Locked Out

       He looked so puzzled when I walked back down the stairs five minutes later, and just stood there. I tried to explain to him that no one was at my apartment and that my key didn’t work. After five minutes of playing charades and exhausting the words that I knew, I finally pulled out my Chinese textbook to find the word for key. After rapidly flipping through its pages, I found the word that I was looking for: yàoshi. The guard, at last, understood what I was trying to say. I had walked into my apartment building five minutes before, saying “hello” to him like I always do, but then I had come back. The house key that my family had given me wouldn’t work, so I was locked out.

       The guard talked to me, while I waited for my host mom, asking me where I went to school and why I was in Beijing. He had an accent that I could barely understand so sometimes he would have to write down the sentence he was trying to say and I would tell him the answer. I sat on the cold, gray, cement, next to the withering flowers and began to do my Chinese homework. As I wrote each sentence, the guard would read them over my shoulder and say, “hĕn hăo, hĕn hăo.” The guard asked me if I could visit him at 7:00 that evening, after I ate dinner. I declined, telling him that I had too much homework, but I would see him the next day.

       While I was sitting on the stoop, my host sister’s friend walked by, she looked very puzzled and asked me what I was doing outside. I explained to her what had happened, and she invited me to come to her apartment until my mom came back. I was saying goodbye to my new friend, the guard, and ready to go with my sister’s classmate when my mom returned. So, we got into the elevator and headed home.