Junior High School Story: Three Thousand Feet of Saliva - Whimsical Writing (Ma Xiaotiao's Essays)

Author: Yang Hongying
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2006-08-01
Features: His appearance was quite cute, with his whole head looking like a watermelon. We originally gave him the nickname "Watermelon," but later thought it was too unartistic, so we added the word "Skin" to it, making it "Watermelon Skin," which was easier to call. I don’t know why, but I ended up getting along well with him. We became "brothers." Then, he stopped calling me by my nickname, and I stopped calling him "Watermelon Skin" either. We were replaced by three especially joyful words—"buddies." The classmates learned about this and laughed at me. I didn’t care, but my buddy even came to comfort me, saying that if we had sworn brotherhood as sisters, the classmates would have been laughing at him instead. I said, "It’s okay, we’re iron buddies. Iron will eventually become steel, but it won’t turn into mud." He seemed moved and, for the first time, said, "Come on, I’ll treat you to dinner today." I said, "Then don’t be shy!" He said, "I won’t go bankrupt." I said, "Trying to bankrupt me? Are you that wealthy?" (Here, I won’t go into how I embarrassed myself. To be honest, the ugliness of overeating really makes me feel too ashamed to write about it.)
A few days later, the classmates stopped laughing at me, but our class ended up with a few more pairs of "brothers" of different genders like us. They all called each other "buddies," and it made me feel uncomfortable, like someone had infringed on my copyright. It was quite unsettling. I asked my buddy if he felt the same way, but he just smiled and said, "You’ve been gloomy these past few days—was it because of this? You’re silly. It’s actually good that our spirit has been spread." Hearing him say that, my mood lifted, and I secretly rejoiced!
Three more joyful months passed, and graduation was approaching. He asked if we should take a photo together as a souvenir. I agreed. So, the two of us stood stiffly in front of the camera, making the photographer reluctant to turn it on. The photographer said, "You two look like puppets. How am I supposed to take a photo?" I said, "Buddy, let’s both say 'cheese'! That might help." He nodded. But when it came time to take the photo, he didn’t say "cheese." I asked him why, and he said it was because he remembered his yellow teeth and didn’t want to look bad when he smiled. I blurted out, "You’re so vain." But he just said, "Maybe so."
I don’t know how the next few days passed—it felt like just a blink of an eye, and the high school entrance exam was approaching.