by Remy Lai
But is Ben like Joe? Is he going to laugh at me behind my back? I think I said cakes, but maybe I said it wrong and to him it sounded like eggs.
I steal a glance at Ben. He’s writing in his homework book while my other classmates-not-friends race around like monkeys. I know how most of my classmates-not-friends divide themselves into cliques of two or more. Lisa with Rani. Ravi with Christine. Pete with Shafiq. Joe and Max. Back in my old school, it was Jingwen and Xirong. But Ben doesn’t seem to have any twenty-four-seven friends, just for-the-moment friends. There’s no clique he hangs out with day in and day out. He seems to flit from group to group, but he’s welcomed by them all.
At least he has branches to perch on. Meanwhile, I’m a bird that can’t find land. When I spot a tree, I try to land, but all the other birds there are chirping.
I try to drown out that chirping by singing Yanghao’s cake song inside my head. But soon “Caaaake! Caaaake! You’re so yummy!” is replaced by Mama’s voice: “Jingwen, don’t ever touch the stove or the oven again.”
I try to shake Mama’s voice out of my mind, but she keeps yammering on.
“Jingwen, you’re older, and you should’ve known better.”
I’m not even twelve.
“Jingwen, someone could get hurt.”
No, I’m old enough to make sure Yanghao won’t get hurt. That’s why I made up the rules.
“Jingwen, everything will be all right.”
You’ve been saying that for two months.
“Jingwen, we’re moving to Australia.”
We shouldn’t have! We shouldn’t have!
“Crap!” says Ben, interrupting my playlist that’s titled Jingwen’s Stinky Life on Mars. He shakes his pen vigorously and then presses it hard into his notepad, but it’s out of ink.
Those two simple words surprise me so much I can’t think of the Martian words that mean “you’re welcome.” He doesn’t say anything else to me, not until Mr. Fart’s class.
Mr. Fart asks me to read aloud. I’m sweating so much I probably need a blood transfusion. I’m on the first word, and I’m already stumped, even though I’m sure I’ve come across this word before.
Words not sticking in my brain reminds me of last weekend, when Mama finally had some free time and took Yanghao and me to Underwater World. Lots of glass and lots of fish. There was a section with a shallow aquarium where you could touch different kinds of starfish. As instructed by the man in charge, and translated by Mama, I placed one starfish on my upturned palm. Yanghao did the same. After a few minutes, we were told to turn our palms back over, and according to the man, the starfish would stick to your hand.
My starfish is like English to me. It never sticks. I’ll come across a word and try to store it in my brain, but the next day my brain will have kicked those words out, just like this word that Mr. Fart is still waiting for me to read. He’s clearing his throat like he needs a soothing lozenge.
I croak, “Des-Des-Des—” and my tongue freezes when I catch Joe staring at me. He notices me noticing and quickly turns back to the blackboard.
“Describe,” someone to my left whispers. I turn to see Ben with his nose in his book. Was it Ben? What did he say? Can he repeat it?
Before Mr. Fart can ask me to read the next question, I plonk back down and bury my nose in my book. Luckily he has mercy on me today and doesn’t continue my torture, moving on to addressing the class. I want to say thank you to Ben, but he doesn’t look my way, and I don’t dare to even whisper to him. No point risking drawing Mr. Fart’s attention back to me. But I really hope that Ben is nothing like Joe.
Mr. Fart says something about homework. Now, that’s a word I hope my brain forgets.
There is one word I don’t want to forget even though I don’t know its meaning yet. I look up “metamorphosis” in my dictionary.
Turns out, it’s just a fancy-pants way of saying a very big change. Which in Mr. Fart’s class, refers to a tadpole changing into a frog.
I wonder if there’s a fancy word that means a very small change that feels really big.
19
“What’s wrong with your face?” Yanghao asks when I meet up with him at the gates after school.
“What?” I pat my cheeks. “Is there rice on my face?”
“No. You’re smiling.”
