When I was about ten years old, a good old friend of my father came to visit us with his two children. They were a brother and a sister close to my age. Since I was usually lacking playmates at home, I became super excited to have two more kids staying in the house for three nights.
The three of us spent all day doing everything together. They were both as naughty and energetic as I was, and together, we went on an adventure to the far end of the world in our endless imagination.
The nights were particularly wild. After politely saying good night to the adults in the house, we would sneak up into our bedroom, and there, I would proudly declare the beginning of our Party Time. The activity of our Party Time changed from night to night depending on our ideas and moods.
One night, the adults downstairs were keeping a close watch over us due to our behaviour on the previous night, and we had to come up with a quiet activity to avoid their attention.
It was mid winter, and I saw a few long icicles hanging from the roof. I had an idea. “OK,” I said. “Tonight, our mission is to remove that icicle safely and carry it to the balcony.”
Such a meaningless task became an exciting mission when you did it with your friends. One by one, we climbed onto the windowsill, removed an icicle and carried it to the balcony. I was the last person to challenge the task.
As I climbed onto the windowsill, suddenly the door of our bedroom opened. The bright light from the corridor poured in and caught me on the spot. I saw the silhouette of my father’s friend carved in the door frame. The silhouette came closer to me as I sat as still as a doll on the windowsill hoping that nobody would see me.
“Are you supposed to be doing this at this time of the night?” He asked me. I was as quiet as the icicle outside of the window. I was no longer the proud crew captain of this mission, but just a little girl who didn’t want to be scolded at. He found a paper stick on the floor that we had used earlier in the day, picked it up and slapped my knee with it. “You have to sleep now! It’s past your bedtime!” He said to us all in the room.
Shortly after he left the room, I hurriedly went back to join the other two on the bed. They were laughing hard. “Why didn’t you move?” They told me I looked so funny in that stop motion. I couldn’t tell them that I was actually scared. Anyway, it was a fun adventure.