The Great Wall of Lucy Wu

by Wendy Wan-Long Shang

  I narrowed my choices down to a pair of red and white high-tops, which would have looked great with my uniform, and a sleek pair of silver ones, when Gabi and Ariana showed up.

  Gabi and Ariana were in my grade, and they used to be normal people — they even played ball a few years ago. Now they seemed to spend most of their time trying to look like each other. Today they both were wearing pink lip gloss, had their hair in pigtails, and had their sweatshirts zipped exactly halfway up.

  Ariana gave Gabi a nudge and they both stared at me. “What are you doing?” Gabi asked me.

  “Just getting some new shoes,” I said, like it was no big deal. But I had a funny feeling. Gabi and Ariana were in Mrs. Tibbs’s class, with Sloane.

  “You’re always doing something with basketball, aren’t you?” asked Gabi. It almost sounded like an accusation.

  I tugged at the hem of my T-shirt. “Not always. Sometimes.”

  The salesman walked over toward us. “You ladies want to try your luck at the machine? Your friend scored a twenty-four-percent discount today with some great shooting.” I guess he wasn’t upset about my scoring anymore.

  Gabi stared at him. “No …”

  “… thank you,” finished Ariana. He gave them a funny look and walked away.

  “You’re good,” said Gabi. “You must practice a lot.”

  “Thanks,” I said, but inside I was racking my brain. Was Sloane at the mall, too?

  I ran my hand over the shoes, feeling the smooth leather. What should I do next?

  Suddenly, Gabi pointed out the storefront window. “Who is that?” she shrieked. She grabbed Ariana’s arm.

  I followed the direction of Gabi’s arm and realized she was pointing at Yi Po, who at that moment was heading toward the Bathtastic store across the way.

  I had kind of forgotten that she looked a little strange, with her wiry hair, missing tooth, and dark blue clothing. As Kenny put it, she didn’t look American.

  “Is that your grandmother?” asked Gabi.

  “No!” The word popped out before I could sound a little less freaked out. I swallowed hard. “That is not my grandmother.”

  “Omigod, she’s waving to us. How funny,” said Ariana. Yi Po was standing outside the store, giving me a little wave as if to say, We’re here now. “C’mon, Lucy, she must know you, or why would she wave to you?” She waved back, though not in a perfectly friendly way. Gabi laughed and waved, too.

  I closed my eyes and wished, for just a second, that I had American relatives like everyone else’s. Ones who didn’t stand out. Ones who spoke English and blended in perfectly.

  But relatives who were like everyone else’s weren’t like my grandmother, either.

  I opened my eyes. Yi Po had gone into the bath store. I prayed she wouldn’t come over.

  “Well, that was interesting,” said Ariana. Gabi laughed like Ariana had just told the world’s funniest joke. I tried to act as if I hadn’t heard them.

  “Yeah, well, I think I’m going to try these shoes on,” I said. As though I needed to be alone to put on shoes.

  “So, you’re going out for captain of the basketball team at school,” Gabi said abruptly.

  My whole body felt like one giant gulp. This was definitely Sloane-related.

  “I’m definitely maybe kind of possibly thinking about it,” I said, trying to make a joke out of it.

  Gabi and Ariana looked at each other, and then they both said, “Hmmm …”

  “We have to be going,” announced Gabi.

  I stood in the middle of the store, not moving, until they were out of sight. Then I put the shoes back on the display. I didn’t feel like getting shoes anymore.

  When Mom and Yi Po came back to the store, Yi Po gestured toward the window and said something in Chinese. I caught the word peng you, or friends.

  She probably thought all girls my age were my friends. I choked out the most basic words in Chinese: They are not my friends.

  “What is Yi Po talking about, Lucy? Did you run into somebody here?” asked Mom.

  I didn’t answer, and Yi Po gave me a funny, almost sad look. But how could I explain this problem of my not-friends to my not-grandmother?

  On Monday when I got to school, I had two simultaneous thoughts: Look for Harrison, avoid Sloane, look for Harrison, avoid Sloane. Unfortunately, I couldn’t look for Harrison because something blocked my view. Sloane.