It has turned out to be a surprisingly good day. Cakes make me happy. Not just because they taste good, but they also bring me good luck. I don’t know why, and I don’t know how. But cakes are magic. Okay, maybe not, but cakes bring smiles, just like Papa said. The day he told me that, I’d been sulking. I don’t remember why because I was little, but it was probably all thanks to Yanghao. He must have stolen or destroyed something of mine. Papa asked me if I knew why he liked cakes.
But, just this morning, Mama said no to cakes.
Even though she’s the one who put me here on Mars in the first place.
I’m not unreasonable. I don’t expect Mama to turn back time to before she decided to move to Australia without Papa. Anyway, if she could turn back time, I’d make her bring us to a time before we were without Papa. I don’t expect her to wave a magic wand and make everything all right. But she could let me have one thing that makes some things all right. She just chooses not to.
I think these thoughts all the way home. I don’t even care that Yanghao’s chattering away and elbowing me for a response and making everyone on the bus gawk at us. My jaws clench tighter and tighter, my teeth grit harder and harder, so much so that by the time Yanghao and I reach home, I need a dentist and some kind of jaw doctor.
As I’m fishing for my keys, I see the apartment door is ajar, then I hear Mama’s snorting laugh. Yanghao hears it, too, for he sticks his head under my armpit and peeks in. I peer over his head.
Anna speaks too softly for me to hear, though I probably wouldn’t understand her even if she were screaming. But Mama understands, and it must have been something funny because she laughs a whole-body kind of laugh, where you lean back and throw your head back.
I can’t remember when I last laughed like that. Or when Mama last laughed like that.
“That must be Anna’s cat,” Yanghao whispers.
There’s a fat cat on Anna’s lap, its orange fur bright against Anna’s dark blue pants. I wish that cat was the only thing I noticed, instead of Mama’s laugh.
“Jingwen, the cat looks like Mango.” Yanghao forgets to whisper this time, and Mama and Anna turn toward us.
“You boys are home,” Anna says.
“Hello, Anna.” Yanghao makes a beeline for the cat and strokes it. “Cat.”
“That is right. Cat. Her name is Ginger.”
“I have cat,” Yanghao says. “He orange. Same to Ginger.”
“I have a cat, too,” Anna corrects him. “He is orange, same as Ginger. Now, how was school?”
“School is good.”
“School was good.”
Yanghao cocks his head. “Was?”
“Past tense,” Anna says.
She launches into what I guess is a long, boring explanation about past tense, and I shudder. If I make more cakes and Mama finds out, I’ll have to spend afternoons listening to that. I kneel down and very, very slowly untie my shoelaces. Mama has to leave for work in fifteen minutes, so Anna will have to leave then, too. If I have to pretend to undo a knot for fifteen minutes to avoid a conversation with Anna, that’s what I’ll do.
Luckily, Anna gets up, cradling Ginger over one elbow. She says a string of Martian words to Mama. She isn’t speaking haltingly like a robot. Does she think Yanghao and I are sluggish snails? Is that why she speak s l o w to us?
I only catch the last bit: “Have a good evening, Meixin.”
She then turns to Yanghao and me. “Have a good evening, Jingwen and Yanghao.”
“Have a good evening, Anna and Ginger,” Yanghao says.
She doesn’t leave but looks at me, waiting for a reply.
Mama walks Anna to the door. I scurry a
way to the dining table and pretend to do my homework.
* * *
“Mama,” Yanghao says as soon as Anna’s gone, “can you make a cake for us?”
“You boys better not be making cakes when I’m not home,” Mama says. “You hear, Jingwen?”
“My ears work fine, Mama.” I press my pen into my book so hard the tip bends.
“I want a cake, Mama,” Yanghao says.
“How about this weekend?”
He claps and hoots as if he’s won the gold medal for Best Clown.
“What cake would you like?” Mama asks.
“How about Ah-po’s cake?”
“What’s Ah-po’s cake?”
“The rainbow cake Ah-po made for us before we got on the plane,” Yanghao says.
