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Chapter written by Blitz
Ella’s Point of View
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I quietly locked the door and told the two girls to be silent.

We tiptoed past my father’s working room, but as soon as we came upstairs, we started to laugh and chat again.

“I’m just happy my room isn’t right above dad’s office. Poor Calvin – no, I didn’t mean that,” I grinned. Hebe and Selina laughed as I opened the door to my big, bright room. We made our way in, and I closed the door behind us.

“By the way, can’t you persuade your father to let me read his book before it’s published? I’ve been waiting for the next novel in the series for almost a year now,” Hebe said while conquering one of my bag chairs.

“Never gonna happen. He won’t even tell me how many books there’re going to be,” I rolled my eyes.

My father got his first book published when I was five, and even though it wasn’t that great of a success, he had soon published other books. His breakthrough was a series of crime novels, and he was currently writing the fourth book.

“Seriously! Then just a hint of what’s going to happen?!” Hebe seemed pretty desperate. I shook my head.

“He only tells my mom.”

“I read a novel once. But I skipped a lot of pages because it got boring.” Selina had placed herself in my other bag chair, and it looked like she was just saying out her thoughts. And first realized it when Hebe and I gave her strange gazes.

“What?” Selina looked at us.

Hebe and I looked at each other, sighed and shook our heads. Then changed the subject.

“Is your mom home?” Hebe asked. I sat down in my office chair.

“No, she’s visiting the Han family. In Taipei,” I added.

“For how long will she be there?”

“Until evening, I think. She’ll definitely be home to make dinner.”

“I love your parents. They love each other,” Selina dreamily said. I couldn’t help but smile.

“Me too. Before my father got famous, and we weren’t rich, they both worked hard all day, but my mother said it was all worth it as long as she could be with me and my dad in the evenings. My dad may not speak much, but the way he looks at my mom…”

“Yeah, I see what you mean,” Hebe said.

We sat silent for a while. Not an awkward silence; such never existed between us. It was an understanding silence, like we shared our thoughts without having to speak.

But of course… my queer brother had to ruin it all.

“MOM! Do we have anything eatable?!” I heard him slam the door and shout. There were other voices too; he had probably brought his friends.

“Oops. Sounds like Calvin is home.” I pulled a face, and the girls laughed.

“And as always, he’s forgotten about your father’s job,” Hebe rolled her eyes.

“And that your mother isn’t home,” Selina added.

I opened the door and yelled:

“Calvin, you butthead! Mom is in Taipei, remember? And shut up, dad is working!”

“I wasn’t asking you, little sister!” He emphasized on the last to words. I heard him and his friends run noisily up the stairs, and soon they appeared at the end of the corridor.

“But I answered, BROTHER. Because I’m smarter,” I stuck my tongue out at him.

“Just because you’re so lonely and don’t have fr…”

“What did you say?” Hebe and Selina appeared in the door opening behind me.

I could now see that Calvin had his usual bunch of ‘groupies’ with him; Vic, Ken, Vanness and Jerry. Psh. What a word – ‘groupies’. No, ‘trio’ was better…

“I was saying that you should just be happy mom is not here, ‘cause then I would…”

“Run to her and tell? How mature.”

“Calvin, let’s just let the girls be alone. They must be busy,” Ken winked at us while speaking to Calvin. He grumbled.

“Good idea, they probably have girl stuff to do,” Vanness added, lifting his eyebrows and emphasizing on ‘girl stuff’.

“Like what?” Jerry looked dumbfounded.

“Oh, just come on!” Calvin pushed Jerry down the corridor, and Ken and Vanness followed. When they were about five meters away, it was like Vic woke up and looked confused around before walking after them to Calvin’s room.

“He seriously has got some problems,” Hebe said.

“Who?” Selina asked.

“All of them,” I answered, and we laughed and closed the door again.

 

We had a lot of homework to do, so we decided to get over with it.

Hebe and I had already written our English essays, but Selina still had to do hers, so we made our math assignments meanwhile.

“How do you spell ‘orange’?” Selina suddenly asked.

“That perhaps on… the fruit or the colour?” Hebe looked a bit pissed from being pulled out of her intense calculations.

