Chapter 3: A new life – 2

It was clear from the start that I wasnʼt a normal baby, according to Mother. 

Although I was taken to the hospital almost every other week for health checks, every one of them would end up with the doctors being astonished at me one way or another. 

“Avery can speak words already? Thatʼs extraordinarily fast for an infant…” 

“Mrs. Ruan, what is the matter? Eh? You are saying he outright refused to be breastfed…?”

“Oh my, Avery is already beginning to write at one year old?” 

Is it really that surprising? I would wonder as I played with the wooden toy train on the coffee table. Speaking of which, apparently there are many types of weird machines in this world, such as cars, buses, ships and planes. I knew Father drove a car—if I remember the unnecessarily long name correctly, it was a Mercedes-Benz S-Class S560L sedan—but I had never seen any of the other types of machines before. 

“Avery!” Mother called out to me. “Itʼs time to go, Papa is waiting for us at the pick-up point.”

I held up the toy train by its ends and showed it to Mother. “Ma-ma, this!” 

“Hmm?” Mother smiled as she tried to pry the toy away from my grip carefully. “Avery, itʼs not nice to destroy other peopleʼs things.” 

Am I that violent of a child?? “Ma-ma, I-I wan see this!” 

“You want to see a train?” Mother seemingly got the idea and laughed. “Papa already drove all the way here, we donʼt have to take public transport…” 

“No, I wan see train!” I protested. It felt a little childish to be throwing tantrums, but Iʼll do it if I must. 

Mother eventually gave up trying to pacify me and called Father. After exchanging a few sentences, she hung up and smiled tiredly at me. “Alright, alright, weʼll go home by train this time.”

Apparently, the trains here have a name too—the MRT. I struggled to read the unfamiliar words on the large board above me as Mother purchased a ticket from a boxy machine. 

“Ma-ma, what that?” I pointed at the board. 

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“Thatʼs the MRT map, Avery.” Mother took my hand gently and pressed my finger against a spot on the map. “Can you read this?” 

“N-no…Noveela?” 

“Novena,” Mother corrected me with a smile. “This is the MRT station we are at right now. And this—” she pointed at a circle along the green line “—is our home, Kallang.” 

“Ka-lang!”

Mother laughed; it was a kind of laughter that made my heart all fuzzy and nice, and I involuntarily giggled too.

“So, Avery, can you tell me how we should go from Novena to Kallang?”

“Go home?” I stared at the maze-like tangle of lines and tilted my head in confusion. “Fly?” 

Mother shook her head slightly. “No, Avery, we need a plane for that.” 

“Plane…” 

“See?” Mother pointed at another spot closer to the edge of the map. “That is Changi Airport MRT station, where there are many, many big planes.” 

“Big plane!” I exclaimed. “Go airport!” 

“No, Avery, we have to go home.” Mother traced her finger down the red line and paused at an intersection between the red and green lines. “This is where we will alight and change trains. Can you remember our stop, Avery?” 

“Uhhh…” I blinked. “C-City All?” 

“Mm-hmm, City Hall Interchange. Thatʼs where Mommy goes to work every day too, maybe one day I can bring you along to visit my office.” Mother hugged me close to her warm chest. “Letʼs go home now, shall we?” 

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