One thousand pieces of sugar paper

During the summer vacation in the first grade, I went to my grandmother's house in Beijing as a guest. It was the age of "seven years old and eight years old to be disliked", and a girl named Shixiang from the next yard came to be my friend, and we played all kinds of games to make grandma's house restless. My cousin was recovering at my grandmother's house, and she couldn't sit still any longer. One day, she said to us, "Do you know what it means to be tired?" Shixiang and I looked at each other and laughed without a name. Yes, what does it mean to be tired? We never thought about it. Tiredness is so far away from us. Sometimes I hear grown-ups say, "Oh, I'm so tired." They are tired because they are adults. When we finally stopped laughing, my cousin said, "Doesn't Sehyang have some candy paper, why don't you spend some time saving it?" I remembered that Sehyang did let me visit some of the candy paper she had saved, which were dozens of beautiful pieces of cellophane, stuck inside a thin book. But I was neither interested in her sugar paper nor did I find it interesting. But Sehyang was interested, "Why do you want us to save the candy paper?" "If you save up a thousand pieces of candy paper, your cousin will give you an electric dog, the one that barks."

Shixiang and I were stunned. Electric dogs may not be a surprise to today's children, but in a time when toys were scarce in China more than twenty years ago, my cousin's promise was enough to keep us excited for a long time. What a treasure that would have been, and what a joy that would have been. What's more, this wealth and joy would be exchanged by our own labor.

I couldn't wait to ask my cousin who I could get to trade the candy paper for a dog when I had enough, and Sehyang asked her what the color of the paper was. The cousin said it must be glass transparent sugar paper, and each piece must be flat and not wrinkled. After saving enough to give to the cousin, then the cousin can give us a change.

From then on, Shixiang and I never made any noise again. Grandma's quadrangle was quiet as ever. We walked around the streets, looking for candy paper that had been abandoned in the nooks and crannies. In those days, candy paper was not everywhere. We would chase a piece of candy paper fluttering in the wind and run around the alley for half a day; Shixiang and I bought candy with our pocket money - we only had enough money to buy a few dozen, and then we ate them in a raid, ignoring the fact that they made our throats hurt; we also waited in front of the candy counter in the grocery store, patiently waiting for the adults who came with their children to buy candy. After they bought the candy, we would peel off a piece and put it into the child's mouth, and then we would quickly pick up the candy paper that fell on the floor.

We took the crumpled candy paper home, soaked them in a basin, washed them, made them stretch, and then stuck them on the glass window, waiting for them to dry and then gently removed them, the candy paper was as flat as new. As the summer was coming to an end, Shixiang and I had finally saved enough candy paper for a thousand sheets each.

One afternoon, we ran to our cousin and offered a thousand pieces of candy paper, and she asked, "What are you doing?" "Where's the dog, where's our electric dog?" The cousin froze for a moment, then burst into laughter, laughing endlessly and coming up for air. When she stopped laughing, she wiped her tears of laughter and said, "Cousin Auntie is teasing you, she thinks you are always in the garden, not quiet." Shixiang glanced at me, her eyes full of grief and despair. I felt that there was also contempt for me - after all, this person who teased us was my cousin aunt.

At this point, I suddenly had a very tired feeling, I first experienced the tiredness that adults often say, it turned out to be the sudden aggravation of the heart in the chest, right.

I walked out of the courtyard with Shixiang, and we coincidentally threw the carefully organized candy paper into the sky and let them float away like colorful butterflies in the wind.

When I grew up, whenever I saw the word "cheating", I always immediately thought of the thousand pieces of candy paper - children can be criticized, children can be blamed, but children are not allowed to cheat, cheating is the most profound injury.

We have grown into adults, but don't all adults come from childhood?