Chapter Twenty-Six: Orange and Poppy Seed, Part III (~jinghan)

I go to lunch with my friend in Box Hill. After lunch my box of Orange and Poppy Seed muffins are as heavy as they were before lunch because out stomachs are heavy with Chinese soup noodles, crispy dumplings and sugary red bean pancakes and we just cannot fit any more food in.

On the way home we go through Canterbury Gardens. The trees are half-bare and half filled with winter’s breath and the Australian grass is at it’s greenest at this wet cool time of year. (As opposed to the distressed yellow grass of summer.) The gardens has a large slope that dips down and swells back up like a green grassy tide.

I look at my friend and grin with childish spirit in my eye. We dump out bags on a bench.

Ready?

Set.

Go!!!!!!

We run down the hill screaming and laughing. He staggers up the other side of the hill. I skid and roll over in the damp grass because I can’t think of any other way to slow myself down and lie there laughing at myself.

We wander around the park the long way back. And race up to the band stand. I dance around the surrounding bench like Liesel in the Sound of Music gazebo. I stop to contemplate my height and how safe it would be to …

I pounce at my friend from above. But he saw it coming, and catches me in a hug. And it is my turn to be surprised. It is a warm, comforting and unexpectedly intimate hug. And I come away blushing and smiling.

We go home for (yes) cake and I pack him a few to take back to his family. I almost forget to bring cake to Friday Night School* for a friend, and we run back up the driveway to retrieve one.

“I shall have this for desert after dinner,” she says stowing it away in her bag. I smile at the remembrance of how I met this particular friend while just catching her eye contact and saying “hi” on the train one evening after Friday Night School when another friend had not been able to come. It’s funny how friendships start.

At the end of the day there are still two and a half muffins left. What good fortune a batch of Orange and Poppy Seed muffins can bring.

[to be continued…]

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*Friday Night School, a voluntary homework-help program I have been tutoring at for more than 4 years now.