Summer Time

　　“So this is why I don’t like summer.”

　　In a damp, hot Saturday afternoon, I was on a crowded bus, trying to keep a bit of space between the other people and myself. The bus was rocking and it made everybody on the bus feel sleepy, especially on a Saturday afternoon in July.

　　“Why do I have to go to the tenant’s to have a nice meeting with my maths during the summer holiday? Now I should in my room playing my computer game with the air conditioner on, not like a sardine in a tin.” I muttered to myself.

　　After 20 minutes, I was able to get off that bus and walk into a block. My family were living in one of the flats here until two years ago. Because the apartment closes to the Tongji University, Dad and Mum rented it to the students. At the end of June, two new tenants came. After Mum knows both of them were the top students in their own department, she decided to send her dear own daughter—me—to the free tutor immediately. This is why I was climbing up the stairs, the flat is on the sixth floor.

　　“Ding—Dong—” I pushed the doorbell button.

　　“Yes—Coming—” A young voice answered.

　　The door was opened, someone came out, a person in a very loose white T-shirt and a pair of jeans seem has been washed too many times so the colour nearly in white, the fine silver frame glasses on his nose, bet five bucks, not a cheapie. ‘A very beautiful person—too beautiful that looks not like a man.’ that was first sensation about this young man.

　　“Hello, you must be Sai then, come in. Your mum just rang here to ask if you’ve arrived or not. Have you got your text books and exercise books? ” He took a pair of slippers out of the cabinet near the door, “You can put your shoes there, here is your slippers. Oh, my name is FengYi.”

　　“Er, yes, I got all my maths stuff, and…h(huán)ello, FengYi, I’m Sai, though you already knew that.” I changed my shoes slowly and keep my head down, I was a bit incoherent in front of such a beautiful person, until FengYi speak, at last I was able to define—FengYi is male.

　　“Who is that, FengYi?” While I was drinking my iced juice, another young man walked out from the bedroom—suddenly I fell a bit weird, it was my parents’ bedroom before. He is a tall man, wearing a black shirt and jeans, barefooted, his eyes and hair a kind of very pure black, without any impurity. Though we say that Asian people have black eyes and black hair, there are also different shades, in fact most people’s eyes and hair are dark brown, moreover, lots of the young people dye their hair and wear contact lens nowadays (Mum said they are not good children). I had never seen a pair of eyes as dark and bright as his. His eyes remind me of Ruby…wait, why am I thinking about this! Buy the way, Ruby is a Scotland shepherd dog my grandparents’ house.

　　“Did you forget? Our landlady wanted us to help with her daughter’s maths.” FengYi’s voice came from the other room—which was my bedroom once.

　　“That’s your job then, Mr. Elite,” the black man—I didn’t know his name yet—said in a joking voice.

　　“No way, you know that I’m not compatible with children.”

　　“Then what are you doing now? Digging a den?”

　　“I’m looking for some corresponding maths text, FOR YOU!”

　　“If you two don’t want me to be here, I will leave. I don’t want to be here either. Thanks for the juice.” at last I was exploded, this could be my worst day in my entire life! Giving up my computer game and spending half an hour on a crowded, steaming bus, for a subject which I hates, and the ‘teachers’ did’t even want to teach me, kicked me between each other like a footfall RIGHT INFRONT OF ME. Are they thinking I’m air?

　　“Wow, what a burning impulse! It’s good to be young, isn’t it? Darling, we are old.” The black man turned worse. I started to apologise to Ruby, I must be blind to compare them together, that was an insult to Ruby!

　　A file flew out from the room where FengYi was, and the black man caught it. “I’ve looked through his book, he just started leaning geometry and function, those stuffs should be help. Good luck, Mr. Perfect.” The door was closed.

　　“Oh! How scary. Right, let me see, doesn’t look too hard. My name is LiDong; you can call me Mr. Li.”

　　I’ll rather to put stiches on my mouth! I rolled my eyes and asked, “Sounds like you’re very good at maths, what are you learning in the Uni?”

　　LiDong smiled, “You thinking I’m not qualified? My speciality is urban engineering. By the way, FengYi is learning architectonics. Come on now, let’s start. Maths can be good fun if you have got the key.”

　　I had to say, LiDong was a good hand at maths, and teaching as well. He often had some way to make the horrible technical terms and graphics become easy to understand. After one hour of leaning, he gave me some questions to solve. ‘Practice makes perfect’ are the words by him.

　　“Hi, how is everybody going? The most vigorous beauty is here! Ah! When did you two have a doughter? Or at last you become a pederosis?”

　　A girl came into view. Hot, this was the first word which appeared in my mind. Flamy shining hair, bright red cheongsam, loud lively voice, exaggerated movements and spirited eyes, these made her the highlight of the room. But—was that because she spoke too fast? I couldn’t really understand what she just said—maybe a little bit peculiar.

　　“JiaoJiao,” I could see LiDong suddenly became weary, “Are you sure your logic system don’t need a repair? I can’t understand how your brain works. First, FengYi is home. Second, this is our landlady’s child. Third, I’m teaching her maths. So please be quiet, the weather is already too hot, we don’t want it getting worse.”

