You are the worst costume maker in the world. You promised whoever wears the costume will turn into a tiger.<\/p>\n
You lied.<\/p>\n
I love tigers. Their black stripes and orange fur are so beautiful. For World Book Day today, I wanted to be The Tiger Who Came to Tea. Daddy bought the outfit, so Mummy didn\u2019t have to. Daddy says she does a lot, such as sorting my swimming lessons, making sure Preschool understands I\u2019m allergic to peanuts, and spending ages talking to the teachers before taking me home. Once, she said to Mrs Barnes, “How can you wait for him to show interest in reading and writing before teaching him? What am I paying you for?” Daddy always tells Mummy she\u2019s not in Singapore anymore, she\u2019s being too strict and kiasu<\/em>, she shouldn\u2019t make me do the exercises in those Singaporean English and Maths books. They\u2019re for seven-year-olds and I\u2019m only four. Daddy says I should be running around in the playground, not made to sit, crying, at the desk.<\/p>\n This morning, Daddy helped me put on my costume. He pulled hard on the zip because it was so tight\u2014”so that you\u2019ll become a little tiger!” Daddy said. And I really thought I\u2019d become one. I had a tail, fur all over my body, and a tiger head hoodie. I wanted it to cover my face, but Daddy said you couldn\u2019t do that for health and safety reasons. Something about how I\u2019d suff\u2026 foh\u2026 caik? Don\u2019t tell Mummy I can\u2019t remember the word. She\u2019d tell me off.<\/p>\n When Mummy saw me, she smiled so wide, it was even bigger than my face. She squatted, rubbed my fur, squeezed my tiger paws, and said, “You\u2019re so cute, my little tiger cub!” She said she was glad I wasn\u2019t going as Batman or Spiderman because comic books weren\u2019t real books. She said how nice that I was lit\u2026 tuh\u2026 rut? Mummy likes to teach me her long words, but I don\u2019t always remember. I try to, because it upsets her when I don\u2019t. Mrs Barnes says I\u2019m smart for my age, but Mummy says I should aim higher. I don\u2019t know how to do that since I\u2019m only little.<\/p>\n Anyway, at Preschool, Anna and Lily and Sreya screamed and ran away when I roared at them. But now, I think they were joking because your costume stopped working when I got home. Mummy told me to change, but I said no, I wanted to be the tiger who came to tea, and I hadn\u2019t had my tea yet! Mummy put her hands on her waist and said, “If only you cared this much about your spelling! Spell \u2018tiger\u2019 and you get to keep it on.” I knew only the first letter, so she said, in that grumpy tone I hate, “Take it off. Now!” I stomped and shouted “no!” so hard, my throat hurt. Mummy yelled, “If you don\u2019t take it off right now, you\u2019re not getting your goodnight story!” I love my goodnight story with her, so that made me cry really loudly.<\/p>\n If you hadn\u2019t lied about the costume, the next bit wouldn\u2019t have happened. I turned to run up the stairs, but I couldn\u2019t because Mummy was pulling my tail. Mrs Barnes said big cats like tigers and lions are much stronger than humans. This means tigers can eat mums. I growled and showed Mummy my tiger teeth and used all my tiger strength to free myself.<\/p>\n Suddenly, I hit my forehead on a step. When I touched where it hurt, my fingers were red. I cried “Mummy!” but all she did was wave my tail and shout, “Look what you made me do!” She pulled me to the bathroom, wiped my forehead with something that made it sting, and said, “Stop crying. It\u2019s just a small cut.”<\/p>\n But it didn\u2019t feel small. It felt like it covered my whole head. I cried all the way to my room. “No goodnight story for you. Next time, you listen!” Mummy said, before closing door with a bang.<\/p>\n See, I didn\u2019t turn into a tiger after all. Mummy wasn\u2019t scared when I growled, and I wasn\u2019t more powerful than her. If your poo-poo costume had worked, I would\u2019ve been the tiger who came to tea, which was all I wanted today. But I\u2019m going to bed crying, without my goodnight story, with my forehead cut open.<\/p>\n I\u2019ll never wear another costume from you again, poo-poo man.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Mrs. Barnes said big cats like tigers and lions are much stronger than humans. This means tigers can eat mums.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":182,"featured_media":25572,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3530],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24684","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-flash-fiction","writer-ya-lan-chang"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24684","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/182"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24684"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24684\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25573,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24684\/revisions\/25573"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25572"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24684"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24684"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24684"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}