This is the first time I have left home, with a quilt and a mattress given to me by Aunt Guan, as well as a few changed clothes. With eleven yuan and eight cents in his pocket after buying a ticket, he went to a technical school in the provincial capital more than 100 kilometers away from his home.

Despite the mental preparation, I was taken aback. Some of the classmates in the class even had permed their hair, and they wore many times more foreign than their original middle school classmates, and two male classmates also wore floral shirts, like young people in society, and the teacher seemed to be accustomed to it, regardless of whether he asked. I suddenly felt out of place with them, and I didn't just feel sorry for my situation and my future.

There are six people in the dormitory, bunk beds. This school is a place for the training of skilled workers for medical device factories all over the province, and two of the dormitories are children of local equipment factories, although their homes are in the local area, they are also assigned to dormitories, and the other three are in other places like me. Except for Xu Fang, who slept on my top bunk, the others were quite kind. Xu Fang, a girl with a face full of pimples, also got her confidence and domineering from nowhere. The first time we met, I quarreled with her, she reported that she arrived late, we all made the bed, she came, as soon as she entered the door, she threw her luggage on the bed I had made, and there was a net of apples in it. I was naturally unhappy when I saw this, but when we met for the first time, I couldn't say anything, so I took down the pocket of apples and put them on the ground, but I didn't expect her to be annoyed.

"Hey! How do you put food on the ground for me? What are you going to let me eat? ”

"You put me on the bed, it's dirty, it's not dirty, how can I sleep?

"What is dirty? I've washed them all! “

"You can't put it on someone else's bed after washing, why don't you put it on your own bed!"

"Didn't I get it done! I'm so scared to put it on your bed when it's done! ”

They are all new classmates, the first time they met, they were polite, I really haven't seen anything like this, I don't want to show weakness in front of this kind of person, I simply said: "Take it all!" ”

Xu Fang and I were standing opposite each other on the edge of the bed, I thought that if she didn't take it away, I would all pull her to the ground, just arrived in a new place, I didn't want to be bullied by anyone.

She didn't move. The people in the dormitory came up to persuade her and helped carry her luggage to it. Xu Fang was like a spoiled child, muttering while cleaning up heavily: "Rotten school!" Rotten people! ”

On the second day of registration, meal tickets and new books were distributed. The ration of the meal ticket is 30 pounds for boys, 27 pounds for girls, plus the food ticket, a total of 18 yuan and 5 cents, although I have long known that the technical school is in charge of the food, but it is really sent to the hand, I feel that my heart is steady, I can't help but think in my heart, leave a piece of eight, the whole money of ten yuan is not taken out of the clothes bag, and I will take it back to my mother when I go home. There are a large stack of new books, and there are few cultural subjects, most of which are some professional books such as "Fitter Technology", "Metal Processing Technology" and "Quenching Technology".

The life of the technical school directly subverted my impression of the traditional campus, in the original middle school, in the classroom, on the field, everywhere you can see students with textbooks in their hands, there is no one here, whether they learn well or not, the future is decided, there is no motivation, everyone has nothing to do, so they give the vigorous energy to the court, guitar and disco, and even talk about love.

Girls picked up needles and threads in the dormitory and started to transform their clothes, but their level was limited, and most of them only dared to change their pants. Move a permissible distance along the inner trouser line of the trouser thigh, use a hand needle, thin stitch, re-sew a trouser line, try it on, and then disassemble the original trouser line, and the extra margin is uneven, so use an enamel jar filled with hot water to iron it on both sides. After this transformation, an ordinary pair of tulking pants will become suspected bell bottoms.

The people in the dormitory, except for me and Xu Fang, were all busy. The pants I wore were formerly uniforms issued by the Public Security Bureau, with a fat waist and a deep crotch, and my mother pinned four large pleats with a width of one inch around the waist, although I could barely wear them, but I would not become bell bottoms when I died. Xu Fang's clothes don't need to be changed like me, but the difference is that her pants are originally horned. Although she doesn't look good, her clothes are quite eye-catching, even the shoes on her feet are semi-high-heeled leather shoes that I have never thought of, and the partial square-mouth cloth shoes on my feet don't seem to be of this era. Xu Fang's shoes are nailed with iron palms on the heels, and I can hear the sound of "da, da" from afar, and every time I hear this sound, my heart is pinched together and hurts.

It's not a shame to study badly here, and if you fail the make-up exam once or twice, you can still maintain an uninhibited face, but you're a hero. At first, I didn't get used to it for a long time, but then I realized that I only needed to stay here for three years, and I could become a skilled worker in the factory, no matter whether I studied well or not, and I was relieved.

Every afternoon after class, on both sides of the road from the teaching building to the dormitory building, groups of boys sit on the road, playing guitars, singing, and seeing the girls who are very good-looking or very bad-looking are all crying and coaxing, but for many girls, it slowly becomes a psychological burden, of course, there are exceptions, such as Xu Fang, stepping on high heels, walking and jumping, lest those people can't see her, Xu Fang took a tape recorder from home and put it in the dormitory, basically every day after class, I hurried back to the dormitory, grabbed the tape recorder and mingled with the boys.

I never say it, but I envy them deeply in my heart, envy them for their carefree and relaxed appearance, they are all about the same age, why can't I be relaxed?

