Shifu, You'll Do Anything For a Laugh

were scurrying along in the downpour.
    “I thought we'd be the only miserable souls….” He regretted the words as soon as they left his mouth. So he quickly changed directions. “But this is special. If it weren't raining so hard, the place would be packed. It always is.”
    He felt like saying, “Today Yuanming Gardens belong to just you and me.” But he caught himself just in time. Together they strolled along the winding path, which glistened like glass. Half-grown lotus leaves and cattails floated on top of the pond off to one side, where frogs leaped along the water's edge.
    “Wow, isn't that something!” he shouted excitedly. “Now if only there were a water buffalo grazing by the pond and a flock of white geese gliding on the surface, it would be perfect.” Lovingly, he looked at her pale face and said, his voice filled with emotion, “You always sense what's best. If not for you, I'd never have had a chance to see Yuanming Gardens like this.”
    With a heavy sigh, she said:
    “This isn't my Shen Garden.”
    “You're wrong, this is your Shen Garden.” He felt like a stage performer. In a tone of voice pregnant with meaning, he added, “Of course, it's my Shen Garden too. It's our Shen Garden.”
    “How can you have a Shen Garden?” The sudden sharpness in her eyes made him feel as if he had no place to hide. She shook her head. “Shen Garden is mine, it's mine. Don't you dare try to take it away from me!”
    The excitement of a moment before turned to ashes; the scenery around him lost its appeal.
    “You're squashing them!” she shrieked in alarm.
    Instinctively, he jumped to the side of the path, as she cried out even more shrilly, “You're squashing them!”
    When he looked down, he saw an army of tiny jumping frogs. No bigger than soybeans, they were fully formed, little pocket-sized amphibians. Countless numbers of the little things lay squashed on the path, forming perfect outlines of his footprints. She squatted down and moved the little carcasses around with her finger, which was nearly bloodless, with a gray fingernail and an accumulation of dirt. Feelings of disgust, like dregs of filth, welled up from the bottom of his heart.
    “Little miss,” he said mockingly, “I didn't squash any more than you did. That's right, you didn't squash any fewer than I did. Sure, my feet may be bigger than yours, but you take more steps, so you squashed at least as many as I did.”
    She stood up and muttered, “That's right, I squashed at least as many as you did.” She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand and said, “Froggies, froggies, how come you're so small?” Then she burst into tears.
    “Enough of that, little miss,” he said almost jokingly to mask his disgust. “Two-thirds of the people in this world are struggling against deep waters and raging fires, you know!”
    She stared at him through her tears.
    “They're so small,” she said, “but their bodies are perfectly formed!”
    “Perfect or not, they're only frogs!” He grabbed her by the arm and pulled her forward. But she threw her umbrella to the ground and, with her free hand, tried to peel his hand away
    “We can't spend the night here all because of a few frogs!” he said angrily as he shook off her hand. But he could see in her eyes that it was futile to try to get her walking again, if she was going to have to squash more frogs in the process. So he picked up her umbrella, took off his shirt, and used it like a broom to shoo the disgusting things off the path ahead. Scattering madly, the little frogs eventually opened up a narrow lane for them. “Hurry up,” he said with a tug, “let's go.”
    Ultimately, they wound up in front of an area covered with rubble. By then the rain had all but stopped and the sky was clearing. After folding their umbrellas, they climbed to the top of a huge boulder that had, sometime in the past, been carefully chiseled by stonemasons. He wrung out his rain-soaked shirt, then shook it out and put it back on. He sneezed, putting as much effort into it as possible to win her sympathy; it didn't work. Shaking his head in mockery of himself, he stood atop the rock and, like all mountain climbers who have reached a summit, thrust out his chest and gulped in the clean air. His mood turned bright and sunny, like the sky, now that the rain had stopped. The air is so clean and fresh here, he was about to remark to her. But he didn't. It was as if they were the only people anywhere in