do. While pulling backward with all her might, she raised her left foot and aimed for his right calf--
"OUCH! What was that for?"
"That was the punishment for abducting a respectable young lady." she shook her hand loose from his clutch and took a few steps back. Now, just turn around and walk away, you silly girl. But her feet refused to budge any further.
"More like a feisty lass..." he said acidly, still rubbing his right calf in agony. "Ughh... And what an accomplished kidnapper I am, trying to abduct you to your own nursery."
Evelyn looked up at the direction they were heading, and realized that indeed, they were heading towards her nursery. Maybe Adam does have something important to show me after all. But -- no, I shan't be so easy! "So, perhaps it was you yourself that has been trampling my seedlings. Speak, you nefarious goon! What have you been doing in my nursery?"
With a sigh of resignation, Adam raised himself gingerly, avoiding stress on his injured leg. "Fine, if you don't want to come with me, go see for yourself what has been ravaging your precious saplings." Then he brushed past her and sauntered with a limp towards his own lab in the opposite direction.
Evelyn started to call after him, but her pride put a check on her impulse. Well, fine, I'll go have a look myself. Who needs you? Uncivilized brute--
***
In a secluded corner of their acacia nursery, Evelyn was greeted with the blissful picture of Sue Yin happily hosing down a mutt.
All at once, her anger at Sue Yin's unbridled tongue, her many questions about Adam's part in the mystery of the trampled nursery, and her marvel at the presence of that simply adorable brown mutt (wait, what's a dog doing in a predominantly Muslim campus?) all rushed up simultaneously to her head, and she just stood there not knowing where to start.
On seeing her, Sue Yin beamed with her signature joviality, "Evelyn! come, I want you to meet our new friend, Muddy," and then turning to the mutt, she said, "Muddy, say hi to Evelyn." Finding a reprieve from the uninvited bath, Muddy was now vigorously shaking the unwanted wetness off his mud-colored fur, and a big part of the spray landed on Sue Yin. But she just smiled and did not seem to mind at all.
What a perfect angel she is-- Evelyn thought.
Wait-- no, she's a devil! "Sue Yin! Before I forget that I'm mad at you, I want you to get this straight: if you must, for God knows what reason, speak with that incorrigible brute, Adam what's-his-name, please exclude me--"
"So he managed to find you! But where is he--"
"Sue Yin! Don't change the subject! I want you to promise me, on solemn oath--"
"But he was supposed to give Muddy a rabies shot!"
"He? He hasn't even started his vet course!"
"Yeah! Isn't he wonderful? I mean, he is already very knowledgeable about these things!"
"O, you are so hopeless! Fine, think whatever you wish of him! Get infatuated with him, go run crazily after him, or whatever, but don't ever get me involved with him again! Ever!"
"Well... if that's what you wish... but you should at least thank him first."
"Thank him? For what?"
"For solving the mystery!"
"What mystery?"
"The mystery of my brother's abduction by purple-colored aliens." Sue Yin rolled her eyes sarcastically upward. "Of course it's the mystery of the trampled nursery!"
"He solved it? What do you mean?"
"Last night, he stood vigil here, and around midnight, he found this little fellow leaping over the fence - can you believe how agile our little Muddy is?" she gave Muddy an affectionate rub on his neck, and then continued, "it seems our little friend here has found a cozy spot in the nursery to spend his cold, lonely nights. Poor little deary," she rubbed her nose against Muddy's.
"So, that's the answer to our great mystery? A stray mutt?" Evelyn said with incredulity.
"Yeah. Adam also told me that dogs have the inherent habit of trampling down the vegetations - both real and imaginary - on the spots where they are to sleep before they lie down." Sue Yin was now drying Muddy with an old towel. "Isn't he so wonderfully knowledgeable?"
Confound that knowledgeable brute. Evelyn thought.
***
They could not keep Muddy in the campus, therefore, his custody went to Adam, who was renting a place off-campus with three of his friends. That gave Sue Yin the perfect excuse to drag Evelyn along for her very frequent visits. "You adore the little thing yourself, I'm sure. Besides, you can't expect me to go alone to a house occupied by four very macho specimens of the opposite sex! What if they lost their senses and gave in to lust! I can't imagine!"
"Well, I'm sure they will have to really lose their senses to do that to you."
That sarcastic remark was retaliated by a solid smack across the face with a pillow. And a frenzied pillow war ensued.
But of course, Evelyn faithfully accompanied her friend on every visit, and she was secretly enjoying it, because Adam was really rather kind and funny for a brute.
Still, she found it hard to apologize to him in person regarding the earlier misunderstandings, and to thank him. So, on their seventh visit to Muddy's new abode, she gave Adam a small pot of vine. "It's morning glory."
"Thank you. That's awfully sweet of you... Em... do I let it grow in the pot, or... should I transfer it to some spot in our front yard?"
"Well, it would be a great idea to let her cover your fences. They are rather bare right now... this variety will give you pink and purple blossoms. They will be marvelous."
She paused for a few seconds, pondering about something, and then, having made up her mind, took the pot from Adam's hands, "come, let us go find her a new home right now." And her hand slipped so very naturally into Adam's.
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