by Shirley Marr
“Hello and welcome,” says Ms. Jardine. She is wearing a different brooch—this one is of a hand, completely white with seed pearls except for a red line of stones at the bottom where it is severed.
“Meet Josh Khoury. Meixing, come and sit down with us.”
It is cold inside, but you don’t care because of the warmth of your teacher.
“Thank you, Miss Jardine,” you say, careful to pronounce your words slowly and clearly.
“I’m actually a Ms.,” she says, and smiles.
“What does it—that mean?”
“It’s like a Mr. Instead of being a Miss or a Mrs., I don’t know why women can’t all be a Ms. Does anyone really need to know if a woman is married or not? Does that make her better or worse or any different? No one in this school agrees with me, but oh well!”
Ms. Jardine laughs in good humor.
You take an empty seat next to her.
It feels a little strange, as you really think she should be at the front of the class, but here she is sitting with you as if she were a student too.
“So, I would like each of you to tell me a bit about yourself. What are your interests? What do you hope to achieve in this class? Your hopes and dreams?”
Josh goes first. He says that he likes stories, but because no one in his family can read and as he himself did not start to speak the New Language until last year, he can’t read very well. That’s why he likes comics, because anyone can understand pictures. You find yourself nodding along.
Josh is working on drawing his own original comic where the hero has the superpower of knowing everything because he has read every book ever written. Ms. Jardine is helping him with the words. Josh says he hopes that he can graduate to the next grade at the end of this year, as he was held back a year last time.
Kevin is supposed to go next, but he refuses to say anything about himself. He folds his arms and says the class is a stupid idea and he is not sure why he got picked because nothing is going to help him. He says he doesn’t have any hopes and dreams because it gives people stupid ideas, like thinking they can fly when they can’t and falling off a roof and breaking their arm.
You get the feeling that maybe when Kevin was younger, he tied a towel around his shoulders and made his way to the top of his house. But you don’t say anything. Ms. Jardine passes him a stack of colored paper and asks him to draw how he feels.
It is your turn, and you wonder about showing Ms. Jardine the last picture book you drew. The one you thought about throwing away, along with the mangy old eraser and stubs of colored pencils in your ziplock bag, because you are still downhearted that it wasn’t what Miss Cicely wanted from you. But you couldn’t do it. It is a piece of you.
You slide the little book out and across the desk to Ms. Jardine. She opens it and looks through the pages. You might not be ready to talk in this class, even though it is just your teacher and the two boys, but you’re ready to show her a bit of your heart.
Ms. Jardine smiles as she carefully looks at all the pages.
She turns to the last page and sees the drawing that you did completely in blue pencil. She points to the blue girl. You pat the spot over your heart.
“Is everything okay at home?” Ms. Jardine asks, searching your face with her eyes.
You nod even before you think about the question properly.
“You know you can always talk to me, all right?”
You nod quickly again.
With her neat hand, on a new sheet of paper, she writes: Glasshouse. Sun. Moon. Sky. Seed. Serpent. Orange trees. Blue. Grow. Learn. Thrive.
She reads the words out to you and then looks them up in the big dictionary she takes off the shelf filled with books. She asks you to copy the words, and you do so with enthusiasm, feeling for the first time that you are learning something, that you aren’t stupid or unable to keep up with an entire class that already knows so much more than you. You write the words out and you write them again, because the act of making the shapes of the letters with your pencil gives you great joy.
Ms. Jardine gives you another page of words to copy.
“That’s an activity for preschoolers,” Kevin scoffs as he looks at you, but you take no notice. You feel satisfied with yourself. Your heart feels quite full.
“I’ve got one for big boys,” says Ms. Jardine without a fuss, and hands him an activity with lots of words. “See if you can read all those sentences and then draw what they say.”
Kevin says, “Of course I can!” and “It’ll be a cinch!” and he falls quiet.
You look over at Josh and watch as he draws his hero sticking a paper clip into a lock. He sees you looking and explains.
