The Oddfits by Tsao Tiffany

Author:Tsao, Tiffany
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9781503952621
Published: 2016-01-31T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 13

Murgatroyd sat on the bus, heading to work. He was picking his ear with his left pinkie, and in his right hand he held a tattered old photo he always carried around in his wallet. It was of his parents and him, taken on a trip to the Singapore Zoological Gardens when he was four years old. In the photo, his mother and father were dangling him playfully near the hyena enclosure. It really was astonishing how little his parents had aged in the past twenty or so years: they still looked almost as young as they did in the picture. Again, he felt a little guilty about leaving them, but they were more than capable of taking care of themselves. And he was grown up, after all. He couldn’t stay with them forever, could he? Putting the photo back into his wallet, he turned to the little plastic bag he had placed on the seat next to him. He smiled. Murgatroyd had originally intended to attend to the items on his to-do list in strict numerical order, leaving the purchase of a beautiful brand-new toothbrush for the Quest for the very end—as a sort of reward for completing the list. But because of his failure to accomplish the first item, Murgatroyd figured that the order of the tasks really didn’t matter anymore. After washing the dishes, making the beds, and sweeping the floors, he had caught the bus to the nearest Watson’s Pharmacy, where he had spent two hours in the dental hygiene section.

The cashier—a sixty-year-old woman accustomed to spending most of her Mondays leisurely reading magazines—found herself interrupted several times by a young Caucasian man who would place a toothbrush on the counter, take out his wallet to pay, then suddenly change his mind and run back to exchange the toothbrush for another one.

“How come take so long?” she asked with a scowl on her face as he placed a toothbrush on the counter with an air of finality that she hoped meant he wouldn’t change his mind yet again. “Never buy toothbrush before, is it?”

“No lah, Auntie,” Murgatroyd grinned. “This is very special occasion toothbrush!”

Quickly recovering from her shock at hearing his accent, she replied sarcastically, “Huh! Special occasion toothbrush! You sure you don’t need to buy special occasion toothpaste also?”

This thought had never occurred to Murgatroyd. Ann had told him only to bring a toothbrush and a clean change of underwear. But wouldn’t he need toothpaste as well? Did Ann forget to mention it, or should he follow her instructions exactly? Would toothpaste be provided in the More Known World? He debated briefly whether he should call Ann to ask about toothpaste, but it seemed a rather silly and inconsequential question.

“Erh. Sorry, Auntie, be right back,” he said, snatching up the toothbrush. Much to her horror, he trotted back to the dental hygiene aisle to contemplate whether he should purchase toothpaste or not, and which kind he should purchase if he did.

By the time Murgatroyd

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