The day that Mean Boy was adopted, his face was one big smile. He looked happy. But in my dream he was sad. He said that he came back to get his baton and marching band costume. Why?—I said.
The Mean Boy said that his new family didn’t believe him when he told them that he was important at the orphanage, that he was a leader, that he could make people listen and listen good. He told me that his new family didn’t give him the respect that he deserved. So he came back to get his things and to take them home to show his family.
I asked the Mean Boy if I could touch his arm. He wasn’t mean anymore, just sad, so he said yes. It was smooth and felt hot. I asked him if it hurt. He said not on the outside, but on the inside. He asked me if I hurt on the outside or inside, which was a strange question because there is nothing wrong with me on the outside.
I don’t remember what I told him.
90
Dear Penny,
I saw Jazz at the ice cream parlor today. She looked pretty. I think she was wearing more makeup today because she has a boyfriend. He comes in to see her at work all the time. His name is Lex, and he is definitely who I would pick for a boyfriend. Lex is tall and has dark hair like Daddy. He is very nice to Jazz and makes her laugh and smile. Even when Jazz is making my ice cream or talking to another costumer, she is always watching Lex. They say silly things to each other and whisper in each other’s ear.
Daddy doesn’t act that way with Wanna. He never makes Wanna laugh, and he definitely does not whisper sweet things in her ear. They are not talking very much, at least not as much as they used to. When Daddy and Wanna would walk to the lake, they used to hold hands. They don’t anymore. Daddy is working in his office more than he used to, and I never see him except when it is time for dinner and sometimes not even then. Sometimes I don’t see him until I am getting ready for bed.
I don’t know exactly what is going on, but I am trying to figure it out. Ellie doesn’t seem to notice that Daddy is not here very much. She is her happy, dancing, and singing self.
91
Dear Penny,
My body is growing, and my hair is growing too. I don’t like that my body is growing so fast, but I am happy about my hair. I can pull my hair into a ponytail for the first time.
My orphanage clothes don’t fit anymore. Wanna had to buy me new clothes. She didn’t buy me dresses because she knows that I don’t like them. I have pants now, which look like Jazz’s pants, except my pants have blue jewel hearts.
The problem is that the more I grow, and with every day that passes by, I am further from the truth. As my body grows, the more I feel like I will never know the beginning of my story. If only I could go back in time and see Her face and listen to Her conversations with Him. What did they say to each other? How does a person decide to leave their baby and a book in the street under a gate? How is it possible that She could decide that plan was the best thing to do? It doesn’t make sense to me and it probably never will. The bigger I get, the more confused I feel. Because now I know that thousands of mothers have made the same decision that She made. Ellie’s mother left her too. Every single child that was in my orphanage and orphanages around the world had mothers that made the same decision. They left their children and never came back. They left their children forever, and they will never know what happened to all of us. How can that be?
92
Dear Penny,
Sometimes when I turn your pages, I think that I will see Her. I think that one of your white pages will become her mirror and her reflection will appear. I imagine her face staring at me and wonder what She will look like, if She will be smiling, if She will be crying, or if She will just stare at me with empty eyes and feel nothing.
93
Dear Penny,
Guess what? I am going to get a dog. Jazz has a dog, and now I am going to have one too. I see Jazz walking her dog to the lake sometimes. Her dog is big and brown and skinny. I think I want a smaller dog.
Wanna said that we will go to a place called the pound to get my dog. The animals that live at the pound don’t have any families. Most of them were given up by a family that couldn’t care for them. It is going to be hard to decide. I wonder how many dogs will be there?
I will be responsible for feeding the dog, taking it outside to go to the bathroom, and cleaning up the poop. The poop part will be gross, but I am ok about the other things.
Ellie wants a dog too, but Wanna says that she is not ready for such a big responsibility. Why does Wanna think that I am ready? It doesn’t matter, really—but I wonder.
94
Dear Penny,
Wanna, Ellie, and I went to the pound. I needed to leave you in the car because I didn’t want you to get dirty from all the dogs. You wouldn’t believe how loud it was in there. I thought my ears would explode. Plus, it smelled awful. I didn’t even want a dog because the smell was so terrible. Wanna told me to hold my nose and take a quick look at the dogs and don’t worry about the smell. Well, that was hard to do because I thought I was going to throw up.
I held one hand on my nose and one hand on my belly and we walked into the dog rooms. All of the dogs were in cages, and we needed to look at them through a metal screen. They were barking and jumping and stinky, and I just wanted to get out of there. Then Wanna told me that each cage had a paper that told about each dog—how old they were, what kind of dog they were, when they came to the pound, if they liked kids, if they were sick, if they liked cats, and if they were a girl or boy dog.
After Wanna showed me the papers on the cage doors, I forgot about the smell. I read the paper about each dog and each of their stories. As I read, the dogs jumped up on the cage doors and spun around and were wild. I forgave the dogs for acting so wild and making my ears hurt, because I knew that they wanted me to take them home so they could get out of that awful place.
