SYTAU (seayouthereandus)

15

“Meow! Hurry!”

The autumn of fourth grade, my wish of going on a field trip (pleasantly alone with Kewei) was finally fulfilled!

Thanks to last year’s dastardly autumn typhoon, the field trip had been postponed until now. I don’t know how many times I had rehearsed the moments in my head since: swapping and reading Kewei’s comics on the bus, taking a bunch of pictures of Kewei with a high ponytail as she looked back at me on the merry-go-round, and buying Kewei a cat ear headband… (Of course taking even more pictures afterwards!!!) I had considered every single detail except for one.

Kewei liked the attractions with the most screaming!

First off, it wasn’t possible to tell how horrifying the ride would be from just the name (things like ___ Rafting, ___ Adventure, Western/Pacific ___), so I wouldn’t know what they looked like until arriving there. Some were even indoors! The outside would be plastered with exotic pictures but it wasn’t clear what was going on inside. Only after putting on the harness did I discover that we were being thrown every which way in a pitch-dark space! There wasn’t even a chance for me to flee!

But anyway, I couldn’t run even if I had known of their horrors beforehand. When Kewei excitedly took out a marked-up map on the bus, when she said that she had been anticipating it so much she’d lost sleep the past few nights, and when she said, “Because I want to spend the best day possible with you…”

Who could turn her down?!

Farewell merry-go-round, farewell cat-ear Kewei, farewell my photography plans…

I did my best to avoid slipping up the whole morning. Kewei had been looking forward to this for a year too, and we had just “made up” (though we didn’t know if what had happened during summer vacation counted as a “fight”—calling it “making up” was a little odd), so I didn’t want to ruin things for her with my cowardice.

I had made it to lunchtime. My head still spun as I walked to the food court. It didn’t feel like  I was standing on solid ground…

“Kewei, Xiaorong! You two are eating here too!” Mr. Yangy was dragging Xie Yanzhi with him (for some reason, the image of a Tibetan mastiff carrying a bulldog by the scruff of its neck came to mind hahahaha). He asked, “Could we sit across from you guys?”

I nodded, and Kewei immediately replied, “‘Course!”

Mr. Yangy saw the notations littering Kewei’s map and said admiringly, “Wow, that’s some dedication!”

“Tong Kewei’s a nerd even for the field trip, hah,” Xie Yanzhi opened with a taunt. I narrowed my eyes at him and he sulkily looked away.

“That’s how you make the most of your time!” Kewei made a pushing-up-glasses motion. (She said this was called “air glasses” and showed that someone had thoroughly thought through something, not that they were near-sighted.) She explained, “We need at least half an hour to an hour to digest lunch, so we’ve already finished half of the itinerary in the morning! Only one half left to go!”

We were only half-way done? Save me!

“Food’s ready!” shouted the girl at the counter. I was about to get up when I discovered that Kewei was already rushing over.

“Meow, I can go. You just chat with them!”

Xie Yanzhi also stood, purposefully acting reluctant. “…I’ll get the food for Teach.”

What was going on? Xie Yanzhi. Proactively. Helping. The teacher?! I knew how amazing Mr. Yangy was, but he’d “tamed” even Xie Yanzhi! And he hadn’t used tests or punishments to achieve that! He was astounding!