Malee left the room as quickly as the mistress ordered her to fetch Mary and soon caught up with her closing the door of the professor’s car. Mary looked at Malee, was nearly out-of-breath and wondered what had happened. Malee informed her of the request from the mistress to come back as soon as she caught her breath, and both of them ran up the stairs to the young master’s room. They entered the room as the mistress was still admiring the drawing and quickly made a bow.

“Mary, get a picture frame from the kitchen and frame this drawing.,” ordered the mistress before turning to George. “It will look great in the dining room. What do you think dear?.”

She was too engrossed looking at the drawing that she didn’t notice the George’s eyes staring at her under the glasses. Or perhaps she noticed the glare, but ignored it. To Malee, she didn’t look like the person who would change her mind. She wondered if George’s father would be the same. The whole family behaved as if the universe revolved around them.

“Why not leave your signature somewhere here, dear?,” said the mistress, pointing out an empty spot at the bottom right to George. George said nothing but took the paper from the mistress, grabbed a pencil and signed on it. He must have been mad to be made to place his signature on something he didn’t make it, especially on a piece of art. Mistress picked up the signed drawing and left the room with Mary to frame it up, leaving Malee with George. Malee didn’t saying anything but she noticed she could see George’s veins popping out from the sides of his face and hands clenched while standing straight up like a soldier in the army.

He stood still in that stance for a while longer before walking towards the table and took out the beer bottle from the bag. To Malee’s suprise, he drowned it all in one shot and threw the bottle on the floor. If not for the fact that the entire floor was carpeted to feel like walking on grass , it would have been broken into pieces. Malee walked over to where the bottle had dropped and picked up the bottle to the rubbish bin.

“No wait. you can’t throw it there.,” shouted George. “Come, give it to me. I will throw it out on the way to school.,” George took back the bottle from Malee and put back into the bag. Malee didn’t know what had happened but she guessed it was probably because he didn’t want Mary to know about the fact that he was drinking alcoholic drinks behind her.

“Sorry. I go down and help Mary.,” said Malee. She had never seen George in that mood before and decided the best thing she could do would be to leave him to cool down and help Mary with the framing.

“No no. I am sorry for shouting at you. She always made me mad.,” said George in the softer tone. “Stay here and lets talk for a while.”

Malee nodded with a smile. Malee sat down at the chair by the table and George pushed the unfinished snacks plate to Malee.

“Have some. And there are some drinks in the fridge. Hold on.” said George who went into the room, to be emerged with 2 cans of drinks. He opened one of them and handed over to Malee and the other for himself.

“So you have moved to stay with Mary?,” asked George.

“No, after dinner, I would go back to my home and sleep over with my dad. He is sick so I need to take care of him.,” replied Mary in-between the delicious chocolate cake and strawberry cake. Even the cakes made for the guests were so nice here, she thought. She wondered what it was like to have dinner with the family. The dishes last night smelt wonderful as she carried them to the dinning table, they must have tasted heavenly as well.

“Oh, so where is your home?,” continued George.

“It is about 20 minutes from here. Near the end of the night market.,” replied Malee.

“Oh I see.,” frawned George. He couldn’t picture in his mind how could anyone stleep near the market with such noise and lights let alone the smell. He had been to one such night market before and vowed not to return but to order from online instead.

Just as he was trying to picture Malee’s home, Mary came back into the room. She must have been done with framing the picture in the dining room.