  “So, Lucy,” said Sloane. She slid in front of me and cornered me between a table and chair. We were in the cafeteria, where they corralled us before class on rainy days. There was no escape. “I heard that your family has a special visitor.”

  I tried to keep my face neutral. If only Madison were with me, instead of at the eye doctor this morning. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” But I knew. She was talking about Yi Po.

  “Sure you do. At the mall. Who is she? Gabi and Ariana said she practically looked like a homeless person. All weird and stuff.” Sloane poked her face close to mine and dropped her voice to a whisper. “I’d be really careful if I were you. I mean, it’s really sweet that your family takes in homeless people, but people like that have all sorts of weird diseases. You wouldn’t want to catch some terrible rash or head lice, would you?” The word lice echoed in my head. I thought of Kendra.

  “It would be soooo terrible if you had to miss school, or even the big basketball game, because you had some communicable disease,” cooed Sloane.

  I looked at Sloane’s face, her perfectly glossed mouth open in phony concern. I’m sure that to the cafeteria monitor, Sloane looked like the very picture of genuine caring.

  “She’s not a homeless person,” I said shortly. It was all I could say and still be sure that my voice wasn’t shaking.

  “Then who …” started Sloane. But at that moment the bell rang, and the surge of students around us popped me free from Sloane’s grip.

  I walked to class feeling sick, not that I’d tell anyone that now. I could just see it — the minute I missed school, Sloane would gear up her nasty rumor machine. My breakfast churned inside my stomach, threatening to make an exit. You should have just told her! You should have said, that was my aunt, and been done! I told myself. Now I was doubly trapped between Sloane and something less than the truth, and I didn’t like the way it felt, not one bit.

  The next few weeks sped by. Basketball season got into full swing with Saturday and weeknight practices, and Ms. Phelps started assigning this-is-important-next-year-is-middle-school homework. On top of this, I was actually having to take Chinese school seriously.

  Having Harrison’s aunt as my teacher had called for a switch from Plan A to Plan B. Serious Plan B. Good-bye, Amelia Helprin — Hello, Regina Wu Junior! I actually studied the idioms Jing Lao Shi assigned to us and volunteered in class.

  I also had to prepare for those few minutes after Chinese school when I saw Harrison. I wouldn’t say that he was waiting for me, but he always seemed to be at the trophy case near my room after class. We never talked for long — I was too worried about an awkward pause that would ruin everything. But we talked about the cafeteria’s first attempt at vegetarian meals — tacos with soy crumbles — homework assignments, and movies. We talked about our Chinese middle names — his was Yulong, Jade Dragon.

  I also perfected the world’s fastest makeover in the car after basketball practice:

  Get in car, wipe self down with towel. (Thanks, Talent!)

  Take hair out of ponytail, comb out hair. Check self in rearview mirror.

  Pull nice shirt over practice shirt. Take off dirty shirt underneath. Do not let anyone see!

  Change sneakers for cute shoes.

  Put on tinted lip gloss and peach body spray. Sniff self. Check mirror again.

  Jump out of car.

  And on top of this, I had another assignment for regular school, Chinese school, and everywhere else: Be on guard against the Amazons at all times. I never walked home by myself and I always sat down very carefully.
>
  But for those few weeks, nothing bad happened. Maybe Sloane had found something better to do, or, more likely, someone new to pick on. I started to think that if I put my head down and minded my own business, nothing else would happen.

  Madison’s birthday came and went, then eight days before Halloween, I woke up to what seemed like a great day. I think it had something to do with finding my lucky Lady Vols T-shirt the night before. I thought I had lost it, but then I spotted the bright University of Tennessee orange at the bottom of my desk drawer. It listed all of the national championships the team had won with Pat Summitt. I started to feel excited about the student-faculty basketball game. It would be fun to design some plays and run the team, just like Pat. It would be really fun to win.

