Last summer, I was almost seven. Pe Len was my best friend. Pe Len's father owned a store on my grandfather's land. It was two blocks away from our house, in a row of other stores. Sundays, on my way to church, I passed it. Pe Len's father always gave me something. At first, he made me choose any candy I liked from the store's glass jars. Lolo Pepe found out and told him to stop because it would spoil my teeth. After that he let me choose from whatever else there was in the store. Lolo told me not to pick anythiing expensive. Once, I chose a handkerchief with an embroidered heart in one corner. Another time I asked for pencils. Each Sunday it was a different thing, until the day Pe Len came to the house with an apa.

Pe Len came every afternoon around the time after my nap. He was nine years old but only as tall as I was. His eyes were tiny slits, his hair cut in a funny way, short at the sides and back and with a little day spot over the forehead. He was pale-faced and had dimples.

Although he never wore shoes but came barefoot, he was always very neat and clean.

Pe Len became my best-friend because of my grandfather. One day, when he arrived at our house with a message from his father, Lolo Pepe was in his bedroom, waiting for the maid to pull out the short white hairs which he said caused his scalp to itch. Pe Len said he knew how to pull out that kind of hair, so Lolo told him to try.

Pe Len half knelt by the head of the bed ­ Lolo was lying with his head propped by a pillow ­ and he began searching for the short growths with the tweezers. Before the maid came, he had pulled out fifteen.

"You're good," Lolo Pepe said.

Pe Len's smile spread all over his face when my grandfather praised him.

"May I play in your garden?" he asked.

"Of course. Come any time. Just don't harm the plants or else we will be very unhappy," Lolo said, glancing up at me with a smile.

Our garden was beautiful. There was a small pool in the corner where water lilies floated lazily on the water. Around the pool were flowering plants ­ while azucenas, red and orange daisies, and hundreds of Vietnam roses. On the left corner of the garden, near the gate, were three swings, and in the opposite corner, a slide. Lilies grew near the fence, and when they bloomed they did so all at the same time that there would be so many pushing against each other. Over the fence crawled vines with tiny white flowers, intertwined with another that had blue ones that bloomed only in the morning. But the ones I took special care of were those I had planted myself ­ dahlias I had asked Mother to bring me when she went up to Baguio, and one pine tree.

Pe Len like the flowers very much; he never cut any of them. The first day he played in the garden he went from plant to plant and smelled the blossoms, touching petals gently with his fingers.

I had other friends besides Pe Len, but they cut flowers and stepped on small growths, sometimes pulling them out. Lolo Pepe did not say anything but I knew that he did not like it. Neither did I and I quarreled with them.

The apa Pe Len brought was a biscuit folded into a triangle. Each apa had a free gift inside ­ a ring, a small tin boat or a picture. Pe Len asked me what I would want inside as a gift.

"A watch," I said.

"Maybe it has a watch," Pe Len said eagerly.

"Why?" I asked.

"Because you want it."

"If I want something, I'll get it?"

He nodded, smiling so his eyes disappeared.

"Why?" I asked again.

"I don't know," he said. "Because I like you."

None of my other friends had ever told me they liked me. "I like you too," I told him.

"Open it," he prodded, pointing to the biscuit.

I offered him the first fold in the triangle, but he refused. "You eat all, it's yours." He watched while I broke each piece. His face fell when a rolled piece of white paper fell out.

"Only carcamonia," he said.

It was the first time I had seen anything like it. The tiny piece of paper was plain on one side. On the other it was shiny, and there were five pictures in a row. The first was a large red rose with green leaves. The second was a tower like the one I had seen in the Chinese cemetery on All Saints' Day. The third was a girl in long blue robes with eyes like Pe Len's ­ straight lines drawn upwards ­ holding a yellow fan and standing like a dancer. The fourth was a black cat with a yellow ball, a fifth a boat with ends turned up. Between each picture was a little space. Pe Len said that was so I could cut each one separately. He showed me how. Then, with his saliva, he wet one on the backside and stuck it on my arm. He made me rub the paper very carefully so it did not move and then he removed the paper slowly so the picture remained on my skin.

After that day I asked for carcamonia whenever I visited the store of Pe Len's father. He gave me whole rolls, fifty to a roll. In the afternoons, when he came to play, Pe Len and I covered our arms and legs with pictures. Be we never forgot the flowers.

For Christmas, Pe Len gave me a Christmas plant, with flowers red and large, like the pictures in cards Father and Mother received each year in the mail. I asked our houseboy to plant it in a cool spot in the garden. Pe Len and I visited it, even when the red flowers faded because it was so hot. I was careful of that plant as I was of the dahlias and the pine tree.

The summer day when Mother came with her beautiful friend and the friend's daughter I tried to show them the garden. But mother said it could wait till later. Mother stayed in Manila and I went to see her every time my grandfather went to the city. She did not come to our town very often. But when she came she always brought presents and at times even people, as she did now.

She said I should call her friend Tita Leni. Her little girl, taller than me, was called Vivian. She had very black hair and eyes, and talked a lot.

"What's your name?" she asked as soon as we were alone, although Mother had already told her.

Then when I said it she repeated it over and over again, "Emma, Emma, Emma," as if looking for something wrong with my name.

"It's a nice name," I said loudly.

She nodded and so it was all right again, and we went to play with the toys Mama had brought. There was a big doll with eyes that rolled and pale curly hair. It had several dresses and we spend some time changing the doll's clothes.

