大四時，石苓作文課出了一篇「感官描寫」的作業，一聽到這個題目，我腦中馬上浮現一段童年往事（因為是做壞事，至今印象深刻），我把那段往事稍加改編、加油添醋後便完成了這篇「短故事」。
雖是陳年的不成熟之作，看在它曾喚起過有兄弟姊妹的同學的共鳴，便還是放上來吧！
The Lovely Rival
Love, candy,
and toys are the three basic elements for a happy childhood, but these
resources are limited, and unfortunately I was forced to fight for them because
of my younger sister. She was everyone’s sweetheart, with curly hair, a pair of
small eyes with single-lids, and a chubby face with rosy cheeks. Every day she
woke up, she would use her favorite strawberry toothpaste and apply some lavender
body lotion to her small hands. She looked and smelled just like a blooming
cherry blossom in the spring, while I was a withering tulip in the autumn. In
order to catch more attention, I wore skirts every day and boasted about my
grades to my parents, but in vain. It seemed that I would not have a promising
future if the problem was not fixed.
One day, when I
was alone in our bedroom, I grew curious about her “spoils.” Since she was a
lovely girl, she must have captured many adults’ hearts. I looked around to see
if there was someone around, and then cautiously locked the door. As I climbed
onto her huge wooden desk, it creaked as if it was going to warn other people. My
limbs were stiffening, my heart pounding, and I was panting. I kept on
searching for something special until my eyes fell on a picture book of Hayao Miyazaki’s
latest movie. A sense of bitter jealousy struck me. When I opened the book, its
spine made a clear stretching sound, and its pages smelled of a mild timber
fragrance. Picking up a marker, I scribbled on those exquisite pictures and left
many wavy and curly lines on her precious book.
After wreaking
havoc on that book, I wrapped it up with newspaper and hid it under my bed. By
the time my sister got home, the crime scene had already been altered. I was
terribly smug when she found her book missing. I could hear the devil giggling
on one side of my shoulder, but I didn’t see the angel weeping on the other
side. As a child, I didn’t feel sorry for her at all. I thought that was the
only chance for me to defeat my sister and for the first time I turned the odds
in my favor. In retrospect, I was so self-centered that I didn’t notice what
harm I’d caused to other people. Instead, I regarded myself as a victim and craved
more love and care from my parents.
The newspaper-wrapped
“package” became my secret from then on, and I would check it once in a while.
As time went by, I got less confident about myself and more uncertain of whether
to tell the truth. Before long, the package was gone. Maybe it was taken as a trash
paper pile and then discarded by my mother or discovered by my sister. I went
through every shelf, every floor, and every corner in the house just to find it,
but it was nowhere to be seen. If it had been discovered by my family, I could
at least justify my jealousy, but the missing package was like a demon in my
heart and it made me even more unforgivable to myself.
A few days after the package
was gone, when my mother came home at night, she had a secret package in her
hands. The package paper was ivory-white and the box was the size of Starbuck’s
venti cup. She told me it was a coupon gift from the department store. I asked
if I could take a look at it.
“Don’t tell your sister, or
she would also want one,” she said unconcernedly.
On hearing her words, my brain
almost went blank and I started to feel bad about my malice toward my sister. The
devil on my shoulder made a jeering expression to me, while the angel remained
silent. Tears came around my eyes, the sense of guilt seized my heart, but my
selfishness gaged my conscience.
Although I regretted hiding
her picture book, I still took that gift as my own possession. When I opened
it, a Hello Kitty doll stood still inside and the lipless cat looked perfectly
innocent. Yet I didn’t feel any warmth from its furry face and its pure black
eyes. My secret remains undiscovered till now, but I wonder if I looked
innocent to those adults. Did I really deserve that “spoil”? Now I know the
bitterness I had in my heart was jealousy, which made my eyes blinded and my
ears blocked. I didn’t realize that I could also be an adorable girl if I had tried
to show the best part of me.
發表文章
