The Year of the Baby (An Anna Wang novel)

by Andrea Cheng

  We go back and forth like that until her eyes close again.

  “Thanks,” Dad whispers. Then he tiptoes into Kaylee’s room and puts her back down in her crib.

  I go back to my bed and look out the window. The rain has turned to drizzle, making a halo around the streetlamp. I wonder where Kaylee lived when she was first born. Did she sleep with siblings in one big bed? Or with her parents? If she were with them now, would she be a better eater?

  Seven

  Tug of War

  In the morning, the sun is shining. Maow Maow is on the front porch with her fur all puffed up, hissing at our neighbor’s cat. “Stop it,” I say, smoothing her fur. “Smokey is your friend.” She arches her back and Smokey takes off down the driveway. “You should try to be nice to the neighbors,” I tell her.

  Laura is coming down the street. “I thought you were at your dad’s this weekend,” I call out to her.

  “He had to go someplace.” She steps onto our porch and runs her hand down Maow Maow’s back. “She’s so pretty. I like all the colors.”

  “Me too.” I rub the cat under her chin. Then she goes to the door and stands up on her hind legs. I open it and we follow her in.

  “What’s her name again?” Laura asks.

  “Maow Maow.”

  “Oh, yeah. That means ‘cat’ in Chinese, right?”

  “Yup”

  “So you named your cat Cat.” Laura puts her jacket on the sofa. “We named our old cat Dog because he came when we called him just like dogs usually do. Dog Edwards.” Laura sees Kaylee’s highchair in the kitchen. “That’s so cute,” she says, touching the pink hearts painted on the back of the seat.

  “Camille’s mom gave it to us at the shower,” I say.

  “You’re so lucky,” Laura says. “I wish I had a baby sister. I hate being the youngest.”

  “It’s not that great being the oldest,” I say. “I have to help with Kaylee all the time.”

  “But that’s fun.”

  “Most of the time. But not at the doctor’s office.”

  “Do you have to go?” Laura sits down at the table.

  I pour milk into two glasses, add big spoonfuls of Nestle Quik, and heat them up in the microwave. “I’d feel bad if I stayed at home.”

  “Can’t your mom get her to quiet down?”

  “Kaylee does better with me.” I set the two glasses on the table. “My mom’s worried about her all the time.”

  “Why?” Laura asks.

  “She’s hardly gained any weight since we got her.”

  Laura looks at a picture of Kaylee on the refrigerator. “She looks fine to me.”

  “I know. But babies are supposed to gain weight.” Laura stirs her hot chocolate. “So what are you supposed to do? Force her to eat?”

  “That’s what I’m wondering.”

  We put our cups in the sink and go upstairs to my room. I take the sewing basket down off the shelf. “Remember when Mr. Shepherd gave this to us?”

  “And we made all those fabric lunch bags,” Laura says. “I still use mine. When I go to my dad’s.” Laura sorts through the buttons and safety pins. “I wish your mom was still cleaning Mr. Shepherd’s apartment. I liked going there with you guys.”

  “I kind of liked it too. Now that my mom’s working at the hospital and we got Kaylee, we hardly ever have time to visit him.”

  Laura holds up an outgrown baby sock that’s in the bottom of the basket. “I can’t believe our feet used to be this small. I don’t know if even Kaylee’s feet can fit in here.”

  “Hey, let’s make it into a little mouse,” I say.

  We stuff the sock with bits of rags and tie it tightly. Then we sew on pink buttons for eyes, cut felt ears, and tie a string to the tail.

  I hear a meow and who is looking into the window but Maow Maow. “How did she get up here?” I ask.

  “I bet she climbed up the brick,” Laura says. “Cats have really sharp claws.”

  I open the window and she jumps inside.

  Kaylee toddles into my room. Her cheek has sleep wrinkles, and her hair is a mess.

  “Your sister is so cute.”

  Kaylee holds on around my legs.

  “She looks like you,” Laura says.

  “She’s adopted.”

  “I know. But she still looks like you.”

  I don’t know what to say. The only reason Laura thinks we look alike is because we’re both Chinese. “Her nose is smaller,” I say.

  “I didn’t say exactly,” Laura jiggles the sock mouse in front of Kaylee. “Look.”

  Kaylee smiles and reaches for the mouse. Then she drags it into the hallway. From behind the door, Maow Maow pounces on the mouse.

  “So now that someone else wants the mouse, you want it too,” I say to the cat.

  Kaylee pulls the mouse and Maow Maow keeps trying to get it. Finally she gets her paws all tangled up in the string. Kaylee gets a really intense look on her face and starts yanking the string.

  “Tug of war,” Laura says.

  Kaylee pulls harder and the cat lets go.

  Kaylee makes a funny sound deep in her throat.

  “I think she’s trying to laugh,” I say.

  The cat puts her nose in the air and walks out as if to say Who cares about a sock mouse and a bunch of girls anyway?

  Mom takes Kaylee down to have a snack. I find more small socks in our rag bag, and Laura and I make four more mice, two small ones and two medium.

  “Now let’s name them,” Laura says. She holds the smallest one. “How about Ping.”