I whacked her head.

“O-r-a-n-g-e. No matter if fruit or colour,” I explained to the confused Selina.

“Thanks,” she said, and went back to her essay.

 

Just when we had finished it all and it was about five o’clock, someone knocked on my door.

“If it’s my dear brother, then help me bark as a bunch of crazy dogs until he goes away, ‘kay?” I looked out of the spy hole in my door, but to my surprise it wasn’t Calvin.

“Show!” I opened the door widely for the poor boy whose arms were loaded with shoes.

“I don’t need to get in. I’d just ask where your shoes are, I can’t find them…”

“Come in anyway.” I dragged him in, and Selina and Hebe helped him place the shoes on the floor.

“It’s really not necessary, I just need to know if you have any shoes that need polishing,” Show humbly said. But he still had that fanatic glint in his eyes.

“I can only manage to use one pair of shoes per day, and as you’re here every day, I simply can’t keep up with it,” I smiled. He looked disappointed.

“Even my brother has more shoes than me. I see you’ve already been to his room,” I looked at the pile of shoes on my white-rugged floor, and scratched the back of my head. Show grinned.

“Yes! The four other gentlemen also gave me their shoes. Can I help the two ladies with anything?” He bowed slightly towards Hebe and Selina, who frightened shook their heads.

“Show, how many times have I told you to call us by our names?!” Hebe ruffled his hair.

“And that foot of yours is taking way too much over you,” Selina said.

“Sorry. I’m just used to call people politely. And it’s not a ! I just like my job,” Show explained. The three of us sent each other disbelieving gazes.

“And don’t look at each other in that way. I know what you’re thinking, but it’s really not…”

“Okay okay. But stay in here while polishing shoes, you shouldn’t sit in the corridor,” I sighed.

“Thanks a lot, miss,” he bowed, but this time with a teasing twinkle in his eyes.

 

“Are Calvin’s friends paying you?” Hebe asked. She, Selina and I all sat down in the same bag chair, squashed together.

“No, you know I have a fixed agreement with this family,” he answered, completely occupied by his work.

“But they’re not a part of the family! They should pay you, this is extra work, it’s unfair!” Selina quickly got heated up in indignation.

“It’s not unfair as long as I can spend my time doing my dream job.” Show lovingly petted the shoe he was currently polishing. Hebe and I rolled our eyes at the same time, but Selina didn’t accept it.

“But it… it… you already work so hard to earn money, and then you don’t even get paid as much as you should?! It’s horrible!”

Hebe and I were used to Selina’s frequent fits of injustice indignation, but it seemed to make Show a bit confused.
“But… I really like my job, and…”

“But you should still get paid! If you do free work like this, you’ll soon be… be…”

“I must agree with Selina here. You can’t work for free. How many different families do you work at per week?” Hebe firmly asked. Show looked more and more puzzled.

“A-around 15. Some everyday and some only a few days…”

“And for how long do you work at your street stand every day? And at the restaurant?” I took part.

“Uhm… All the time I have left.”

“Excuse me; I have to speak a few words to my brother.” I got up from the chair and walked out. Hebe and Selina quickly followed me. Show was left dumbfounded, still with a shoe in his hand.

“Calvin!” I yelled even before I reached his room. He opened the door.

“What is it now?” He said in an annoyed tone when I stepped in, followed by Hebe and Selina.

Ken and Vanness were playing some kind of Playstation game on Calvin’s TV, Vic just sat and stared out of the window like his interests weren’t in this world, and Jerry looked like he was doing homework.

Calvin had been following the game, but was now looking at us.

“Have you allowed your ‘groupies’ to make Show do free work?” I stared provocatively at him. He actually blushed a bit.

“The guy said he was happy to polish as many shoes as possible. You know what a weirdo he is…”

“That he likes his work doesn’t mean you can just exploit him! It’s vile and just plain stupid.”

Vic slowly turned his head to watch the scene with a distant gaze, while Ken and Vanness undisguised stopped their game to look at us.

Selina nearly had tears in her eyes from the injustice happening in front of her, while Hebe didn’t really know what to do about herself, as she didn’t really have any right to scold my brother.