“Book Boy got put into a cell by the baddies, but since he uses a paper clip for a bookmark, he’s using it to pick his way out. He always carries a book around. The baddies didn’t think a book could be a weapon, but little did they know!”
You give him a shy smile. You think a paper clip is a marvelous invention.
Josh gives you a smile back.
“I can’t quite draw the lock right, though,” he adds, pressing his pencil against his lips.
You take a blank piece of paper from Ms. Jardine’s pile and try sketching one yourself.
“Yours looks heaps better than mine. Can I draw it like yours?”
You nod.
“Thanks!” In return, Josh slides a blue coloring pencil across your desk.
“You can have it, it’s a spare. I noticed that yours is only a stub. You must use it a lot, huh?”
You nod again. Josh doesn’t seem to mind that you don’t have any words to say.
The silence is interrupted by a yell. Kevin is standing up, tearing at the activity Ms. Jardine had given him, as if it has personally attacked him.
“Come with me,” says Ms. Jardine, and she leads him outside. Both you and Josh rush to the door and look out curiously. You watch as by the lake your teacher picks rocks from the ground and hands them to Kevin, who tosses them into the water one by one, as hard as he can.
Exhausted, Kevin eventually squats down onto the dirt and starts crying. Absolutely howling. Ms. Jardine stands patiently beside him and lets him get it out of his system.
You and Josh hurry back to your seats as they come back in and pretend you have been working all this time. Kevin sits down. Ms. Jardine sits down next to him. She gets Kevin to read out the words on the page to her. Whenever he stumbles and gets angry, she puts a calming hand on his arm and asks him to try again. He makes it to the end of the page. Ms. Jardine gives him a round of applause. Kevin pretends not to care, but you know he does. You can see it in his eyes, his body, his whole being.
It is then you understand that Kevin isn’t angry at the world; he’s angry at himself.
The time flies and you are sorry to leave Ms. Jardine’s class, but you take heart in the knowledge that you will be back tomorrow. Each day, for one hour.
“I want to eventually see you put all the words to the pictures in your story,” Ms. Jardine tells you. You do too. There is so much swirling inside your head. You can feel that wisteria tree twisting inside your soul. One day all the words in your head will connect with the pen in your fingers, and it will come spilling out like flowers from their buds. You will become a writer.
CHAPTER TWELVE Olives
When school lets out on this particular day, you don’t wait for random strangers to group around the road crossing. Warming your hands with puffs of your breath, you stand by the utility pole where the yellow flyers have been repasted, waiting for the same boy to come tear them down again. You look at the ring on your finger. He doesn’t show up. Josh, though, walks past you with his nose in another comic book, and you try not to show the disappointment on your face when he stops to talk to you.
“Where do you live?”
You point at the crossing and then walk your fingers through the air to the right.
“I go that way too. Do you want to walk together?”
Josh adjusts his glasses and squints at one of the yellow flyers, looks at the badly drawn face with the slits for eyes, the triangle hat, crooked teeth, and single plait of hair.
You are embarrassed for whoever drew it since they are such a poor artist when Josh is such a good one.
You stab your finger on the words and look at Josh expectantly.
“I don’t know what the first word is. It might be slang, and I don’t know all slang words yet—they are the hardest to learn,” says Josh. “But the rest says, ‘go back home.’ ”
Josh becomes silent. Then he carefully tears the flyers off the pole and slides them into a nearby trash bin. “We don’t need to bother with them. Let’s go.”
“Your speaking is so good” are the first-ever words you say to him.
He notices that you exhale deeply and your shoulders slump.
“I’ve had a whole year to speak the language. I bet this time next year you will be speaking much better too. You don’t think so now, but you will.”
Josh gives you two thumbs up.
You lift your hanging head and give him two thumbs up back.
