by Lenore Look
“I knew something fantastic like this would happen,” Katie said. Then she turned to me and said, “You’re very thoughtful, Alvin.”
Then Katie hugged me with her eyes, which is the best kind of hug to get from a girl, if she’s going to hug you anyway. No cooties!
“Yeah, your wrapping job isn’t great, but you did a good thing, little bro,” Calvin said.
“Look how happy you made everyone!” Anibelly cried. “Have you ever seen so many people so happy?”
I looked.
All the grown-ups were smiling and talking in a corner of the room. All the orphans were playing with their new toys.
Anibelly was right. Everyone was very happy.
Everyone but me.
I was still holding the “friend” ornament.
Worse, there was a girl, about my size, who didn’t get a gift.
Gulp.
Like I said, I always get the girl.
“Ni hao?” she said, when she saw that I was holding the ornament.
I froze.
My mom had taught me to say “Ni hao?” last night, which means “How are you?” in Chinese. But I said nothing.
The girl smiled.
Was I supposed to smile back? I couldn’t remember.
“Wo jiao Emily,” she said.
That didn’t sound too Chinese. But I clutched my PDK anyway.
Emily pointed to my PDK.
“Shenma?” she asked.
I opened it and grabbed the stress balls. Boy, was I glad I had them! They are two shiny metal balls that you hold in your hands when you’re stressed. Hit them together and all your stress will be gone, like magic.
ClackClack. I hit them together.
Nothing happened.
ClackClack. I hit them again.
Emily was still standing there. She had not disappeared.
Maybe I was supposed to clack them on her!
The look on her face said I’d better not try, or else! Lucky for me, I had something else in my PDK.
My yo-yo and string.
I put away the stress balls.
I put my yo-yo on the string.
Clunk. My yo-yo landed on the floor.
The yo-yo dude made it look so easy. He did lots of tricks. He was very impressive.
But I was not.
Worse, Emily picked up my yo-yo, and it did a bunch of tricks for her. No fair!
Then she said a bunch of Chinese words that sounded like she could teach me the tricks.
So she did.
It was super-duper! I needed a lot of practice. But practicing with Emily was really fun, sort of.
It felt like I had made a friend. She hadn’t run away screaming at the top of her lungs. And I hadn’t either.
But the problem with being friends with a girl, Calvin told me, is that you have to impress her more than she’s impressed you, or you’re in trouble.
So I looked in my PDK again.
Nothing.
All I needed was a jawbreaker to show her I could crack it with my teeth, or a pen to show her I could write.
I checked my jacket pockets.
Nothing.
I poked in my secret hiding place (my socks).
Nothing.
I reached into my back pants pocket.
Something.
I pulled it out.
It was warm.
And flat.
And blue.
“ ‘Passport,’ ” I read aloud, carefully. “ ‘United States of America.’ ”
Reading is very impressive.
GASP!!!
What was my passport doing in my pants pocket? I thought my dad was safekeeping it in his fanny pack.
I opened it.
GASSSSSSP!!!!!
The photo looked nothing like me.
Not one bit.
But it sure looked a lot like my dad.
Oops.
Whose passport was that little blue ball???
Alvin Ho’s
Simply Pathetic Glossary
acupuncture— Chinese medicine. A way of healing you by turning you into a human pincushion.
Air Quality Index (AQI)— Tells you how clean or polluted the air is, on a scale of 0 to 500.
anthrax— A disease caused by a bacteria that is breathed, eaten or absorbed into the body through a cut in the skin. Looks like a cold, then the flu, then you die.
Bean Sprout— My cousin who’s as small as a bean sprout and as strong as a crowbar.
Beijing— The capital of China.
Buddhist monks— Dudes who work in a Buddhist temple. They can do kung fu, write fancy Chinese calligraphy and sit still for ten minutes straight.
chi— The Chinese word for “energy” or “breath.”
China— aka the People’s Republic of China (PRC). Home of pandas, dinosaurs, kung fu monks, and 1.35 billion people! Birthplace of explosions, kites, compasses, seismographs, chopsticks, tea, writing, paper, printing presses, books!
China Art Musuem in Shanghai— A huge building full of Chinese treasures from the past and present. It looks like a giant Chinese character. Admission is free!
chopsticks— Two thin sticks used for spearing food and putting it in your mouth. May be lethal if you miss.
coimetrophobia— Fear of cemeteries.
Community Party— The people in charge of China.
embassy— You need to go here if you lose your passport or if you get busted in another country.
eunuch— Look it up in the dictionary.
fanny pack— A kind of purse that tourists strap around their middle for holding valuables.
Fa Xian— A Chinese Buddhist monk who went to India between 394 and 414 in search of real Buddhist writings. He and his friends stopped at many of the sacred sites that the Buddha had stopped at.
Forbidden City— The palace and home of Chinese emperors from 1420 to 1911, located in the center of Beijing and surrounded by a tall wall. It could take you forever to walk through all of its 980 buildings. But if you skip most of them, like I did, and spend most of the morning in the bathroom, you could get through the tour in just a couple of hours.
fortune–teller— Someone who can tell you what your dusty life map looks like, either by looking at your face or by looking at the time, place and date of your birth.
g–force— Gravitational force.
Great Wall of China— 1. A construction project that took forever to finish. Actually, they never really finished it—it’s built in sections, with large gaps between some of the sections. 2. Built to keep out invaders from the north (Mongols), but they came through anyway. See Mongols and Yuan dynasty. 3. Looks like a long dragon stretched out on the mountain ridge for as far as the eye can see.