  I don’t like that name. I don’t know what to say.

  “And the other ones could be Ming, Ling, or Ting. You know, like Quack, Mack, Flack in ... What was it?”

  “Make Way for Ducklings,” I smile now that I see why Laura thinks the names should rhyme.

  Laura lines the mice up in a row. “They’re so cute. Let’s make up a story about them.”

  “Like the baby one gets lost,” I say.

  The phone rings and it’s Laura’s mom telling her it’s time to go home. “I forgot, we’re going to my brother’s band concert this afternoon,” Laura says.

  “Do you have to go?” I ask. “You could ask if you could just stay over here.”

  “My mom says Andrew will feel bad if I’m not there.”

  She pulls the hood of her rain jacket up and heads down the street. When she’s near the bottom of the hill she turns and waves. I wonder if she’s going to her dad’s tonight or not. I hope she isn’t because I like knowing she’s close by.

  Eight

  First Word

  The phone rings. I bet it’s Camille calling to see if we can review the math problems. She always gets nervous on Sunday nights because Monday is coming and she never feels ready.

  “Hi, Anna. I’m calling to see how she’s doing.” The voice is familiar, but I don’t know who it is.

  “Who is this, please?”

  “I’m sorry, I forgot to introduce myself. This is Ms. Watkins from up the street, the one who found the cat in my garage. How’s she doing?”

  “Just fine.”

  “That’s what I thought. I wanted to check in.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Thank you, Anna. And thank your mom and dad again for me, okay? And Grandma, too.”

  I hang up, and suddenly Maow Maow pounces out of nowhere, grabs my leg, and claws me right through my jeans. “Ouch,” I shout.

  She scrambles into the den.

  I pull up my jeans, and my ankle has a scratch.

  Mom gets me an alcohol wipe. I cringe as I wait for the sting that I know will come. Kaylee is watching me clean the scratch. Then she toddlesover to pick up the sock mouse on the floor, and holds it against her cheek.

  “She really likes that mouse,” Mom says.

  Kaylee comes to me. She has her eyebrows pulled together and she looks very concerned as she bends down to inspect my ankle. Then she offers me her mouse.

  I pick her
up and kiss her cheek. “Thank you, Bao Bao,” I say. “But you can keep the mouse. The scratch doesn’t really hurt.”

  The mouse is dangling.

  There is Maow Maow, crouching and moving her hind legs as she gets ready to pounce.

  “That cat,” Mom says, shaking her head.

  Kaylee jerks the mouse back. “No,” she says.

  Mom’s whole face lights up. “She said her first real word! We have to tell Dad! And the doctor.”

  “I can’t believe she said it to the cat,” I say.

  In the middle of the night I wake up and realize that I forgot to study my spelling and vocabulary words. Last year in fourth grade, they were so easy that I got 100 without studying. But this year there are usually some words I don’t know.

  I turn on the light, rummage in my backpack for my notebook, and flip quickly through the pages. Twelve words this time:hospitality, lively, simile, metaphor, insomnia, delicious, desert, dessert, adapt, superfluous, comprehensive, limerick. I look hard at the words and spell them in my head. Then I close my eyes and try to remember as many as I can. I think of pictures to go with each word, like desert goes with camels and sand. In about ten minutes I have the words memorized. I turn the light off again and lie still in my bed.

  Camille can hardly believe how I can memorize. “How do you do that?” she asks when we study together. I tell her it’s kind of like taking a picture of words in my brain. Camille writes them over and over again and still she usually misses some. In Chinese school, she does better, but it takes her longer than it takes me to memorize the characters. “You’re lucky,” she always says. “You’re smart.” Lots of people tell me that. Laura said her mom said that Chinese people are smart. I wonder how that makes Camille feel when she gets 75s on her spelling tests.

  I wish it were morning, because I’m not tired and the colors behind my eyelids are swirling like a funnel cloud. That reminds me, I still have no ideas for my science fair project. Ms. Henry said to think of things that genuinely interest us, things we really want to find out. She said we should pay attention to everything we can for a couple of weeks and keep a notebook full of random thoughts and observations. I turn on my light again and reach for a piece of paper and a pencil.

  Observations, I write across the top.

  My cat purs when I pet her.

  She flexes her claws before she goes to sleep.

  I see colors when I close my eyes.

  They swirl when I rub my eyelids.

  I hear Mom and Dad talking in soft voices downstairs. They’re probably trying to figure out some way to get Kaylee to eat more.

  My baby sister doesn’t eat enough.

  Girls are better than boys.

  What else have I observed?

  Buckeyes sometimes come, in groups of three.

  This November the weather is warmer than usual.

  But none of these observations is going to turn into a science fair project.

  Nine

  Our Natural World

  My classroom is really noisy. I look around, and there is a substitute—again. My stomach turns over. It seems like Ms. Simmons—Ms. Sylvester now that she’s married—has been absent a lot this year, and the substitutes can never control our class. Three boys are doing karate kicks in the back. Laura, Camille, Allison, and Lucy are talking in the corner.

  The substitute hits a ruler on the desk and for a minute everyone is quiet. “Boys and girls, the bell has rung. Take your seats.”

