Following is part 2 of chapter 7 "Leave something in the classroom before you go home" from the children novel "Open the window, eyes closed" by Nguyen Ngoc Thuan presented in both English and Vietnamese only published on Tuoitrenews:
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Then one day I decided I would just sit there in the classroom and wait for the stranger to appear. But I couldn’t manage it – I got too hungry. Then I had the idea that I should leave this stranger a letter. So I wrote, “Dear stranger. Can you please tell me who you are?”
The following day I was the first to arrive. As usual there was a candy in a small package on the teacher’s table. There was no reply to my letter, but my own letter had disappeared. That meant the stranger had taken it away. This made me think really hard. Why didn’t the stranger answer? Then it occurred to me that I too could be the stranger. Why not? If he could do it, then so could I. The next day I put a huge guava into my schoolbag. When my schoolmates had all left I wrapped it up in a piece of newspaper and wrote on it, “From me, the stranger, to whoever makes it to class the earliest.” The next day I heard my classmates all talking together. “There are two strangers. One left a guava, the other the cookie.” The next day there were three strangers. Then there were four, five, six, seven and so on. Now we understood! The strangers were us. When school was over, some of us would just smile and say goodbye, but wouldn’t leave. We were the strangers ourselves. But the original stranger was never found. And so we all tried to make it to class extremely early. Now that we were all strangers ourselves, we simply ate the gifts the other strangers had left. Now and then a gift came along with a funny question. We agreed among ourselves that these questions should be answered with more gifts. But we were never really satisfied, because one question still bugged us. Who had been the first ever stranger? I told all these things to Dad. He said, “Ah, that’s the secret. There is a secret and a gift in every friend. When you know somebody’s given you a gift, you’ll love him or her more than the others, right? When you receive a gift but you don’t know who gave it, you will love everyone you know! Anybody among them could have been the gift-giver. So it may be a good thing you don’t know who the stranger was after all.” So I went to school knowing that every morning someone was going to give me a present. Don’t you think that’s interesting? Just imagine it. Anybody around you could be that stranger. And of course you in your turn will be leaving something before you go home. And gradually you’ll realize there are more and more ‘strangers’ like this in the world, until all of us are ‘strangers’ – and gift-giving friends – to everyone else! |
Một hôm tôi ngồi lì trong lớp, định ngồi đến sáng để chờ người lạ mặt nhưng vì đói bụng quá đành ôm sách về. Rồi tôi chợt nghĩ, tại sao mình không gởi cho người lạ mặt một lá thư. Thế là tôi viết ngay. “Gởi người lạ mặt. Anh là ai vậy, có thể cho tôi biết được không?”
Hôm đó tôi giấu một trái ổi to tướng trong cặp. Đợi tụi bạn đi học về hết, gói nó lại bằng một tờ báo rồi đề chữ lên: Tôi – Người lạ mặt – có món quà nhỏ tặng người đến sớm.
Tôi kể chuyện này cho bố nghe. Bố nói:
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Next chapter: A day of terrors
Since he married Aunt Hùng, Uncle Hùng rarely dropped in. Dad said he was very busy. And he should be busy, taking care of his wife! She was the one he loved.
But every now and then he still poked his head into my blanket and said, “Wow! Long time no see, my neighbor!”
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