Girl Giant and the Monkey King

by Van Hoang

  “Why are you here?” Thom asked.

  Kathy didn’t respond at first, like she was shocked at Thom’s tone. Thom hadn’t meant to sound sharp, but she was cold and embarrassed, and wanted to be alone. When Kathy spoke, her voice wasn’t exactly kind, just weary.

  “I wanted to make sure you were okay. It sucks, what Bethany and Sarah are doing.”

  At least she had noticed it. Acknowledged it. At least Thom wasn’t crazy or ten times clumsier than normal. But this still wasn’t going to help. Not unless Kathy did something about it or told her friends to stop. And she wasn’t going to do that. She wasn’t going to risk her popularity and her friends’ loyalty for someone like Thom.

  “You shouldn’t make it that easy for them,” Kathy said.

  “Yeah? How?” Thom asked.

  “Don’t pay attention to them. Ignore them when they laugh.”

  “You think all this time, I’ve been letting them bully me?” Thom was tired. She wanted Kathy to leave so she could call Ma to come and get her. So she could go home and curl up in her bed.

  Kathy sighed. Thom practically heard her rolling her eyes. “No, obviously. But you … are just so…”

  “I don’t get it,” Thom said. “If they hate me because I’m Asian, why are they friends with you?”

  Kathy made a funny sound, as if to remind Thom that she was crazy if she thought she could compare herself to someone like her. “It’s not because you’re Asian. It’s because you’re so…”

  “So what?” Thom’s wet clothes were getting colder, making her shiver, so her words came out wobbly.

  “Weird,” Kathy said.

  Weird? Thom stayed quiet. She was smart but not too nerdy, she never bothered anyone, or at least not deliberately. All she’d wanted was to play soccer and make new friends, or if not that, then at least to fit in.

  “And it’s annoying,” Kathy went on. “You make it easy to—”

  “To what?” But Thom knew. She made it easier for them to hate her.

  Kathy exhaled loudly again. “To pick on you.”

  Thom’s teeth started chattering together.

  “Here, just take the towel before you get sick or something,” Kathy said.

  Thom reached for the curtain, but she pulled too hard, and the metal rod broke off the wall. Kathy shrieked as it fell toward her, but Thom yanked on the curtain before the rod hit her head. It flew away and clattered loudly on the ground.

  They stared wide-eyed at each other. Kathy’s gaze fell to the rod on the floor, then to Thom’s hands, mouth open. She clutched the towel to her chest, looking small in the oversized T-shirt and shorts she wore to practice. Water had splashed onto her knee-high socks.

  “Are you okay?” Thom asked. It was an accident. Please let Kathy think it was a normal accident.

  Kathy looked at the spot on the wall where the rod had broken clean off.

  “That thing must have been, like, so old,” Kathy said, but her voice wavered.

  “Yeah,” Thom agreed quickly. Neither of them said anything else. Water dripped off Thom’s clothes, each drop like a ticking clock counting the awkward seconds of silence.

  “Here,” Kathy said, holding the towel with outstretched arms, as if trying to stay as far from Thom as possible. “I better get back to practice.”

  Thom took the towel and wanted to call out to her, to make up more excuses about the broken curtain rod. But Kathy had sprinted away, her cleats clicking on the floor.

  14

  KATHY KNEW, SHE MUST HAVE figured it out.

  But, no, it was an accident. Curtain rods break all the time.

  Then why had Kathy looked so scared?

  Thom didn’t know what to do. She dreaded school the next day, dreaded facing Kathy, who must have told Bethany and Sarah everything. Thom needed to talk to Kathy alone, explain that it really was an accident.

  Thom’s nose was dripping later that night, and when Ma took her temperature, it read 103 degrees, which let Thom off the hook for doing the dishes. It also ended their feud. Ma was back to being overworried. She tucked the blankets around Thom and placed a cup of cocoa on her nightstand.

  “My poor cưng,” she muttered as she fluffed Thom’s pillow. “I get you another hot water bottle, okay?”

  “No, it’s too hot,” Thom whined.

  “It burn out the fever,” Ma insisted.

