That was a cloudy day, in which I stepped into the town with the chill wind breezing. Suddenly, a piece of small sheet falling down in the air, and I picked it up out of curiosity. "Maybe the paper would bring me something different on this twelfth day since I began the venture!" murmured I.
It was the day after my 12th birthday that I determined to find the "wonderland" of mine. On the very day, I went to school at eight o'clock as usual.
"Hey! Happy birthday!", yelled some classmates.
"Thanks," said I with a shallow smile.
"Oh! Today is your birthday? Happy birthday, Gabriel!", said another boy.
"No. It was on yesterday. Thanks anyway." I also sent him a smile but still with no feeling in my mind.
Greeting to every classmate I met, I took my seat and put my pencil box on the left of the desk. Staring at the brooch which was given from Jonas, I recalling every detail on my birthday.
"Oh dear! Happy birthday!", said the vice mayor in the village, who was one of Jonas' friends. She hugged me and grinned.
"Thank you," responded I with a smile on my face. Even though I knew that I should say more to that significant person, those two words were what I could only speak out then.
"I'm so glad to see you, Mrs. Barren. Please be at ease and enjoy the party." Jonas greeted her and shook hands with her.
Jonas then told me that since the first year he escaped from the community with me, an infant, Mrs. Barren had given a hand to us. I cast my eyes on the woman striding away with a glass of wine in her hand, observing every move she made.
Suddenly, a cluster of colorful balloons appeared in front of me. They were huge enough to hide the people behind them. "Hey! You must like it, right?" Three naughty boys, actually my friends, moved the balloons aside and extended their necks out. "Yeah. Thanks bros," the words ran out of my mouth as I laughed at their amusing facial expression.
Not waiting for me to say more, they just dashed to the long tables devouring the refreshments on them. On the tables were not only the desserts brought by the guests but Jonas' specialty, apple pie. As the scent filling the room, I could only stand next to Jonas and smiled to the visitors or his friends after they finished talking and finally put their sight on me. The joy gradually ran off my mind with a sense of emptiness emerging more and more strongly, but the smile on my face was just like what it used to be, such brilliant and vigorous.
"Come here, Gabriel! See what's for you!" Abruptly awaking me from numbness, Jonas stepped toward his room and showed me a gesture of following. Opening his drawer, Jonas gave me an apple-shape brooch. It was half black and half red, with small white 12 on the middle of it. That was really a gift out of my imagination. I stared at it for seconds and showed my gratitude by hugging him, then putting it on my pencil box, which I would bring it wherever I went.
Touching the brooch to and fro and taking a deep breath in front of my desk, I was ready for the whole new day. The day was full of boring courses as it usually did; however, I changed my mind upon the geography class beginning.
On the geography class, we learned about different types of maps and the information of them. I was pretty excited when I first knew what we were going to learn in that class, for reading maps and venturing to somewhere on them was one of my interests. The teacher asked each student to point out their hometown on the map hung on the board. We rushed toward it, just like numerous starving rats dashing to a piece of enticing cheese. Most of the classmates raced in front of the map and dotted on it without hesitation. However, scarcely had I been about to put a red dot on the village I lived when a lightning emerged in my brain. I stood still, meditating, "Where is my hometown, the community or the village?"
"Come on! Don't you know where is it located?" a girl patted me on my shoulder then pranced back her seat.
I didn't respond but quickly mark the village and went back. During the following class, I stared in space almost all the time.
On the way home, I still recalled what had happened in class. "Where the community really is?" That question kept echoing in my mind. I sprinted to Jonas room at the moment I entered the house, desiring of asking him about the location of the community. Nevertheless, as I stopped breathlessly by the door of his room, what I saw was not Jonas but an atlas lying on his desk. I was curious and decided to take and read it, wondering whether there were some clues for the community or not. I viewed over every dot, line, and also every tiny words on it slowly and carefully, but I found nothing seemed to be marked as our community. Feeling frustrated, I sagged back in his chair, which was soft and flexible, and puzzled over where might be its site. Perplexed, I took up a mirror on the desk randomly and turned it at will without consciousness. All at once, I glimpsed a subtle dot on the map sparking for just a split second then disappeared. I was astonished, deciding to seek for the atom attentively on the map again.
I held my breath, staring at every inch of the map with the mirror being whirled in my hand. Strangely, the dot sparked again and again, and the frequency of its "emergence" seemed to have something to do with the speed I revolved the mirror. I tried to adjust the direction of the mirror slowly and discreetly, and didn't stop until the atom showed up. I kept observing the subtle dot, which seemed may disappeared at every moment, and found there was no name or note about it. "It must be the community." a voice suddenly came out from my mind. I look fixedly at the dot for a while, and eventually made up my mind to venture there, my real hometown.