TPCF 64

CHAPTER 64…………….

“Write a diary and read it again a year later, Anita. It’ll be quite fun.”

Since a mother’s command was absolute to a child, Anita had no choice but to start keeping a diary that very day, however reluctantly. Yet perhaps because she was more sensitive and emotional than her peers, her diary quickly became something like a counselor or a friend. Writing down every little event or feeling from the day in tight, pressed letters soon became Anita’s way of ending each day.

At least, until that boy who moved in next door disrupted everything.

Rutger barged into Anita’s room without permission and snatched the diary from her hands, curious about what she had been writing.

“Give it back!”

“What’s this? You write a diary? That’s so childish.”

Among kids their age, hobbies like keeping a diary or reading books were looked down upon. Anita hadn’t cared much, since she had no desire to hang around with the neighborhood kids who wandered around with dumb looks and got into trouble.

“September 14th. Mr. Morris’s hunting dog from across the street has died. Since his youth, that dog always accompanied him on pheasant hunts, but had since retired in old age. Maybe it still longed for those days of hunting? The dog often stared up at birds perched in trees…”

“Hey!”

“…and barked at them.”

“Why are you reading that out loud?”

Anita protested, but Rutger only scoffed, ignoring her. Finding the hunting dog story boring, he flipped to the next page.

“September 15th.”

Anita’s face suddenly went pale.

“A new family moved in next door. It’s my mother’s old friend, Mrs. Sarah Vailan, and her family.”

“Stop reading.”

“There’s a boy my age too. His name is Rutger Vailan. He is…”

Rutger’s voice trailed off. Anita stopped struggling to get her diary back and instead squeezed her eyes shut.

Riiip.

The sound of tearing paper made Anita’s eyes snap open. Right before her, Rutger was ripping apart her diary with a hardened expression.

“This trash—what do you think you know about me?”

His green eyes flashed coldly. Even as Anita watched her diary being shredded into scraps that fell to the floor like snow, she couldn’t say a word. Maybe, she thought, Rutger had every right to feel angry. Maybe it was offensive to see her writing about him in her diary. Still, her stomach churned.

“Don’t you ever write about me again. I mean it.”

“…”

“Answer me.”

“…Okay.”

With a stiff face that showed his displeasure clearly, Rutger left the room. Anita bent down to gather the pieces scattered across the floor, sitting dazed as she tried to piece them together like a puzzle.

The carefully written words looked like squirming worms. Sitting by the fireplace, Anita read the restored entry:

“September 15th. What does he like? Cricket? Or maybe baking pies? He doesn’t look like the type who’d enjoy baking, but you never know. Papa always told me it’s wrong to judge people by appearances.

I bet he doesn’t like boxing though. The other day I saw Trey, who lives over on 4th Street, ‘practicing’ boxing by using his little brother as a punching bag. I was so horrified I ran straight to tell his mom, and ever since, Trey glares at me like a bulldog and shakes his fist whenever he sees me. Hmph, whatever. I just won’t go near 4th Street again.

This is getting off track, but what I mean is—I hope Rutger doesn’t like boxing. He’s an only child, no siblings, and I’m the only one his age around here. I don’t want to end up being his punching bag.”

Anita hesitated for a moment—wasn’t this more about bulldog-faced Trey than about Rutger? But she quickly brushed the thought away.

That day Anita learned something: you shouldn’t write about other people in your diary. If you do, you should at least pay them, like an appearance fee.

A writer has copyright, and if you want to put an actor on stage, you have to pay them.

So, did that mean if she wanted to write about Rutger again, she’d have to give him something in return?

Anita shook her head quickly. It was true she had grown curious about the boy who had just moved in, but not enough to bribe him for the right to write about him.

The image of Rutger’s face, contorted in disgust as if he were ripping apart maggots instead of paper, haunted her. Even when she closed her eyes, it was still there.

With a gloomy expression, Anita tossed the remaining scraps of paper into the fireplace. They blackened and crumbled into ash.

The next day, after visiting the largest library in town, Anita was caught by Sarah Vailan. Though she still felt awkward around Rutger, Mrs. Vailan was kind and cheerful, and Anita had already grown fond of her.

“Anita! Books are fine and all, but how about stopping by for some snacks and a little chat with me?”

“Hello, Mrs. Sarah. Thank you, but I’ve got some reading I need to—”

But Anita’s timid refusal didn’t register at all with the fiery Sarah Vailan. She whisked the books right out of Anita’s hands (well, more like snatched them) and with her free hand nudged Anita toward her house.

“Come on now, just a bit of pie before you go. I, Sarah Ellen, am the greatest pie baker in the world—”

Suddenly she stopped mid-sentence.

“What’s wrong?”

“Mm, nothing. Let’s go inside.”

By the time Anita came to her senses, she was sitting at the Vailans’ kitchen table with a fork in hand and even a napkin tied around her neck.

“Oh my, you’re just too adorable. Want to be my daughter?”

“…Rutger wouldn’t like that.”

“Would he now? I bet he’d be thrilled to have a little sister.”

“I wouldn’t be the little sister. Rutger would. I’m a February baby, you know.”

Anita said it firmly, but sitting in a high chair with her feet dangling and holding a cute duck-shaped fork, she looked nothing but precious in Sarah’s eyes.

“Oh, is that so? Our Anita’s a February baby. So grown up already.”

Realizing she was being teased, Anita’s lips puckered in protest.