  The day started with Yi Po actually sleeping in until 6:15, which meant that I got a decent night’s sleep, too. My hair actually did what I wanted it to. Mom remembered to buy Cinnamon Snaps, my favorite cereal, and Dad gave Madison and me a ride to school because it was raining.

  When I got to school, more great stuff happened. Ms. Phelps decided to cancel the social studies quiz on Monday, and when I walked down the hall past two Amazons, no one laughed. And Harrison went out of his way to say hi to me on the way to the pencil sharpener.

  When I had to go to the girls’ room at 10:15, I was practically floating on air. Then I found the writing on the wall.

  If you don’t flush

  Lucy Wu

  Will drink your pee

  And stir-fry your poo.

  Did it really say that? I shook my head and looked again. Still there. The wall seemed to grow until it was nearly flattening me. Sloane hadn’t been leaving me alone — she had been plotting.

  I grabbed some paper towels and tried to wash off the words with some soap and water. It didn’t work. I wanted to kick the tile in, crack it, so no one else could see it. It reminded me of the chants that Mom had told me about — the horrible things that kids said to her when she was the only Chinese girl in the entire school. Me Chinese, me play joke, me put pee pee in your Coke.

  My throat swelled and I felt tears threatening to spill over. Don’t cry, not here. I heard someone walk into the bathroom, and I leaped back, terrified. What if it was Sloane, or one of the other Amazons? If they saw me crying, I might as well give up, put a big “Kick Me” sign on my back, and call it a day. Instead, I tried to look pissed off.

  It wasn’t Sloane. It was Talent, and I apparently did not look anything close to mad.

  Her face softened as soon as she saw me. “Oh, Lucy,” she said. “What’s the matter?”

  I swallowed and pointed at the tile. Talent bent down to read it.

  “Do you know who wrote that?” she asked. She looked really mad.

  I nodded. “I think so,” I said in a small voice. Suddenly, I couldn’t hold back any longer. I slid down the wall until my butt hit the floor, and then I let the tears come out. I buried my head in my arms to muffle any sound that would echo off the tile.

  Talent waited. Through the little space between my arm and my leg, I could still see that her loafers were perfectly shined, and her socks matched her pants.

  “I think it’s Sloane Connors, or one of her friends,” I finally choked out. “Sloane doesn’t want me to go out for captain of the sixth-grade team.”

  Talent didn’t say anything for a moment. Then she said, “That evil wi …”

  “Excuse me?” The shock was enough to make me stop crying completely. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. The perfect Talent Chang?!

  “I’m going to get the principal,” announced Talent, heading for the exit.

  I grabbed her arm. “Wait,” I said. “Don’t. Please don’t.”

  “Sloane can’t do this to us. This is an insult to all Chinese people.”

  Funny — I had never wanted to think of Talent and me as being an us, but at that moment I appreciated having someone on my side. Still, she had it wrong. “Sloane never had any problem with me before,” I pointed out. “I think she would find something nasty to write if I were from — I don’t know — Finland. It’s not about where I’m from, where we’re from — I just happen to be in the way of what she wants.” I stood up and kicked the tile. “And I just want her to leave me alone.”

  “Mrs. Nicholson might be able to help you,” said Talent. She still didn’t get it.

  “Listen,” I said. “If you go and tell the principal, it will be like letting Sloane win.”

  Talent stared at me.

  “Look, you need proof, right? No proof, no case. There’s no way we can prove Sloane did this, or anything else, but if you go to Mrs. Nicholson, there will be a big stink, and I’ll just look like a baby, going for help. If the Amazons figure out they’re getting to me, I’m dead meat.”

  Talent nodded slowly.

  “Promise me you won’t tell anyone. Please.”

  She nodded again.

  I pointed to the wall. “Do you have any idea how to clean that off? I tried soap, and it didn’t work.”

  Talent reached down and opened her purse. It was a small brown leather purse, and it matched her belt and shoes perfectly. She pulled out one of those pens that is supposed to remove stains from clothing.

  I stared at it for a moment. Talent fiddled with the cap, twisting it. “I don’t like having soiled clothes,” she said defensively. “It has bleach. It might work.”