Like I had. Hehehe.

“You call me stupid? Look, he asked for shoes, and we gave them to him. He gets paid by our parents. It could just as well have been my shoes all of them, right?” Calvin got on his feet to look down at me. How I loved to discuss with him.

“But they aren’t, and that’s the point!” Hebe couldn’t hold it anymore.

“Then don’t scold me, scold them!” The coward pointed at Ken and Vanness, who quickly went back to their game.

“How many of the shoes are theirs?” I asked Calvin.

“One pair from Vic, three from Ken, four from Vanness and one from Jerry,” Calvin admitted. I had completely forgotten about Jerry, who was still sitting at Calvin’s writing desk.

“How do you spell ‘orange’?” he suddenly broke in.

“That perhaps on… is it the fruit or the colour?” Vic said in a dreamy tone without even looking at Jerry.

“Attention please!” I demanded. It was like Jerry now realized I was in the room, as he quickly turned around and blushed.

“Oh, hi. What is it?” he quickly asked.

Why are boys so slow?

“Okay, I now say to you all. If you don’t pay Show for polishing your shoes, then go and get ‘em back right now. He’s in my room.”

“Ooooooh,” Ken and Vanness said at the same time, and lifted their eyebrows.

“Because if not, he’d have to sit in the corridor!” Selina cried.

“If we exclude our warm living rooms,” Calvin rolled his eyes, and I gave him a killer gaze.

“It would still be very lonely!” Selina continued. I heard Ken whisper “Typical girls” to Vanness.

“Pay or take your shoes back!” I looked expecting at Calvin’s four friends, and Jerry was the first one to get on his feet.

“I don’t know about you, but I’ll pay him,” he said, which made me calm down a little. Vic slowly stood up too.

“Me too,” he added. Ken and Vanness looked at each other, then at Calvin.

“We’ll go get ours back now,” Ken stated, and all five followed us back to my room.

When we stepped in, Show was sitting cross-legged on the floor with his back towards the door.

“Sorry, but we’ll take back our shoes now,” Vanness said. Show turned around, brightly smiling.

“Perfect! They’re all done now!”

Going through all this just to see Ken, Vanness and Calvin drop their jaws was all worth it. Seriously, their expressions were priceless.

“So fast?!” Ken couldn’t believe it.

“If you think this is fast, then you should’ve seen my grandfather. Not only regarding shoes, also when it came to…”

“Show, when you told us that story, I couldn’t get the picture out of my mind for weeks. Please don’t repeat it,” Hebe quickly broke in.

“Sorry. And wait a minute…” Show grabbed three pairs of shoes and gave them to Ken, then gave four pairs to Vanness, one to Vic, one to Jerry and two to Calvin.

He really remembered who the shoes belonged to.

I want to keep that picture of my brother’s expression in my mind for the rest of my lifetime.

“I’ll go now, then,” Show proclaimed, and smiling got on his feet.

“No, please stay, just for a while. You’re so busy all day,” Hebe begged him. He shook his head.

“Sorry, but I have to help my friend out at his restaurant. Who knows if his costumers need their shoes to be polished?” He winked at us. Not to be persuaded.

“What if we go to the mall? I need a new pair of shoes.” When I said the last word, it was like a lightning struck him, and his eyes nearly changed colour.

“You do?” he asked.

“Yeah. My parents are having a dinner party on Friday,” I smiled. Hebe and Selina snickered.

“Really? What kind?”

“Just a boring one. None of my friends are allowed, but of course Calvin can bring one of his. Just because our parents are friends with his.”

“You know, I have a friend who’s a chef. Is it possible for him to be assigned to make food for the party?” Show asked.

“Hmm – well, if you go shopping with us now, I’ll ask my parents. You have to help me choose some new shoes.” The battle was won.

 

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Yay, first chapter :D
Not much has happened yet; this was more of an introduction to the fanfic. You got presented to Ella, her friends and family :]
I hope you got a good taste of it x)
Comments, commenters and all kinds of readers are very much loved <3
Gril will write the next chapter from Chun’s point of view :b
^__^
- Blitz