楼下（下）

English (for the teacher)

That night, Yuan couldn’t sleep. It was still raining. He sent Mum a message: “I’ve arrived. Grandma’s fine.” A long time later, Mum replied with just one word: “OK.”

Grandma asked from outside the door, “Your mum… is she all right?”

“She’s busy.”

“Mm.” Grandma didn’t ask any more.

By the next morning the rain had stopped. The notebook had dried, a little fatter than before, but it still opened. The first page showed a small bamboo steamer with a few buns inside. The word under the steamer could no longer be read; beside it, just two small characters had survived: 楼下, downstairs.

“Downstairs?” Yuan asked.

Grandma smiled. “The buns downstairs: I’ve been eating them for more than ten years. Go on, get us some breakfast.” She gave him twenty yuan.

The bun shop downstairs was tiny, with only one table. There was a crowd at the door, and the steamers were stacked layer on layer; just looking at them made you hungry. Everyone talked fast: “Two pork buns!” “Soy milk, no sugar!” “Hurry up, I’ve got to get to work!” The auntie selling buns had quick hands and a quicker mouth: handing out buns, taking money and chatting to everyone, all at once.

Yuan stood at the very back, practising over and over in his head: one pork bun, one veggie bun, one bowl of soy milk. One pork bun, one veggie bun, one bowl of soy milk.

There were fewer and fewer people in front of him. It was his turn.

“I’d like… one pork bun, one… veggie bun, and a bowl of…”

That white thing you drink, what was it called again? It had been on the tip of his tongue a moment ago, and now it was suddenly gone.

“A bowl of… that…” He gestured with his hands. “That white…”

Someone behind him laughed. Someone said, “Come on, hurry up.” Yuan’s face burned; he really wanted to run straight back upstairs.

The bun auntie looked at him and didn’t laugh. She put her hands down and slowed her voice too: “No rush, take your time.”

Take your time.

Yuan understood those three words. He knew every one of the characters. Strangely, he felt he had seen them somewhere before.

Then he remembered. He took the notebook out of his shirt and opened it to the first page. Under the little steamer, the word that could no longer be read had three characters. The first and the second were the same.

慢, 慢, 来.

“Soy milk.” he said. “A bowl of soy milk. Thanks, auntie.”

The auntie smiled. “That’s it. You’re the kid from the third floor, aren’t you? The one from Canada? Your grandma talks about you every day.” She bagged his buns and slipped in one extra. “This one’s on me, for your first time.”

Yuan took the buns and sat on the little stool by the door. He took out a pen and, on the first page, wrote the three characters stroke by stroke. There was still a trace of old blue on the paper, so he followed that blue as he wrote. When he finished, the word was back on the page.

慢慢来: take your time.

On the way home, a little dog followed close behind him. It was yellow and a bit skinny, with one ear up and one ear down. When Yuan walked, it walked; when Yuan stopped, it stopped. Its eyes never left the buns in his hand.

“Are you hungry too?” Yuan gave it one. The little dog finished it in one bite, then sat down on the ground and looked at him.

“That’s all.” Yuan said. But the little dog kept following him, all the way up to the third floor.

Grandma opened the door; first she saw the little dog, then she saw the notebook in Yuan’s hand.

“You found it?” she asked.

“I found it.” Yuan opened the first page. “慢慢来.”

Grandma looked at the three characters and said nothing. After a while she laid her hand on the page and kept it there a long time, as if she were seeing someone she hadn’t seen in years.

Then she looked at the little dog at the door. “Did it eat your bun?”

“One of them.”

“Then let’s call it Baozi.”

Baozi seemed to understand; it ran inside, found a spot under the table and went to sleep.

Yuan opened the second page. It showed a fish with a bunch of greens beside it; not one character of the word underneath could be made out.

Nineteen pages to go.