The team groaned but Coach Mike rolled his eyes. “One if you’re fast, two if you’re slow!” he announced.
“I can’t believe he’s making us do this,” I whispered to Madison. “I’m dying.”
Madison grinned. “Yeah, but it beats missing basketball completely, doesn’t it?” And then, in case I’d forgotten, she added, “And now you’ll be totally prepared to take down Sloane.”
Coach Mike blew the whistle to start and I took off running for the free-throw line. What I wanted to do, though, was run through the doors, out of the school, and far, far away.
As soon as practice was over, Mom was outside waiting in the car. Mom shook her head when she saw me. “I can’t believe you’re going to Chinese school like this! What will your teachers say?” she lectured as I got in the car.
Of course she’s not interested in how practice went. I leaned over and looked in the rearview mirror. I had to admit that I was not about to make the world’s best first impression. My face was bright red and my hair was straggly with sweat. I also wore an old T-shirt that boasted two holes and a faded brown spot from a bad encounter with some barbecue sauce.
I started fixing my ponytail, then gave up. There was no point. “I’m going, right?” I said. “I don’t want to go, but I’m going.”
Mom looked at me in the rearview mirror. “That’s enough, Lucy. I thought getting to play basketball would take away some of this attitude.”
As if. I wanted to tell her that getting to play basketball while still going to Chinese school was like getting a brand-new car that you only got to drive to work. On Saturdays.
“I think this is the right street,” she said more to herself than to me as she turned right.
Forest Hills High School loomed into view, and from the looks of it, every Chinese family in a fifty-mile radius was there. They were all heading into the main set of doors.
Mom pulled up to the curb. “Hop out. The parking here is a nightmare. I’ll catch up with you after I park.”
Suddenly, I felt a surge of panic. What if I didn’t understand what they wanted me to do? What if my Chinese was so bad they put me in a class with babies?
“Umm … I think I’ll just stay in the car and go in with you,” I said, trying not to let my panic show.
“Don’t be silly, Lucy,” Mom said impatiently. “Go. You’re going to be late.”
I stepped out of the car slowly and trudged up the steps into the main hall of the school. There were long lines of people extending from a row of tables. I found the table marked t-z and got in line.
“Ming zi?” demanded a sour-looking man when I reached the end of the line.
“Wu Mengxue,” I answered, feeling pleased that I knew he was asking for my name.
Unfortunately, it went downhill from there. He flipped through a stack of papers, pulled out one. He started asking me questions in rapid-fire Chinese.
Some of the questions I understood, but I couldn’t figure out how to answer in Chinese. Other questions, I only recognized some of the words, but not the whole question. I was drowning in wave after wave of Chinese words and phrases. Should I fess up? Should I explain that I can’t understand? I looked around for Mom, hoping she could explain. No Mom. He was starting to look kind of mad when I felt a hand gently grip my arm.
What’s the matter? I heard someone ask in Chinese.
The man stopped looking mad and started explaining, smiling, and pointing down the hall. I turned to see who had saved me from certain doom.
It was Talent Chang.
Talent kept a grip on my arm until she had steered me clear of the registration table. Then she released my arm and wiped her hand on her pants.
“Eeewww. How can you be so sweaty at …” She glanced at her watch. “10:07 in the morning?”
“Basketball practice,” I said. Even with her obnoxious comment, I was fairly certain this was the happiest I’d ever been to see Talent. Or ever would be.
“Yech. Have you ever heard of a towel?” Talent, of course, was dressed as Little Miss Junior Chinese School Administrator. She was wearing a blue and white striped oxford and chinos, crisply ironed.
“I didn’t know the coach was going to work us so hard today,” I replied, feeling sheepish. Normally, I would have had a snappier comeback — have you ever heard of a T-shirt and jeans? — but I was too much out of my element. Throngs of kids, all Chinese, were passing us, and they all seemed to know what they were doing. I, on the other hand, was at the mercy of Talent Chang.