  “Ma, I will die,” Thom said, weakly batting Ma’s hands away.

  “So dramatic.”

  “Please. I just want to sleep.”

  Ma tsked, but took the hint, tucking Thom so tightly in her blankets she felt like an overstuffed burrito. Ma turned to leave the room, but something caught her eye. “What is this?” she asked, her tone full of delight. Thom glanced over to see her books scattered across her desk, Ma holding up a piece of paper with cursive lettering on it—the bookmark from Kha. She’d forgotten about it. “Where you get it?”

  “Kha gave it to me.”

  “Your friend?” Ma looked like she was about to hug her. “You make friend at school?”

  “Uh, I mean, maybe. He’s our new neighbor.”

  “Vietnamese?”

  Thom couldn’t remember the last time Ma looked so happy. Maybe when she’d wanted to shop for a new áo dài.

  “This is a lucky token,” Ma said, grabbing some tape. “It will help protect you from bad spirits and demons.” She stuck it to the wall above Thom’s head, the only decoration on the otherwise barren walls. Instead of arguing, Thom closed her eyes. Her body was achy, and her head felt as if she’d been dunked underwater for too long. Ma turned off the lights and closed the door.

  Thom tossed and turned for most of the night. She looked up at the lucky token taped on her wall. Ma said it protected from demons. Was that why the Monkey King hadn’t been back? Was the token keeping him away? She hadn’t seen him since Kha had given it to her.

  That was silly—the token couldn’t be strong enough to keep out someone as powerful as the Monkey King. But she reached up and took it down anyway, turning it over in her hands. Then she ripped it in half, to be safe.

  Suddenly completely exhausted, she fell back into bed.

  Just as she was drifting off, a voice startled her.

  “Poor sweet Thom,” the Monkey King said, his words punctuated by monkeyish ooh-oohs.

  Thom sat up, smiling. “I thought you were gone forever,” she said.

  “Me? Leave you?” He giggled. “Of course not. But what’s wrong with you? You’re all hot.”

  “I have a fever.”

  “Sickness?” His hand pressed her forehead. “Will you die?”

  She laughed. “No, weirdo. It’s just a cold. Maybe a few days.”

  “Days? No, no, no. You should get better now. I need your help with something.”

  “I’m sick,” she protested.

  “I know how to make you feel better, little Thom. Thom the Strong. Instantly better. Not in days.”

  She tried to sit up, but her body ached with each movement. The touch of the sheets on her feverish skin made her groan.

  “There is a magical waterfall. My home. It has healing powers. It will make you one hundred percent again.”

  She closed her eyes. The world was spinning, but her bed was warm and the Monkey King was here to keep her safe.

  His eyes caught the moonlight for a moment as he hopped down to the floor. “Shall we go?”

  “Where?”

  “To my waterfall. So you can drink from the healing waters.”

  “But … I can’t go,” Thom said.

  “Why not?”

  “I … My mom…”

  “She’s asleep. I checked,” he said, waving a hand dismissively.

  “You … what?” The idea of the Monkey King hovering in her mom’s room was horrifying. Intrusive.

  “Just to make sure you are both safe. I was watching over you.”

  “Safe from what?” What did the Monkey King need to protect them from?

  H
e didn’t answer. “Come with me. You feel like fire.” He touched her forehead, the hair on the back of his hand cool and soft. “I will make it better.”

  It was difficult to think of a good argument. Her thoughts were like slippery fish, darting quickly out of reach. “It’s cold,” she said.

  He grabbed a coat from her closet and threw it over her shoulders. A scarf and a beanie followed—Thom had forgotten she owned them. She looked like she was dressed for Antarctica, when it was probably at least 60 degrees outside.

  Still, as he pulled her out of bed and opened the window, the half of her face not covered by her scarf and beanie felt chilled. He placed her arms over his shoulders and made her clasp her hands together.

  “Hang on tight!” he called, and before she could stop him or protest or even think about what to do next, he launched them both out of the window.

  Thom clung to his back so hard, it should have hurt. As they lifted into the air, her stomach dipped and her heart climbed to her throat. They floated through the dark, over her backyard, which was huge compared to the one they had in West City.

