by Remy Lai
“Of course I’m sure. He said my name.”
He purses his lips and is quiet. Which for once I wish he weren’t, because I need his chatter to stop me thinking about Joe. When Joe and Max caught on that someone had overheard them, I could’ve played along and laughed it off. This whole incident might not have exploded into this big thing where I’m hiding behind mailboxes. But there’s an equal chance they might have thought it’d be okay to share the joke with everyone, and then everyone would tell it to my face for eternity, and I’d have to pretend for eternity that I found it funny, too. Being a laughingstock is the worst. If I think about it this way, hiding behind mailboxes doesn’t seem so silly.
Yanghao finally says, “But…”
“What?”
“Don’t be angry, Jingwen … but how could you understand what he said? Your English isn’t the best.”
I give him my how-dare-you look.
“I said don’t be angry.”
“Walk. Home. By. Your. Self.” I bolt.
Surprisingly, he doesn’t immediately run after me. It’s several seconds before I hear his running footsteps and his yelling. “Jingwen! Wait for me!”
I don’t slow down.
He runs sideways alongside me. “Sorry, sorry. We’re still making cake, right? Right, Jingwen?”
That’s a stranger-than-aliens thing that just happened: Yanghao saying sorry to me. Cakes have done that. But I hide my surprise and don’t even look at him.
I press my lips together tightly, but it’s no use. A guffaw escapes, and Yanghao knows he’s forgiven. He keeps yelling, “Hurry up, slow turtle!” as I check the mailbox. Just junk mail. Maybe my last two letters to Xirong got lost. It’s a long way to get to him. Or he gave up handwriting, since his handwriting is like a doctor’s chicken scratch, and emailed me instead. Maybe by the time his letter reaches me, cakes will have helped me make a friend, and it won’t matter so much.
* * *
Back in our apartment, I’m laying out the ingredients on the dining table when Yanghao gasps. “Oh no. Jingwen, our clock’s broken.”
The clock says quarter to six. It’s still light outside, and sunset is at seven. “What does our alarm clock say?” I ask. “Is it not quarter to six?”
22
Triple cookie cake looks complicated, but the three layers are made from the same basic butter cake recipe, only mixed with different flavors.
Since we have only two round pans of the same size, we’ll have to start by making two of the layers and then a third one.
“Is it a salty cake?” Yanghao asks, studying the ingredients on the table.
“What are you talking about?”
He points to Mama’s cookbook, which is open to the recipe for triple cookie cake. “It says a teaspoon of salt for the butter cake and a pinch of salt for the buttercream filling. We already have much more than a teaspoon and a pinch at home. We didn’t need to buy salt.”
“I didn’t buy salt.”
He holds up the packet of sugar. “What’s this, then?”
“Duh. Sugar.”
He huffs. “This is salt. See this word? S-A-L-T. Salt. Sugar is S-U-G—”
“I know! I read wrongly because I was in a hurry.”
Yanghao is about to call me a booger.
“It’s not a problem. We’ll use the sugar we have at home.” I pour the jar of sugar into a bowl on the weighing scale. We’re short by ninety grams. “It’s not a problem. We’ll go to the grocery store now and get more.”
“Jingwen, remember, it’s SUGAR.”
“One more word, and no cake for you.”
He mimes zipping up his lips and follows me to the door.
Yanghao points to his head. “Head?”
“Where are you two going?” Anna asks.
I’m still translating in my head what Anna said when Yanghao replies, “Grocery store.”
I flick the back of his neck.
“Ow! I wasn’t going to tell her we’re making a cake.”
“Mama won’t like our going to the store by ourselves either. We’ll have to lie to her that we only went downstairs to check the mail. It’s all your fault. Come on!” I hurry down the steps, but Yanghao doesn’t move. He’s watching Anna and picking at his pursed lips. Uh-oh. That’s his I-have-a-ridiculous-idea-brewing-in-my-head look.
Before I can murder that idea, nail it into a coffin, and bury it ten thousand meters underground, he opens his big mouth. “Excuse me, Anna.”
