Chapter 7 first quarter

The "ghost" didn't come to me. Stretch out from the shadow of the green belt to find out, I don't know when the park is empty.Of the six schoolbags piled up next to the sliding platform, there was only one left.Needless to say, the rest is mine. At first I felt strange, they never paid attention to me, they not only invited me to go home together, but also said to play together in the park, and still play hide-and-seek.Hide and seek has been pretty much forgotten since first grade played it so many times.Although the "ghost" is determined by guessing at the center of the park, the real "ghost" must be me from the beginning.

I picked up my schoolbag, which was as hot as a frying pan, and left the children's park.The cicada's cry is obviously very noisy, but I feel the surroundings are peaceful.The sun burned the back of the neck bit by bit, and sweat dripped from the throat to the chest. As I was walking home, I was thinking about hunting bugs at night. I started hunting insects with my sister at the beginning of last month.The frequency is about once every three days, and the location is always by the river.In the evening, after we finished our microwaved meals and it was completely dark outside, we took our cages, bug nets, and flashlights and set off to the river on two bicycles.My younger sister, who is two years younger than me, is still in the second grade of elementary school. She is not very proficient in cycling, so I always ride in front and try to choose roads with fewer potholes.

It’s called catching insects, but it’s actually just our name; although we have cages and insect nets, whether or not we can catch insects is not the most important thing.The two of us just sat on the embankment, talked about our father and mother, looked at the traffic lights on the bridge, or I quickly wrote on the ground with a flashlight, and let my sister guess.Although it was very uneasy for the two of us to stay in the dark place, this kind of warm and soft uneasiness made us feel very comfortable. About half a year ago, my father had a problem with his job. Since last month, my mother has also been transferred to other places to work.It was late for both of them to come home at night.By the time one of the two returned home, the younger sister had probably fallen asleep on the lower bunk of the bunk.I sometimes fall asleep, but most of the time I'm awake.I want to hear them say "Go to bed!" So always awake.

My father and mother didn't know about our going to the river.Because I was afraid that I would be scolded if I told them, I would never say anything, and I told my sister not to say it.The captured insects were transferred to the large cage placed at the entrance, and every time new insects were moved in, some corpses were always taken out, and the overall number did not change much.I'm not sure why the old bugs die - they always have tentacles and feet missing, presumably cannibalism. "I am back." Opening the door of the apartment, the younger sister Zhijia who came back first was carefully cutting a piece of pink origami with scissors at the table in the living room.Her expression was very serious, and she said "Welcome back" without raising her head while cutting.

"It's so hot in the house." Although there is air conditioning, we try not to use it as much as possible - it has been since my father's work problems. After putting down the schoolbag, my back felt a little cooler. "Is that an octopus?" "It's a lantern!" Zhijia said while cutting. "Today I was doing the Qixi Festival decoration at school. I was the only one who couldn't do it well, so I practiced and practiced. But I can't do it well. Why, did I fold it wrong at the beginning..." Zhijia frowned, put the scissors aside as if throwing them away, and rubbed his head with both hands.

"Forget it, it just won't." The pink origami was crumpled up and thrown into the trash can. "Yes, today is Tanabata." "Didn't my brother do anything in his class? Decorations or something?" "No, that's why I forgot." "Mom, forget it too." "It's hard to say, even if I remember, she is very busy." On the previous Qixi Festival, my mother always prepared bamboo leaves and waited for us after school-until last year.She always handed Zhijia and me the cut papers and asked us to write our wishes on them. "Tell the truth." She would say that every time.My mother always looks very happy when the two written notes are tied to the bamboo leaves with kite string.Lying in bed at night, I could hear my father and mother discussing the contents of the note.Both father and mother's voices were full of laughter.

"Zhijia, are you going to catch insects today?" "go." When I opened the refrigerator and took out barley tea, I saw two sets of round plates and two square plates in the center.Dinner seemed to be boiled vegetables and fish.You can also see bags containing crushed natto. "Brother, go to the river to pick bamboo leaves." "No, then the fact that we went out secretly will be revealed." "Just say you picked it during the day." "Picking bamboo leaves is mother's business, not ours." "why?" "No reason."

We sat around the table and drank barley tea.Turning on the TV, the news about the blooming of white bamboo in a certain mountain was being broadcast.Zhijia rested her elbows on the table, cupped her face in her hands, looked at the picture casually and said: "It's still blooming." "Well, it is said to open once every thirty years." "Then it opened thirty years ago?" "I do not know." I change the channel.Watching a TV series we had never heard of, Zhijia and I waited for the pangs of hunger.