Chapter 6 chick back home

At this time, the morning sun had just risen from the horizon, and it flew towards me from between the two houses near my former residence like a side-shot ball.I put my hands up to shield my eyes.In the early morning of October, there are piles of fallen leaves beside the sidewalk. I remember that there are not so many fallen leaves in autumn here, and the sky is not as open as it used to be.If you return to your old home after a long time, you will notice at a glance how lush the trees that existed in your memory are now. Pipewell Beach.Do you know how this place name came from?It's just embarrassing to say.Many years ago, a self-made entrepreneur thought the town would be more attractive if it had a beach, even though it wasn't near the sea, so he trucked in enough sand to make a small beach. .He joined the Chamber of Commerce and even got the town to change its name from Pipewell Lake to Pipewell Beach In fact, we have a swing and a slide on this stretch of beach, and there's only room for twelve families, no matter how many people there are, You have to sit on someone else's towel.It was a joke when we were growing up, do you want to go to the beach? , or hey, I feel like today is a day to go to the beach.Because we know we can't fool anyone.

Anyway, our house was very close to the lake, which is very close to the beach. After my mother died, my sister and I kept the house and hoped that it would be worth a little more in a few years.Honestly, I'm not in the mood to sell it. I circled the house, hunched over like a fugitive.I walked away from the crash, and by now someone must have found my car, my truck, my battered billboard, and my pistol.I was in pain, bleeding and still feeling dizzy.Any minute I wait to hear the police car's bell, that's an even stronger reason that I should get myself out of the way first. I staggered up to the vestibule of the house porch.I found the key we had stashed under a fake rock in the flower bed (this was my sister's idea).I looked back, there was no movement, no police, no crowd, no cars on either side of the driveway. I opened the gate and walked in.

The house smelled musty, and there was also a faintly sweet smell of carpet cleaner, as if someone (the cleaner we paid for?) had cleaned the carpet not too long ago.I walked down the hallway lined with cabinets, past the banister of the stairs we used to slide down the stairs when we were kids.I walked into the kitchen, still the same floor tiles and cherry wood cabinets.I opened the refrigerator and looked for alcoholic beverages.This behavior has become a reflex action for me. I took a step back. There is food in the refrigerator. plastic box.Leftover lasagna.skim milk.Apple juice.Wood plum flavored yogurt.A thought crossed my mind that someone had moved in, that someone had trespassed, taken the house for himself, and now it was his place.We have left the house alone for so long, and that is the price we have to pay.

I open a kitchen cabinet.Inside the cabinet were Lipton teas and a can of decaf Shanka coffee.I open another cabinet door.sugar.Morton's salt.paprika.Oregon Spice.I saw a dish soaked in soap suds in the sink.I picked up the plate, then slowly put it down again, as if trying to put it back where it belonged. Then, I heard a voice. Came from upstairs. Charlie? Then again. Charlie? It was my mother's voice. I run out of the kitchen.My fingers were wet and sudsy. ◆◆◆ When I didn't stand up for my mother I am six years old.Halloween is here.The school is having its annual Halloween parade.All the kids lined up to walk through the nearby streets.

Just buy him a parade costume.Father said: That cheap store sells this. But my mother doesn't want to do that.It was my first parade and she was going to sew a special costume for me: Mummy, my favorite horror character. She cut strips of old white clothes and towels and wrapped them around me, securing them with safety pins.She then taped layers of roll toilet paper to the outside of the strip.It took her a long time to finish.As soon as she was done I looked in the mirror and I was the mummy.I lift my shoulders and rock back and forth. Oh, you are terrible.mother said. She drove me to school.We start the parade.As I walked, the cloth strips began to come loose.About two blocks away, it started to rain.By the time I found out, the toilet paper had melted.The strips hang down.Before long, they were falling on my ankles, wrists and neck.You can see my underwear and pajama shorts.My mother thought it would be better to use pajama shorts as underwear.

Look at Charlie!The children screamed.They laughed.My face flushed.I guess just disappear, but halfway through the parade, where do you go? We walked to the playground, where the parents were waiting with their cameras.I was covered in drenched sagging strips and toilet paper.I see my mother first.She saw me too, and covered her mouth with her hands.I burst into tears. You ruined my life!I shouted. Charlie? I hid on the back balcony, and I still clearly remember how short of breath I was.One second I was standing in front of the refrigerator, moving slowly, and the next second my heart was beating so fast that I felt that no amount of oxygen was enough.I was shaking.The glass window of the kitchen was behind me, but I dared not look into it.I had seen my dead mother before, heard her voice now; I've broken parts of my body before, but this is the first time I've ever worried that I've broken my own head too.

I stood up and sucked in my lungs hard and exhaled hard.My eyes were fixed on the muddy ground ahead.When we were kids, we called this our backyard, but it was really just a square of grass.I've thought about running across the meadow and jumping over to a neighbor's house. At this time, the door opened. My mother came out. my mother. right there.on the balcony. She turned around and faced me. She said: What are you doing here?It's cold here. I don't know if I can explain the giant leap I took; it was like jumping off the earth.Everything you know on one side and everything that actually happened on the other: when the two don't match, you have a choice.I saw my mother, in real life, standing in front of me.I heard her call my name, Charlie.Only she calls me that.

Is it my hallucination?Should I walk up to her?Will she burst and disappear like a bubble?Honestly, at this moment, my limbs don't feel like they belong to me. Charlie?What's wrong?You are wounded all over. She's wearing a white sweater and blue trousers, no matter what time of the morning she always seems to be fully dressed and she doesn't look any older than the last time I saw her, which was when she was seventy-nine On her birthday, she wore red-rimmed glasses, which were a gift from someone else.She slowly turned her palms up and beckoned me to go over with her eyes; I don't know what happened, her glasses, her skin, her hair, and her usual way of opening the back door after I threw the tennis ball from the roof. Way.Something inside me melted, as if her face was radiating heat.A warm feeling runs down my spine and into my ankles.Then something cracked, and I almost heard a snap.The barrier between belief and disbelief is broken.

I surrender. Jump out of this planet. Charlie?She said: What's wrong? I did what you would do if you were in the same situation. I hugged my mother like I never let her go. ◇◇◇ When my mother stood up for me I am eight years old.I have a homework to do at home.I have to explain in front of the class: How is the echo caused? After school, in my father's shop, I asked him, what caused the echo?He was in the aisle, hunched over, holding a clipboard and pencil, checking inventory. I don't know, Chick.It's like throwing water into the water. Isn't there an echo in the mountains?

Um?He counts the bottles. When you fought, weren't you in the mountains? He glanced at me: Why are you asking this? He went back to his clipboard. That night, I asked my mother, how did the echo come about?She brought the dictionary, and we are in the study. Let him do it himself.Father popped out a word. Ryan, she said: Allow me to help him. She spent an hour doing my homework with me.I memorized sentences from the dictionary.I stood in front of her and recited it to her. How is the echo caused? After the source of the sound stops, the sound still continues to exist, which is called echo.

Under what circumstances does the echo appear? The sound has to hit something and bounce back. When will I hear an echo? When the surroundings are quiet and other sounds are absorbed. She smiled.Very well, she said: Echo, she put her hand over her mouth, then murmured with her mouth shut: Echo, Echo, Echo. My sister, who had been watching us, pointed at Mommy and yelled: That's Mommy talking!I saw! Dad turns on the TV. What a waste of time.He said.