Wanna and Ellie tried to get me to take a gold furry puppy. They asked to hold him and pet him, and they thought he was perfect, but he wasn’t perfect for me. I kept looking.
Finally, I saw a dog picture that I liked, but I couldn’t see her in the cage. There were two dogs jumping up and down, and I couldn’t find the one that I liked. Finally one of the other dogs moved out of the way, and there she was, in the back of the cage, curled up in a small ball. She seemed like she already gave up on looking for a home.
She was white and tiny. Her paper said that she was two years old, that she was shy, that she wasn’t eating well—they didn’t know what kind of dog she was for sure, and that she was found tied to the pound’s front door.
I told Wanna that I found my dog. She said—
But, An-Ya, you didn’t hold her yet or spend any time with her. Why don’t you take her out and play with her and then make your decision?
I said—
I already decided. She is the one.
I’ll tell you the rest of the story tomorrow. My dog needs to go to the bathroom.
95
Dear Penny,
So the pound man took the dog I picked out of the cage. The pound man was big, and his gigantic belly peeked out of his red shirt. He needed to fight off the two big dogs, who tried their very best to get out too. He was kicking the big dogs and yelling at them. I thought those dogs were going to bite off his belly button. He grabbed my dog while sticking his knees into the big dogs and threw her at me. I caught her and right away she fit perfect in my arms. She wasn’t the prettiest dog, but she was quiet. Her ears looked like white bat ears and her eyes were big and black. Her white fur was dirty with brown paw marks from being stepped on by the other dogs in her cage.
Wanna and Ellie said that she looked like an angel. They petted her head and told her over and over how sweet she was. Wanna said that I should name her Angel, and I thought it was an ok name. But what I thought about most when I was holding her was how I could feel her bones. She was so thin that her bones stuck out and jabbed my arms.
I decided to name her Angel Bones.
I like the nam
e. Wanna and Ellie think it is a little strange, but they are happy that I used Angel, so they didn’t say much about it.
I wonder what her life was like for the first two years. Did she get lost? Did she run away? I don’t think that it was a good life. Angel Bones seems scared that I will hit her. I have to watch where I put my hand when I pet her, because if I put my hand up high and come down, she hides her head. I guess it might take some time for her to trust me.
The good news for you is that I don’t think she chews stuff. I will put you up on my dresser until we are totally sure that she won’t tear your pages out.
96
Dear Penny,
Sometimes I feel angry. I know so many words in English. So many. But there are not enough words in the world that would help me to be able to say exactly how I feel. Why am I so angry? It is like there is a black spot in my heart that I can sometimes cover up but sometimes I can’t. When I fail at covering it up, when I can’t hide from the blackness, I feel alone, afraid and angry.
Holding Angel Bones and petting her until she falls asleep in my arms helps turn the black spot to gray, but the spot never goes totally away.
97
Dear Penny,
So many things happened today that I don’t know where to start. First, I will tell you about the new neighbors. No, no, no—First I will tell you about Lex’s brother. I was walking down the street with Angel Bones, and I ran into Jazz and Lex. They were with a boy that I never saw before. I found out that he was Lex’s brother and his name is Levi. He is the same age as me but taller. Lex and Levi’s parents are divorced. Levi decided to live with his dad in Arizona for a while, but changed his mind and now he is living here again. Anyway, they all talked to me like I was their friend. I just listened and said—
Nice to meet you.
Levi has dark brown hair that falls over his eyes a lot. When he talks, he sweeps his hand across his forehead and brushes his hair off of his face. His eyes are bright blue and when he looks at me, it makes my ears burn.
98
Dear Penny,
The other thing that happened yesterday was this girl who showed up at our house. I was standing in the kitchen and I heard Angel Bones begin to bark. If a stranger comes to the door, Angel Bones gets excited and has this big loud bark. I don’t know how such a loud bark comes out of such a little dog. Anyway, I went to the door, and there was a girl my size with dark brown skin and lots of hair braids that were tied with green bows.
What’s up?—She said
I said—The sky.
Daddy told me that joke, and this girl thought it was the funniest thing she ever heard. She laughed and laughed and said—
You must be An-Ya. I’m your new neighbor. My name is Sitka Bailey and I live down there.
She pointed down the hill toward the lake. I asked her how she knew my name, and she said that her family met Wanna at the market and Wanna told them that I would be thrilled to have a neighbor my own age.
What? Why would Wanna say that?
I asked the girl about her name…Sitka. What did it mean?
She said that her mommy gave birth to her under a gigantic tree that was called a Sitka spruce. Her Mommy wanted Sitka to grow up big and strong just like the beautiful tree.
I asked the girl what her mommy was doing giving birth to her under a big tree. She said her parents were out hiking and that was when she was born. She said that she was born a preemie and was small. Preemie was a new word to me. Sitka said preemie means born early. She said that her daddy and mommy were doctors, so it was no big deal. They knew what to do.
Sitka asked me what my name meant, and I told her. In Chinese the An means peaceful and the Ya means elegant.
I never told someone the meaning of my name before. My name means something.
