Bright by Duanwad Pimwana

Author:Duanwad Pimwana
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Two Lines Press
Published: 2019-01-05T16:00:00+00:00

Our House

Kampol and Oan shared one dream: they wanted a tree house of their own. They’d gotten the idea for it from an American movie they saw on TV. Of course, they kept it a secret. Only when they were alone did they talk about their dream house, and even then they spoke in whispers.

In the mornings before they went to school, the two would stop under the poinciana, gaze up into its great big branches, and picture their fort. For several days, the two boys, their eyes full of hope, had been scavenging the neighborhood for miscellaneous scrap materials. They skipped nothing. Whatever they happened to turn up, that object instantly revealed itself as a potential component of their little house. They dragged all manner of odds and ends over and piled them next to a bush behind Mrs. Tongjan’s house. No one could figure out how they would turn all that clutter into anything. But the two of them had precise plans—from the materials they’d gathered, they’d already developed a clear mental image of the house.

But the next step had them dismayed. They couldn’t figure out how to actually build the fort. Where should they even start? Plus, they needed to be up in the tree to do the construction. They could climb the poinciana when they had their hands free, without any building materials, and all they could do once they got up there was sit in the fork, hugging the trunk. In the tree, they would dream and dream until they tired themselves out, and then they would climb down. In their scheming they focused on Chong, as a person they trusted to help them.

The next night, Kampol and Oan, newly even more hopeless, commiserated over their situation. They had placed their trust in the wrong person. They had allowed Chong in on their secret, but he crushed their dream. When they had brought him to the tree to show him, his expression was still optimistic and enthusiastic. But once he saw their pile of building materials, Chong just shook his head. No matter how desperately the two of them begged, Chong just said it was impossible, and stuck to that. The two kids got mad at him, wanting to preserve their dream. As deflated as they were, they were not going to give up.

On their way home from school one day, Kampol and Oan passed a junk shop. They both slowed down at the same time. Hearts thumping, they stopped and stared: a giant cardboard box just the size of the house they’d been picturing was sitting on the bed of a pickup truck in the parking lot. Height-wise, it came up to the chin of the adult who was next to it. The man was reaching into the box and pulling out bundle after bundle of mixed paper. When he couldn’t reach any more of them, he tipped the box over, ducked low, and went into the box to get the remaining bundles. The shop owner was looking at the scale and scribbled in his ledger.

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