“What are you doing?” I hiss.
He pretends not to hear me. “You have … sugar?”
“Do you have sugar?” Anna shuffles toward her apartment. “And yes, I do have sugar. What is it for?”
Anna smiles and says some things, of which I catch zilch, then she steps into her apartment, leaving her door ajar.
“Where’s she going?” I ask.
“She asked us to wait here. And you have to make me sweet tea so what I told her won’t be a lie.”
Less than a minute later, Anna emerges again. She hands Yanghao a big jar of sugar and launches into a speech in Martian.
“Thank you,” Yanghao says.
Did he really catch that gobbledygook? I hustle him back into our apartment. “What did Anna say?”
“She said you’re a booger.” He laughs. He’s the only one who thinks he’s funny.
* * *
Less than an hour later, the kitchen is warm. A sweet smell of vanilla and butter lingers, even though I’ve opened all the windows. When I was younger, I was foolish. I complained everything I owned smelled like cake, from my hair to my school uniform to my books, and my friends had nicknamed me Smell Like Cake (not very creative, my friends). Mama, Papa, Ah-po, and Ah-gong would laugh. Papa would say these fragrant cakes were putting me through school and would put me through a better school in Australia, and when I grew up, I could get a good job—anything I wanted—and not have to be Smell Like Cake.
Now I’m taking extra deep breaths, trying to draw into my chest all the cake-smell molecules, like the dog at the airport that was supposed to sniff out bad guys.
* * *
Later, while we’re waiting for the chocolate and Oreo butter cakes to cool and I’m whipping up the buttercream, I look up to see Yanghao picking at the crispy skin of the cake. “Hey! Stop that!”
“Mama and Papa always let me have the cake skin.”
“Rule number nine: No picking of cake skin unless Jingwen says so,” I say.
When it’s time to flip the third layer, chocolate chip butter cake, out of its pan, I banish Yanghao to the carpeted area.
Just then, the phone rings. Before I can do anything, Yanghao picks it up. “Hello?”
I glance at the clock. Half past seven. Mama.
“You ask what I’m doing, Mama?” he says.
“Rule number one! Rule number one!” I hiss.
“I’m going to take a shower. After that I’ll finish my dinner.”
I could have kissed him if he weren’t my little brother.
“See you in the morning, Mama.” He hangs up the phone and says, “I did just like you said, Jingwen. I didn’t lie, and I didn’t break rule number one.”
I know I should feel guilty about having taught my little brother to lie, even if they aren’t really lies, but I’m not. Hopefully the deities—or the universe—won’t send a bolt of lightning my way.
Heart. Uh. Tack.
I slap his arm. “Don’t do that! What are you talking about?”
He points to the edge of the table close to the wall. A small patch of the red tabletop has been singed right off, and the very pale brown wood underneath is staring at us. “Jingwen, you forgot to put the cork mat underneath.”
“Why didn’t YOU remind me?”
“Because of rule number seven. I can’t see what you do from all the way over there on the carpet.”
I groan. Unless I can hide that scab on the table, our cake making is over. The past. History. A memory. “Hmm … May
be…” I plonk my dictionary over the scab. “Problem solved.”
“But, Jingwen, you can’t leave the dictionary here forever. You’ll need to use it in school.”
I say, “I won’t take it with me.”
“Mama will ask you why you don’t need it. Then what are you going to say?”
That when I try to use English, people laugh at me. That I need to make all the Pie in the Sky cakes because that’s the only way it feels like I haven’t abandoned Papa. That cakes make me less lonely in school.
I say, “Got a better idea, bald Einstein?”
He hurries out of the kitchen, then returns with a red permanent marker. He hands it to me. “You do it.”
While I color over the exposed part of the table, he adds to Rules for Making Cakes.
“That means, Jingwen,” he says, “you’re to remember to place hot cake pans and pots on a mat.”
I’m so busy covering up our crime I don’t call him an annoying smart aleck.
But the cover-up works. Sort of. Only if Mama looks very closely will she see that I’m a liar.
