Mysterious New Neighbours

In about two months ago, a family decided to rent the empty rooms next to my house. I really didn’t care at first as we never had a real deep conversation with any of our neighbours before, no matter where we live. But my mom seems to be comfortable chatting with the one who lives at the right side of our house, a Javanese housewife with a lot of little kids making noises around. Maybe because of the free times she had as she’s on cancer-recovering leave for one year.

Anyway, back to our new neighbours’ topic, I started to notice their existence when mom told me to close the main door and never let it wide open. It is actually because of the awful smells come from our new neighbours’ cat they kept in the cage. The funny thing is; their cats are the one that we called the ‘kampong’ cats, not a special cat, Persian or any kind of high-priced species. They deserve to be out of the cage and play around the house but I’ve never seen the cats being freed.

The cats’ owners are really a mystery to all of us; Taman Warisan Puteri’s residents. We only got to know the faces of the two little kids in the family. They’re a pair of a boy and girl with such cute smiles. However, their mom would always get angry when she realizes her kids especially the boy talked with the neighbours. The Javanese auntie’s daughter claimed that the boy was beaten by his mom after being caught talking to her. Some people including mom then told me if the boy’s mom ever see us outside at the neighbourhood, she would quickly run into her house. Well, sounds weird enough for me.

None of us know how many people live in their house. They seem to be afraid of others, particularly the adult woman. I’ve never really interested to know more, it’s none of my business at any rate. But mom and the Javanese auntie are really into it. I don’t know why, maybe mostly because of the unpleasant odours the new family gave us as a welcoming ‘gift’.

My mom and daddy kept arguing about their thoughts and theories; of course on the subject of the new neighbours. Daddy had this theory which is a little bit Cerekarama and sounds more realistic plus makes sense that mom’s. He said the woman next to our house might be a ‘popular’ lady in Seremban; which actually means she was a GRO or night club’s singer or pub’s favourite girl before. He made this conclusion as he saw her wearing a skirt. Yuppers, short skirt, gentlemen! Anyway, nice try Daddy. That’s one brilliant logic.

Mom on the other hand, thought they are an alien family. Um . . . yeah . . . that’s an awesome thinking, mom . . . Very terrestrial . . . Her other theory is better although it is still far from common sense; an assassin family anddd any other crimes she could think of.

My theory? Hmm . . . I don’t want to play along but I’ll give it a try. I once thought the kids’ mom had some kind of illness, you know, when someone couldn’t look at other’s face. I saw it on an English TV series not many years ago. That’s all what I was thinking, never weirder than mom’s.