My name is Tan.... Ah-Kow Tan

It was a cold and wet day. The streets were empty save for a solitary figure in a rain coat, walking briskly. His eyes kept darting about, as though trying to see beyond walls and dark alleys.

Agent Ah-Kow Tan was searching for a woman who was last seen wearing a pair of hand-painted shoes (see photograph above). She was a sophisticated looking woman in her late twenties who held the key to the whereabouts of the missing *karang guni baron whom Agent Tan had been tasked to locate.

(* rag-and-bone-man)

Agent Tan had tried to intercept the mystery woman at a party held at a pub the night before but she managed to slip away in the crowd during a soul rendering performance by a Barry White lookalike.

A few days ago, Agent Tan had received an anonymous note containing a poem. He felt certain in his bones that the secret to the whereabouts of the missing karang-guni baron was embedded in the poem but try as he might, he could not decipher the code. He had heard from his sources that the mystery woman was close to the missing baron and was likely to know his whereabouts.

Frustrated but not prepared to forego his mission, Agent Tan decided to go home to re-look at the evidence that he had gathered to date before deciding on his next course of action.

Running his fingers through his dishevelled hair, Agent Tan sighed and left.

[Remark:

No, I have not decided to have a mid-life career change! Supercute and I have an ongoing project - to create a story from key words given by the other party.

Supercute has given me three words to create a story:-

(a) sophisticated

(b) intercept

(c) embed

As you can see from the above, I am a little rusty in my composition skills. When I was in secondary school (that is, Grades 7 to 10), I used to exceed the word limit for my English composition during tests and examinations. I loved to write fictional compositions and once I picked up my pen and started to write, I could not stop. The ideas kept flowing and flowing.

Hi Supercute, Tau Suan, Eddy and Eddie - the key to improving your English is all about practice, practice and more practice. Not only do you need to read as widely as you can, I encourage you to pick up a pen and write. It could be a letter to a friend / relative or it could be a little scrap book where you compose stories that come to life. You can do it!

Love,

Aunty Pebbles]