GungGung— My grandpa; my mom’s dad. He knows a lot of stuff about China.
hung bau— A red envelope filled with money and given to children on holidays and birthdays, or for no special reason at all!
hutong— Alleys and narrow streets of the old neighborhoods in Beijing. Rhymes with “oolong.”
kung fu— A Chinese fighting method that is very cool and takes years to learn.
Lantian Man— Lived half a million to a million years ago in China. Older than the Peking man, but was not a man. The fossils are probably two females. Buried close by were pebbles and ashes, which meant people back then had tools and could control fire.
Mao Zedong— aka Chairman Mao. Founder of the People’s Republic of China. His mummied body is in a creepy building in Tiananmen Square.
Marco Polo— 1. An explorer from Venice who traveled to Asia with his father and uncle in 1271, when he was seventeen. The trip took twenty-four years. It’s possible that afterward, Marco Polo introduced noodles from China to Italy. 2. A game played at the pool.
Ming dynasty— Ruled China from 1368 to 1644. Built the Forbidden City and parts of the Great Wall. Eunuchs became very powerful during this time. Inventions of the time include novels written for common people to read, a two-colored printi
ng process and the bristle toothbrush.
Mongols— 1. People of Mongolia. 2. Includes the khans, who ruled China during the Yuan dynasty from 1271 to 1368.
Mount Everest— The tallest mountain peak in the world, at 8,848 meters (29,029 feet) above sea level. Located in the Himalayas in Nepal.
Mutianyu— A village containing a large section of the Great Wall, about two hours from Beijing. Mutianyu was likely established by the soldiers guarding this section of the wall.
Mütter Museum— Located in Philadelphia, it contains mummified body parts and Siamese twins.
panda— aka giant panda. A black and white bear native to China. It lives mostly in the mountains in Sichuan province. Its diet is 99 percent bamboo. For a small fee, you can hold a baby panda at the Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding.
passport— 1. The United States passport is a blue book with your photo in it. Used for getting stamps and visas when you travel abroad. 2. Used for getting back into your own country. 3. Will turn into a little blue ball if it goes through the laundry.
PDK— Personal Disaster Kit, filled with emergency supplies for Peking, the old name for Beijing.
Peeking duck— A yummy treat with pancakes and duck sauce. Dip your chopstick into the duck sauce, draw a duck peeking at you on your pancake. Roll it up and eat it!
Peking Man— Found near Beijing, these old dudes (and ladies) lived 500,000 to 300,000 years ago. A bunch of stone tools were buried nearby, which meant that these Peking guys were the first builders of tools.
PohPoh— My grandma; my mom’s mom. Makes lots of yummy things to eat.
Qin Shi Huang (259 BC–210 BC)— The first emperor of a unified China in 221 BC. He started construction of the Great Wall. He built the terra–cotta army to guard his tomb. He didn’t actually do these things himself; he forced a lot of people to do it for him. Millions died working on his projects.
sampot— Worn in Cambodia, it’s a long, rectangular cloth that ties around the waist and reaches down to the ankles.
SARS— Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome. A virus that you can catch by breathing. Looks like a cold, then the flu, then you’re dead. It killed a bunch of people in Hong Kong in 2003, and people there are still deathly afraid of it.
terra–cotta army— More than 8,000 warriors made of clay, along with their chariots, horses and weapons, were buried in the tomb of China’s first emperor, Qin Shi Huang, in Xi’an. Each warrior has different facial features and expressions, probably based on an actual soldier. The terra–cotta army was built to protect the emperor in the afterlife.
Tiananmen Square— A large open area in the center of Beijing. It is one of the largest city centers in the world. There are no trees anywhere.
turbulence— Unstable airflow that makes a plane go up and down and shake like crazy. Then the pilot will tell you that he’s turned on the seat belt sign, which is really a sign that you should say your prayers.
visa— A permit that goes inside your passport that allows you to get into a country.
Xuanzang— A Chinese Buddhist monk who lived from 602 to 664. He traveled to India to study the Buddhist scriptures, many of which he translated into Chinese. Also known for his writings about his travels.
YehYeh— My grandpa; my dad’s dad. Lives in his family village in southern China for part of the year.
Yuan dynasty— 1271–1368. Established by Kublai Khan, who invaded China from Mongolia. He gave Marco Polo a job as an official. It was the first dynasty to use paper money. See Mongols.
Zehng He— a famous eunuch who led seven epic sea voyages from 1405 to 1433 during the Ming dynasty. His expeditions involved hundreds of huge ships and tens of thousands of sailors and other passengers. His largest ships (more than 60 on his first voyage of 317 ships) were more than 400 feet long and 160 feet wide, with 9 masts and 12 sails, several stories and luxurious staterooms with balconies. He went all the way to India, the Persian Gulf and the east coast of Africa. No one since has led ocean expeditions as far or as large.
Zhucheng— Chinese city that is home of the world’s largest dinosaur pit. You can walk right through the pit and see dinosaurs buried one on top of another, like dinosaur pie. Located in Shandong province, the city has at least thirty excavation sites. Locals used to make medicine by grinding the bones into powder.
Lenore Look is the author of the popular Alvin Ho series, as well as the Ruby Lu series. She has also written several acclaimed picture books, including Henry’s First-Moon Birthday, Uncle Peter’s Amazing Chinese Wedding, and Brush of the Gods. Lenore lives in Hoboken, New Jersey.
LeUyen Pham is the illustrator of the Alvin Ho series, as well as The Best Birthday Party Ever by Jennifer LaRue Huget; Grace for President by Kelly DiPucchio, a New York Times bestseller; and the Freckleface Strawberry series by Julianne Moore. She is the author and illustrator of the picture books Big Sister, Little Sister and All the Things I Love About You. LeUyen lives in San Francisco. Learn more at leuyenpham.com.