Sweetened Red Beans - Chapter 3
My parents ran a small business in the city. I lived with my grandparents in a village not far from town, and after primary school, I’d move to the city for middle school.
Zhou Maoxiu, who was three years younger than me, had started primary school that term.
Apparently, a teacher checking for children who’d dropped out or never enrolled had discovered a school-age boy at home. Only after the teacher visited did his drunken father send him to school.
For all seven days of the National Day holiday, I’d fed him. It was only leftovers, but they were hot and nutritious.
He’d progressed from smashing my bowls to flinging the basin and chopsticks into our courtyard. Now he washed them and put them back where he’d found them.
So he did know a little gratitude.
The dents he’d knocked into the sides and bottom of the basin could be overlooked.
Gratitude, my ass!
The little bastard stole my stuffed bun!
The woman selling breakfast held it out. Just as I reached for it, he snatched it and vanished at a sprint.
I stared at her. She stared at me. She had no intention of paying for his theft.
Silently, I handed over another yuan and bought a plain steamed bun. The stuffed one cost a yuan; the plain one cost seventy fen. Grandma had given me two yuan, leaving me thirty fen.
That other yuan had been for a pen!
Little bastard!
Back in class, I collected homework and organized morning reading.
The boys were outrageously disobedient. Nothing I said got a response. At last, my fury over the stolen bun found somewhere to go.
I slammed my book onto the teacher’s desk.
Bang!
The noise, loaded with my anger, shook the room. Silence fell. Everyone turned to stare in alarm.
I glared at the troublemakers. “Go on. Try it again. You little brats are here to read, not horse around! Back to your seats. I’m counting to three!”
Perhaps my adult authority had finally erupted. The children, around ten years old, looked resentful but returned to their seats without a word.
Listening to them read aloud, looking at their young fourth-grade faces, I felt as though I were dreaming.
I was a twenty-two-year-old adult, now a fourth-grader—and the class monitor!
Look at me go!
During the exercise break after second period, I discovered I was also the exercise leader.
Was I really this impressive?
Thank goodness I had the original girl’s memories. Otherwise, I’d have made an absolute fool of myself.
Standing up high to lead the exercises, I spotted a filthy first-grader being scolded to the left of the platform. He looked as though someone had dug him out of a rubbish heap.
He stood rigidly upright, eyes on the ground, seemingly deaf to reason.
Infuriating!
At noon, we ate the free, government-funded nutritious school lunch. It was edible. It kept you alive. Delicious, it was not.
Yet Zhou Maoxiu ate three large bowls in a row, shoveling rice into his mouth as though he’d starved in a previous life. Every bite filled his mouth completely. Two cursory chews, then he swallowed.
The longer I watched, the more nervous I became.
I was afraid he’d choke to death.
