all the way

On the first day of school, Liu Xia hesitated at the door of the office for a long time before plucking up the courage to go in and said to the teacher, "My family has all the books for the second grade of junior high school. Can I just pay the tuition fee instead of the books?"

The young teacher who had just graduated from Rongze Normal School for just two years frowned and said very displeasedly: "No, the books are all ordered in advance, so you don't want them if you don't want them? If you don't want books, then don't go to school. "

During the summer vacation, Liu Xia played with the cat up and down the mountains and rivers every day, and it was as tanned as black coal. In addition, his clothes were all patched, and the young teacher felt that he was an eyesore when he saw him.

Liu Xia himself also discovered that over the past year or so, Wang Ning and the children in the nearby brigades have obviously dressed better than before. It seems that apart from the Liu family brothers, Chu Fenghe and Chu Xiaohe are the only ones that have not changed.

Liu Xia and his brothers have always been among the poorest part of the school, but their clothes are old, but clean and tidy, so they don’t look so good in impoverished mountainous areas where people generally don’t pay much attention to the quality of life. Eye-catching, now, other people's life seems to suddenly get better overnight, only they are still in the original state, and they are highlighted alone.

Liu Ling, Liu Yu, and Liu Xia began to repeat their old life day after day, going to school early and late at night.

As for Liu Hai, the first time he came back from Rongze High School was a week after he entered school.

Although it was only seven or eight days, Liu Xia and the others missed Liu Hai very much, so on a rare Sunday, Liu Yu and Liu Ling woke up early to go, except that Liu Xia had to take the cat with him and couldn't go to Wangning. Wang Ning picked up Liu Hai.

It was past ten o'clock when Liu Hai and the others got home. As soon as Liu Hai saw Chang'e Sun, he rushed over and hugged her, followed by Liu Xia and Liu Kui.

Liu Hai has always had a carefree temper, but this time his sudden emotional vulnerability made Sun Chang'e and Xiumei shed tears at that time.

Liu Hai only had time to eat a bowl of noodles and talked with his family for half an hour before he had to go back: the bus from Wangning to Rongze only left in the afternoon, at 01:30 in the afternoon.

荣泽到望宁的公交车一天两趟，夏天早上05:30（冬天早上06:30）一趟，下午01:30一趟。

Rongze High School ends at 05:30 on Saturday afternoon, and Liu Hai can only take the bus on Sunday morning, and it will be almost eight o'clock in Wangning.

Liu Hai left home with red eye circles, Liu Kui saw how uncomfortable Liu Xia was looking at Liu Hai, and immediately got into the shelf car, and pulled Mao'er, Liu Wei, and Liu Rui to Wangning.

I was sweating profusely from running all the way, and it was less than ten minutes before I arrived at Wangning, which was less than 01:30.

Liu Xia took off his shirt all the way to cover the cat's and Liu Rui's heads, the two of them were still blushing from the heat, they found a shady place to wait for the bus, Liu Xia hurriedly took out the milk bottle to give the cat a drink .

Seeing the post office behind him, Liu Kui wanted to go in on a whim. In fact, Liu Xia and the others went to school in Wangning every day, and they would come there every day or two to see if there was any letter from Liu Chuan and Zeng Guangtong. They only read it yesterday. no letter.

However, Liu Kui got a surprise this time: a large package from Zeng Guangtong, which was full of review materials, from the first year of junior high school to the second year of senior high school.

The brothers were crazy with joy.

Recently, Liu Ling has to do the questions on the review materials sent by Zeng Guangtong by the kerosene lamp every night until late, and has to get up early in the morning to run to school, which makes Liu Kui very worried. After cooling down, they stopped laying eggs, and the eggs that had been saved were used to supplement the cat one after another, and they were all eaten up.

Liu Kui secretly gave Liu Xia fifty cents to buy some eggs in Wangning to help the cat, and also let Liu Ling eat one every morning.

Liu Xia bought seventeen eggs, but Liu Kui insisted that Liu Ling eat one every morning, but Liu Ling refused to eat it, and he jumped at his elder brother angrily: "You want me to grab eggs with Maoer and Xiao Rui? I'm just thin, and I'm not sick, so what eggs should I eat?"

In the end, Liu Changqing, the head of the family, made a decision: "Lao Wu eats three boiled eggs a week, and the boiled eggs are all eaten in the stomach, so don't waste them."

From then on until Liu Ling graduated from high school, he boiled eggs three times a week, but the cat ate all the egg yolks.

One month later, Liu Hai became good friends with Zhang Peng, who was at the same table. Zhang Peng is a son of Luogezhuang Coal Mine, a tall and cheerful boy with a commercial grain account. He asked Liu Hai to sit with him every Saturday in Luogezhuang. Zhuang Coal Mine's car.

