Chapter 7: A Precious Shirt
When I was in the fourth grade, my father's job was transferred, and I followed my father to Confucius Elementary School.
The school was twice the size of the Lin Family Primary School, facing north and south, and the center of the school stood two floors, which was very scarce at the time.
The teaching building has two floors, the second floor has a total of 4 classrooms, the middle of the first floor is a conference room, the conference room is placed with a table tennis case, a row of chairs placed next to the wall, and four offices in the four corners. There are two offices on each side of the room. Between the school building and the school gate, a straight road leads to the gate, there are three rows of houses on both sides of the road, the southernmost row is flanked by classrooms, a total of six rooms, the doors are all open to the north, the second row to the north is three classrooms on the east side, and the west side is six offices, and the third row of houses to the north is only half the length of the first and second rows, which are three offices. All classrooms and office windows are glazed, and there is no longer a dilemma of being covered with plastic paper in winter. On the west side of the teaching building, there is a water tower nearly 4 meters high, which can be connected to water at any time, which is very convenient. I remember that at the entrance of the canteen of Linjia Primary School, there was a tube well, and the water of the whole school was pressed out of that tube well, which was very inconvenient. Opposite the water tower are three houses, one large and two small, the big one is the staff canteen, and the two small ones are the staff dormitory. On the east side of the school building is a little back is the toilet, to the south is the women's toilet, and to the north is the men's toilet. At the back of the school building, there is an acre of land surrounded by a wall, and some vegetables are grown. At the back is a large playground, but the playground is separated from the teaching area by a wall, and there is a small door to enter and exit, which is only opened by the teacher during physical education classes, and is usually locked.
There are more than 20 teachers and staff in Kongjia Primary School, which is more than twice as many as the previous school. There is not just one village around the school, but four or five villages.
On the first day of school, I was dropped off by my father at the door of the fourth-grade classroom, and I was greeted by a young male teacher who smiled brightly and led me in and arranged for me to sit in the middle of the second row. I put down my school bag, it was a new school bag that my father bought in the city during the summer vacation, bright red color, and carried on both shoulders. When I put down my schoolbag, I found that the children in the class were attracted to my schoolbag, in those days, most of the schoolbags of children in the countryside were sewn by their parents, in fact, it was a cloth bag, straddling the body, and some families would buy schoolbags for their children, which was the kind of military schoolbag, a green canvas cross-body bag, and there would be a bright red five-pointed star on the bag. The schoolbag I carry is a new and beautiful thing for the children in the city.
Soon I became familiar with my classmates, our homeroom teacher, Mr. Tang, is a handsome male teacher, a normal graduate, his Mandarin is very standard, and his voice is also very good, we all like him very much.
The days after school were quite difficult, and the bustling school fell silent in an instant. Dad was as busy as ever, in those days, I often had meetings, and I often couldn't find my father, I would go to the cafeteria on time to eat, and at night I didn't see my father come back and went to sleep by myself, Dad was afraid that I wouldn't be able to enter the door, so he put the key on a white rope and hung it around my neck, and when I ran, the key shook from side to side on my chest.
Once, after school, I was so lonely that I followed my classmates to the village next to the school. The door to the cafeteria was locked, my stomach was growling, and when I got back to the room, my dad was writing something. When he saw me, he was a little angry and asked, "Where have you been?" I said I'd go to the village at the back. Dad said: In the future, you can't go out of school without his permission. I said okay.
The school has a loudspeaker, set up in the northeast corner of the teaching building, we do recess exercises, eye exercises, and there are special teachers who will put the film on time. There are also a lot of story films in the school, which are shown to everyone in their free time. I was particularly impressed by one story: "A Precious Shirt".
One day after school, my dad noticed me walking around alone in the yard, called me to me and said: You can play with your classmates after school, but you can't go too far, if you hear "A Precious Shirt", it is Dad looking for you, you must be back to the room within 10 minutes. After listening to my father's words, I was very happy and said, "No problem, Dad."
At that time, the children had very little homework, and basically it could be done in class. After school, I hurriedly ate something in the cafeteria and rushed to the same school as I had made an appointment to play.
At that time, girls played jumping rubber bands, playing shuttlecock kicking, catching stones, and throwing sandbags......
Jumping bands, a bunch of children through rock-paper-scissors divided into two groups, one group sent two children to support the bands with their bodies, and the other group of members all went out to jump bands, singing while dancing, who made a mistake will automatically come down, and jump a level after a section. The rubber band is first at the ankle, then rises to the crook of the calf, then to the waist, then to the armpits, and the highest is the neck.
Throwing sandbags is also divided into two groups, one group is in the middle, the other two groups throw sandbags on both sides, the middle one wants to dodge the sandbags thrown over, hit by the sandbags, and get off the field, if you can catch the sandbags, you can save a group member who is down, only to see people on both sides throw sandbags hard, people in the middle or jump or dodge, the scene is very intense, everyone often plays sweaty, but still happy to do it.
Grabbing stones, several people sat around the ground and divided into two groups. There is a way to catch five sons, and there is also a way to catch seven sons. While grabbing it, he also sang a ballad. The most common way to play is to throw a bag of stones, sprinkle them in the middle of the open space around them, and then each group takes turns to catch them, first throwing the stones in their hands, grabbing the stones on the ground with their backhands, and then picking up the stones thrown out with their backhands, this action must be done in one go. In the process of catching, you can't touch other stones, if you touch it, you lose, the stone you catch is the stone you win, and the group that wins the most wins the game.
I'm not good at any kind of game, but I like to be a part of it.
Once I made an appointment with my classmates to go to her house after school, and after eating a little casually, I got out of the gap left by the iron gate of the school. The village where she lives is a little far away, about a mile away, and a large field across the road from the school. I ran to her house, and there were already a few children gathered, and we were going to play a game of catching stones, but today she replaced the stones with apricot pits, which made us very excited. We divided into rock-paper-scissors groups, found a relatively flat area in the courtyard, sat in a circle, and just poured out the bag of apricot kernels, I faintly heard the sound of a horn in the direction of the school. I was stunned, and quickly asked my friends to help me listen: they all said that it was the school horn, not the commune's horn. I listened carefully, it was "A Precious Shirt", and my partners said it was "A Precious Shirt", I threw down the apricot pit, stood up quickly, and ran back with my legs, and my partners called me behind me, and I ran away without looking back.
How did they know about my agreement with my father, since the agreement, there has been no incident of releasing this film, so I know that my father must be looking for me urgently.
I ran all the way, my stomach hurt a little when I ran, I squatted down and rested for a while, thinking about the agreement within 10 minutes, I didn't dare to slow down.....
When I went to my father's office out of breath, I saw my father and a stranger fiddling with the film machine, and I asked my father breathlessly: What are you calling me for? Dad looked confused: I didn't call you.
I pointed in the direction of the horn and hurriedly reminded my father: "A precious shirt".
Dad slapped his head and remembered. Explain to me right away: The film machine is broken, there is an event to use tomorrow, this is not just repaired, I am trying, I happened to put this, I didn't look for you, you go play.
With a sad face, I walked out of the office and walked to the front of the school building, looking up at the loudspeaker, which was still playing "A Precious Shirt......