“Ayan, si Spokening-Dollar!”
The identical girls harped as Elise tried to slip past them. Behind the bawdy trio, the Amoebas sat cool and mind-bendingly beautiful under the tidy shade of an Indian mango tree. On cue, to supplement the sting of the Harpy triplet’s comment, they commenced a bout of snickering, pointedly catching her glances.
Their half-pitying, half-mocking gazes spoke volumes. She didn’t speak a lick of Tagalog much less understand it (not true on the latter). If she was American, why wasn’t she blonde? beautiful? rich? She definitely did have that uncultured, nasally Kano-twang.
How Elise loathed this foreign hell!
