Across 300 Years, I Love You

If there are no wind, there won't be waves

3 November 1995

[Elizabeth's POV]

"Ouch!" I screamed in pain feeling the sting shooting across my shoulders to my arms. Damien was climbing up my shoulders to reach for his red plastic toy car at the top of the kitchen shelf while I was trying to get him off me. Mom had left the toy there to dry after washing it with soap. In retaliation, he bit hard into my shoulders leaving teeth marks and a slight tinge of blood.

Mom entered the kitchen upon hearing the commotion.

"What happened?" she placed her hands at her waist.

Complaining, I said: "Damien bit my shoulders!"

"Aww...didi (younger brother in Chinese) is being cheeky again. Next time, just help him reach for the toy." Mom picked Damien up and coddled him.

"What about the teeth marks and the blood?" I pushed again, trying to get mom to empathise with my injury.

"The first aid kit is in the top cabinet to your left." She opened the door to the cabinet and left the kitchen with Damien.

As I was reaching up to the cabinet, a piercing scream that belonged to Virginia filled the entire apartment. "Ahhh!!! Mom!!!"

"Mom!!! Come quickly!!!" another scream came louder than the last.

Thinking that something really bad had happened to Lloyd and Virginia, I disregarded cleaning up my bite wound and closed the cabinet doors. I ran as fast as I could to the common area just outside their room. I took a stool and stood on it to peek over the shoulders of the adults that had gathered there.

"Mom," Lloyd huffed. "Virginia and I have lost our wallets inside the room. We have about $50 each."

"Yeah. We have searched the entire house with no luck." Virginia added.

"Aunt," Virginia turned to my mom as the alarm bells in my head sounded danger. Virginia will never address my mom as Aunt. It is always calling her by her first name.

"I don't know if I should say it."

"Go ahead Virginia, speak up!" Ric said.

"There is only 1 place in the house we have not searched." Lloyd cut in. "We saw Damien and Elizabeth loitering outside our room yesterday."

"We did not!" I snapped. I knew it. They are up to no good. But accusing us of theft? This is a new low!

"Elizabeth, hear me out." a voice whispered into my ears.

"This is a cheap palace trick to get people into trouble. I've seen plenty." Yongqi continued.

"Do you trust me?" I gave a thumbs up secretly as I folded my hands behind my back.

"Follow my cue and repeat after whatever I say."

I cleared my throat as I prepared to speak.

"Do you, Virginia and Llyod swear that the both of you have never once in your life, enter the master bedroom?"

"Of course! Why would I lie?" the both of them chimed in together.

"Damien, do you know what the wallet looks like? My brother shook his head.

"Mom, Dad, what about you? Have you ever seen the wallet?" they shook their heads too.

"Great, I'm sure all of you have heard it clearly. We have never seen the wallet and you have never entered the master bedroom."

"Yes." Everyone nodded in agreement.

"You may conduct a search in our bedroom." I pointed to Lloyd.

"Let's go, Virginia." Lloyd dragged Virginia and dashed to open the door to the bedroom that my family stays in.

Within a minute, everyone witnessed Lloyd and Virginia emerging from the master bedroom with 2 black leather wallets in their hands. I felt the pace of my heart quicken.

"You got to trust yourself, Elizabeth and trust Yongqi." I repeated that 3 times over in my head to calm down.

"Mom. This is found underneath Elizabeth's stack of textbooks." I felt the stares of flying dagger shooting in my direction.

"Do you swear again that this is the first time you have entered the master bedroom." I began again

"What! Are you trying to accuse my children of lying while you are the thief here?" Lily snapped at me.

"So if you have never once entered the bedroom. How are you able to know where the wallet is? If you need to find something in there, you would probably need more than 15 minutes to look through every inch, nook and cranny."

I looked straight into the eyes of Lloyd and Virginia while their faces turned beet red with Lloyd trying to charge at me while Virginia held him back tightly.

"Besides, if I were a thief, why would I put a stolen item in plain view with my textbooks on top of a table?" I continued with Yongi's nod of approval, refusing to back away.

"Is this the residence of Ric and Lily?" a loud deep voice interrupted us. Reacting quicker than lightning, Ric and Lily dragged Llyod and Virginia into grandmother's room and locked themselves in. The location of grandmother's room is hidden from view from the main door. It doesn't take a genius to smell something fishy about this thief saga. Surely, it has something to do with the men knocking at the door.

"No, this is not." mom opened the door carefully.

"Who is this and what this is about?" mom demanded.

The men are huge, tanned and buffy, emitting an aura of menace. They had on them a black tee-shirt that says "debt collectors" and a pair of back pants.

"Our records show that they are living here. Your neighbours have seen them in this apartment. They have not been answering the phone calls made numerously to them" the one on the left said in a no nonsense tone.

"We are from the Republic National bank." the guy on the right flashed his ID.

"These are the lawyer's letter and court notice." he handed mom a neatly folded white envelope.

"And this is the overdue note." he passed mom a red sheet of paper and pasted another similar sheet on the door.

"You will not be allowed to remove this sheet until an installment has been received by the bank."

"How much is it? If it is not too much, I will pay for it." grandmother snatched the notice and the letters from mom's hands. The moment she read the numbers on the paper, she shoved the papers back into mom's hands.

"Ric's business is just a small scale shipping company. How bad can it get? I'm sure we can chip in." absentmindedly, dad blurted out and mom gave him a good shove in the elbow.

[Yongqi's POV]

I cringed at the scene unfolding before me. The adults left the sitting room, not wanting any part of the "hot potato" except for Elizabeth's dad. He was reviewing his bank account statements and reaching into the drawers to retrieve her mom's financial statements.

Looking up, he caught hold of Elizabeth just as she was entering the kitchen to reach for the first aid kit.

"Elizabeth. For the next 2 weeks, you are grounded. Your pocket money will be reduced and no playtime."

"But that won't be sufficient to buy a meal for school lunch!" she cried out.

"There is always bread you can take to school for lunch." he replied dismissively.

Pointing his index finger to her face: "There is a Chinese saying, where there is no wind, there won't be waves."

"If not for something bad about your character that others don't like, they will not want to find the chance to do something nasty to you."

"Take today for example. Nobody likes a girl who argues a lot. So, I'm warning you -YOU better change your bad attitude."