Sitka said it was a cool name, and I told her that her name was interesting too. Oh, Sitka also really likes Angel Bones, and Angel Bones seems to like Sitka too.
99
Dear Penny,
Today Sitka came over and asked if I wanted to go for a walk. I asked Wanna and she said that it was fine as long as I took Ellie too. It didn’t seem fair to me, but I wanted to get out of the house, so I took her.
Sitka changed her hair bows to red to match her shirt. I asked her if it hurt having her hair in all of those braids. She said it hurt when her mommy was braiding it, but after it was finished, it wasn’t too bad. I told her that I was growing my hair out and maybe I would try braiding it when it got a little longer. She said she would teach me and that it was easy to do, but since I was Chinese and not African, I might look dumb with a lot of braids. I agreed. It would probably look dumb.
I told Sitka that people in China don’t ever see people who look like her with such dark skin and that people in China like their skin really white. Sitka asked me if I thought the same thing—if I thought it was better to have really white skin. I lied and I said no.
It was hard to have a good conversation with Sitka since Ellie was constantly interrupting and Angel Bones was pulling me all over the place. I really need to teach Angel Bones how to walk on the leash better.
Sitka likes Ellie and holds her hand and gives her piggy back rides and tells her jokes. I don’t know why she likes her so much, but Sitka makes me laugh too, so I will just deal with it. Everyone seems to like Sitka. I don’t know what it is about her, but it is hard not to like her.
100
Dear Penny,
Today Daddy had a talk with me and Ellie. We sat on the sofa and he said that he had some bad news. He said that our family was having money problems. Daddy said that a lot of people were having money troubles in America and that meant that the beautiful houses he drew wouldn’t be built. People didn’t need him to draw houses because they couldn’t afford to build the houses that he drew. He said that we would now need to save our money and we wouldn’t have money for anything extra—like going to the ice cream parlor and stuff. He also said that sometimes money troubles make marriage trouble and that he and Wanna needed us to be good so that they could work on their marriage. I didn’t know what he meant by being good, but I think he meant that I better not cause trouble because if I did, then our family would fall apart. I also don’t know what Ellie thought of all of this stuff, but she did say—
Daddy, is that why you and Mommy don’t hug and hold hands? Is it the money problems? I can help, Daddy. I have a piggy bank that almost full. You can have all of it, Daddy, and we can make the money problems go away. Ok?
Daddy pulled Ellie onto his lap and told her what a good girl she was and thanked her for her offer. I didn’t realize that Ellie even noticed that Wanna and Daddy stopped holding hands.
101
Dear Penny,
Today I was sitting under the willow tree and trying to teach Angel Bones how to sit. I heard someone calling my name and turned around to find Levi on a bike. He has this cool bike that is dark blue with yellow lightning bolts on the side. He asked me if I wanted to ride bikes with him, but I told him that I didn’t have a bike to ride. So he parked his bike in our driveway and came over and sat next to me under the willow.
I was totally confused and didn’t know what to say. Why would he want to spend time with me? I mean, any girl would be more interesting than me, and his face looks so soft and his blue eyes sparkle and well, why me?
He asked me what I was doing and I told him I was teaching Angel Bones to behave. Angel Bones was jumping all over him, and he said it was a good idea to teach her some manners. And then he asked if he could help me. So we tried over and over again to teach her, and finally, just when we were about to give up, she sat and stayed. Levi got really excited and gave me a high five—well, he had to explain the high five thing because I never did it before. He thought that was really funny that I didn’t know how to high five, and I was totally embarrassed. Anyway, I will never forget his hand slapping my hand. Actually, even after I got how to high five, I pretended I still needed help just to feel his ha
nd touch mine again.
102
Dear Penny,
Sitka came over to make cupcakes. I didn’t know that she was coming. Wanna called and invited her and surprised me. I wish she would have asked me first. What if I didn’t feel like making cupcakes? But it was too late, and Sitka showed up at our house ready to bake.
Wanna loves to cook and bake. Whenever she is in the kitchen, she looks happy. She always wears a yellow apron that matches her yellow hair, and as she measures, chops, and stirs, her cheeks get really pink.
Wanna gave us each one of her old aprons to wear. Of course, Ellie looked ridiculous wearing an apron that was bigger than her body. Sitka thought that Ellie looked cute and every time she looked at Ellie, she would giggle.
The worst part is that when Wanna cooks she sings. Everyone but me seems to think that this is wonderful. Sitka and Ellie got really into it. I just sat and cracked my eggs and watched them.
How can Sitka be so comfortable with people that she doesn’t know?
We put rainbow colored frosting and sprinkles on the cupcakes when they were done baking. Everyone but me seemed to have a great time. At least the cupcakes tasted good.
103
Dear Penny,
Will the day ever come that I feel comfortable in this place with these people?
104
Dear Penny,
Wanna saw me teaching Angel Bones some more tricks and asked me how I trained her. I told Wanna that Levi helped me and she looked worried.
She said—
An-Ya and Her Diary Page 6