It was a lovely Saturday morning. Su Lee lay in bed listening to the chattering of sparrows outside her window. How wonderful it was to laze around doing nothing, she thought.
The telephone in the living room rang. Su Lee heard her father answer it. She continued to laze in bed, but soon her peace was shattered when her father came and told her that he had to go out of town for a while. His brother was involved in an accident and he had to go and see what he could do. So Su Lee’s father, mother and her little sister left hurriedly living Su Lee all alone in the house. Su Lee promised to look after things. She was already sixteen and should be able to handle things. Her parents promised to be back by nightfall.
After they had left Su Lee made herself some breakfast and sat around watching television. Soon she got bored and read the papers. Everything was so quiet in the house without the others around. She missed her four-year-old sister Susi. Ordinarily, Su Lee would be annoyed by her little sister’s antics, but today Su Lee actually felt something missing without the little terror around.
When noon arrived Su Lee went into the kitchen and cooked lunch. It was a very simple lunch of instant noodles, the lazy girl’s meal.
After lunch, Su Lee decided to take a nap. Just as she fell asleep she was awakened by peals of thunder. Startled she got up Then she realized that it was raining. She rushed out of the house to collect the clothes on the washline. Fortunately, she managed to bring them in before the rain really came down.
She then remembered that she had to close the windows or the rain would come into the house. So she ran from room to room closing all the windows. It was a rush. Normally her mother did all this. She had not realized how hectic it could be until she had to do it.
The telephone rang. It was her mother with the message that Su Lee’s uncle was not seriously injured in the accident. He only suffered some bruises and should be all right. Her mother added that they would be back for dinner and asked her to cook something for them.
Su Lee felt relieved a bit that her uncle was all right. So for the rest of the afternoon So Lee did the chores that her mother normally would do. She folded the clothes. When the rain stopped she ironed the clothes. As evening approached she looked into the refrigerator to see what food she could cook. It was a hard job deciding what to cook. She wondered how her mother could do it day in day out.
Finally, she decided to fry some fish and eggs and sautee some vegetables. After more than an hour of sweat and to in the kitchen she managed to cook what she wanted to. She then waged for her family to return.
It was already dark when she heard her father’s car stop outside the gate. Su Lee was so glad to see them, especially her mother. Never had she appreciated her mother as much as she did that day. She never guessed how much work a mother had to do every day. Now she knew better. Looking after a house was no easy matter.