Huanying! Welcome to Shanghai, China. The place of all the peculiarities. Where everyone have their own stories about the families living there, especially the Xu's. Their ancestral house that they own for many generations have an infamous garden w...
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The wind kept up all afternoon. Mei and Timmy had to tie the ends of the table cloth to the legs of the table. Since it's getting dark and Timmy can't bring out some candles, he put some battery powered lanterns to light up the gloomy atmosphere. The tree didn't like it and it kept knocking over the ones nearest to it when no one is looking, so Tyler was in charge of keeping the tree in line.
Birds and flying bugs were never a problem in the garden. The honeysuckles swallowed them so a garden dinner was a fine idea, really. Mei wondered why no one in their family had ever done it before, then he looked at the tree and realized why. The tree tried so hard to be a part of the family when no one wanted it to be.
He thought back to the night before, when he couldn't sleep and went to check on Tyler. Timmy was over at Johnny's, and it's quite possibly the first time Mei had ever spent a night alone in the house, responsible for everything.
He found Tyler sleeping peacefully. Mei bent to kiss him and when he straightened, he noticed two small pink apples resting in the folds of the quilt Tyler had pushed to the bottom of his bed. Mei picked them up and went to the open window. There was a trail of three apples on the floor leading to it. He picked those up as well.
He looked out the window and saw some movement down in the garden. The apple tree was stretching its branches as far as they would extend.
"Pssst.." he whispered into the night. "Stop that!"
The tree stopped moving. It stilled immediately, as if to say I wasn't doing anything.
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Old man Alex was the first to arrive that evening at what Mei was affectionately calling Timmy's Celebration of Love. Timmy made him promise not to call it that in front of other people.
"Hi, Uncle Alex! Where is Jun?" Mei asked when the old man walked into the kitchen.
"He couldn't come. He has a date." Alex set his tote bag on the table. "Mad as a fire ant about it too."
Timmy looked up from checking the tenderness of the corn boiling on the stove. "Jun's dating someone?"
"Sort of. A culinary instructor at the University asked Jun to join a class he was teaching. Jun thinks the class tonight is a date."