  Something caught her eye, a movement in a tree.

  Thom looked over her shoulder as the Monkey King flew. Someone was there. She knew it. A boy. Her age.

  Kha?

  What was her neighbor doing in her backyard?

  He was holding something in his hands, torn scraps of red paper, his face turned up. He saw them. He could see them. No one had ever spotted them before. Thom knew the Monkey King could become invisible, so she’d assumed he hid them both from view. But Kha had stared straight at her, had seen past the enchantment.

  Thom turned to tell the Monkey King, but they were rushing forward so fast that all she could do was grit her teeth and hang on. The wind froze her hot skin; the cold seeped through her scarf and beanie. Her teeth chattered. She buried her face into the back of the Monkey King’s neck.

  Just when she thought she couldn’t take it any longer, the wind wasn’t as cold or strong anymore. The air had grown warmer.

  She looked up and gasped. They were flying above fluffy white clouds, the sun breaking across waves of mist.

  The Monkey King slowed enough that the wind no longer deafened her, and she breathed out in awe.

  “Beautiful, right?” he asked.

  “Where are we?”

  They broke through the wall of white mist. Below them, a green mountain, hills stacked against one another on an island surrounded by the bluest, clearest water she’d ever seen, even in pictures. The island was full of luscious greenery, trees with beautiful leaves. Something about it just seemed alive, like beneath the canopy lived a world of creatures.

  “This island is called the Mountain of a Hundred Giants,” the Monkey King said. “My home is just over there, the cave behind the waterfall.”

  “Why is it called that?”

  He oohed curiously. “That’s a good question.”

  “Did a hundred giants live here?” she asked.

  They must not have been too gigantic or maybe there hadn’t been many of them, because the island wasn’t a big island. It reminded Thom of Catalina, near Long Beach—Ma had taken Thuy and her there once—except this island didn’t have any houses or docks or people. No one was around.

  That creepy-crawly feeling went up Thom’s neck, and she fought against the fuzziness in her mind. “Why are we here?” she asked. Now that the wind wasn’t freezing her cheeks, she grew hot again, sweaty in her coat and scarf and beanie. Her nose was still stuffy, and her head felt like enormous hands were squeezing from both sides, threatening to pop it like a grape.

  “So you can drink from the healing waters and be cured of your sickness. Hold on tight.”

  She threw her arms around his shoulders and buried her face into the slope of his neck once again. His fur was warm and smelled surprisingly pleasant, faintly like peaches and a bit like sand and salt.

  She opened her eyes just in time to see the waterfall they were about to crash into. “Monkey King! Watch out!”

  “Don’t worry!” He laughed. “We’re finally home!”

  Before she could ask him what he meant, the freezing-cold water hit her in the face, soaking into her beanie and scarf. She gulped in breath after breath as they emerged on the other side of the torrent. She slid off his back, sputtering. The Monkey King giggled and bounced off the stone walls, shaking water off his fur every time he paused long enough.

  “You could have warned me!” She snatched her hat off, then grabbed her scarf, but it was stuck in a wet tangle around her neck. “I thought we were going to crash into a cliff or something!”

  “Here, let me help you before you strangle yourself.” He reached for the scarf slowly, as if approaching a wild animal, and unwound it, then held the soaking cloth out with both hands. She glared at him, grabbed the scarf, and wrung it out. Luckily, her coat was water-resistant and had kept the rest of her dry, but her hair was drenched.

  It was only then that she stopped to take in their surroundings. They were in a tunnel. Light was reflecting off the waterfall behind them like crystals, glowing on the damp walls. It wasn’t even that cold.

  The Monkey King must have seen Thom’s anger disappearing, turning into awe, because he took her hand in his surprisingly warm and dry one, and pulled her down the tunnel. They stepped into an underground clearing, a brightly lit cave with holes in the roof, where sunlight filtered through. The sound of flowing water echoed throughout, bouncing off the stone walls, and Thom had the sense that they were somehow inside a river, or maybe underneath it. Water fell in shimmering curtains all around them. Green moss cushioned their steps, and colorful flowers decorated their path, broken only by a small babbling stream that disappeared somewhere between the tall, lush trees at the edge of the cave. A rainbow—an underground rainbow!—arched over the stream, and but- terflies fluttered all around, landing on the flowers and grass.