23
“Jingwen,” Yanghao groans, “I’m going to—”
“Stop. Don’t say you’re going to puke. Don’t whine. You have to finish dinner no matter what. We can’t throw any food out. Our cake shop never threw away cakes, remember?” Back at our old home, on Saturday nights, before our weekly dinner outing, our family would drop by the temple with the week’s unsold cakes. Mama always made Yanghao and me hand the cakes over to the temple warden, who’d thank us on behalf of the orphans who’d get to eat our cakes, which used to always make me feel a little guilty for still having parents.
“That’s not what I was going to say at all.” Yanghao pulls himself up.
I scream and roll away from the poison cloud. Then we laugh and laugh.
It really is more gross than funny, but all the blood in our brains has gone to digest the cake in our bellies. I’ve never had as much fun with him as the last two nights. Most of the time, everything we do together ends up with someone crying, usually him. Cakes make everything better.
But Yanghao and I so completely enjoyed last night’s Nutella cream cake that we didn’t think about how impossible it is to eat a full-sized cake in two days, plus all our meals. For our next cakes, we’ll use math and division to make smaller ones.
Do smaller cakes equal smaller lies?
24
I like weekends because Mama doesn’t have to work. Even though there’ll be no cake making for two days, I don’t have to tell Yanghao to take a shower or have his dinner or go to bed or make sure he doesn’t somehow bang his head or break his toe. The heavy seashells that I carry in my pockets, the ones that are about looking after Yanghao, I pass on to Mama once Saturday comes.
And Rules for Making Cakes works. In the morning, as Yanghao and I force our oatmeal breakfast down our throats, Mama doesn’t mention any cake smell in the apartment or suspect we’re about to upchuck as our stomachs are bursting.
How did she know Yanghao and I made cake? The red we colored onto the table is still intact. We opened the windows. We finished our dinners. We cleaned up. Then I see it, the evidence, the leftover eggs from last night. There the carton sits, on a shelf of the fridge door. Isn’t there even more evidence in the cabinet? The leftover flour and vanilla beans and cocoa powder and icing sugar. Anna’s empty jar of sugar. I glance at Yanghao, whose eyes are wide like he’s looking at a ghost.
Me, I’m looking at hell. Not Mama’s punishment, but the hell of not making the other ten Pie in the Sky cakes. “I—I didn’t make … Nutella … cream … cake.”
Mama closes the fridge. “Good.” She grabs the bucket of cleaning supplies from under the sink and walks out of the kitchen. Yanghao wipes his forehead and mimes a “phew!” but I wait until she has turned into the hallway before thanking all of Ah-gong’s deities.
I bought the same brand of eggs Mama always does, so she must have assumed she bought them herself. She’s probably too tired to notice the little things. But then what made her suspicious?
“You lied, Jingwen,” Yanghao whispered.
“I didn’t. I said I didn’t make Nutella cream cake last night. Which I didn’t. I made triple cookie cake. From now on, all leftover cake-making ingredients must be hidden. Maybe behind your caramel-flavored milk in the fridge.”
Mama always keeps the fridge stocked with those tiny boxes of caramel-flavored milk for Yanghao and me, but mostly for Yanghao. She never drinks them, so we should be safe.
When I hear the scrub-scrub-scrub of Mama cleaning the bathroom floor, I grab the leftover flour, vanilla beans, cocoa powder, icing sugar, and Anna’s empty jar of sugar from the cabinet and run on tiptoes into my room. “Come on, Yanghao.”
We fly back to the dining table just as Mama appears. She yanks rubber gloves off her hands. “After you two have finished your breakfast, let’s go to the library. I recently found out there’s one a fifteen-minute walk away.”
“Library!” Yanghao spurts clumps of oatmeal all over the table. “I can borrow books?”
“Of course. I’m sorry you couldn’t bring your storybooks on the plane. But you can borrow so many more of them at the library. Reading is a very good way for you to improve your English, and storybooks are much more interesting than my cookbooks.”
I choke. Yanghao kicks me under the table.
