Chapter one

"Ire. You are such a nice child! Let's buy a laptop then! Good Ire!"

"But Aunt Johnson, I did nothing wrong! We don't have to pay the money!"

"Hahaha, Ire, you're such a cute child! You people, listen, don't harm little Ire!"

"Aunt Johnson! Please! I'm taking that seriously; we can't always just follow what they say! And we don't have much money either! Please, just be awake now, ok?"

"Ah ha! I know! We are going to run away from here, right? Don't worry child, I won't let them arm you in any portion!"

I'm standing by the gate talking (or you can say arguing) with Aunt Johnson who just came to school from home, summoned by my call.

Just as I mentioned, Aunt had gone mad after my birth. She isn't actually "crazy" mad, there is only one thing special about her. She always acting as if there are a crowd there even though there was no one around. And sometimes she would tell me that those "people" are going to harm us, we must go home, although when she told me that we were in our living room and sit at the dinner table. Other than that, Aunt Johnson is a common people like everyone else, she's very kind and she's also a good parent. However, whenever I wanted to bring her to the doctors, she would change the topic. As if she knows her mental problems, but she's avoiding mentioning it.

Luckily, most of the time Aunt Johnson is in a state of which I called "awake." When she's awake, you can talk to her like talk to a normal people, without any difficulties. And this is what I'm looking for right now, if Aunt Johnson's awake, she's a pretty good talker, at least way better than I do since I don't really know how to social well. Then she probably can help me explain the thing clearly in front of our principle. But clearly, she's now in the state of being awake, she's still imagining people's going to do some harm to me.

I think Aunt Johnson's probably overthinking. Until now, I believe nothing can really do harm to me other than "those things," so the imaginary people are probably just because Aunt Johnson was stressed out.

"Iris! Your guardian's here?" My course teacher just ended the short talk with principle. As she came out from the building, she saw me standing with an adult, so she came straight to us, "Hi, can I call you Ms...?"

"Ms. Johnson, thanks."

"Hello Ms. Johnson. As you know, your child has been in trouble the fourth time this year, I think we must have a long talk together with principle."

"You are Ms. Zhao, right? Nice to meet you!"

...

They have already been there for almost an hour now, I'm just standing by the office door, ear stick close to the door and trying to listen to what they are talking in there.

Crack!

I can feel the handle's turning. I used my fastest speed to step aside and pretend I was almost going to fall asleep.

"This girl's always like that, she never thinks that she's wrong and correct it." Ms. Zhao said right after three of them came out of the room seeing me paying no attention at all.

"But I actually…"

"Hahaha, I think Ire will change." Aunt Johnson smiled, "But principle, there's a very important thing, we have to go home now, can you please allow Ire to do so?"

"Why? Today there's still half a school day left…ok, sure." Under Aunt Johnson's smiling face, principle lightly nodded his head.

"Now we have to go Ire."

I followed Aunt Johnson went to my locker, get my bag.

When I put my school bag onto my shoulder, all of a sudden, I heard Aunt Johnson asked, "your birthday is on the day after tomorrow, right?"

"Yes, Aunt Johnson, is there any question?" I didn't surprise that she can't remember my exact birthday.

"You'll be sixteen, then?"

"Yes. Why?"

"No, it's just that time is coming. There's something you have to know about. Let's go home, go home and I'll tell you everything."

When Aunt Johnson said that I can't tell whether she's awake or not through her expression. But I'm very interested in what thing is she talking about, she rarely talks about something such seriously.