Together you walk home side by side. When you cross the road after the Lollipop Man blows his whistle and spreads out his flags, you watch as Josh glances over to give him a broad grin. You watch as Josh gives him the same thumbs-up sign. In a sudden spontaneous moment that lights you up, you are filled with the optimism that you could also be as free and generous with your feelings. For the first time you acknowledge the Lollipop Man by giving him a thumbs-up too. You want to learn the local customs; you want to be part of this. The old man looks surprised, then he gives you a smile back.
At the front of Big Scary you tug at your new friend’s arm to let him know that this is your house. Josh opens his mouth and stares from the bottom step to the roofline. You follow the same path with your eyes. When you reach the top, you see a triangle roof, filled in with concrete with a semicircle design in the center. There is no Room on the Roof; there is no window; there is no eye. You look over at Josh and you believe that is what he is seeing.
Perhaps Big Scary is wary of strangers. What you want to say to her is that you hope she stops being shy and acts like her true self, because you want Josh to be your friend who comes over to visit all the time. You suddenly want to show Josh something. You find yourself grabbing on to his wrist and pulling him toward the rickety red side gate, the heart-shaped eyes staring at you, the padlock falling to pieces as you pull against one of the pickets.
Josh bends like a piece of bamboo—like someone who is used to being led around—and he doesn’t question it when you drag him out to the backyard.
There the black-and-white cat is walking forward to greet you on her hind feet. You can see her little face bobbing above the grass. You let go of Josh and make him look at the cat face-to-face to see if he can see what you see.
He stares at the cat for the longest time. The cat stares back at him with an unfazed, dour face.
Finally, he says, “How did you teach your cat to stand up on her back legs like a human?”
You want to interrupt and say she’s not your cat, but you let him continue.
“And how did you teach her to hold a tray of drinks?”
You laugh in delight then. You take the two glasses of fresh orange juice from the cat, and you bow deeply to her while she bows deeply back. Josh takes the glass you hand him with wonder and suspicion, but he has a sip anyway. You take hold of his sleeve and lead him to the glasshouse. He has a right to frown as a pane in the roof randomly cracks and falls inward.
Taking hold of the door handle and beckoning for him to follow, you squeeze your eyes tight as you slip in, feeling him follow behind.
You don’t dare open your eyes until you hear the gasp escape from Josh. Then you feel your face relax under the warmth of the sun, now high in the sky. The conventions you are bound by in the normal world disappear, and you smile to see your world of orange trees, endless blue, and forget-me-not fields. Like a book of black-and-white drawings you are filling in with your favorite colors. The moon in the sky has become a crescent, so she wears a veil on the part of her face that has disappeared.
“What is this place?” Josh exclaims.
“You see it too?”
Josh nods quietly.
You call out for First Uncle, but First Uncle does not appear to be there. Perhaps he has gone out shopping. You lead Josh to the precious box of seeds, and you open the lid and indicate that he can take one. He takes a long time to choose, as he seems to be looking for something in particular, frowning behind his glasses. Then his face eases, he smiles, and he shows you the seed in his palm, sad-looking and wrinkled as though it is already old.
Together you help Josh plant and water the seed. Then you both quietly stand back and finish drinking your juice.
The wind in the glasshouse quietly blows, your forget-me-nots flutter, and your blue wisteria tree gently sways. Then from the damp soil the first shoot pushes through. As it moves and dances up toward the rays of the sun, it tells you a story.
You see a large family in a foreign country, and huddled among them is a boy you recognize as a younger Josh. He has lost a lens out of his glasses. But it looks as though he has no choice but to wear the broken pair, as there is no replacement in sight.
As the first leaf appears on the shoot, you see an entire building crumble and turn to dust. As the young plant gains more leaves and pushes the sky away, you see the largest sea of people you have ever seen all moving in one direction; snaking into a single file as the dust road narrows.
You want to know where they are all going, but you have the feeling that they don’t really know either, and your stomach hurts. You search frantically for Josh, as suddenly he’s not next to you anymore, but lost somewhere in the mass. In relief you see him clinging to the back of his father like a scared monkey. Mostly he has to walk for himself, though, like everyone else. The lens is still missing from his glasses.