The only fun in school is to eat, all when I grow my body, surprisingly able to eat, plus the food in the cafeteria is not much oil and water, I have to buy an extra steamed bun every night when I eat, and keep it for when I am hungry at night, Sun Juan, who is good with me in the dormitory, sometimes has to buy two more steamed buns, and while eating, I have to be careful that I don't have enough to eat at the end of the month, so before going to bed, Sun Juan sometimes gritted her teeth and swore to the sky: I promise to eat a steamed bun today! In the middle of the night, she would be heard softly rummaging through the lunch box. Sun Juan is similar to me, the family is not wealthy, and those in the dormitory with better conditions will prepare some snacks bought from the store at the school gate, and even better ones will buy some ready-to-eat kelp silk, a big bag for one dollar, and ten bags in one bag, as long as a small packet, put it in a jar and flush it with boiling water, and the whole house can be fragrant.

Sometimes Sun Juan and I would go to the living committee to refund a little meal ticket and exchange it for money, but we were afraid that we would not have enough to eat, so we didn't dare to exchange it for more, two or three yuan, and then buy some kelp silk and a few pieces of dim sum, and put it there, and when someone in the dormitory ate it, we would also eat it, so that we would not swallow our saliva empty.

In addition to being hungry, it is cold, there is no heating in the dormitory, our room is shady, in winter, the window has a thick layer of ice flowers, and it is not melted all winter, what worries me is that I have no coat, only a thin small cotton jacket, during the Spring Festival, my mother made me a gown with a casual collar to put on the outside, and the lower body is torn cloth corduroy pants. On the day I returned to school during the winter vacation, it was freezing cold, my mother cooked a pot of gnocchi, told me to drink two bowls, and said that I would not be cold when I was full.

Sure enough, as soon as I went out, in less than five minutes, the two bowls of hot noodle soup in my stomach were the same temperature as the outside. I shrugged my shoulders from the cold, and the cold wind kept blowing in from the hem of my padded jacket, and I felt like I was naked. When the car arrived at the provincial capital, it was already dark, and the bus in the city had already stopped, so I regretted going late, no way, I had to walk back, a distance of more than a dozen stops, I don't know how long I could walk, two legs like two wooden sticks, unconscious, mechanically pounded forward. I feel like I'm going to die on the street tonight. Years later, I can still vividly remember that desperate night, and at that beginning, I had a deep-seated fear of the cold, which lingered.

That night, when I walked to school, it was already past ten o'clock, and everyone in the dormitory was lying down, so I put down my bag, took the basin and towel, and went straight to the bathroom. There was a mirror on the wall, and I could see that my face was cold and blue, like a ghost. I buried my face in the basin, my eyes were spicy, and I seemed to have accumulated a lot of grievances in my heart, and my brain flowed out. Crying and crying, as if listening to someone in the toilet, I was so frightened that I quickly wiped my face and went back to the dormitory.

In order to save money on the road, I only go home during the holidays. At the beginning, I was homesick, but after a long time, it slowly faded, and when I gave my mother the ten yuan that I had not been willing to move, I saw that my mother's eyes were wet, and in the end I didn't say anything, and I put it on again when I left. I don't need family money to go to technical school, it doesn't seem to work at all, my mother still lives a shabby and poor life, she is reluctant to eat or wear, she doesn't even light the stove in winter, and she feels that she is alone and wasted.

"The squad leader likes you." One day, Sun Juan suddenly said to me, startling me.

"Like you!" I replied to her.

"Really, he doesn't look at you the same way he looks at anyone else."

I thought about it, but I didn't remember any glances from the squad leader. In the class, except for what he said to Sun Juan, no one else had much to do.

"You're a hooligan." I laughed at Sun Juan.

"It's the squad leader hooligan, and I can see it."

"What else do you see?"

"Guess."

"I'm not suspicious."

Sun Juan said mysteriously: "Xu Fang likes the squad leader. ”

"Huh? How can you tell? Teach me! ”

It was my second year of technical school, and I was not even seventeen years old, and the eldest in the class was only one or two years older than me, so how could I fall in love. I think it's incredible. There is a high school technical school in the school that studies pharmaceuticals, and they are old, and they are all in love, and they look like that. Once, digging a ditch at the entrance of the school to bury a pipe, for some reason, the ditch dug was not closed for a long time, and it was the rainy season, and it rained, and the rainwater was stored in the ditch, becoming a man-made small ditch. After dinner, I went to the store outside with Sun Juan to buy things, walked to the ditch, saw that the ditch was very wide, I didn't dare to jump, and I was hesitating, when I saw a man and a woman in the senior grade coming over, the man didn't think about it, so he stepped into the ditch with one foot, stood in the center, pulled the first floor, and hugged the girl over. At that moment, Sun Juan and I were dumbfounded, and I really wanted someone to hug us over, this was my first understanding of love.

But I heard Sun Juan say that Xu Fang likes the squad leader, and I went to my heart. Xu Fang always laughed at my dress behind my back, saying that I was rustic, saying that I was wearing fat-legged pants like Chaplin, these words reached my ears, making me feel inferior to death, seeing her look amazing all day long, I wish she was a little unlucky.

When I met the squad leader again, I quietly paid attention to his eyes, looked at it a few times, didn't see anything, and secretly scolded Sun Juan and myself for being nervous.