Gazelle Wood Carving (Zhang Zhi Lu)

“Where did that gazelle go?” Mom suddenly asked me.

The gazelle Mom was talking about was a craft made of black hardwood. It was a gift from my dad when he returned from Africa. It had always been on the corner of my desk. At this moment, my heart started to pound, because I had given it to my good friend Wanfang yesterday.

“Dad said it was for me, didn’t he?” I said softly.

“I know it was for you, but where is it now?” Mom’s gaze was fixed on me. I realized that things were not as simple as I thought.

“I put it away.”

“Where did you put it? Show it to me.” Mom seemed to see through my lie. Because I stood there motionless, with my head down, not daring to look at her.

“Tell the truth… Did you sell it?” Mom became very stern.

“I didn’t sell it… I gave it away.” I felt my voice trembling a bit.

“Who did you give it to? Tell me.” Mom put her hand on my shoulder.

“I gave it to Wanfang, she is my best friend.”

“Go and get it back now!” Mom said firmly, “Such a valuable thing, how can you just give it away? Or I’ll go with you!”

“No!” I cried out.

Dad came in, listened to Mom’s account of the incident, quietly lit a cigarette, and slowly said to me: “It’s not that children can’t give things to each other, but it depends on what kind of things. Such a valuable thing is not like a piece of pastry or a box of candy, how can you decide on your own?” Dad’s voice was always calm, but it carried an irresistible force.

“But you gave it to me.”

“Yes, it was given to you by Dad, but I didn’t allow you to give it away!”

I had no reason left. I thought they would soon force me to ask Wanfang for the gazelle back, and I felt extremely sad. They didn’t know what a righteous good friend Wanfang was.

We have been together since kindergarten. She is a good student and not selfish at all. We were inseparable, and our Chinese teacher called us “two in one”.

Last week, during a physical education class, our whole class wore new sportswear. After jumping the goat, we played around the small tree. Accidentally, my pants were torn by a tree branch. I sat under the tree secretly wiping my tears, both heartbroken about my pants and afraid of being scolded when I got home. Wanfang stopped playing too, sat next to me and sighed heavily. Suddenly, she jumped up, patted her butt and said: “Let’s switch first, my mom is a senior tailor, she can sew the big hole in the pants so that it can’t be seen at all.”

At that time, I felt saved, so I switched pants with Wanfang. Later, I heard that because of this, her mom made her stand facing the wall for an hour.

“Why didn’t you say the pants were mine?”

She smiled slyly: “My mom is a nag, if she knew, she would let your mom know sooner or later.”

I wanted to switch the pants back. But she said nonchalantly: “Forget it, I’ve already stood for an hour, if we switch back, you’ll have to stand for two hours…” Until now, I’m still wearing her sports pants. Every time I have a physical education class, when I see the long scar on her pants, I feel guilty towards her.

Yesterday, Wanfang came to my house to play. I saw that she particularly liked the gazelle on my desk, so I picked it up and handed it to her and said: “I give it to you, we will always be good friends… forever!” She was also quite excited and took out a small curved knife from her pocket and gave it to me.

I don’t know when, grandma was standing at the door. She must have wanted to say something, but she didn’t. At this time, mom took out a tin of candy from the cabinet and said to me: “It’s not that mom doesn’t understand reason, you give this box of candy to your good friend… that gazelle, even mom and dad can’t bear to give it away!” I saw the value of the gazelle in mom’s eyes. She and dad were looking at me, as if waiting for something. I knew that things were irretrievable, and tears flowed down my cheeks. The room was extremely quiet. Grandma suddenly said: “Let it go, this is not good.” Mom handed over the candy box and said: “You don’t know how valuable that wood carving is!”

I couldn’t take it anymore, I pushed away mom’s candy box and ran out of the door in the rain.

I was holding the small knife that Wanfang gave me in my hand, walking and thinking, what should I say? Will she still be as good to me as before? Definitely not.

I gently knocked on the door. The door opened, Wanfang poked her head out and pulled me in.

“Wanfang…” I stood in the hallway and refused to go any further.

“What’s wrong with you? You didn’t even bring an umbrella, did you get beaten?” Wanfang looked at me strangely.

“No…” I slowly took out the small knife from my pocket, “Can you give me back the gazelle…” I could hardly hear my own voice.

Wanfang was stunned for a moment, did not take the small knife, just bit her lip and looked at me, I lowered my eyes and dared not look at her.

“We agreed on this yesterday, how could you do this?”

I tried hard not to cry. At this time, her mom came out of the room. Seeing the small knife in my hand and looking at our expressions, she immediately understood: “Wanfang, did you take something from someone?”

Wanfang glanced at me and ran into the room. After a while, she came out with the gazelle. Her mom took it and said: “Oh my! How could you take such a valuable thing from someone!” She handed the gazelle to me, “Hold it well, don’t be sad, watch me beat her later!”

I handed the small knife to her and said: “Auntie! The gazelle was given to her by me, it’s all my fault…” When I looked up, Wanfang was gone, she would never be good to me again…

I walked slowly on the road alone. The moon came out, it was cold, and I couldn’t help but shiver. There was no sound on the road. Suddenly, I heard someone calling my name, I turned around, and saw Wanfang running over. She stuffed the small knife into my hand and said: “You keep it, we are still good friends…”

I stared at her blankly, unable to stop the tears from flowing down. I felt like I was the saddest person in the world! Because I went back on my word to a friend. I did such a disgraceful thing!

The author of this article is Zhang Zhi Lu, written in 1984, and published in the 10th issue of “Eastern Youth” in the same year. At that time, the author was working as an editor in a film studio. The author’s more than ten years of teaching career and the friendship with students and colleagues are still vivid in memory, and this article was written with emotion.

The original title of this article when it was published was “Regret”, and it was renamed “Gazelle Wood Carving” when it was selected and compiled into the Chinese textbook for the first semester of the seventh grade published by the People’s Education Press.