From then on, every Saturday afternoon, Liu Hai took the shuttle bus from Luogezhuang Coal Mine and got off at Wudaokou. Liu Ling, Liu Yu and Liu Xia were waiting for him at the gate of Wangning High School, and the four of them went home together; the next day, That is, on Sunday, he left home at 06:30 pm, walked to the Luogezhuang Coal Mine before [-]:[-], and then took his car back. This made him very happy. I paid [-] cents a month for the bus ticket.

The three high school students did not have autumn vacation, only Liu Xia had two weeks of autumn vacation, which included National Day and Mid-Autumn Festival, but these two festivals had no meaning in the poor and busy mountain village.

Although there was no autumn break, the high school still gave two days off for National Day, and the brothers could finally talk and sleep together in peace.

At night, the cat had already fallen asleep after drinking milk, and the brothers were lying on the Kang and chatting. Liu Hai said that he ranked 54 out of 42 students in the class this time. There are 850 classes in the whole grade, 620 students, He ranked [-], and the top few were from the county seat and a few communes in the north. Liu Hai was the best among the few people he knew here.

Liu Hai suddenly remembered a piece of news he had just heard before he came back: "I heard that the school in Yuancheng will be changed, and the middle school and high school will be changed to three years. I don't know if it's true or not."

Liu Yu got up all of a sudden: "Damn, I said that if I persisted for another year, I wouldn't have to suffer. If it's true, wouldn't I have to spend another year?"

Liu Xia's focus is not the same as Liu Yu's: "Don't be true, then don't we all have to pay for an extra year of tuition? We all add up to several dollars!"

Liu Ling remained calm: "Impossible, you don't have to worry, Yaoer, think about it, if it is changed to three years, how many more teachers will be added, do we have any?"

A few people thought about it, and yes, Wangning Commune is the only high school with not enough teachers. There are more than 60 teachers who teach physics to Liu Ling and the others. One person teaches physics in all four classes of the second year of senior high school.

Liu Xia's geography teacher is also an old man, very short, not as tall as the taller boys in the class. The old man only reads or talks empty every time he attends class, and rarely writes on the blackboard. The feature that students like very much is that they never procrastinate, even if there is only one sentence left, as soon as the bell rings for the end of class, they pick up their books and leave.

Later they heard that the old man's right arm was broken by one of his favorite students a few years ago, and he couldn't raise it too much; that student also handed in several foreign novels that the old man lent him, He lived in prison for 13 years and just got out of prison for two years before coming to teach them.

The school may have to increase the number of years, and they all kept silent to the adults at home.

At noon on Sunday, Liu Hai took a bath with the water in a large wooden basin drying in the yard, ate a bowl of noodles, and then brought a bottle of pickled sauce, Liu Yu carried his schoolbag, Liu Xia carried the cat, Several people sent Liu Hai to school.

On the way, they asked each other about English words, which was a headache for several people. While laughing and laughing, they could always memorize the word they thought was the most difficult to remember, and then recite the letters one by one aloud together, and then Shout out the words a few times and they usually don't forget them.

They sent Liu Hai to Shangyao Slope, and then watched him go farther and farther, and finally disappeared, and several people turned back.

Now when the weather is good, Liu Xia always puts a large tub of water in the sun, and if he thinks it’s not hot enough, he boils another pot of water and adds it in. In the middle of the afternoon, when the sun is still good, he strips naked in the yard, and sits in the tub with the cat. The cat likes to take a bath in the basin, and every time the water is cold, he refuses to come out. When Liu Xia is carried out by him, he desperately grabs the edge of the basin and howls.

The cat is also interested in Liu Xia's belly button and the crooked scar next to it. Every time he takes a bath, he is persistently looking at it curiously, picking and picking, and then looking at his own, as if he is trying to figure out why the two of them will be different.

When there are people, Liu Xia will find a way to divert the cat's attention, so that he will not be curious about his scar. He hopes that everyone will forget that scar. He knows that the family will associate that scar with the cat in their hearts. Together.

Liu Xia likes to take cats to bathe so much because I heard from Liu Hai that many students in the dormitory in their school have scabies. There is often no ventilation and it is too damp. It is said that the bedding should be dried frequently, the windows in the dormitory should be opened frequently to allow air convection, and the indoor air should be kept fresh. Students should take a bath frequently, so that scabies is not easy to develop.

Liu Xia felt that his cave dwelling was also a bit damp, and it was impossible to open the windows to allow the air to circulate, so what he could do was to take more baths. It was too cold in winter to take a bath, so Liu Xia wanted to take advantage of the good weather. Wash the cat several times to drive out the winter ones.