I feel like I’ve been kicked in the stomach by a clown’s giant shoe. Yanghao has forgotten.
“The one Ah-po made for our birthdays,” he continues.
Ah-po did make rainbow cakes for our birthdays, but only for the last two years. Because Papa wasn’t around to make them anymore.
I listen closely.
“Rainbow cake?” Mama asks.
Mama, tell Yanghao that rainbow cake is Papa’s cake. Tell him! Now!
Mama has forgotten Papa. Yanghao has forgotten Papa.
I want to scream that rainbow cake is Papa’s cake, but Mama will get upset even if I whisper his name. Even though I’m angry at her and don’t want her to be so happy, I don’t want her to be upset either. I definitely don’t want to be the reason she’s upset.
But I can’t let Yanghao forget. It’s not his fault he can’t remember. He was only seven when Papa died. Since Ah-po and Ah-gong are too far away, it’s all up to me to fix this.
Last night, while we were making the Nutella cake, Yanghao asked me all kinds of questions about Papa. That’s how I’ll help him remember. With Papa’s cakes.
I can’t help but grin at how cakes truly are magic.
All I have to do is find a way to keep them a secret from Mama, to tell lies without lying.
20
Once Mama leaves for work, I say, “Yanghao, want to make a cake?”
He mutes SpongeBob, and I know I’ve got him. He hops into the kitchen, shouting a phrase he must have learned from Professor SpongeBob.
“You already told me the rules yesterday,” Yanghao says, sitting down next to me.
“New rules. To make sure Mama doesn’t find out, we’ll keep the cake making super secret. She won’t even suspect, so she won’t ask. So we won’t have to say anything.” To make this cake, we have to tell lies of omission, which are barely even lies. I’m not telling them to benefit myself, but for Yanghao and Papa. And no one will get hurt. After all, nobody got hurt in last night’s cake making.
Yanghao grabs the pencil from me and slides the yellow notepad toward himself. “I’ll write.”
“Fine. At the top, write ‘Rules for Making Cakes.’”
He nibbles on the eraser end of the pencil. “Umm…”
“What? Don’t you know how to write ‘rules’?”
He flips open my dictionary and riffles through it. The pages rapidly turning sound like when Ah-gong counted the money in the cash register after the last cake of the day was sold. “Rules!”
I peek at what he’s jotting down. “You’re writing in English? Why?”
“Mama says if I use English more often, I’ll learn it faster. So it’s…”
I huff. “As long as YOU understand what you’ve written and follow the rules. Number one: Jingwen and Yanghao cannot tell anyone about the cakes.
“Number two: Jingwen and Yanghao have to finish dinner. Number three: Open all windows so the apartment doesn’t smell like cake. This morning, Mama could smell last night’s cake.”
“Cannot … tell … anyone…,” Yanghao murmurs as I carry out rule number three.
“Number four: After cake making, clean, dry, and place all the cake-making things back where they were—”
“Slow down, Jingwen.” The dictionary flip-flip-flips furiously. “What’s ‘dinner’ in English…”
“Number two already? That was quick.” I look at Yanghao’s Martian letters. It’s very possible that he’s actually writing “my brother is a tyrannical, odoriferous fart.” If only I knew a long and difficult Martian bad word that he doesn’t already know.
But I don’t, so I make him add the rest of the rules I made up last night:
Number five: No sticking dirty fingers in the batter.
Number six: Yanghao is not to poke Jin in the face.
Number seven: Yanghao’s feet must be on the carpet unless Jin says he can enter the kitchen.
When Yanghao finally finishes, he gives a big, tired sigh, and I’m glad English is tiring for him, too.
“Can we make rainbow cake?” he asks.
“We don’t have the recipe. Is it in any of Mama’s cookbooks?”
He shakes his head. If a cake is baked in an oven that’s too hot, it’ll rise too high, then collapse in the center before it’s thoroughly baked. That’s what Yanghao looks like now, with his head hung so low.
