The tulip garden (haibun)

When I was a young child we lived in a flat next door to the Franks family. Mr. and Mrs. Franks would work from May to October tirelessly in their garden. I had never seen such a garden that took their entire backyard. There was a small patio and the rest was all flowers. But not just any kind of flowers…tulips of so many colours. Mr. Franks would smile at me when I would dawdle by the fence. Well, hello, Mr. Franks, I would think to myself, I sure would love to have one of those yellow, white or red soft as silk tulips there. But he never seemed to read my mind and it was rude to ask, so I would walk up and down the dirt driveway very very slowly pretending I was searching for pebbles. The siren would blare at noon and still I would wait. Of course my mother would have to come out to call me in for lunch by now and she would see me by the fence; and as soon as my beautiful mother walked down the steps, Mr. Franks would lift his head and have the nicest smile. Actually I think his face lit up when he saw my mother. She would smile back and do what she did so often with her eyelashes (I tried for years to bat my lashes as quickly as she did but never succeeded!) Mr. Franks would prepare a bunch of tulips and hand them over the fence to my mother. Now it wasn’t Mr. Franks beaming but yours truly with a huge smile on my chubby face.