February Read\Ruby

Title: The Key Collection

Author: Cheng, Andrea

 Ruby's Read: 

    There was a boy whose name is Jammy. He lived with his parent in Cincinnati and his grandma lived behind them.

    

    Jimmy called his grandma "Ni Ni", he liked his grandma very much, he got sore throats a lot, which he hated because his throat felt like it was on fire, but he thought the good part was he could stay at Ni Ni's all day long.

    One day, a letter from Jimmy's auntie Helen, who lived in San Francisco, wanted Ni Ni moved to California. Auntie Helen was a doctor, Ni Ni had been having dizzy spells, and she wanted to keep an eye on her. When Jimmy knew Ni Ni had been planning to move, he couldn't stop the tears from running out of his eyes, his dad said that Jimmy should think about what was best for Ni Ni not for himself.

    There was big jar of keys on the shelf, when Jimmy was little, he used to fill his pockets with the keys and go around Ni Ni's house, pretending he was a janitor. Each key has its own story, for example the little one, which was from the closet of Ni Ni's house in Shanghai. Once Ni Ni's brother Po got mad, he locked himself in that closet, when time went by, Po got hungry but the door was locked and nobody could open it until Ni Ni found key under the rug and sat him free.

    Ni Ni was getting start to move, she and Jimmy sorted through her stuff, the mover would load everything into the truck one week later. There was a big trunk caught Jimmy's eye in Ni Ni's room, the box was locked, Jimmy scooped up all the keys int the jar and tried each one in the hole, finally a bent one opened the trunk. Inside the trunk, Jimmy saw a brightest, shiniest blue fabric covered with embroidered butterflies. It was a big quilt, which was made by Ni Ni's mother.

    After Ni Ni moved, Jimmy's dad sold her house to a woman whose name is Alice. She was holding with twin baby boy, and she needed helper to take care of her boys, so Jimmy and his friend-Jason started to babysit them three afternoon a week. As Ni Ni moved to California for two weeks, Jimmy emptied his money can, 20 dollars so far, he figured that even by the end of the summer, he wouldn't have enough money to buy a ticket to California. Maybe it wasn't worth it to keep on baby-sitting, Jimmy looked at his eyes in the mirror; they were sore and red.

    Auntie Helen sent a letter and a flight ticket enclosed for Jimmy, she hoped Jimmy can go California for Ni Ni's eightieth birthday. Jimmy was very cheerful and tried hard to find out a birthday gift for his grandma, but he and his mom went home with nothing for Ni Ni in the end at that day. Nest day when Jimmy went Jason's home to play Ping-Pong, they talked about Jimmy's grandma, and Jimmy recalled that Ni Ni took the trunk with her to California but left the bent key with Jimmy, now Jimmy knows what to give Ni Ni for her birthday.

    Jimmy packed everything he'd need at the first day of summer vacation and went to the airport. When Jimmy saw Ni Ni at the airport, she jugged him like she would never let go. They were happy and spent time to get together again, they planed to visit Ni Ni's hometown in the future.