It was a rainy day when we got there. If I remembered correctly, it was
a broken down farm in Tannin countryside. There weren』t any roads, just
dirt and puddles of water. The trees were all bend down by the wind and
the howling winds were driving everyone crazy. By the time we got to
the house, we were all soaked, my new shoes were covered with mud and my
friend』s hat flew off. This was not a very good start.
A friend of my parents bought the house at a bargain, since it was in
the middle of nowhere. They thought it would be nice to have a place to
spend the holidays. But to me it seems more like a haunted house than a
villa. I dare not say anything, for I was about to live there for the
next three days. The reason I came on this trip was that I was also
quite close to the host』s two daughters, and since I』d never been to
that area of Taiwan, they decided that I should visit them and they
could show me around.
The moment I stepped into that house, I felt weird. A kind of strange
smell was floating in the air. I felt uncomfortable, but I couldn』t say
anything. I wondered how they put up with it. After I settled in, they
gave me a tour around the house. It』s a very strange house. The rooms
were dark, the lights hardly helped. At first I thought it was because
of the bad weather, but, then again, no. As we were walking down a
dark, gloomy aisle, I was feeling my way through the dark. Suddenly,
the wall squeaked and opened up. I lost my balance and nearly fell. I
panic and let out a yell. The others came to see if I was all right.
Then, they told me that there re a lot of secret passages in the house.
There were a lot of secret doors and rooms; the one I just opened led to
the kitchen. I was not a bit upset by this accident; actually, I was
excited. How often in your lifetime could you stay in a house that
actually had secret passages? It』s like a child』s dream come true. Of
course, that』s when I didn』t know what』s coming behind.
On the next day, some other friends of theirs also came to visit. But
the weather turned bad in the afternoon, the weather report said that
there』s a typhoon coming. All day the rain pored on the windowpane and
the wind howling around us. We were all stuck in the house with nothing
to do. After dinner, everyone was bored with watching television. One
of the guys suggested that we play a game. He said that the game was
most suitable for a group of people in a big house. So we started the
game of 「Who are you.」 「Who are you」 is played in the dark, one of the
players would be IT and the others are the real players. When the
lights go off, nobody knows who the IT is. You have to go around
asking: 」Who are you?」 And if the man says the password everyone agrees
in advance, then you have to keep on looking. The real IT doesn』t
speak, so if you found him, you should quietly sit beside him and wait
for all the others to find you. The fun of it is to sneak around in the
dark and take your chances of finding IT.
There were fifteen people that day, four hosts, I and ten other guests.
We started to play at around 11 o』clock. We counted the people, drew
the lots, and started to play. At first it was chaos; there were noises
everywhere. I decided to search in some other places, so I went to the
back of the house. I saw someone sitting in the corner with her head
down; she must be the little girl from the other family. I went over
and said 「pudding cat.」 No reply. I repeated it again, 「pudding cat.」
Still no reply. This must be IT. So I sat down besides her, feeling
good about myself for being the first one to find IT. Shortly
afterwards, another guy came over and said the password. We said
nothing, so he reckoned that he also found the IT. He sat down and we
waited. After 10 minutes, we were wondering what』s taking them so long
and we started talking. Then I recognize him as the cute guy talking to
the younger sister all evening. I was bursting with joy inside. We
talked for about another 30 minutes and thought that something』s not
right, but there』s nothing we could do. After a while, the host came
walking over, and he asked us what we were doing here. I was confused,
was he trying to trick us or something? Then he said that the whole
party had already found the IT and been sitting there for 30 minutes
waiting for us. I was stunned, if the IT was with them, then who was
the girl sitting beside me? Before we could even explain, he rushed us
to go with him to meet the others. The others were not exactly very
happy with us for keeping them waiting. The host said that we might as
well end the game and go to sleep. Since I kept everyone waiting, they
told me to do the job of counting the players, to see if everyone』s
there. As everyone held out their hand, I start counting. 「One, two,
three, four…fourteen, fifteen…」 Suddenly I touched an icy, cold, dry
hand, and the number came out of my mouth, 「sixteen.」