That afternoon, Turtle invited me to go exploring.
“The lotus pond?” I asked, trying to sound knowledgeable.
“No.”
She shook her head.
“I only like going to the lotus pond at noon.”
I raised an eyebrow.
“Who goes picking lotus flowers under the blazing midday sun?”
Turtle giggled.
“I don’t pick the flowers.”
“What, then?”
“I pick the leaves.”
She spread her hands as if the answer were obvious.
“I hold a lotus leaf over my head and walk home. It feels like carrying an umbrella.”
Her smile widened.
“I love it.”
I stared at her.
The idea seemed wonderfully strange.
By the time she reached the pond, her hair would probably be baked golden by the sun, yet she still thought it was worth the trip.
What a peculiar girl.
That day, just as she had promised, we did not go to the lotus pond.
Instead, we followed a narrow trail leading into the forest.
Above us, flocks of birds hurried toward a horizon turning the color of egg yolks.
I was still wondering what could possibly be so interesting in the woods when Turtle suddenly stopped.
“What is it?”
“Why aren’t we going?”
She tilted her head slightly.
“Do you hear that?”
“I don’t hear anything.”
“An airplane.”
A few moments later, I finally caught it.
A distant humming.
Looking up, I spotted a faint white streak against the blue sky.
At first it looked like a tiny dot.
Then the line grew longer.
And longer.
As though someone were drawing across the sky with a giant piece of white chalk.
The trail stretched so far that Turtle and I had to turn our heads from east to west until our necks nearly ached.
The hum became a whistle as the airplane passed overhead.
Then the whistle faded back into a hum.
Then silence.
Truthfully, I could barely see the airplane itself.
It was far too high.
Nothing more than a black speck.
But I knew it was there.
The speck reminded me of Teacher Dien’s finger when he stood at the blackboard.
Wherever his finger moved, a trail of chalk followed.
Turtle continued staring upward.
The white streak was already breaking apart under the wind, scattering across the sky like goose feathers.
The expression on her face made something stir inside me.
I suddenly remembered my own childhood.
Back then, I had been exactly like Turtle.
Like Thuc.
Like every village child.
A passing airplane trailing white smoke across the sky could fill me with wonder.
So could a train whistle echoing across the fields.
Now those simple joys were gone.
I had grown up.
Somewhere along the way, I had lost that innocent amazement that shines so naturally from an uncomplicated heart.
“Another airplane!” I suddenly exclaimed.
To my own surprise, I sounded genuinely excited.
The distant rumbling had returned.
“Maybe the first one turned around—”
“That’s thunder.”
Turtle laughed.
She didn’t even bother looking up.
“It’s going to rain.”
I glanced uneasily toward the forest.
The hills ahead were carved with narrow green valleys.
Vines tangled around their slopes.
Trees I couldn’t name stretched their branches toward the darkening sky like giant arms.
The clouds above had turned the color of wet mud.
Heavy.
Gray.
Slowly sinking lower and lower.
“Should we keep going?”
I asked nervously.
What I really wanted was for Turtle to say,
Let’s go home.
As if she had read my thoughts—as she somehow always seemed to do—Turtle clicked her tongue.
“We can’t keep going.”
I brightened.
Then she added,
“But we can’t make it home in time either.”
Right on cue, the first raindrops brushed against my arms.
I looked around frantically.
“Then where do we go?”
Without answering, Turtle grabbed my hand.
Not like a friend.
More like an adult leading a lost child.
She pulled me toward a thicket of wild hackberry bushes dotted with tiny yellow flowers.
When we reached it, she bent down and pushed aside the tangled branches.
“Come in here.”
I blinked.
Hidden inside was a small shelter.
A nest.
A secret room woven from leaves and branches.
“My house,” Turtle announced proudly.
Before I could ask what she meant, she shoved me forward and scrambled in after me.
The moment we disappeared inside, the rain came crashing down.
Wind howled through the trees.
Huge drops rattled against the branches above us so violently that it sounded as though a storm were tearing through the forest.
Yet somehow we remained dry.
The interlocking branches overhead formed a roof so dense and skillfully woven that barely a drop reached us.
Only Turtle’s bare feet got wet.
At some point she had spread a layer of dried leaves beneath them.
Occasionally I managed to soak the seat of my pants whenever I forgot and tried to sit down.
Curled up beside Turtle, I watched the curtain of rain through gaps in the leaves.
I listened to the steady drumming overhead.
