Room 132

On Wednesday after school, I walked heavily down the empty street with my lowered, hoping to find money like my brother does when he walks home from school with his head down. Slowly, I passed by Steven’s Barbershop and started to go down hill. Cold winds blew hard on my face and froze my nose. I felt like an actress in a lonely movie while covering my nose and looked across the view of mountains and Lake Washington. Cars drove by, but only one brought color to my life theater. It was my mother’s car so I opened the door and jumped in, only then I realizing that my sister was there too. My first word for them was, “Wow!”
“What are you guys doing here?” I said.
“Well, first we went to Costco,” my sister replied, “but we figure that mom forgot her wallet, so we came back to get it. Anyways, do you want to come with us or what?”
I said yes, so when we got home, I ran into the house and got my mother’s wallet and dropped off my backpack. Then I ran back to the car and we went to Costco. For the next two to three hours, we were shopping like crazy to get all the things on the list for our Thanksgiving dinner. It was funny, that people wrote “Happy Turkey Day” everywhere, but there was no turkey on our list. I do not like turkeys and a turkey would be too big, so we would have chicken instead. It was our first Thanksgiving because since we moved to Seattle from Taiwan, we had never celebrated Thanksgiving at our home; we hade always been invited to other people’ houses. After shopping then cooking and cleaning all night, I went to bed and hoped that our first Thanksgiving would be okay.
I awakened in a dark warm space, with something like wind blowing on my shoulder: my mother had flipped the comforter back as she got out of the bed. I opened my eyes and it was still dark. I jumped off my bed and started cleaning the house like yesterday. The halls, the living room, the dinning room, the bedrooms, and the kitchen: all these places I had to clean. After cleaning, I helped my mother cook. I chopped carrots, boiled eggs, made salads, and opened cans for a delicious soup, all the fun things I got to do.
The rest of the morning I played card games with my sister and her friends. For an hour or two, I won all the games I played; it was one of my best card-playing experiences. We played “Do-Me-Ra-Me” a card game that my sister’s friend taught her. It was my favorite game. “Hey, Kids, come up and help me cook!” my mother commands, so we followed the order. We had prepared fruits, desserts, main courses and snacks, including all the traditional Thanksgiving dishes but no turkey. By the time we finished cooking, it was already four o’clock in the afternoon, the time when other guests were suppose to come. Some people came, but some were late so we had to wait for them. When everyone finally got there, they seemed to be very hungry.
Dinner time was the most exciting moment that I had been waiting for all day, but there was almost no conversation and no interaction between people. It left me feelinf very disappointed. Most of the dinner parties that my family was invited to were usually very charming, and even though people are eating, the adults would still talk very loudly on the table, while all the kids would be rough-housing on the side. But our own Thanksgiving dinner seemed to me was only silence and food. I tried to tell jokes but no one seemed to get them, I hoped some one can start talking, but perhaps they were just too hungry.
Free time should be fun, but it was not the way I expected it to be either. In the living room, where all the kids gathered around was somehow not in one group, but in three different clubs: a computer club, chess club and a cards club. I felt odd being in the same room with seven other kids without much talking; only playing. It was like the scene during dinner, but this time everyone was doing something different; there were not many things to say. I hoped that all this silence was only my imagination.
Soon, the kids broke up for dessert and fruit: cheese cake, strawberries, apples, oranges and ice cream, it was all my favorites. The adults seemed to have more conversation, and the clubs were disbanded. It turned out that the dessert time was the best.
After the guests were gone, I went upstairs and helped mom cleaning up the kitchen and the dinning room. Looking at the left-over food, I lied to myself that this was the best dinner party ever. After they were gone; I wished they could stay longer. Empty halls, and darken rooms made me felt a little bit cold inside. But somehow I had a strange feeling that Thanksgiving was not over: my sister’s friends were staying the night and we had card games to play, except my wining road was over. Since then I have had the feeling that we will have a better one. Hey! We did fine for our first Thanksgiving right?