  Bright daylight now illuminated the cave, shaded by the broken patterns of the pocked roof, even though they had just come from night. But Thom was sure not much time had passed, less than an hour since they’d left her bedroom.

  But that wasn’t even the strangest part. The clearing was full of monkeys.

  She looked from the Monkey King to the others. They walked a bit like the Monkey King but couldn’t stand completely upright, like he could. And while the Monkey King had always seemed more human, like a man dressed in fur, these monkeys didn’t have the same sharpness in their eyes.

  Five of them bounded up to Thom. The Monkey King lunged and began wrestling with all of them at once. He shrieked and giggled as they pulled him to the ground.

  Others came over to sniff and poke at Thom. One pulled up strands of her hair and blew on it. The other padded his paws against her puffy coat. One stole her scarf, and another took her hat. She would have run after her things, but then they tried them on, and it was cute and funny to watch, so she just stood there and laughed.

  This place was magic. That was the only way to explain everything. Rainbows and butterflies—just like the song. Here, intelligent monkeys and … superstrong girls like her were real. She half expected more people to come out, to hug her and welcome her home. There was a sense of rightness to this place, like she could curl up in the grass and never leave.

  “Well?” The Monkey King was back at her side. He held the hand of a monkey who looked older than the others, judging from the gray hairs sprinkled among the brown ones.

  “I feel like I’m Jane. You know, from Tarzan.”

  The Monkey King gave her a weird look, then gestured to the elder monkey. “This is my older brother, Shing-Rhe.”

  “Oh.” She hadn’t thought about the possibility that the Monkey King might have a brother. “Hi,” she said, and bowed, crossing her arms in submission because she didn’t know what else to do.

  “Thom,” the elder monkey said, making her jump. She hadn’t expected him to talk when the others only made ooh-ooh sounds. “Wukon
g has spoken a lot about you.”

  “Only my closest friends can call me that,” the Monkey King said to Thom. “You still must show me respect. After all, I am the Great Sage of Heaven, with the strength of—”

  “Oh, stop.” Shing-Rhe slapped the Monkey King’s palm, and the Monkey King burst into giggles, jumping onto his brother’s shoulder. Shing-Rhe gave Thom a look, exasperation and affection rolled into one. “Okay, okay, stop,” he said. He grabbed the Monkey King’s ankle and pulled him back to the ground. “Let’s get your friend some healing water before she collapses.”

  “What?” Thom followed him past a group of sleeping monkeys. “I feel fine.”

  “You’re delirious. Pink as a sunrise. Come, little one. I know any trip with Wukong is enough to kill a person. You must be incredibly strong.”

  How did he know? But maybe … he wasn’t talking about her physical strength. She couldn’t be sure, though if anyone knew about why she was this strong, it was probably this wise old monkey. He just had that all-knowing vibe about him.

  Thom and Shing-Rhe crouched together by the babbling stream. The rainbow arched over the entire length of the water, like one short but wide bridge, no matter how you looked at it. Usually, rainbows disappeared if you moved and the light changed, but this one stayed forever. It almost looked solid, except that when she reached out a hand, her fingers passed through it and part of the rainbow bridge disappeared.

  The Monkey King bounced back to them, holding out a large gourd that had been hollowed out for use as a water bottle. Shing-Rhe dipped the gourd into the stream, his furry arm breaking into the rainbow. When the gourd was full, he handed it to Thom.

  “Drink all of this before you leave,” he said, sitting cross-legged at the water’s edge. She sat with him while the Monkey King flew off again to play with his friends or brothers or whatever they were to one another. “Go on.” Shing-Rhe gestured to the gourd.

  She still wasn’t too sure about drinking water from a stream—Ma always warned against bacteria and stuff. But it seemed rude when the wise old monkey was staring at her expectantly, his sharp eyes full of concern. Besides, this place was magic. How could rainbow water hurt her?