On Monday morning, Camellia wake up at 5.30 a.m. to her usual natural body alarm without any ear-splitting and deafening of ringing clock. She doesn't need to take a look at the clock to know the time. She wake up at the usual time her parents leaving the house for work. It is not like she did not want to wake up earlier than that, it just her body cannot tolerate the tiredness from her daily activities including the mountain climb and study.
If she wake up early, she might sleep throughout her morning class just like before. She also refuse to let tiredness being the cause of her miss the lesson teaches in the class. At the same time she can see her parents before they went to work every morning. She wants to start and end of the day watch her parents face every day if possible.
"Camellia, you don't have to wake up early everyday just to see us left to work. You can sleep and have your rest before you go to school," her mom said to Camellia while the former trying to put on her working socks and shoes. "If you keep doing these, you might tired yourself out and cannot focus in the class," continued the older woman while her husband just nodding his head with mouthful of porridge at the small dining table.
"Mom, I will be just fine. You don't need to worry about me. I'm a grown up, not a baby anymore that need long hours of sleep. And I get the chance to spend some time with both of my lovely parents before you guys go to works," Camellia replied. "I thought that we had already discuss about these topic before, don't we?" she said while smiling sweetly at her mom and dad. These is the every morning conversation of the family.
"You naughty child. Of course I'm worry about you. You are my only child. And I am your mom. Your parents. Which parents doesn't worry about their children? Or you have another parents to worry about you? Humm??" question her mom.
"Hahaha… Mom, what are you talking about? Okay, you win. I will be extra careful just for you." Reply Camellia to her mom with a sweet smile.
"Okay. Okay ladies, stop bantering now. Camellia baby, just be a girl and listen to your mom, okay? It's time to leave now dear or it will be too late to reach there. And you smelly girl go take some rest and then get ready to go to school, okay? Just do your best at study and don't push yourself too hard," was all her father say to her and Camellia reply with a nod. They left after giving hugs and kisses to Camellia.
* * *
Before Camellia went to take a bath, she went to water their vegetable around their house. She bring along a pail and a small bucket to take water from a well quite few feet at the backyard of the house.
She then watered the plants every each one of them and when back and forth a few times to finish them all while humming all along. She fell happy when she looked at the fresh plants she had planted. They grew bigger and healthy. It help to reduce their living expense a lot as they does not need to buy veggies at the market.
Only then she went for her morning routine. Wash her face. Brush the teeth. Keep all the notes scattered on the floor around her room and put them in a small bag. Then she have her breakfast that her mom had cooked.
"Mom's food is the best. I could never reach her expertness in cooking. She really know the best way to cook even without having to measure the amount of each ingredients. And even use the only a few ingredients that can be found in the house without spending much money. Ahh... how I love her so much of course dad too. I love him too." Thought Camellia and she let out a small smile.
She suddenly let out a small chuckling when she first want to learn how to cook. The result really cannot be eaten. Jessica complain that she might as well consume a poison instead eat 'the food'. As if it can call a food.
Camellia wants to learn to cook so that her mom doesn't need to worry about whether she have eat for the day or not. But the result really disappointing. Not only that, she almost burn the wok and the spatula for not knowing how to control the fire.
She have to rub all the things she use with steel wool to avoid any suspicion from her parents about her activities that almost cost their family home. She really traumatize with that incident and had been laugh by Jessica who witness the incident from the first row.
"Hahaha… I will never cook ever again. Or else I might waste the good ingredients." She thought to herself. "I might as well bring them to Jess or her mom and ask them for some help to cook for me before I burn down my house." Continue Camellia with a small smirking and smiling face.
"I might as well avoid myself starts any fire in the house. But, it kind of weird, why can I start the fire just fine when I want to concocted some herbal remedies? I even know how to control the fire be it the small one or the big one? Humm… That's kind of suspicious. I might need Jess's opinion on that on. I'll ask her later when we walk to school." Camellia talk to herself.
Camellia later finish up all the food in her plate and then drop the dirty dishes in the sink. She wash up all the dishes that have in the sink before went to school. Her mom might not have enough time to wash them before she prepared herself to go work.