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Getting Away (Part I)             Contents

We had got away from our home for a few hours without permission, when we were children. It happened sixty years ago. At that time, my elder brother was twelve, my younger brother was six, and I was ten.

We lived in a new town. IT was Saturday afternoon. My mother had gone to visit her parents. She rode the bus to the old town, and then took a walk to her parents’ village. It would take her two hours. My father went to work, and left just three children at home. We felt bored. My elder brother suggested, “Let’s go to the park.” “The park? Let’s go!” I answered. The so-called park is just a plot of some trees, but we could look at the sky and watch everything around there. I wanted to go, but I hesitated, because we had not gotten permission from our father. My elder brother said,”That’s nothing, we will come back soon.” My younger brother could not give any opinion, he just followed us. Arriving at the park, we were just like birds flying out from the gate, “Oh, so free!”

At moment later, my elder brother said, “Let’s go farther. Maybe there is something more interesting.” We agreed and followed him. Then we came to a forest. We saw some fruit hanging on the trees. My elder brother said, “Let’s pick some up and taste them.” He climbed high in the tree. I climbed too, but lower. My younger brother could not climb up; he just stood under the tree and watched. But the fruit was unripe, it tasted sour. We gave up.

Then we reached a grassland, where my elder brother shouted and suddenly ran away, “Snake! Snake!” I did not see any snake, but grasped younger brother’s hand and followed him. When we stopped, he said, “You stay here, let me go watch!” He took a branch and looked for the snake. Then he found it and trailed it. When the snake moved, he followed, when the snake stopped, he paused. When the snake raised its head, he retreated until the snake disappeared into the bushes.

Then we went to a pool. There were some ducks at the poolside. My elder brother pursued them with a branch. My younger brother and I followed him chasing the ducks because it was not dangerous. We felt so exited. When the ducks went into the pool and swam, my elder brother rolled up his pants and went into the water. We shouted at the poolside. After he slipped down in the water a few times, we cried loudly, “Come back! Dangerous! Don’t do it anymore!” When a large part of his clothes was wet, he came back.

Getting Away (Part II)                       Contents

We kept going forward, but we were tired. Where there was a cow passing my, my elder brother said, “Let’s go ride it!” I said, “No, mother had said that the cow can make a hole in with its horn in someone’s stomach.” Because he was tired, he just threw stones toward the cow.

When we sat down to take a rest, we saw a bus passing by. We ran to the road, and watched my elder brother give a suggestion, “Let’s go meet mother.” I asked, “How can we go?” “Buy tickets for the bus,” he answered. Then we searched our pockets for money, but we only had twenty cents. It was not enough to buy bus tickets. Then my elder brother said, “Let’s take a walk.” “Can we walk?” I pointed to my younger brother. “Ask him,” my elder brother said. Then we consulted together. The decision was that my elder brother would carry my younger brother for one kilometer, I was the next one to carry him, and then my younger brother walked one kilometer by himself. I had worried if we could do it this way, but all of us yearned for our mother, we wanted to try.

We started marching bravely. My elder brother did his job first. Then it was my turn. Then, my younger brother walked by himself. But the dark clouds came together in the sky. Rain was coming. We tried to stop the bus to carry us, but the conductor refused us because we did not have enough money to buy tickets. We could do nothing but keep walking. The rain became very heavy. All of us were wet form top to toe. Finally, because of the request of the sympathetic passengers, we were allowed to take a bus to old town.

Arrive at my grandmother’s home, under her care, we took baths, changed into dry clothes, and ate dinner. Before long, my aunt came from new town. She was sent by my father to look for us. But all that time, the bus service had stopped. She couldn’t go back to new town to tell my father that she had found us. At that night, my father must have hardly slept a wink. The next day, my mother came back from her parent’s home and took us back to new town.

My father made us kneel down to admit our faults. Finally, he held my younger brother’s hand and pointed at my elder brother and me, and said, “They are bad boys, don’t follow them to do anything wrong any more.” Oh, my God! It was unjust! My younger brother was innocent because of his age. (He was too young to have his own ideas. He was just enticed to follow us to do something.) I should not get the same blame as my older brother. My Opinion was that he should be the worst boy and I was just a worse boy!

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