The Silent Girl (Chapter 4)

*Disclaimer*: This is a work of fiction. Some events may be based on real life, but some events are made up. For translations of the Chinese, see the Translation section at the very end.

    I drew on my drawing pad a question mark and a picture of Ava.

    "Oh, sorry! I made a backpack using cloth that had oranges on the top. The backpack is even full of oranges! Do you remember when Bing and I had a playdate?", Clara asked.

    I nodded. At lunch, Clara had texted Nai Nai¹. She had asked Nai Nai if she could have a playdate with Bing. Nai Nai had said yes and Clara had gone to Bing's house.

    I sat with Ava. Ava usually sat with Ming so she could practice her Chinese skills on her, but I texted her at lunch to ask if I could sit next to her. There wasn't really any other options, since I didn't want to sit alone or with any of the boys. The boys were always doing questionable things on the bus ride. For example, they called us girls babies or baby bockbockers. All boys seem to be like that always calling you mean names. I am so glad that adults aren't like that. In my experience, adults are usually very friendly and nice. Even the math teacher is nice. She just has very high expectations of us, so she is disappointed if we don't meet them.

    "Well, Bing's mom brought us to Costco first, so I bought the oranges with the money I was saving. Do you want to see it? It's in your mom's closet, since Ava goes into my mom's closet a lot.", Clara said, breaking into my thoughts.

    I nodded my head. I wondered how bulging the backpack was. There was only one way to find out, so I went with Clara. She led the way to the sewing room. When we walked in, Clara said, "Close your eyes and I'll tell you when to open them." I closed my eyes. I would just have to use my ears to know What was going on, but Clara didn't make a sound. I guess that didn't work too well. 

    "You can open your eyes now.", Clara said. I saw a huge lump covered by orange fabric. I scanned the rest of the room, but nothing else had changed.

    “Would you like to take the fabric off?", She asked. I nodded, reached over and took the orange fabric off. This time it was my turn to gasp. It was so unique, but also so Ava's style. There were tons of little bulging pockets. The main pockets were also bulging. 

    "Do you like it?", Clara asked. I nodded my head ten times. (That meant: "Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes!".)

    The next day, we all went to church as usual. Our church was quite small, as it only had about 300 people. All of the kids, except Ava went to Sunday School. She usually went to Sunday School, but she had just graduated, since she turned eighteen today. She went with the adults to the adult service.

    Meanwhile, we were stuck listening to a boring bible story. The only good part was when we made a craft. Our church is very special, since we get to use any of the provided materials to make the craft for the day. The craft was Daniel in the lion's den. There were buttons, colored paper, markers, colored pencils, crayons, and so much more.

    When church ended. We all went home and Ava went to do something. I only caught a few words. It was something about waiting and room. 

    Right when we heard Ava's door click, Nai Nai pointed at Clara and me. She said, "Ni men ke yi ban wo zuo yi ge ju zi dan gao ma?²"

    Ye Ye³ pointed at the boys and said, "Can you help me blow up the balloons?" We all nodded and got to work. The boys went to the garage and got some balloons. Clara and I set to work following the orange cake recipe that Nai Nai had found on her computer.

    We tried to make as little of a mess as we could, but it was hard. I think sifting the dry ingredients was the hardest part. The part that was the most fun was when we used the orange frosting that we made to cover the whole cake and then piped "Happy Birthday Ava!!!" on the top. When we finished, I saw that everyone else was decorating the house and setting up the table. 

    Soon, all of the guests arrived and sat in their chairs. We all waited while Ye Ye slowly went to Ava's room and knocked. Ten seconds went by, but it felt like ten hours until we heard Ava's footsteps. She slowly opened the door and looked around...

Translations:

¹ Grandma

² Can you guys help me make an orange cake?

³ Grandpa

To be continued... 

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