Link
Berta liked to tell stories and tales that she made up herself very easily. Elizabeth was her best friend and always sat next to her at school. Berta wanted to be a novelist and a traveler. Elizabeth, concert violin musician and also a traveler. Elizabeth was not gossipy like Pili Vinuesa, nor like the silly Arantxa who only liked to dance, nor like most of the classmates who wanted to be famous artists, entrepreneurs or architects and then get married. Not the two of them. Berta, la Chinita, and Elizabeth, did not want to know anything about boyfriends or boys. They were always telling each other secrets and preparing trips around the world. Above all they wanted to go to China, they had already read a travel guide.
"When we are older we have to go to China," Berta always said to her favorite friend. During class, they talked and talked, making plans, although they had to be careful not to get caught. They would surely laugh at them. With the money that Chinita was going to get, the two of them could live together and dedicate themselves to whatever they wanted. Berta spoke Chinese, English, Spanish and was learning French.
The two friends were the best in school in all subjects. They also liked to be mischievous and laugh. They were both skinny and agile and climbed trees with ease.
One day Berta told Elizabeth seriously, after much thought, that she had a secret. It was when he turned 12 and they were alone, after the birthday party, and all the children were gone. It was almost night and they were sitting on the stairs of their house, very close together. Berta told him:
`` Elizabeth, I would like you to come live with me when we are older, seriously. When I turn 18 I will receive the inheritance from my grandfather. There are a lot of houses, a lot of money, promissory notes and stuff, and the Casona Grande, the one with a pool and a forest. I would like you to come with me and for us to live together. You are going to want?
Elizabeth's eyes widened. That was another fantasy of her friend.
`` Come on now ... don't bother.
`` It's true, Elizabeth, seriously. You do not believe it? I'm going to be rich when I'm older, and if you want, you can come with me. Would you like it?
Yeah, well, I want to be with you too. But it seems to me that my parents are not going to leave me.
It is not now, it will be when we are 18 years old and of legal age. I have asked Don Bruno, the one from Social, and he told me that at 18 no one can command you. Tell me, would you come? We will live together and I will write novels and you will play the violin ... Well and travel, we will travel all over the world. But we have to wait until we are 18 years old. I want to go to China and meet my Chinese father and mother and tell them: "Hello, I'm your daughter, the Spanish one!" and bring them here with us. He would give them one of Grandpa's houses.
"And your grandfather left you all that money and all those houses?"
-Yes ... My grandfather died last year, he couldn't live with grief, it seems to me. His grandmother died and he could not stand alone. He died three months after my grandmother. He showed me the will papers and told me. Do you remember him?
`` I have seen little of it. I remember the cane.
`` We used to go out a lot, you know. Chinita told me, you see. I would tell him stories, stories and he would tell me, "Are you making them up yourself?" "Yes, by myself, Grandpa," I would reply and he would say, "Wow, you're the little granddaughter I've been looking for. Do you know more stories? » and I, well, I was telling him another. The ones he liked best were those of enchanted forests and those of fairies and undead and those of love.
"And he told you he was leaving the inheritance to you?"
Yes, me. And he showed me the papers. My mom has them in the safe.
And doesn't he leave anything for your mother?
`` It seems to me that something, yes, but I don't know how much. One day I heard my mother talk to my father, he said that it couldn't be. My grandfather once told me that my mother had already taken out enough of him and that her money would not go to her lover, mind you.
"You swear to me?"
`` Yes, I swear to you, Elizabeth. My grandfather told me that at 18 they would give me everything, the money and the houses, everything. We have to wait seven more years. When I have the money we will go to China and find my real parents. That will be the first thing we do. Will you come with me?
Elizabeth's tears came to her eyes and she began to cry silently. Her friend was startled and raised her head.
--What's wrong? Why are you crying?
`` No ... nothing's wrong with me, it's just that I'm very happy.
`` Come on, don't cry, silly, come on. Seven years go by very quickly. Look, we're going to the Casona Grande to live. Hey? How about? But no one has to find out. It must be our secret.
`` How beautiful it would be, Berta, how beautiful. I can't even imagine it.
His mother's voice came from the door of his house, upstairs.
`` Come on, girls ... it's dinner time, it's too late.