“Listen.” Talent was walking at a brisk pace and I was jogging slightly to keep up. My calves ached, reminding me that I had already had my workout today. “They want you to go and meet with Professor Pao, so she can assess you and figure out what classroom is best for you. We’ve got to hurry, though, because she’s getting really backed up over there, and you’re going to miss the whole first day of class if you don’t get in line soon.”
“Okay.” I was surprised by how much Talent cared. I thought she had been trying to get me to go to Chinese school just so she could show off.
She finally stopped at a classroom door. There were four people standing in line. Inside, I could see a plump older woman with glasses sitting on one side of a desk. “This is it,” Talent announced crisply.
Talent spun around and headed back to the main hall. “Good luck,” she said.
“Thanks,” I said. “I mean, xie xie.”
Talent looked back and gave me a look of approval. Somehow, Talent’s know-it-all attitude didn’t seem so horrible here. In fact, here, it kind of worked.
My interview with Professor Pao went better than I thought it would. I managed to carry on a very brief conversation in Chinese regarding the color of my shoes and the weather. My problem was that I couldn’t always think of the word I wanted to use when I wanted to use it. I did recognize the characters for the numbers one, two, and three. Well, okay, to be fair, the characters for one, two, and three are one horizontal line, two horizontal lines, and three horizontal lines.
Professor Pao handed me a slip of paper with a room number on it. “Your accent isn’t bad — you should work on vocabulary and idioms,” she said sternly. “Practice!”
I nodded and took the slip of paper. Room 303. I needed to find a stairwell and go up two flights. The clock in the cafeteria said it was 10:45. Another hour and fifteen minutes of Chinese school — how was I going to survive? My steps slowed to a crawl.
Eventually I couldn’t delay any longer and found Room 303. I opened the door without knocking. The desks had been rearranged in a circle and everyone was laughing and talking. A woman dressed in a gold jacket and burgundy skirt stood up and walked over.
“Hello! What is your name? Wo shi Jing Lao Shi,” she said cheerfully. Her English was slowed by her accent and her effort to pronounce the words properly. I also noticed that instead of calling herself Miss or Mrs. Jing, she used the title of teacher, lao shi.
“Wo jiao Wu Mengxue.” I mumbled, surprised by how friendly she was.
“Welcome, Mengxue. I am so glad you are my student. Come sit. We are acting out the stories to Chinese idioms.” She led me over to one group, two girls and one boy. They all turned and stared at me.
“Hey,” I said.
“This is Wu Mengxue,” said the teacher, putting one arm around me, squeezing. “Please include her in your group.” She grinned. “Be nice! She’s the newest student in the class.” She giggled like crazy at her own joke.
“Here,” said the boy, handing me a sheet of paper. “We’re acting out the story of dong shi xi su.”
In my mind, I had planned to use the Amelia Helprin strategy in a large group, while the teacher was calling on me. Now the plan seemed less certain.
“I don’t know this phrase,” I said in my best wooden Amelia voice.
“Then hurry up and read the sheet,” said the taller of the two girls impatiently. “C’mon, she’s going to call on us in twenty minutes.”
I g
lanced down at the sheet. We were supposed to act out our version of dong shi xi su, a Chinese phrase that means eating in the east and sleeping in the west. The original story was about a girl who had a choice between marrying two men. The guy who lived in the west was poor but handsome, and the guy who lived in the east was rich but ugly. People now use the phrase to describe someone who wants things both ways, like the girl wanted a good-looking boyfriend except when it came time to eat — then she wanted the rich guy who could buy her a fancy meal.
The two girls were arguing over who was going to play the girl, because neither one of them wanted to play a boy. The taller girl, Jessie, won out because she had a funny idea. “See, I’m going to put up my hand like this” — she put up her hand like a traffic cop and swiveled her shoulders — “and say, ‘Don’t make me look at you, just pass the lobster!’”
I started to laugh, but then stopped as soon as I realized Jing Lao Shi was looking at me. No emotion, like Amelia, I reminded myself. I dropped my eyes and looked at the handout again.
The other girl, Liane, said she would be the boy from the west. “If I have to be a boy, I’m going to be a good-looking boy,” she announced. Adam, the only boy in the group, said he didn’t care if he played the rich-but-ugly guy.