On the sixth day of the autumn vacation, Liu Ling and Liu Yu brought back a package from Beijing, which was much larger than the last time. The family excitedly opened it under the lamp to read. There were a few reference books that Liu Xia and the others needed. materials, but most of them are books they have never heard or thought of: "Song of Youth", "Snowfield", "Eugenie Grandet", "Les Miserables", "Robinson Crusoe" ", "Selected Short Stories by Chekhov".

Liu Ling and Liu Yu still remembered many of the stories Zeng Guangtong told. After reading a few books, they knew where the stories that made them yearn or laugh came from. The stingy old man was called Grandet; The tough man was originally called Robinson Robinson, and the shameless guy who kept hitting himself was originally called Ochumelov...,

Liu Yu occupied "Lin Hai Xue Yuan".

Liu Ling let go of her textbook for the first time, and hugged "Robinson Crusoe" after finishing her homework.

Liu Hai plunged into "Song of Youth": Someone in his class took a copy of "Song of Youth" with dozens of pages. Curious about what kind of book this is, with such attractive power.

Now, he has a brand new copy, how can he not be excited?

After Liu Kui and his wife went to the ground or finished their housework, they read the "Selected Short Stories of Chekhov" together, and sometimes read it to Liu Changqing and Sun Chang'e. Sun Chang'e sighed: "It turns out that people all over the world are the same. That Harof, isn’t that what we are talking about here, licking up the things we spit on the ground by ourselves!”

Liu Xia fell in love with "Les Miserables";

Liu Xia never understood why, at the age of twelve or thirteen years old, he would like to read "Les Miserables", which many people find boring and lengthy.

The result of his thinking for many years is: he was frightened by the content on the page he turned to casually, and he had great doubts or fears, wanting to know what happened next.

He never knew that a mouthful of white teeth would be pulled out and sold for money. Liu Xia remembered that his reaction at that time was to go to the cracked mirror hanging at the entrance of the cave to look at his teeth, and then put the cat Opening his mouth, he took a closer look at his small white teeth, and finally made up his mind that he must study hard, get admitted to university and earn more money, so as to keep his and Mao'er's teeth.

As for the teeth of other members of the family, Liu Xia believed that no one would dare to think about his family's teeth just because of his uncle and his elder brother.

Liu Xia's homework has been completed in two days, and now he finds a persimmon or pear tree to climb up with the cat on his back every day in the bright autumn sunshine, leaning on a strong and comfortable branch to read a book.

The cat is almost two years old, and unlike when he was a child, he can sit obediently in his arms for a while. He likes Liu Xia talking to him, and he keeps climbing trees behind his back. In order not to let himself be left out because of reading After seeing the cat, read to him.

He knew that the cat couldn't understand. In fact, many of the discussions and comments in Hugo's works could not be understood by Liu Xia, or he was ignorant, but he still liked it very much. If the way of narration is used, it is a completely different feeling from the way of narration in the texts he is familiar with before.

Maoer must not understand the profound and rational words of the great writer at all, but he likes his uncle talking to him all the time. Standing side by side on the branches to compare who peed farther, then looking for ripe wolfberries on the edge of the hillside ditch for snacks, and picking two pears to quench their thirst, and then the two of them continued to read and listen to books.

In the first few days, Sun Chang'e was a little angry at Liu Xia for forgetting to eat even after getting into the tome every day, but Liu Changqing, Liu Kui, and Xiumei didn't think there was any problem with it. Books, reading more will definitely be beneficial, as long as you don’t tire your eyes out, I heard that many students in Wangning High School are nearsighted now, and they wear glasses, and when the glasses are removed, their eyeballs look like goldfish, which is scary.”

Liu Xia's regular routine now, apart from going to Guanjiayao three times a day to milk and boil the cat's milk, is to read books with the cat.

From what Liu Kui said, Liu Xia's occasional errand of boiling milk for cats was gone. Every time Sun Chang'e cooked milk and stood in the yard yelling, Liu Xia came back from Jean Valjean's miserable world.

He couldn't believe that there was such a cruel country that would put people in prison for 19 years because of a piece of bread. He thought Bishop Mirière was the kindest person. He really wanted to know what the silver tableware looked like, and he also wanted to know, What is the difference between bread and steamed buns? He felt aggrieved and useless for Jean Valjean, wondering why he didn't find a place where no one was around and killed that villain Javert...

Reading "Les Miserables", Liu Xia suddenly felt that the world he lived in was not the worst. There were things that were many times worse than poverty. It turned out that he was countless times happier than many people.

Two days before the start of school, he and Mao'er had diarrhea due to gluttony, but after a night of sound sleep, both of them healed without treatment.