Of course there’s no recipe for rainbow cake in those cookbooks. Our family’s cake shop has been selling the same cakes since before I was born. Ah-po, Ah-gong, Mama, and Papa could make those cakes blindfolded and with one arm behind their backs. The recipes were passed down by word of mouth from my I-don’t-know-how-many-great-grandparents all the way to my parents. I don’t know why no one has bothered to type them up. Maybe if we had a better computer. Anyway, there are recipes not just for cakes, but for stews, sauces, and bitter herbal soups that can help you grow a new nose if you lose yours after a very bad cold, and of course, a recipe for the rainbow cake.
Yanghao slaps the dining table. “I know! We can ask Mama.”
“Is your brain on vacation? She’ll ask why we’re asking, and then we’ll have to tell her. Unless you want to lie?”
His reply is to bolt to the living room.
“Who are you calling?” I ask.
“Ah-po. To ask her for the rainbow cake recipe. What’s the special international number we have to dial before the actual phone number?”
I snatch the receiver and slam it back down. “We can’t call Ah-po.”
“Why not?”
“International calls are very expensive. Mama says we can only call home if she’s around. When the telephone bill comes, she’ll know and will ask why.”
I don’t want him to cry, so I go back to the dining table and start writing on a new page of my notepad. “Let’s write a letter. ‘Dear Ah-po and Ah-gong, I’m having a great time in Australia.’” That’s how I always start my letters to them. “‘Would you please send me the recipe for your rainbow cake? Mama asks for it.’”
Yanghao cackles as if we’ve pulled off a great caper. He kneels on the other stool, his elbows on the table and his rosy cheeks cradled in his palms. “Tell Ah-po I say hi. Tell her we’re making—what cake are we making?”
“Triple cookie cake. And, you foolish booger, we can’t tell Ah-po that. She’ll tell Mama. Go get a stamp and an envelope from Mama’s room.”
“You’re the booger,” he says.
“I know what that means.”
When he returns, I don’t let him lick the stamp. But he doesn’t throw a tantrum, only asks, “When will Ah-po reply?”
Ten to fourteen days for our letter to reach her, a few days for her to reply, and then another ten to fourteen days for her reply to reach us.
By the time the recipe arrives, I’ll already have made all the cakes of Pie in the Sky, and the gray of my cloudy days will have turned into the colors of a rainbow cake. When I write back, “I’m having a great time in Australia,” for once, it’ll be the truth.
21
We mail Ah-po’s letter on the way to the grocery store. This time, we take even greater care when passing in front of Barker Bakes. We thought of going across the road, but there isn’t anything large en
ough—like that big red mailbox—for us to hide behind. Mama has never taken us via a different way to the bus station and grocery store before, and if I get us lost, I’ll have double punishment: for not sticking to her directions, plus for secretly trying to make a cake. That equals Mama disowning me.
But I don’t spot Mama laughing inside Barker Bakes today.
Yanghao and I buy flour, eggs, butter, sugar, chocolate chips, cocoa powder, and Oreo cookies and pack them into the two reusable shopping bags we brought from home.
We’re getting ready for the Great Barker Bakes Dash again when someone calls out to Yanghao.
“Who’s that?” I ask.
“Sarah. My friend.”
At that moment, I spot my enemy. Joe. About to walk out of Barker Bakes.
I duck behind the mailbox.
Without a word, Yanghao darts behind me. When I peer around the mailbox, he follows suit.
Joe hangs around near Barker Bakes, eating a muffin. What’s he doing here? I hope he chokes on that muffin. Not death by muffin, but so that he can’t say s l o w.
“What? What is it?” Yanghao whispers, his head swiveling left and right.
A car pulls up next to Yanghao and me. Joe walks toward it. I propel Yanghao around the mailbox, risking our being seen by Mama. But I don’t want Joe to see me hiding. He climbs into the car. When the car speeds off, I quickly pull Yanghao the rest of the way past the café.
“What exactly did he say?” he asks.
“Just something bad.”
Yanghao scratches his head. “Are you sure? Maybe he wasn’t talking about you.”