The seedling has now become a young tree, but it is still growing. You see so many rows of tents. So many borders and roads; so much hunger and heat. The young tree grows into a strong tree, and out of the blue you see an airplane and feel a sense of hope. You see Josh and his family strapped into seats. The words “I’ve been there too!” jump into your throat, and you promise him in your mind that where he is going, he will be able to get a new lens for his glasses.
The tree has now finished flowering, and the small clusters of white blossoms lose their petals and become green fruit that slowly turns a deep, shiny shade of black. You turn your head and the Josh of today is by your side, a pair of large square glasses—that contain both lenses—balanced on his nose. He has a sad look on his face, but it is also thoughtful and reflective.
“Back home we had olive trees that were six thousand years old.”
Home. It is such a confusing word for you, as it could mean the village your family came from, or it could be that island home in the middle that you liked best, or it could be this home Uncle left you. When people ask you, “Where are you from?” you genuinely have no idea what to say.
Josh pulls an olive off the tree and you do as well, rolling the hard fruit between your fingers. Then you pop the thing in your mouth and bite down.
You do not expect there to be a stone in the middle, and that is what your teeth painfully crack upon. Which wouldn’t be so bad if not for the fact that the flavor flooding your mouth is the most awful and bitter thing you have ever tasted. You quickly spit it out and ground the remains into the dirt with your foot. You glance up to see Josh give you a horrified look.
“If I had known you were going to eat it raw, I would have warned you not to.”
You turn red and cover your mouth.
A smile breaks out on Josh’s face and he covers his mouth too. The boy has the nerve to laugh at you! You turn your face away and try to gracefully spit out the rest of the taste in your mouth, and you find yourself grinning too.
Then you belly laugh at yourself. It comes to you in a tidal wave of tears and snot, and you wipe it away.
“My story is the same as millions of other people,” says Josh, sounding sad. “But don’t worry about me. You should come around to my place sometime, and my mom can let you eat the olives she preserves from our garden. You might like those better.”
Smiling back at him, you take his hand in gratitude and he gives your palm a squeeze. The olive tree shakes its leaves out, thankful for having been released from a seed so small.
You want to show Ma Ma you have made a friend, so you both climb the twenty-six steps to the back door and you instruct him to take his shoes off before he enters the house. It turns out he doesn’t wear shoes inside his house either. Maybe you are more similar than you think.
“Hello, Mrs. Lim,” he says to Ma Ma.
“Aunty,” you correct him.
“Aunty,” he corrects himself, and then to Ailing he says, “And hello to you, too, Aunty.”
“I’m just Ailing,” she replies.
“Ailing,” he echoes.
Adjusting to different cultures is confusing enough without family politics and drama, you think.
Ailing doesn’t seem fazed by this brown-colored boy you have brought into the house as she eats her way through the family-sized tub of yogurt she has gotten her hands on. This is probably because Ailing has traveled all around the world and seen everybody. Ma Ma, on the other hand, is giving Josh the longest stare.
Cautiously, she pushes a plate of warm, steamed dumplings under his nose.
Josh stares at them and just as cautiously takes one. He puts it in his mouth and chews it carefully. A surprised look fills his face and he smiles. Then his hand reaches for another.
“Eat away! That’s the best way to your future mother-in-law’s heart,” Ailing says. It makes your face turn red, but your aunt’s eyes are mischievous and dancing.
Ma Ma is pleased with her empty plate. She peels two Granny Smith apples, salts them, and pushes them whole onto forks. She gives you one each and you drag Josh away. You both munch on the salty and sweet crispy apple, and you show him all the empty rooms of Big Scary. As you go, you count the thirteen different types of tiles she wears and the four different types of fur. Big Scary remains passive about the whole experience and doesn’t have anything extra to show. You think about the pale pink door she showed you once that had a playground behind it, and you get a funny twinge in your heart, but you have to let that go.