“I guess you can do a little intro, okay?” said Jessie to me.
I made one last attempt at Ameliadom. “I don’t want to,” I said. Jessie looked exasperated.
“I don’t know what your problem is,” she said heatedly. “And I don’t care. I don’t care that you don’t want to. My parents have promised me a video phone if I get a good grade here and you are not going to mess it up! If you keep me from getting my video phone …”
“Jiang zhongwen,” Jing Lao Shi called over gently. Speak Chinese. Yes, I thought, please threaten me in Chinese.
I practiced the intro. Once upon a time in China, there was a girl with two boyfriends. One was ugly but rich, one was poor but handsome. I was a little nervous about some of the words, but Adam helped me out. “It’s not hard, see?” he said. “Rich is you qian, you have money. Poor is mei you qian, you have no money. Ugly is hen nan kan — difficult to look at!” He made a weird noise, which I guess was his way of laughing. It sounded like a cross between a dying lawn mower and a donkey. Guh-huh, guh-huh.
My whole act-like-Amelia plan was replaced by the act-like-a-terrified-twit plan when it was time to perform. My voice trembled as I tried to keep track of the words I was supposed to use. When Jessie, Adam, and Liane took over, I breathed a sigh of relief.
I thought we did a pretty good job. Jing Lao Shi laughed when Jessie said her line, and no one else did anything funny with their story.
For homework, Jing Lao Shi told us to study all of the idioms we had used, and get used to using them in conversation. Then she stood by the door and said good-bye, adding some encouragement or praise to each student. “You were so funny!” she told Jessie. She told Adam he was so lucky to be in a group with three beautiful girls, and he blushed. When I passed her, I kept my eyes on the floor.
“Hey, Wu Mengxue,” she called, patting me on the shoulder. “Good job today! Don’t be so shy, okay?”
I glanced at her out of the corner of my eye and looked away. “Zai jian,” I said under my breath. Good-bye.
I walked out of the room and down the hall as fast as I could go without running. Where was Mom? How fast could I get out of here?
I turned the corner to get to the stairs and ran smack into Harrison Miller.
“Harrison? What are you doing here?” I was so surprised I sounded more like I’d found him in the girls’ bathroom.
“Hey, Lucy.” When Harrison smiled I noticed that he had a dimple on only one side of his face. “Nice to see you, too.”
There was an awkward pause as my brain desperately tried to go from surprised mode to intelligent conversation. “So … what are you doing here?” I said feebly as I lowered my notebook slightly to cover the barbecue stain on my shirt. Why hadn’t I brushed my hair?
“Ummm … I’m going to Chinese school?” Harrison had the tone of someone who is puzzled that the answer isn’t obvious. “I’m here to practice my Chinese.”
“Wait. You go here? You want to practice your Chinese? You already speak Chinese?” Harrison might as well have announced that he could fly around the room by flapping his arms.
Harrison gave me a strange look. “I thought everybody knew,” he said. “My mom is Chinese. We don’t speak too much Chinese at home, so we both thought it would be a good idea to sign up for this, at least until soccer next spring.”
I tried not to stare directly at Harrison’s face by pretending to be fascinated by the trophy case behind him. Was Harrison really Chinese? I studied his face with quick side glances. His eyes had the slightest hint of the single eyelid fold like many Chinese. And his hair was very dark and straight. How had I not noticed this before?
I thought of something to say, something that didn’t make me sound like an idiot. “My mom and dad are making me come here. I hate it.”
Harrison looked at the floor and smiled. “I wouldn’t exactly say I hate it. My mom’s sister is teaching here so it’s kind of a family-type thing for me to come.”
“Who is your mom’s sister?” I had a very strange feeling in my stomach, like I already knew the answer.
“I call her Ai Yi. But her last name is Jing.”
Omigod! My mind raced back over the class. How horrible had I been? Was Harrison’s aunt going to tell him to stay away from me? Suddenly, I realized that I was still in my sweaty, bottom-of-the-drawer clothes from basketball practice. I could just see Harrison and Jing Lao Shi talking. At home. In Chinese.