I felt the cool damp air settling onto my skin.
I breathed in the rich scent of wet earth rising endlessly from the ground.
All of it—the sound, the smell, the touch—seemed to awaken every one of my senses.
For a moment, I felt as though I were living two or three lives at once.
And the feeling was wonderful.
~~~•••~~~
“How long have you been building this place?” I I asked Turtle
“Quite a while.”
She answered, then added with a hint of pride,
“I have several little houses like this scattered from here all the way into the forest.”
“You’re really prepared.” I nodded approvingly. “You’ve got shelters everywhere. Whenever you need one, you’ve got a place to rest.”
We talked over the sound of rain.
But because we were sitting side by side inside the leafy nest, our voices came through clearly, as if they were being struck from a bell.
“Do you go into the forest often?”
“Yes. But only sometimes in the afternoons like this. I like going on Sunday mornings better.”
I laughed.
“So on Sunday mornings you can roam around the forest all day, huh?”
At that moment, I still didn’t understand why Turtle liked the forest so much.
I had known this forest since I was a child, but I had never once dared to step inside.
Whenever villagers went in to gather firewood, they wrapped their legs in gaiters, wore boots, and rubbed anti-snake medicine on their bodies.
During the rainy season, they even crushed garlic and smeared it over their hands, legs, and necks to keep leeches away, the pungent smell following them everywhere.
But Turtle was nothing like that.
She led me into the forest as casually as if she were taking me to pick flowers in a field, wearing light, carefree clothes.
And then, just as I turned toward her to ask why she kept coming into the forest, my lips accidentally brushed her cheek.
I jolted.
The question stuck in my throat.
My face burned.
I quickly looked away and stammered,
“The rain… it’s letting up…”
My words and my actions didn’t match at all.
It was like someone had fitted the handle of a hammer onto the blade of an axe.
But Turtle didn’t seem to notice.
She didn’t react to the touch.
And she didn’t seem to sense my awkwardness either.
She simply said,
“Wait a little longer. Once it stops completely, we’ll go home.”
From that moment on, I never looked at her again.
I sat there, curled up on my own knees, quietly bewildered by my own embarrassment.
Something so trivial—she probably thought my lips were nothing more than a leaf brushing against her face in passing.
Something so insignificant she might not have even noticed it.
And yet I found myself blushing like a fool.
I pulled at a strand of hair.
Then another.
Then another.
By the time I reached the tenth strand, I finally understood.
The reason I felt like this was simple.
I had grown up.
I was eighteen now.
And Turtle was only fourteen.
At eighteen, I already knew what love was.
I already understood what a kiss meant—even though I had never been in love and had never kissed anyone.
There was Bich Lan, the daughter of one of my mother’s friends.
Whenever she came over, she would terrify me.
She always found a way to sit too close.
And whenever no one was watching, she would openly demand that I kiss her.
She was one year older than me, but a hundred times bolder.
Her face was dotted with freckles, yet she was still pretty, with playful eyes and a bright smile like a blooming flower.
And maybe because she knew that, she smiled all the time.
Perhaps I might have liked her if she hadn’t frightened me so much.
Even though my family had moved to Saigon ten years ago, I still couldn’t shake off my rural upbringing.
I was always shy around girls.
To me, touching a girl’s body felt improper—even though in my private dreams, I often did the opposite.
Of course, not every city girl was like Bich Lan.
My classmates were nothing like her.
None of them ever “attacked” me so directly.
Partly because none of them liked me at all.
Bich Lan was different.
The very first time she met me, she had said,
“Oh my, you’re so cute!”
Right in front of both our mothers.
Completely unashamed.
The two women just laughed, while my face turned as red as if it had been baked in an oven.
To this day, I still haven’t kissed Bich Lan—not even once—despite all her provocations.
After saying things like “I like you already” and “I think I really love you,” she would grow more and more frustrated with my stubborn silence.
Eventually she called me a country bumpkin.
And even then, she would still sit beside me whenever she got the chance, continuing her relentless teasing.
When that failed, she asked if I was gay, since I refused to kiss her—the way all her previous boyfriends apparently did.
At times like that, I could only smile awkwardly and look out at the rain, muttering,
“The rain… it’s letting up…”
Now I realized I had just repeated the exact same sentence.
The only difference was that this time, I was sitting beside Turtle, inside a wild thicket in the middle of a rain-soaked field—
Flustered not because I was refusing a kiss…
But because I had almost, accidentally, brushed into one.