“Ah,” Mama says, grabbing two glasses from the cabinet. “I forgot to pour you two some juice.”
“Ma-Mama, how did you know we read your cookbooks?” I ask.
“You two—” She opens the fridge. “Another one here.” She points to the fridge door; a cookbook lies wedged behind tall cartons of juice. “You two always leave them lying all over the house.”
That giant booger Yanghao. Why did he put that book there? Rule number twelve: All cookbooks to be put away after use. We’ll stack them on the coffee table.
Mama places a glass of orange juice in front of me. “That’s why, at first, I thought you had made another cake.”
I slurp my juice even though there’s still oatmeal in my mouth. Mama said “cake.” She didn’t specify which cake. So I can’t say, “No, Mama, I wasn’t making another cake.” To me, that’s a kind-intentioned lie, but Mama will think it’s the worst kind of lie where someone gets hurt. I grimace and swallow. Oatmeal plus orange juice equals not delicious.
But Mama’s still looking at me. Her hand is frozen, holding the juice carton. Why isn’t she pouring juice for Yanghao?
Mama pours the other glass of juice. “Very good, Yanghao.”
It’s the first time I’m grateful that Yanghao is an attention seeker.
* * *
The first thing I spot when we arrive at the library is not books. It’s computers. Two rows of them. Angels sing in my head. I hurry to the only computer that’s available. Yanghao tries to wedge himself next to me, but I don’t scoot over. I move the mouse, and the aquarium screen saver disappears. A window pops up.
“User … name,” Yanghao reads. “Pass-Password. What do they mean?”
Duh. My English is horrible, and I can guess what they mean. I turn to Mama, who’s standing behind us. “I need a username and password.”
“Let’s ask the librarian.”
I go with Mama and Yanghao to the long counter next to the computers. There’s a woman with pink-rimmed glasses who I guess is the librarian. She’s scanning some books like she’s a cashier. She stops what she’s doing and smiles at us.
Mama looks at me. She’s not going to speak for me.
Yanghao’s such a show-off.
Mama finally speaks to the librarian, after which she translates for Yanghao and me. Turns out, a library member can use the computer for a maximum of thirty minutes a day. Mama signs me and Yanghao up. We can’t choose usernames, but we can choose passwords.
I log in.
Username: SL005232OW
Password: yanghaoisabooger19
Yes, I notice the username. S l o w. Ha. Ha. Good one, universe. But I’m lucky there’s a computer available. Usually members need to book computer slots well in advance. I ask Mama how to book one so I know for next time, and she says online. Which is nuts. If I had a computer to make an online booking, I wouldn’t have to go to the library to use a computer! Or, she says, the information counter is another option. Which is a bigger pile of nuts. Because I’ll have to speak English with the librarian.
But anyway, there’s no computer for Yanghao.
“Jingwen,” Mama says, “you use it for the first fifteen minutes. Let Yanghao have the other fifteen minutes.”
I give a giant sigh. “Fine.”
Finally, Mama and Yanghao leave to look at books. It’s been two months since I last logged in to my email, but I still remember the password. It’s easy: “yanghaoisabooger” plus whatever year it is. I wonder how many emails from Xirong are waiting for me.
Two unread emails in my inbox. One is a newsletter from my ex-school. Another is a mass birthday e-invitation from one of my ex-classmates who must have forgotten to take me off the class mailing list. As if I was never gone. As if I was never there in the first place.
I click delete, delete. Empty trash.
I guess Xirong’s been really busy with school.
I Google videos of cats.
“Please!” Yanghao’s squeaky voice pierces the library’s peace. He’s back at the counter, pushing a stack of books toward the same librarian with pink-rimmed glasses. As if he could understand any of those books. A few of the titles on the spines are simple enough—Three Little Pigs, The Little Prince, Fantastic Mr. Fox—but I don’t know the rest. The librarian leans forward and speaks softly. I can’t hear what she says. Wouldn’t understand if I could, anyway, but Yanghao replies loudly, “Yes!”
I’m about to shush him when Mama goes over to the counter.