Jing Lao Shi: All my students are so lovely except for one. Miss Wu showed up in dirty, sweaty clothes and barely tried to speak Chinese.
Harrison: I know her! Ha! That’s nothing compared to the bonehead things she’s said in front of me.
Jing Lao Shi: I think you should stay away from her.
Harrison: Yeah — if she were in the east or west I would definitely go NORTH!
“Lucy!” Mom walked toward me and Harrison. “I’ve been waiting for you downstairs for ten minutes! I thought you couldn’t wait to get out of here.”
Aaack! My feet suddenly took on a life of their own and propelled me down the hall. If Mom met Harrison today, then the next time she showed up at school she’d be giving him the social third degree.
“Gotta go. See you,” I said, not too loudly.
“Good to see you. Zai jian,” Harrison responded. His Chinese accent was perfect.
“Who was that boy you were talking to? Is he part of the Chinese school?” Mom asked as we walked out to the car.
“A boy from my school and yes.” I hoped that quick, short answers would keep her from asking too many more questions. Then, to answer the question I knew was coming next, I said, “He’s part Chinese.” He had said, “Good to see you.” He was glad to see me! Harrison Miller was glad to see me!
“Ohhhh,” Mom said. “Interesting.”
She didn’t say anything else. I slid into the seat and for one moment, enjoyed the feeling of the sun-warmed seat and the gorgeous white clouds playing across the bright blue sky.
“So, how was your first day of Chinese school?” asked Mom.
“Not bad,” I said softly. Not bad, indeed.
On Sunday, Mom, Yi Po, and I went to Overstone Mall. We don’t normally go there because Fairleaf Shops are closer, but Mom thought that Yi Po would enjoy seeing the fancier mall with the huge aquarium and indoor garden.
Mom said she wouldn’t buy me anything, but when we walked by Kicks, my favorite shoe store, I dragged Mom and Yi Po inside with me. Kicks has the best selection of basketball shoes around.
“You still have a pair from last season,” Mom reminded me.
It’s hard to resist the siren call of a new high-top, though. The right pair of shoes make you feel like you can jump an extra two feet. “Let�
�s just look,” I said.
They had one of those arcade basketball machines next to the basketball shoes. A man wearing a black-and-white striped referee shirt slapped the machine and said, “Hey there, little lady! Today I’m offering you a choice of either a fifteen-percent-off coupon, or a percent off for every basket you make in a minute.”
Normally I can’t stand the phrase little lady because it sounds so corny. But today, I had better things to think about.
“So, like, if I get twenty-five baskets in a minute, you’ll take twenty-five percent off the shoe price?” I asked. Maybe Mom would get me a new pair of shoes if I got a big enough coupon.
The man leaned over and let out a loud bark of a laugh. “Sure,” he said. “Go for it.”
“Oh, Lucy,” said Mom. “Just take the coupon. We’ll save it for when we need it.”
“No way,” I said, and I picked up the first ball.
Yi Po tugged on Mom’s arm and said, “Ni kan.” Watch.
There were three balls in the machine and at first, I was shooting so fast that one ball would end up blocking the other. But I quickly found my rhythm and began throwing them in, nice and soft, one after the other. After five, I lost count and just focused on the basket. Everything just seemed to fade into the background. The clock seemed to go on for a long time.
Buzz!
The man looked at the scoreboard, gave the machine a little shake, and then looked at the scoreboard again. “Twenty-four,” he said reluctantly when the score stayed the same.
I jumped up and down. “Woo-hoo!” I said. “Twenty-four! How ’bout that!”
“You don’t need a new pair, though, right?” said Mom.
“Can I just look?” I begged.
“I think Yi Po would like to see the rest of the mall, and I know you’ll want to study all the shoes,” said Mom. “How about you stay here, and we’ll be back in twenty minutes or so, okay?”
Maybe Mom would get me a new pair of shoes. “Sure, Mom,” I said.
I watched other people come in the store and shoot baskets. No one even came close to my score, not even the six-foot-plus high school student who was showing off for his friends. They were impressed when he got a seventeen.
The Great Wall of Lucy Wu Page 9