It was eight o'clock on a cold spring night. I was so tired. I had depended on a walking stick to go anywhere for seven weeks, recovering from surgery, and I couldn’t find a way to cheer myself up.

The phone rang for the sixth time in less than an hour. We knew who it was. My mother had been suffering from dementia and mental distress. There was little we could do to help her.

As her eldest daughter, I tried my best to help her. Though we visited every few days, she believed that her daughters had not visited in months. She thought that her friend Jimmy never wanted to see her again, even though he called her and visited weekly. She had no idea that she had repeated the things she was about to say a hundred times today and a hundred times the day before. She had no idea that I had undergone surgery, nor could she remember her own granddaughter’s name. She forgot most of her own past.

This time, I got angry with my mother. “Mom!” I shouted. “We care about you. We visited two days ago! Mom, you have to believe me, and if you don’t, I cannot talk to you anymore!”

Silence. Then she said, “I am only calling to say hello. Why are you shouting?”

“I’m shouting because you keep calling me a hundred times every single day! I’m shouting because you are asking me the same question a thousand times every time you call me! I’m shouting because I have repeated the answer ten thousand times! I’m shouting because I don’t know what to say!”

I sat on the sofa, realizing that my daughter was watching me. She heard me blame my mother, heard me lose my patience and say that someone I loved was a burden. I curled up on the sofa, upset.

My five-year-old daughter asked to speak to her grandmother on the phone.

I watched my daughter care about her weak grandmother with such deftness.

“I hate you!” I shouted, as I ran up the stairs to my room. Throwing open my dresser drawers, I pulled out a clean T-shirt and jeans, threw them in my backpack and ran back down the steps. Mom and Dad stood there, looking like they were in shock.

“Where are you going?” Mom asked.

“Anywhere but here,” I shouted as I ran out the door. They weren’t fast enough to hold me, and I disappeared into the night. It was cold, but my hot temper(脾气) warmed me, and I didn’t feel it.

I hit the streets with my thumb(拇指) out. A free ride wasn’t safe, but I didn’t care. Deep down inside, I knew my parents loved me, but it wasn’t enough. I slept on a park bench the first night I took off. It was hard as a rock, and I was surprised to find that I wasn’t alone. Pecking through half-closed eyes, I could see other homeless people just like me, only they looked like they’d been there a long, long time.

By the end of the second day, I’d made my way to another city sixty-five miles away where I found a halfway house for runaways. I was tired, cold and hungry. By the time I got there, the kitchen was closed. All that was left on the table was a cold potato. I lifted it to my lips and bit into the skin. It was dry and stuck in my throat when I tried to eat it up. That night I slept on a small bed in a room with four other runaways. It wasn’t a whole lot better than the park.

Three days later, my dad showed up at the front door of the halfway house. I don’t know how he found out I was there, but part of me was glad he did, though I wouldn’t admit it out loud. After gathering my few things, we drove home in silence. I could see by the look on his face that he felt responsible for all my anger and sadness. I regretted shouting at my parents the night I ran away.

Next to our house lived an old couple, who, accustomed to country life, were unwilling to move to the city to live with their son and stuck in a lonely existence for many years. It seemed that they didn’t feel like making any new connections with others, including their next-door neighbours.

The neighborhood kids nicknamed the strange old couple Crazy Jack and Ruby Rednose. Rumor (流言，传言) was that they sat inside and drank tea all day. The only words we ever heard from them were “Keep out of our rosebushes!” The rosebushes crawled along the fence. Or rather, they served as a fence between our house and theirs, overgrowing the support.

I was eleven at the time and the oldest of our family girls. A suitable playing court was a headache problem for us when we felt like playing softball games, which was our favourite sport then. We should have played our softball games elsewhere to avoid hurting the roses, but we secretly enjoyed annoying Crazy Jack and Ruby Rednose.

One day, we had a softball game in our yard. Mary was trying to catch a fly ball. She stumbled (绊倒) over one of Ruby Rednose’s rosebushes and fell on top of several more. Just at that moment, Ruby Rednose sprang out and ran toward Mary. She screamed angrily, “Look at what you’ve doneto our family’s roses! You’ve always been a trouble. You have no idea what this rosebush means to me!”

Hearing this, my sisters and I ran into our house. Breathlessly, we told Mom what had happened. “Girls, I have told you not to play softball near those bushes. Come outside right now and help me fix them.” “Mom, we thought you didn’t like the couple,” we protested. “They’re mean to us.” Mom just glared at us. We followed her outside to help repair the rose fence. While Mom was examining the damaged roses, Ruby slowly walked out. She looked sad. And it wasn’t her nose that was red, but her eyes.

Ruby walked over to my mother, we girls holding our breath.

A few weeks later, the plants all came back to life.

Once upon a time there was a pretty little girl, whose name was Elsa. Elsa’s father and mother worked very hard and became rich. They loved Elsa so much that they did not want to have her do any work; they let her play all the time. So when Elsa grew up, she did not know how to do anything but laugh and sing. But she was so sweet that everybody loved her. And by and by, she married one of the people who loved her, and had a house of her own to take care of.

Then came hard times for Elsa! There were so many things to be done in the house, but she did not know how to do any of them! Because she had never worked at all, it made her very tired even to try, and she was tired before the morning was over every day. When the maid saw her mistress (女主人) sitting about doing nothing, she, too, sat about, idle (无所事事).

Elsa’s husband had a hard time because of it. He did not have good things to eat, and they were not ready at the right time, and the house looked all in a mess, which made him sad. Elsa also felt sad, for she wanted to do everything just right. At last, one day Elsa’s husband went away. Little Elsa cried bitterly when he was gone, for she did not want to make her husband unhappy, and she wanted the house to look nice. “Oh, dear,” she said sadly, “I wish I could do things right! I wish I had ten good fairies to work for me! Then I could keep the house tidy.”

As she said the words, a great gray man stood before her. He was wrapped in a strange gray cloak (斗篷) that covered him from head to foot and he smiled at Elsa. “What is the matter, dear?” he said. “Why do you cry?”

“Oh, I am crying because I do not know how to clean the house,” said Elsa.

“Give me your useless hands,” said the gray man. “I want to hide them to avoid being seen by others.”