From One-Eye Grandpa, Wild Ginger learned that the looters were gone. She went back to her house to check on her mother. We promised to meet at the school, but after the bells rang she still hadn't shown up. I kept my eyes on the door. Finally she appeared. She looked ill. Her hair was messy. Dragging her bag and abacus, she walked toward her seat. Sitting down she took out her books and pencil box absent-mindedly. The class had been following Mrs. Cheng's calculations on a giant abacus hung from the board. I was eager to make eye contact with Wild Ginger, but she avoided me. She focused her attention on Mrs. Cheng's abacus and practiced the numbers on her own. The sound of fingers tabbing abacuses was loud in the room. Mrs. Cheng stopped before the conclusion of the day. She asked if anyone would like to give the answer. Wild Ginger raised her hand. She was called. She gave a correct answer but her voice was a little odd, choked.
"Are you all right, Wild Ginger?" Mrs. Cheng asked.
Wild Ginger nodded. She quickly sat back down and buried her head in her notebook. It didn't escape me that she was trying to hold back tears.
When the class was dismissed, Wild Ginger threw her school bag over her shoulder and ran toward the gate. "Wild Ginger!" I chased her. She shot out like an arrow. To get away from me she slashed through the bushes. I sensed that something terrible had happened.
I followed her. Finally she tripped over a cracked curb and fell. I caught up with her and motioned her toward me. She turned away and yelled angrily, "Go away, Maple!"
"Don't make me an enemy." I pulled her to a quiet lane on the side road behind a garbage dump. "We are each other's last ally."
"Leave me alone!"
"Not until I find out what's going on."
She pushed me. Seeing that I was determined to stay, she took out her pencil box. Her body was shaking violently and she was gasping. "If you don't leave me alone…" She opened the pencil box lid and picked out a pencil. She then squatted down with her back against the wall. Suddenly she placed her left hand on her knee and stabbed.
The pencil tip broke inside the back of her hand.
"Wild Ginger!"
As if feeling nothing she repeated her action.
I was stunned.
She put the broken pencil back in the box and picked up a pencil knife.
"Don't! I am leaving! Put down the knife!" I backed my self step by step toward the entrance of the lane. My mind was blank. I saw traces of blood dripping from Wild Ginger's hand, down to her pants and then her shoes. My frustration overwhelmed me. Suddenly I was scared.
She looked in my direction. But she didn't see me. Her eyes were telling me that she was in another world, or was going there. She looked unafraid. I remembered what my mother had told me about how one became insane: "One thought got knotted in the ball of nerves."
"Keep walking, Maple!" Wild Ginger shouted.
I marched on. My legs didn't feel like mine. As I passed the gate of the lane, a sudden convulsion squeezed my guts. It was like a blunt cleaver cutting through my skin. I stopped and turned around. I ran back toward Wild Ginger. All my thoughts came back and rushed into one point where reason no longer existed. "Stab me, Wild Ginger! Stab me! You devil!" I threw myself at her.
Bursting with fury, Wild Ginger raised her abacus and smashed it against the garbage dump. When the beads rolled all over, she came and grabbed me by the collar. She stared, her eyebrows twisted into a knot.
What was I seeing? They were a blind man's eyes. Big and wide but without focus.
I was numb at first, then slowly I felt that I was breaking like a ceramic wok on a hot stove-the liquid seeped through the cracks to sizzle in the tongues of flame.
"You are the only friend I've got," my voice pleaded involuntarily. "I can't take Hot Pepper's umbrella anymore. Wild Ginger, I am not as strong as you are. I need you. I can't have you go mad. You must not go mad…"
The hand on my collar loosened. The blind man's eyes came back into focus. Tears welled up and gushed down her pale cheeks.
"Maple, my mother… hanged herself."