Chapter 03: The Mean Curry Man

One day, one of Dirty Tortoise’s best friends visited him. She was a female gecko name Qicak (pronounced chi-cak). Not just any gecko, mind you – Qicak was a leopard gecko, one of the most beautiful, most sought after species of geckos in the world, which humans love to keep as pets. And among her species, Qicak was one of the most beautiful of all geckos, and would cost a lot of money to the humans who would pamper her and treasure her and give her all the delicious worms she wanted.

So what is a highly valuable, much sought after specimen of gecko doing living in a wet market and befriending a dirty tortoise?

“I just like being free,” Qicak said matter of fact-ly, when quizzed by Dirty Tortoise one day.

“But surely you liked the attention – to be lavished with food all the time, and be admired and loved by humans!” prodded Dirty Tortoise further.

All he got for that was a withering gaze from Cak, a look that warned him not to ask about her past any further.

The reason Qicak was so defensive about her past, is because it was actually a rather depressing and sad past, not the exciting and cool kind she wanted her good friend Dirty Tortoise to know (instead, she had told him she had been in a circus and used to be the pet of a trapeze artist who kept her in his pocket even during his acts).

You see, Qicak was the pet of Aunty Wu Qian the owner of the Five Thousand Chinese Spice stall. Qicak was all that was left to remind Aunty Wu Qian of her beloved daughter, who had died in a car accident many years ago. After her owner had died, Qicak, who had loved her previous owner very much as well, became very attached to Aunty Wu Qian, because she was all Qicak had left and Aunty Wu Qian had the most amazing supply of spice worms that she had ever eaten.

Qicak lived in a little Tupperware box inside the Five Thousand Chinese Spice Stall, which had a nice little matchbox for her to hide under, a water dish, and a little food bowl that Aunty Wu Qian kept full of yummy spice worms she picked out from her stocks.

Qicak and Dirty Tortoise first met when she moved into the Spice Market and had gone exploring. Dirty Tortoise was on one of his excursions outside Ah Choi’s vegetable stall at the time, and they had met each other right on the border of the Spice and Vegetable sections. Dirty Tortoise had never seen such a beautiful reptile before; while Qicak had never met such a dirty tortoise before (all the once she had met before were in pet shops and were always scrubbed clean regularly).

They hit it off immediately, thanks to their love for food, and Qicak would come visit Dirty Tortoise, lie down on his shell, and they would tell each other stories of their human’s ‘adventures’ (to a tortoise and gecko, haggling over the price of one kilogram of spice can be a great adventure).

Anyway, Qicak was visiting him for a very specific reason today. She needed his help saving her home from a new spice stall owner who was causing everyone in the Spice Market a lot of trouble.

The new stall owner had moved in about a week ago, replacing the old curry spice seller whose business had outgrown the market (this happened a lot in the Spice section, not so much in the vegetable section), and had gone on to open a new chain of restaurants that used his unique curry spice powder in curry fish heads.

The new spice stall owner, whose name was Karikan, was a mean, calculative man. He was tall and burly, with dark hair and a long curly moustache he liked to twirl around like Fu Manchu. When he spoke, you could hear him from the other side of the Wet Market, and you did not want to be anywhere near him when he shouted at you.

Now, the unspoken rule in the Spice Market was that each stall was open and free to do their business anywhere they want to. Even though each stall had their own space, more often than not, they would encroach on the other stalls space, but there had never been any problems amongst the stall owners. Until Karikan moved in, that is.

As soon as Karikan moved in, he immediately set about marking his territory. He zealously drew lines around his designated area, and scolded poor Aunty Wu Qian (whose Five Thousand Chinese Spice store was just next to him) for letting her big piles of spices spill over the line.

He had only one specialty – curry powder, but unlike the last curry powder man who had small piles of different curry powders, Karikan proudly proclaimed that his curry powder was the world’s first multi-purpose curry powder, and could be used in any curry dish you want.

While the curry was amazingly delicious when cooked, in its raw, powder form, Karikan’s Magic Curry Powder was the most foul-smelling, pungent curry powder you had ever smelled. It smelled like a combination very spicy curry cooked with un-fresh fish heads and rotten onions.

It was so strong-smelling that Karikan had to build a bubble-like tent around his stock of curry powder, and customers who bought more than 2kg of the stuff were given free disposable industry-strength gas masks, or they would pass out before they even got home to cook the powder.

Unfortunately for everyone in the spice market, Karikan had taken over the curry powder stall RIGHT IN THE MIDDLE of the Spice Market, and thus, EVERYONE had to put up with the smell. Aunty Wu Qian (who Qicak was living with) had an especially hard time putting up with the smell and the mean Karikan.

“Just yesterday, I overheard Aunty Wu Qian complaining to her husband that her business has been affected because her customers can’t stand the sell of Karikan’s curry powder. So she’s thinking of moving out of the Spice Market if this goes on. What will I do without her?!!? I don’t want to move out of the Spice Market! It’s my home!” Qicak wailed.

To add curry powder to injury, Karikan was also a cruel man who disliked animals immensely, especially those he considers ‘pests’ like geckos.

One day while Qicak was hiding in her cubby hole, she saw how cruel he could be towards geckos. “He had this HUGE bag of rubber bands, and he was using them to SHOOT DOWN all those little green geckos who were on the walls!” she exclaimed, clearly distraught. “They didn’t even do him any harm, they were HELPING him get rid of the mosquitoes and flies around his stall. But he STILL killed them! What if he sees me in Aunty Wu Qian’s stall one day and decides to kill ME too?”

After telling her story, Qicak was so upset that Dirty Tortoise had to offer her some tea (in the form of leaves, of course. Tortoises don’t drink tea, don’t be silly) to calm her down.

“I see that we have a problem here that not only affects the Spice Market, but the entire Wet Market as well. We cannot have such a mean person in the market, especially one who kills animals for fun!” said Dirty Tortoise indignantly. “And I certainly don’t want to lose you, Qicak my dear friend. We must do something about this monstrous curry powder man!”

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