Ginger-ous~ Part 1
Ginger breezed through the office door that morning, filled with hope for a brand new beginning at New Beginnings; a bookshop in the corner of Chinatown. Once she stepped into the office, a horrible odor greeted her, dispelling her hopes and making her want to sneeze. She was so tempted to just walk out the door and never come back, but just at that thought, a voice behind her called "Oh you must be lost. We don’t get White Devils here often,’ said the old Chinese man hunched on his cane that looked like an untreated root of oak. ‘No, I am Ginger, I was hired yesterday by Mrs Chen.’ The man squinted, ‘Mrs Chen is the cleaning lady, and slightly mad, I might add…’ Ginger gasped. She couldn’t believe it! When the old Chinese man that hunched on his cane squinted at her and told her such annoying things, he reminded her of her long lost grandfather (she was actually only 75% white- the other 25% was Chinese)! So she stared at him bewildered. But her thought went back to her meeting with Mrs Chen the day before. She looked too well poised, wearing a slim-cut long cheongsam with a slit that shows of almost all of her legs, hair up in a bee-hive, and spoke too much proper English in full sentences to be a mad cleaning lady. In fact, her long lost grandfather look-alike seems more likely to be a little off and pulling her leg. In fact, he looked very capable of pulling her legs quite literally. She wondered if she should ask him if he was her long lost grandfather but then decided no good could come of it so instead she asked, ‘Who owns this place then? You?’ He was about to respond when a dashing young man entered from the back door. He said, ‘Father, there you are! I’ve been looking all over for you! Stop harassing strangers in random stores!’ The young man’s eyes then locked with Ginger’s…who found it difficult to unlock her eyes from his as he was, unknown to her, a master hypnosis who often practiced on hapless strangers in random stores. The young man was about to reach out his hands for a strand of hair that was casually caressing her lip just when Mrs Chen strides through the door and in an awfully intense tone shouted "it's you again!! you silly old man.. how dare you keep walking into my shop! And for the last time, I am not your cleaning lady and I will not follow you back to do any bedding activities! Do you hear me hunchy?" and with that she smacked him upside his head with her pocketbook. This jolted Ginger out of the hypnotic clutches of the young man, who deftly maneuvered out the same door he came in followed by his aging father. ‘There! Now that we got them out of the way…’ Ginger looked at Mrs Chen in excitement, wondering what her first task for the day would be. ‘You must take out the garbage, then clean the pantry and tidy up all the books. Then you can get me some of my favourite tea and cakes from Baker’s Heaven; it’s only two blocks away, so I’m sure you can be there and back in no more than ten minutes.’ ‘But,’ Ginger began,’… i.. but I thought my job was just to sit by the coffee table and read one book a day? Your job requirement stated - 'must be able to read a book a day'. and now I have to take the garbage and stuff, I don't think I am…’ Before she could finish, Mrs Chen snapped, ‘Don’t think you’re what? Qualified to take out the trash? Sorry, I forgot I must’ve been the only who graduated Elevated Rubbish Throwing. You wanted a job, you got a job. I asked you if you read a book a day because that would certainly make up for all the books you’re NOT going to read as long as you work here!’ Ginger crinkled her nose- her cutesy response to problems. What was she doing here? She wondered… where the cute grandson of the mad old hunched Chinese man would be right now, and decided to try to find him so that he could teach her how to hypnotise ppl; that way, she could hypnotise Mrs Chen into stop being a bitch and maybe sign over the bookship to Ginger! And then she too could wear long elegant cheongsams and boss around to immature little girls looking for jobs. "Now, where has that cutie gone too?" And out the door she fled, walking down the pavement looking thorugh the glass doors of pretty little boutiques which all seem to have bright red lanterns hanging, and then she spotted it, it was big, it was beautiful, she's been wanting it since she heard about it in fairytales as a child but had never seen one in real life before. She rushed to the produce section of the Wong & Son Supermarket and picked up the biggest pumpkin they had. After paying Wong, or his son, whichever it was- she caught sight of the hypnotist in the cheese section. She rushed over, almost tripping over a watermelon sliver. Her clumsiness drew annoyed looks from the other patrons who muttered unflattering comments in Chinese. She reached the cheese section and…promptly locked eyes with the hypnotist once more. This time, she was hypnotized long enough for him to caress one of her stray hairs hanging by her lip. After that, his hypnosis wore off as the pumpkin she was holding fell on his left foot. His loud "ouch!" brought her back to the unflattering cheese section.
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