  We tried rubbing it on the tile. It worked, not perfectly, but well enough that we erased most of the words, including my name and the part about stir-fried poo.

  “We better go,” said Talent. “We’ve been in here for a while.”

  “Okay.” I put the cap back on the pen and handed it to Talent. Then I thought of something. “Do you have any plans for Halloween?”

  Talent shook her head shyly. It suddenly occurred to me that she was probably one of those kids who went trick-or-treating alone. Or maybe she didn’t go at all.

  “You have plans now,” I told her. “And you just might have to wear jeans.”

  She smiled.

  Sloane’s chant got stuck in my head and played over and over, drowning out everything around me. If you don’t flush …

  At practice, I missed the setup for an inbounds play. Twice.

  Coach Mike blew his whistle. “Let’s end practice with a double set of suicides, thanks to Miss Wu!”

  The whole team groaned. That would be twelve times up the court and back. I think even Madison frowned at me.

  Lucy Wu … will drink your pee …

  Chinese school wasn’t any better. Jessie was my conversation partner, and she snapped at me every time I pronounced something wrong. “What’s the matter with you? Are you deaf?” she demanded. “You better not mess this up!”

  “I know,” I said, tiredly. “Or no video phone.”

  And stir-fry your poo …

  Harrison didn’t show up at our usual spot after Chinese school, either.

  When I got home, all I wanted to do was crawl into bed and stay there for a long time. I hadn’t been alone for five minutes when Yi Po came in. I scrunched down farther under the covers and pretended to be asleep.

  She didn’t buy it. “Eh, Mei Mei, ni bu su fu ma?” She wanted to know if I was feeling sick. I shook my head.

  She put her hand on my forehead. Then she left without saying anything.

  When my grandmother was alive, she did all sorts of things when I was sick. I tried to think of five things. She made honey-and-lemon drinks if my throat hurt. She folded scraps of paper into little animals and put them on trays of food she brought to me. She made my favorite sick food: steamed eggs with ground pork. She fussed over the blankets until she thought they were exactly comfortable for me.

  That was only four. This made me feel worse. I could only think of four things — I was forgetting.

  I must have fallen asleep because the next thing I knew, it was nearly dinnertime. My eyes were prickly with sleep, and I definitely felt like I needed a shower
. As I got ready to go downstairs, I realized that my quilt had been neatly folded at the foot of my bed.

  I unfolded the quilt. The tear had been re-repaired. Now the rip was disguised by a blooming branch of forsythia. The branch flowed into the other flowers in the quilt, though you could tell it was a little newer than the rest.

  It had to be Yi Po. I found her in the family room, watching a cooking show and sewing a button on a shirt. I waited for her to look up, and then I held out the quilt. I didn’t know how to say repair or quilt. Where to start?

  She waved me off. “Mei shi.” No big deal.

  I stood in the family room, feeling shy. Then I sat down and watched the rest of the show with her.

  In my house, there are two kinds of food — Chinese and American. American food is anything that isn’t Chinese — whether it’s Tex-Mex, Thai, or Italian. Before Yi Po showed up, we usually had Chinese food half the time, and American food half the time, which was just fine with me.

  After Yi Po arrived, though, it was clear that we were going to have Chinese food all the time. At first it was because Mom was nervous about serving Yi Po anything except Chinese food. But then Yi Po slowly started to take over the kitchen, and of course, all she cooked was Chinese food. Mom protested, but the thought of coming home from work to a fully cooked dinner was an offer she couldn’t refuse.

  “This is soo wonderful,” she murmured one night as she added another helping of cashew chicken into her bowl. “You all should be so thankful Yi Po is here because I’m so slammed at work you’d be getting macaroni and cheese.”

  Macaroni and cheese? I thought. I’d love some macaroni and cheese. Or lasagna. Or tacos. Chinese food was okay, but not all the time!

  When I told Madison about the all Chinese food, all the time situation, I didn’t get the sympathetic reaction I was hoping for. “You are absolutely crazy,” Madison informed me. “Invite me over for dinner.”