The gender gap in those years
When the camphor tree shed its leaves, shiny black berries fell to the ground, making a crackling sound when stepped on.
"My mother said that I was picked up from the trash can." Lulu lowered her voice mysteriously. Several of us girls were hiding in a secret base.
"You're lying!" Ye Zhixia was the first to retort, "You were clearly born in the hospital by Aunt Zhou."
"How do you know?" Lulu widened her eyes.
Ye Zhixia raised her chin proudly, "My mother said so. She said that every child is born after the mother spends a whole day and night in pain in the hospital."
I was using a branch to poke at a group of ants on the ground when I looked up and asked, "Then why do adults always say we were picked up?"
"Because they think we are stupid." Lu Xingye's voice suddenly came from above the secret base.
I don't know when he strolled near us, his ears perked up.
"What do you care!" I grabbed a handful of camphor fruits and threw them at him. "Are you ashamed of eavesdropping on girls?!"
He dodged nimbly.
"You're stupid!" Lulu muttered, "I know how babies are born. You have to get married, and then you can have a baby."
"No!" Jiang Yuanzhou came in from the other end, "You have to fall in love first! Just like my parents."
This silenced us all.
"What does it feel like to be in love?" Ye Zhixia asked in a low voice.
We all shook our heads.
In the world of eight-year-olds, falling in love is a concept as distant and vague as "getting married" or "having a baby."
"I know." Jiang Yuanzhou raised his head proudly, "It's just the two of us holding hands and eating ice cream together."
"Vague!" Lu Xingye yelled, "You have to kiss!" After he said that, he probably felt shy himself, so he turned around and ran away.
"Rogue!" we shouted in unison.
————
In the summer of 2005, Baicao Garden opened.
A few of us were busy under the shade of the locust tree in the backyard, using faded paint benches to form a crooked circle, and we thoughtfully left an exit wide enough for one person as the entrance to the Baicao Garden.
Lulu stole the floral bed sheet from home and spread it on the floor, treating it as a red carpet for the "Baicao Garden".
"Lulu, you are the owner of the market." I directed Xia Xia to stand at the entrance of "Baicao Garden".
Wild wolfberries filled with sycamore leaves, glutinous rice balls disguised as pebbles, and a locust flower necklace strung with dogtail grass were spread out on a small stool. "These are delicacies sold in the market. You have to pay to buy them," Xia Xia opened her hands and showed the glass marbles in her hand.
Lulu nodded solemnly and sat in the seat of "boss lady". She wore her mother's silk scarf on her head and tied it into an exaggerated bow at the back of her head.
"Yuan, you are the security guard of the market." I pulled Cheng Yuan over to stand next to Lulu, "You are responsible for protecting the boss lady's safety." Cheng Yuan stood next to Lulu and giggled.
"Don't laugh! Your salary will be deducted if you laugh!" I glared at the giggling Cheng Yu'an with a serious face, and Cheng Yu'an immediately covered his mouth and nodded.
"Xia Xia, you are the owner of the toy store." Xia Xia's "toy store" is next to Lulu's "food street." On the bench are the parts from the "big barrel of building blocks" that were looted.
"I am the owner of a clothing store." My "clothing store" is the most impressive. Three of my mother's silk scarves are hung on the clothesline. When a corner of them is lifted by the wind, it really looks like a shopping mall window.
"Well, our Baicao Garden is open today!"
"Sir, please come in--" Lulu shouted in a pinched voice, but suddenly got stuck.
"Who will be the guest?" Xia Xia scratched her head. We looked at each other and found that all the staff were shopkeepers.
Just when I was worrying, I heard a familiar sound of fighting outside the wall. Lu Xingye and Jiang Yuanzhou, along with a few boys from the back door, ran past the gate of "Baicao Garden", each holding a water gun, like a mountain king who was bullying the grass.
"What are you girls doing?" Lu Xingye's eyes swept across our Baicao Garden.
"Baicao Garden is open today," Cheng Yu'an answered Lu Xingye's question first, "Are you guys coming as guests?"
"Tsk! Who wants to play with you girls!" Lu Xingye pouted, his face full of disdain. Behind him were Jiang Yuanzhou and a few other boys, who nodded in agreement, as if playing with girls was something shameful.
"We don't want to play with you boys yet!" I puffed out my chest angrily. Xia Xia and Lulu stood beside me, like soldiers defending their positions, not giving an inch.
"Cheng Yu'an, you're playing with girls, you're a traitor!" Seeing that he couldn't win the argument with us, Lu Xingye turned his target to Cheng Yu'an, who was still standing behind Lulu as a security guard.
I immediately protected Cheng Yu'an behind me, "Yu'an is our specially hired security captain! This is a move away from evil and joining the good, which is completely different from you guys!"
The boys booed exaggeratedly, and Lu Xingye and Jiang Yuanzhou snorted and turned away.
————
That year, we kids were at a delicate age, gender awareness began to sprout, and an invisible line was quietly drawn between boys and girls, dividing us into two camps.
The new second-grade teacher arranged the seats according to gender, and Lu Xingye and I became deskmates, and the "38th parallel" appeared tacitly on the table.
Although he would push my textbook over to me so I could read with him when I forgot to bring it, as soon as the bell rang, he would immediately jump up and chase and play with the group of boys in the corridor.
During the ten minutes between classes, we belong to two worlds that do not interact with each other.
"We are girls and you are boys, we can't play together."
At that time, our understanding of gender was still vague, and we didn’t know why boys and girls couldn’t play together. We just vaguely felt that some things were quietly changing, so we naturally became distant.
At the autumn sports meet, Jiang Yuanzhou and I both signed up for the 50-meter sprint. In the past, we often competed to see who could run faster by the sand pit.
But this time, the teacher just smiled and said, "Boys compete with boys, and girls compete with girls."
Jiang Yuanzhou said "Oh", turned around and agreed with Lu Xingye to compete in the finals.
And I was naturally included in the girls' group.
Only Cheng Yu'an, who is younger than us, would occasionally ignore this boundary and play with us girls.
This is probably what it feels like to grow up. Some friends will silently become distant as you grow older.
At that moment, I felt a moment of loss, pretending to be mature and sad about the passing of time.
I thought so.
Just what I thought.
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