When we went out to the garden to play I showed Vivian my plants. "They're nice," she said. But really she like the doll much better.

"I like you," she said later. "Let's be best friends."

Pe Len had always been my best friend, although we never talked about it.

But Vivian went on. "We can go to school together. Your mother says you will go to school next month."

Vivian plucked a dahlia and stuck it in her buttonhole. The she handed me something.

"Here take this. . . Now we have exchanged, we're best friends."

Vivian was handing me a watch and even though I wanted to refuse it, I still put out my hand. It was not a real watch, the black hands were just painted on and did not move like those in Mother's watch. But it had a picture of Mickey Mouse in the center and the bracelet was a beautiful red elastic band.

"It's beautiful," I said. "Thank you."

That was when Pe Len arrived. "Carcamonia," he said, and gave me two whole rolls. I was so happy about everything ­ Mother being there and the lilies starting to bloom and both Pe Len and Vivian liking me and giving me a watch and carcamonia, and Lolo somewhere in the house always ­ and Pe Len could see my happiness.

"What happened?" he asked.

I showed him the watch.

"A watch!" he said. "Yours?"

I nodded, pointing to Vivian. "From her."

He looked at my new friend. "You're pretty," he said.

Vivian laughed. "You're Chinese."

"Let's play with carcamonia," I said. "Come Pe Len, we'll teach Vivian."

We played till it was day and Mother called from the window which was right over where we were squatting. We had to stay near the faucet because Vivian did not want to use Pe Len's saliva for wetting the pictures.

While we were having supper Mother asked us who the little boy was with whom we played.

"Chinese beho," Vivian giggled.

"Chinese!" her mother exclaimed.

"Pe Len," I said.

"The son of one of my good tenants near the market," Lolo said.

"They play with his saliva," Vivian said.

Mama raised her eyebrows.

Lolo Pepe glanced at me. "Your mother is sending you to school next month."

I didn't know if I liked the idea of school, but I was grateful that grandfather talked of something else, and not Pe Len.

Then Mother started again. "Do you always play with Pe Len?"

"He's my best friend," I said without looking at Vivian.

"What?" Again her eyebrows arched up, then suddenly smiling she said, "Wouldn't you like it better if Vivian was your best friend?"

"Pe Len is my best friend," I repeated. I had stopped eating and the shrimps on my plate looked dry and stupid. "Pe Len likes flowers," I told her.

"So does Vivian. Don't you Vivian?" her mother said.

"I don't care. I did not look away from the shrimps. "Pe Len is coming tomorrow and he's bringing me more carcamonia and we're going to play everyday."

"Enough!" Mother was angry.

Before bedtime she came to my room and sat down on the bed where I was finishing a jigsaw puzzle. First she asked me if I like the doll she had brought me and I said yes, thank you. Then she asked me if I liked flowers very much and I said yes again.

"Papa and I are starting a garden in the new house. You'll live with us there and go to school," she said.

"School?"

She nodded.

"Why?"

She smiled like she thought I was funny. "Why?" she echoed. "So you learn how to read and write and have nice new friends."

"Lolo is teaching me, and Pe Len is my best friend." I gathered the pieces of the puzzle with my left hand and she touched the watch Vivian had given me.

"If you don't do what I say you'll never get the watch your father was going to give you."

I studied her face and knew I would get the watch if I did what she said. A real watch with hands that moved and which Lolo said cost a million centavos.

"Gold bracelet? Like yours?"

"Real gold," Mother said. "But you must have your arms clean for it."

I pretended not to know what she meant. "My arms are always clean."

"With Pe Len's saliva?"

I did not answer.

She went on. "I don't want you to play with Pe Len. Tomorrow will be the last time. And I don't want to see your arms and legs covered with those awful pictures."

"And I don't want your stupid watch," I answered. "I don't want your dirty garden."

She looked at me without speaking. It was so silent in the room I could hear the insects outside. They chirped loudly in the dark and I wanted to get lost in them.

"Say that again," Mother said.

"I don't want your stupid watch," I repeated. "I don't want your dirty garden."

After she slapped me she said, her voice so low I thought she would choke, "If you don't do what I say I will take you with me tomorrow and you'll never come back to your grandfather."

When Pe Len arrived the next day with three rolls of carcamonia I shook my head. "Mother says no. Mother says I must not play with you. She says Vivian should be my best friend."

At first Pe Len seemed not to understand. He just stared at me, the carcamonia hanging loose in his hands.

"I hate mother," I said. "She doesn't love me and I don't love her. I love my only my Grandfather and you and Father, when he comes."

Still Pe Len said nothing. I wanted to be angry so we could run away together until Mother asked forgiveness and let me live with Lolo Pepe forever and play with Pe Len and carcamonia whenever I wished.

But Pe Len did not get angry. He looked like an old wrinkled man who was very tired. "I know," he said. "Father said it would be so. I go now."

"What did your father say?" I wanted to know.

But he shook his head and walked away to my grandfather standing by the slide picking caterpillars off the rose leaves that grew in a pot nearby. Lolo Pepe said something and touching Pe Len gently on the head, walked to the gate with him.

I just stood where I was because there was nothing else to do. Lolo Pepe and Pe Len shared a secret I could not understand. Even when Pe Len put the carcamonia in Lolo's hands I did not move, I just kept on rubbing my arms hard to keep from crying.