  The talking starts again as the kids move slowly toward their desks. I am between Ryan and Lucy. Camille is two rows behind me and Laura is two rows ahead. The substitute says we will start with math, and then we’ll have our spelling test. Her voice is mousy and I can hardly hear what she’s saying. Doesn’t she know that a substitute has to be really loud? Even louder than Ms. Sylvester, and we can hear her voice through the closed door.

  The spelling test is easy and I finish the fill-in-the-blank part early. I wish I would have brought a book to read.

  Finally the substitute collects the tests and it’s time to go to science in Ms. Henry’s room. Allison and Lucy are walking on either side of Camille, who is much taller than the rest of us. She sees me. “Hi, Anna,” she says with her wide-open smile. “I didn’t see you this morning.”

  “I was almost late,” I say.

  When Camille first came to North Fairmount at the beginning of this year, I was the only one who already knew her since she’s in my Chinese class on Saturdays, and her mom and my mom are friends. Everybody asked me if she was my cousin because we’re the only two Asian kids in our grade, except for one other girl who’s only half. I showed Camille where the gym was and the lunchroom, and the secret mound behind the tetherball where Laura and I say there is a man breathing under the dirt.

  Ms. Henry hands out a packet to each of us called “Science Fair” Now that we’ve made random observations, we have to narrow things down and figure out what sort of projects we want to pursue. We will go to the library this morning to get ideas from books. We can work with a partner or in a small group.

  In the library, everybody is looking around, trying to figure out who to work with and what to do. Ms. Henry says this first library visit is just for brainstorming. We don’t have to settle on a topic right away. In fact, she says it’s better not to settle on a project too quickly. Sometimes one thing leads to the next.

  Camille looks upset. “What should we do?” she asks.

  “We don’t have to decide today,” I say.

  “I know, but should we do weather or plants or what?” Camille is always worried about anything related to school.

  I pull a book off the shelf about tornadoes and we start looking at the funnel clouds. When I was little, there was a tornado that came through our neighborhood. All the way until about third grade, I was scared every time there was even a little thunderstorm. Then, finally, I got used to storms and even came to like them.

  Laura looks at the pictures with us. “Can I work with you guys?” she asks.

  I nod. “But we don’t know what we’re going to do.”

  “I know. But when you decide, can I be in your group?”

  “Sure,” Camille says. She’s like that, always ready to include everybody in everything.

  Lucy and Allison bring a book to our table called Our Natural World: Science Fair Experiments. “We’ve decided,” Allison says.

  “What?” asks Laura.

  “We’re doing plants. I mean, they’re all around us.”

  “And I love flowers,” Lucy says.

  “Do you guys want to do it with us?”

  Camille’s face lights up. “I like flowers,” she says.

  “Me, too,” Laura says.

  Allison opens the book. “We can do this experiment about how plants absorb different colors. Okay, Lucy, in the section called ‘Plant Nutrition,’ you read the first chapter. I’ll read the second. Laura, you read the third, and Camille, you can read the fourth one. Anna, you can do the last chapter and the appendix.”

  I look down. I don’t really want to do a science fair project straight from a book. Ms. Henry said we should use books to get ideas, not to copy from. Wouldn’t copying an experiment from a book be sort of like reading a mystery when you already know the ending?

  “I’m not sure,” I say to Allison.

  Ten

  An Accident

  Dad is holding Kaylee and waiting for Mom to get home so he can make it to his accounting class on time. He keeps looking at his watch and pacing in front of the window.

  “I can take care of her,” I say.

  Dad hesitates.

  “Yeah, we can take care of her,” Ken says.

  “It’ll just be for a few minutes,” I say.

  Kaylee squirms to get down. She toddles over to me, holds her arms out, and I swing her onto my hip.

  Dad looks at his watch again. “Okay. Just play with her here in the living room, and Mom will be home any minute.”
/>   As soon as Dad leaves, Kaylee starts fussing. I sing her the gumdrops song, and she listens, but when I stop, she whimpers and struggles to get down. I set her on her feet and she goes to the window.

  “Look at this, Kaylee.” Ken does a cartwheel.

  Kaylee watches.

  Ken does another one, better than the first.

  Kaylee smiles.

  “She likes it,” Ken says. “Now watch this.”

  He steps back to do a roundoff. When he lands, his foot hits the cocktail table in front of the sofa and knocks the candy bowl onto the floor. It shatters and spews glass and candy all over the place. Ken stands in the middle of the broken glass like a statue.

  “Are you okay?” I ask.

  “It was an accident,” Ken whispers.

  Kaylee is staring at the candy. She starts to toddle toward it, but I grab her. “No,” I shout.

  She starts crying.

  “Go get the broom,” I order Ken.

  For a change, Ken does exactly what I tell him. He steps carefully between the pieces of glass and gets the broom from the closet. Then he tries to sweep the glass and candy into a pile, but instead he spews it all over the place.

  “Not like that,” I say.

  “I’m trying,” he says, choking up.

  “Here. You hold Kaylee and let me sweep.” I hand the baby to him.