　　“What’s that noise, Li…” The door opened, FengYi’s head came out, one, two, after two seconds, the head backed, the door closed, just like nothing happened.

　　JiaoJiao leapt to the closed door, “Hey, FengYi, what do you mean by this? Your best friend came here to see you specially, you can’t be that frosty.”

　　“Who is your best friend? Nobody wants to see you.” LiDong muttered. “Who is she?” I asked softly. “A female dinosaur.” LiDong answered in 0.1 second. “What?” “…my cousin. Do your question.” “All right, Mr. Perfect.”

　　Though me sight was on the numbers, but I can still hear over there JiaoJiao was fighting to the door, “FengYi, if you don’t come out, I will delete all the data on your school computer account!”

　　One, two, after two second the door was opened, “LiDong, can’t you restrain your sister a bit?” FengYi dodged past JiaoJiao, walked to LiDong.

　　“Don’t ask me, I have no jurisdiction to her.” LiDong shrugged, “Every times she came, and there is no good thing.”

　　“For god’s sake, what did she do again? This is why I don’t like Shanghai girls, they always think man should do anything for them freely.” FengYi shook his head.

　　“Aren’t all the female animals in this world like this?” LiDong turned around and looked at me, “How did you go with those questions?”

　　“Well, maybe that is true.” FengYi at last decided to face JiaoJiao, “JiaoJiao, what’s wrong this time? Your MP3, or your hard disk?”

　　“My laptop, I don’t know what happened to it. Please, FengYi, I know you can fix it, you are the best computernik I’ve seen.”

　　“Are you very good at computer? I’ve just started to learn programming.” after heard the work ‘computernik’, I became excited.

　　“It’s only my hobby.” FengYi smiled modestly.

　　“FengYi is better than a dozen of ‘professional’. FengYi is the best!” JiaoJiao said proudly, “So you are their landlady’s child. Hello, girl, I’m BaiYuJiao, friends call me JiaoJiao. I’m LiDong’s cousin, 20 years old, Tongji University second year student. That’s all!” She did a military salute and winked at me when she finished.

　　LiDong was right, she dose rise the air temperature around her a lot. I nodded to her, “Hello, JiaoJiao, I’m Sai. Nice to meet you. Are you FengYi’s girlfriend?”

　　When I get older, when I know more common sense, then maybe I would not ask this question. But that time, as a normal 9 years old girl, that was a most common question.

　　But this most common question cause the whole room quiet for a few seconds, and then, FengYi and LiDong looked at each other in a eccentric expression; JiaoJiao gave me an unfathomable smile, “What do you think about?”

　　“That’s enough. Sai, you haven’t finished your exercise yet, it’s nearly four o’clock, finish the question and you can go home.” LiDong looks not very happy. FengYi took JiaoJiao and her laptop into the room to fix both of them.

　　When I finished all of the questions, it was about half past four. FengYi had fixed JiaoJiao’s laptop also, so JiaoJiao decided to carry me home by her bike.

　　Just before leave, I thought I’d better tell them, “I was thinking about that question, maybe JiaoJiao is not FengYi’s girlfriend. You look more like brother and sister.”

　　This time FengYi laughed, one of his arm hung over on LiDong’s shoulder. He nearly laughed his head off, and LiDong was looking at the ceiling with a questionable blank face. I couldn’t understand what was happened, but JiaoJiao dragged me out of the flat before I can ask anything more.

　　‘A group of strange people.’ was the appraisement to FengYi, LiDong and JiaoJiao by me.

　　On the way back home, JiaoJiao chattered a lot to me. There were many words I couldn’t understand, I dimly remember a few words: family, common people, public opinion, pressure, rights, love, and gay.

　　Until now sometime I still fell a bit repentant for that afternoon, I should be more absorb on JiaoJiao’s talking. Maybe because that time those students thought I was a child and wouldn’t understand, so they took their disguise off and reduced some caution in front of me.

　　In front of my new house, JiaoJiao asked, “How do you think about those two?”

　　I shook my head slowly and thought for a while, “I don’t know, they are…very good friends, very good, but…a little bit different with my friend and I…they are…very use to each other. Anyway, I like them, though they are strange, and you as well.”

　　JiaoJiao smiled, “Thank you. Oh, and thanks for you parents to give them a home.” All right, though she is a bit peculiar, she is still a very beautiful girl.

　　On the dinner table that night, I asked Dad and Mum, “What’s gay meaning?” My sixth sense told me that’s a key word.

　　Dad was choked by the nice soup and started to cough, Mum smiled after a few seconds and said, “That’s a word mean a boy who has a boy lover, or a girl who has a girl lover.”

　　“But if they are in same sex, and they love each other, then they should be called good friends, aren’t they?”

　　“Well…maybe they think ‘good friends’ is not enough to express their emotion...”

　　“Where did you hear this word from?” Dad stopped cough and asked.

　　“Em, I heard it from someone on the road when I walk passed him.” Somehow I didn’t want them know the turth, “Oh, buy the way, Dad, I find maths is not that bad. Can I go there next time?”

　　‘Next time I can ask them about the meaning of this word, see what reaction they will have.’ I thought.

　　This should be an exciting summer.

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