Noragail

She had an unruly Felicity Porter wiry hair. And doe eyes that gave her a look of sadness and longing that was quite infectious. She didn’t hang around with the other girls; somehow she wasn’t accepted into any of the groupings that high school girls usually fall into. Largely due to the cinema scam I've grown an appendage of two hangers-on gopher boys and an entourage of girls that provide a crowd or a tool of misdirection for the little scams we ran.

A favorite with the girls was the green mango swipe: three or four girls would walk side by side; the "designated thief" (usually one of the boys, but the girls are equal to the task, too) would follow the girls two steps behind and two more would follow behind the designated thief to provide cover at the rear. The girls up front would converge on a sidewalk vender selling green mangoes in a parked kariton; they'd check out the mangoes as if choosing one they'd buy. The designated thief, in one smooth motion, would scoop up the mango on top of one of the tumpok and would slip it into the pocket of the girl on the middle. Then the girls would walk over to the next mango vender and use their charms to convince the vender to peel the mango. The girls usually walked away with some bagoong, too. It worked equally well for swiping packs of cigarettes, too.

At school, we targeted the siopao and candies in a campus store while the girls provide misdirection. In those days, cigarettes were sold inside the campus and we usually steal a few sticks as well. Everybody’s favorite was the pan-de-sal lean: we would crowd the counter of the employee's cooperative store on campus and place our orders of pan-de-sal one after the other; while the venders were frantically filling out our orders, the "designated thief" would lean in and reach out underneath the counter to get a handful of loose change, which we use to pay for our orders. Leftover change would be used to buy Coke.

Noragail tried to break into our group of juvenile misfits and thieves via my two gopher boys. But, somehow the girls didn’t warm up to her. She ended up hanging around with my two hangers-on. Somehow she made it clear that she wasn’t so keen on joining us in our movie house scams so she usually pay for our tickets when she was with us. Not that I mind, but somehow without the scam everything seemed so ordinary. And so we usually go without her. Besides when she was with us, she always sat beside me and that means we should make out. It was fun for a while but I preferred smooching with and groping the other girls; they tasted better; smelt better, too. She got other things on her mind. She made me and the other girls feel that she did not like the idea of me making out with the other girls. I, on the other hand, preferred the other girls who were not so touchy on the issue. We, the girls and I, were simply having some fun. And so that was the end of it. I distanced myself from her and after a while she stayed away. Later I would see her hanging out with a scion of a famous show business clan. We won't be seeing her the following school year; they said she eventually lived in with or married macho guy, some say she got pregnant.

Macho guy, together with a Jerry Lewis look-alike comedian and the son of a famous comedian, would later be involved in an arson-murder case when they would set ablaze-- while in a drug crazed and drunken stupor, the condominium unit of the wife of a music and movie producer. They would all be jailed for it.

Noragail, along with five other people, died in that senseless conflagration. Curiously, she was referred to as a "housemaid" in newspaper reports.