No Repeats

The secret hideout

I gotten woken up before dawn, even though I only had a couple of hours sleep, I felt refreshed and ready to start a new day. Remembering I had a date with my best friend, I quickly got out of bed and prepared the day's meal before I set off.

I started the fire and put water to boil so that there is enough drinking water for grandma to use throughout the day. I let it cool down, next to the stove.

Next, I mashed up some left over baked sweet potatoes and mixed it with flour and water. Rolling it into round buns, I let the dough raise a bit while I prepared mashed black bean paste.

I remembered that we have a bush of sweet grass at the back, which has a sticky sweet syrup when squeezed. I cut a handful and pounded it as much as possible before squeezing the pulp in a loose thread cloth. The small amount of syrup squeezed out was enough to sweeten the bean paste. After rolling the paste into small round balls, I flattened the buns and placed the bean ball inside. Gently folding pleats to close the bun, I got it into a nice round ball shape and a lovely dimple in the middle.

With the available ingredients I was able to make eleven buns. The steamed buns emitted a wonderful smell and looks very delicious with its subdued purple colour. I left four buns for grandma, packed two buns for myself and packed the remaining five buns to give to the Feng men.

Just in time, when I finished packing, Feng Er's smiling face popped through the window. "Little Mei, are you ready to go?" he asked hurriedly.

"Yes, come here and bring over to your house these three buns for Uncle and ge ge, you can take these two to eat on the way!" I responded with a motherly smile as I quickly wiped the eye muck stuck on his thick lashes.

Before leaving I checked in on grandma and seeing that she was still asleep, I left a bucket of warm water and the buns on the table.

Slinging my woven basket on my back, packed with water, buns and a knife, I set off with my best friend into the deeper part of the mountain.

We both instinctively knew where we were heading and without much conversation we headed to our secret hideout. We walked and climbed trees and ran to our heart's content. Little Er kept looking at me and smiling but refrained from asking questions. As if by an unspoken agreement we delayed our secret sharing until we reached our safe space.

Our hideout is actually a small cave that we discovered by accident one day. It is covered with a thick curtain of vines and if it wasn't for Yeng Er accidentally leaning against it and falling through the vines we wouldn't have known about the entrance. Because of its mysterious entrance, I had unilaterally declared it our secret hideout. As little kids we were too scared to venture too deep into the cave but the entrance room was big enough for us to play and rest.

"Say, Little Mei, are you ready to tell me about what happened?" asked Little Er straight away after we stepped past the curtain of vines.

"I am, but I'm not sure if you will believe me or you can understand because you are so young!" I spoke gently.

"Try me, but whatever it is, I promise I will believe you." Little Er is very confident but I am not, I mean my story is very hard to believe! I can't even understand it myself, so how can I expect a twelve year old to?

"Would you believe me if I said that I'm actually twenty three years old and have come back to possess my thirteenth year old body?" I asked him seriously and not taking my eyes off so I can see every expression on his face.

"Yes...but you need to explain more, it is hard to understand." Taken back, I couldn't detect any hesitation on his face as he said those words.

"Why?" I muttered.