sequeira by Sumitra Singam
The new teacher arrived like a prince, his legs scissored in his trousers, and all we could think of, us fifteen-year-olds caged in our pinafores with our chests bursting out of them, was that dangle of danger in the place where his legs met.
His name was “Sequeira” which immediately told us everything. Kristang, Eurasian – other. Our world was neatly divided and his cleft legs straddled our binaries. Malay, but also Portuguese. Christian, but a prince-of-the-Earth of this Muslim land. Shoes-on-inside worship in a church to a God of beatitude and fiery revenge.
He tried to teach us chemistry. We paid attention, shoulders back, chests forward, legs slightly parted on our lab stools. We wanted him to teach us how to boil crystals in acid solutions to overflow onto the white laminate bench. We imagined ourselves exclaiming, tremulous fingers to our lips, him coming over to wipe up the spill, our hands touching his like another exothermic reaction.
We wrote our married names in loopy handwriting, twenty-five new Mrs. Sequeiras in one class. Hearts to dot the “i”. Best friends of many years scowling at each other for the merest look or hair toss. He tried to manage us, his hands in the air pushing the heat down, but the classroom developed corners sharply divided by race. “Only ham sap girls sit like that” or, “You think anyone likes your smelly coconut oil hair, is it?”
Every hand went up when he asked a question, everyone talking over everyone else. Answers like “copper sulphate” and “hydrophilic” mixing with, “Sir! She already answered before! Not fair!” Curses whispered behind propped-up textbooks, “I will belasah you, pukimak!” Everyone’s grandmothers were pressed for the details of the nearest bomoh for love potions, beauty potions, getting-rid-of-rival potions. Attendance at temples quadrupled, girls with matted hair smearing ash onto their foreheads, knees scuffed with kneeling, incense sticks between sweaty palms like distress signals – “Mudhevi, my temple sure more power than yours, lah!”
We kicked under desks, we pulled braids, we ripped the pinafores of girls ahead of us so we could get to him first. We stayed at school hoping for another glimpse - maybe his tie loosened at the end of the day, springy chest hairs poking out - until the jaga kicked us out at lock-up time. We came to school wild-eyed and smelling of the longkang drains. He’d start to say something placatory like, “Noble gases today, girls” and the hissing and growling would start, a Brownian motion of hormones bouncing off the walls, a magnetised charge to his desk to hand in our heart-circled assignments. He’d collapse on his chair, his eyes wide, or his head in his hands. We circled, baring teeth, neon pink bras under our white shirts, a clamour of, “Sir! Sir! Sir!”
We followed him to his next class and the next, snarling at the other girls. We backed him up against walls asking about volatile substances. At recess, we circled his plate of nasi lemak and watched him put spoons full of rice and pungent sambal belacan in his mouth, imagined licking the oil off his chin. The headmistress said “Girls! Some decorum please!”, but we stampeded over her as he got up to leave.
An orange, rumbling tiger of a car pulled up, and a woman stepped out, full breasts in a tight, lacy kebaya, sarong narrowing to a V at her secret centre. We stopped, gaping. She took his upper arm to pull him close for a kiss, a sliver of pink tongue visible between her teeth. He and his dangerous dangle fit neatly into the slit of her sarong. She pulled away, wiping the carmine off his mouth. We turned to each other, confused. They got in, ignoring us completely, and purred off. We stood there, loosened fists still entangled in our friends’ hair, choking on the dust he’d stirred up, wondering if we had ever had a chance.
Sumitra Singam is a queer, neurodiverse Malaysian-Indian-Australian coconut who writes in Naarm/Melbourne. Her work has been published widely, nominated for a number of Best Of anthologies, and was selected for BSF 2025. She works as a psychiatrist and trauma therapist and runs workshops on how to write trauma safely, and the Yeah Nah reading series. She’ll be the one in the kitchen making chai (where’s your cardamom?). You can find her and her other publication credits on Bluesky: @pleomorphic2 & sumitrasingam.squarespace.com
