After school, Tommy walked home with his heavy schoolbag on his back. He was wearing a yellow t-shirt and white socks, and he felt a little tired. But he smiled when he remembered his plan—he was going to visit Grandpa today.
Grandpa opened the door with a big smile. He explained that last week he had a bad toothache and went to see the dentist. The dentist took an x-ray of his teeth and found a small problem. After the doctor fixed it, Grandpa felt much better. "I can eat everything now!" he said happily.
Together, they went to the kitchen to make dumplings for dinner. Grandpa had already bought one kilogram of ground pork and some fresh vegetables. Tommy helped wrap the dumplings, but he was still learning how to use chopsticks to pick up the small pieces of food. Grandpa showed him the right way to hold them and said with a smile, "Practice every day, and you will get better."
While the dumplings were cooking, Grandpa opened a dusty box of old things. Inside, Tommy found a CD with Grandpa's favorite songs, a CD-ROM from his first computer, and several VCDs and DVDs of old movies. "Back then, we used VCD players and CD players for everything," Grandpa said. "Now everything is online or on your phone." Tommy had never seen a VCD before, so he found it very interesting.
After dinner, they sat on the sofa together and watched a DVD about animals from around the world. The film showed a panda eating bamboo in a green forest and a tall giraffe drinking water slowly by a river. "I want to see a real panda and a real giraffe someday," Tommy said. Grandpa laughed and said he would take Tommy to the zoo next month.
When it was almost time to go home, Tommy told Grandpa about his day at school. He had eaten a hotdog for lunch at the school cafeteria and listened to a story in English class that he needed to retell in front of the whole class the next day. Grandpa sat back and listened carefully, then gave Tommy some helpful ideas about how to tell the story more clearly.
Before Tommy left, Grandpa sat down at his computer and wrote a short email to Tommy's uncle, who lived far away in another city. He told him about their afternoon—the dumplings, the old DVDs, and the animal film. Tommy waved at the screen and said goodbye. Walking home under the evening sky, he thought that simple afternoons with Grandpa were always the best.