terrifying incident, they changed their habits and learnt proper English. What a laugh this story
is!! I hope you enjoy it too.
“Quack, quack... Wah!
The water so cooling eh!” a duckling shouted as it waded around in the
pond. Another replied, “Yah lor! Really
very nice siah!”
The sun was a bright yellow spot in
the cloudless sky, and the ducks were playing in the pond in the kampong where they were reared. One
thing that was special about these ducks was that they could talk. But they did
not speak proper English at all. They spoke Singlish. Now this was a problem
since the farmer wanted the ducks to speak proper English, but that was
difficult because they were learning Singlish everyday from the Singaporeans
who passed by the kampong.
That
evening, a duckling named Chip suggested ecstatically, “Oi! People! You want to
go play in the big pond tomorrow or not?”
Another duckling, Ewok, piped up,
“Wah! Really ah? Mother allow meh?”
Chip replied, “Ah ber den? Of course
she allow wat! We ducklings eh!”
The next day, four ducklings, Chip,
Ewok, Hotfoot and Jiggle, skipped to the nearby pond to play and cool
themselves down from the blazing sun.
Not long after they had started
splashing themselves and one another with cool pond water, they heard their mother’s
voice behind them. “Don’t pray pray ah! Also ah, better take care of Hotfoot
ah! He cannot swim well leh!” When Chip heard his mother’s voice, he just
shouted back: “Pray what lah! We also not Buddhists wat!” Their mother glared
at him for a while, then emitted a low quack, sighed and returned to the farm.
Just when they were having a whale of
a time, Hotfoot felt an excruciating pain in his right leg. He let out an
agonized cry before beginning to struggle to keep himself on the surface of the
water. Ewok gasped as she watched her brother struggle in the water, while Chip
and Jiggle ran back into the farm to inform their mother.
Out of instinct, Ewok shouted at the
top of her lungs (which was not very loud for the average duckling), “Wa liao
ah! My braader ah, he sinking eh! He going to dlown soon siah!”
Coincidentally, a cow happened to pass
by the pond. Now this cow was a very posh cow, and he did not speak any
Singlish at all. In fact, he even spoke with a British accent!
“What is all this commotion about?” the
cow queried.
“Nem’mind orredy lah! He die die liao
lah!” Ewok exclaimed, pointing at Hotfoot in dismay.
The cow pondered for a while, then
said, “He what? What did you say?”
“Ayoh! You cannot understand meh? I
mean ah, he going to die orredy! He dlowning eh! He sinking eh! You cannot even
tell ah?” Ewok snapped, while Hotfoot continued thrashing about, and slowly
sinking down into the bottom of the pool. Both the ducklings’ faces were
getting paler by the second.
“So he’s drowning? He’s sinking? He’s
not playing with the water? Oh, then...”
The cow, using his nose, slowly pushed
Hotfoot to the edge of the pond, and then gently bit his wing to pull him out.
Hotfoot lay there, in a state of utter confusion, exhaustion and terror. Ewok
nudged him.
“You okay or not? You almost gave me
heart attack siah!” she exclaimed. Hotfoot muttered back, “And I really got
heart attack, I tell you first ah.”
“Can you two please stop speaking this
stupid alien language with all the lahs and the siahs and the ahs?” the cow
retorted.
Just then, Chip and Jiggle came
dashing back, while their mother panted after them, in a flurry to reach the
pond. When they saw the cow sniffing at Hotfoot and the latter raising his
wings high in the air in triumph, Chip muttered something (in Singlish of
course) and his mother heaved a great sigh of relief.
“Now, now, now,” the cow said. “This
kind of broken English is bad. I
really hope that all of you”– at this point he glanced across the family of
ducks– “will improve your English standards. You have nearly caused this poor
little guy to drown, all because of a delay in communication.” He paused for a
breath. “And you”– there he looked at Hotfoot– “should improve your swimming
skills.”
Everyone laughed, and Hotfoot blushed
dark crimson. The ducks thought about what the cow had said and decided to amend
their English–speaking skills to make sure everyone around them were safe.
So if you happen to walk past that
farm, do go over to this family of ducks. You will hear them speaking the most
proper and posh English you have ever heard.
It’s even more posh than the cow’s
English.
Written by: Charles (me!!)
