"La la la, la la la… I’m the little expert selling newspapers…”
On her way home, Mali hummed the silly tune she’d made up earlier that day, swinging her canvas bag against her hip.
In her hand, she clutched a copy of Radio Weekly — not the battered one missing half its pages she’d been reading at the teashop, but a complete issue. The cover was faded, the edges curled but every page was there.
She was still reeling from what she’d just seen. Behind that old indigo curtain… a massive teak bookshelf, at least three meters wide and taller than she was, packed from end to end with books.
Mali had never seen so many books in one place. Thick, heavy volumes. Titles she didn’t understand but could remember in an instant.
Apart from a few storybooks, most were about radios, electrical circuits, and wireless technology, some in Thai, others in English and German. The sight made her dizzy.
She didn’t yet understand their worth. She only knew they belonged to Uncle Somchai, a man who clearly guarded them like treasure. Before she left, she’d gathered the courage to ask if she could borrow that copy of Radio Weekly from the corner of his shed.
He didn’t just agree, he led her into another room where several big banana-boxes were stacked against the wall, each full of old newspapers and magazines. He dug around and found her a good copy, carefully flattened, smelling faintly of dust and engine oil.
That’s when Mali realized: the real treasures were inside his house, neat and safe. The pile outside was just for throwing away.
On the walk home, she passed the shop at the corner. The sour tamarind candy, the sweet salty preserved plums, the sticky red “balloon” gum… all stared at her from their jars. But she didn’t spend the five baht she’d earned that day (practically a fortune in her mind). She’d save it for something important.
As soon as she got home, she opened Radio Weekly. She went straight to the article she hadn’t finished: History of Radio.
From the late 1800s until now — just over a hundred years — radio had gone from an experiment to something every household knew. The piece wasn’t technical, just an introduction. But it stirred something in her.
The next morning, just after sunrise, she turned up at Uncle Somchai’s house. He’d only just stepped out to stretch when she called out,101Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡhfrk6OrMQE
“Uncle, I came to return the book!”
“Oh? Already?” He took it from her, surprised. Not a single new crease.
“You finished it?”
“Yes! It was so good. Can I borrow another one?”
He chuckled. Most kids her age barely glanced at anything without pictures. “How about a comic? The Brave Archer? Nang Nak? Lots of fun.”
Mali shook her head. “I want to borrow Fundamentals of Radio Principles.”
He stared. “That big one?”
“Yes. In the magazine, there was an article about crystal radios. It said this book explains them best. I want to try building one.”
For a moment, he just looked at her. “Well… if you get stuck, you can ask me and if you need parts, I’ve got spares in the back.”
“Thank you, Uncle!”
Back inside, he slid aside the curtain again. The shelves were numbered, but he’d never fully catalogued them. As he searched, Mali wandered toward the workbench, eyes roaming over coils of wire and tiny drawers of resistors.
“Four-eight-six…” she murmured under her breath.
He didn’t catch it at first. Then, there it was, wedged between Principles of Transistor Receivers and a book on antenna design. Yellowed pages, heavy in the hand.
In the courtyard, she thanked him once more before heading home with the book tucked close to her chest.
He watched her go, smiling to himself. Such a polite girl. Such a shame about the head injury when she was little…
Later, as he covered the shelves again, the thought struck him. Four-eight-six. His grid. Row 4, column 8, book 6. Exactly where she’d said.
“That’s impossible,” he muttered, but he couldn’t shake the chill that ran down his spine101Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡvj6Seiu0dX
and then Add to home screen.