by Kari Luna
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The rest of the day was uneventful, which is exactly what I wanted out of the first day of school. Mom was right—Havencrest was less stimulating than other places, even San Francisco. There, indie kids were everywhere wearing shirts they’d screen-printed that morning or tweeting about the next biggest band. They were nice, but exclusive. Brooklyn was more inclusive, either because I grew up there or because we wore uniforms. It evened things out a bit, or at least made them more obvious. If someone didn’t like you, you knew it. In San Francisco, girls would be nice to your face and giggle as you walked away, especially if you were the weird girl. Like me.
So far, the most ironic thing I’d seen in Havencrest was a football player wearing a Sunkist T-shirt, probably from Urban Outfitters. And a few drill teamers wearing Converse with their uniforms, like they were rebelling against Keds. No one had been mean, but no one had been that nice, either. The day was strictly monotone—nothing too high, nothing too low. I couldn’t think of anything less stimulating than that. But I had my rules, just in case.
How to Survive a New School
by Sophie Sophia
Don’t see things that don’t exist. At least not until after three P.M.
If you do see things that don’t exist, deny it.
If that doesn’t work, act like you don’t speak English.
Or that you were doing a performance art piece.
And if all else fails, throw candy and run. Enough chocolate and most people will forget anything.
The last bell rang and kids swarmed the halls, rushing for the red doors like it was the apocalypse. I followed them and stepped out into the back parking lot, enjoying the sunshine for the first time since that morning. I was walking along the fence that bordered the football field when I heard my name.
“Excuse me, Sophie?”
There, in all his vintage glory, was Fab Physics Boy. Saying my name. A small part of me wanted to stay and talk to him forever, but the larger part knew I had to leave. I was a ticking time bomb of potential freak-show-ness, and the only way to avoid it was to go. But I couldn’t move. My Doc Martens melted into the concrete like they knew something I didn’t. Like maybe this year was going to be different.
I looked at him, sun bouncing off his glasses, and smiled. Started to answer. So it’s no surprise I heard drums in the distance. And as I looked out onto the football field, I saw a band of giant pandas, marching and drumming with massive lollipops, keeping the beat.
THREE
The field looked the same, except instead of being covered with kids, it was filled with a dozen pandas moving like pros, marching right, left and all over the field, forming everything from circles to the letter W. Or maybe it was an M—it was hard to tell. But they looked amazing, like a White Stripes video. There were a dozen of them decked out in tall red hats with white plumes and red-and-white-striped drum straps that draped across their chests like peppermints. They even carried red and white swirly lollipops instead of mallets—pandas and pops on parade. Too bad the greatness of their outfits didn’t match their musical ability. And too bad Fab Physics Boy wasn’t there to see it.
“No, no, no,” the lead panda said, stopping and adjusting his black Ray-Ban sunglasses. His hat was the opposite—white with red plumes—and he carried a baton.
“Would it kill you to stay in tune? This is New Order, not rocket science.”
Except it was rocket science, at least that’s what Dad said. He compared New Order’s music to some of the greatest equations ever written, which is why “True Faith” drifted up from the basement, filling the house with the sounds of science.
“Let’s try this again,” the panda said, putting a whistle in his mouth. “Tweet-tweet-tweet-tweet!”
At his command, a dozen pandas filed behind him and started playing, badly, as they headed straight toward me. I was half nervous and half curious. I mean, the closest I’d ever been to a panda was at the Bronx Zoo. When I leaned toward it, the guide had told me to be careful, that even though he looked like he wanted a hug, he might deliver a strong left hook instead. That’s how powerful they were.
“Tweet!” the lead panda blasted, and then stopped quickly, ten feet in front of me, sending a pile of pandas and the sound of cymbals crashing behind him.
“Hello,” he said, removing his sunglasses and extending a giant paw. “I’m Walt.”
It’s not like I hadn’t seen anything weird before. I’d been surprised by talking birds and chairs that flew. Rock stars who sang in elevators and gargoyles who came to life, giggling. My episodes were more Fantasia than anything else, but still. Things could change. Things always changed.
“I’m Sophie. Sophie Sophia.”
I offered my hand and watched it disappear inside a mound of fur.
“Nice name,” he said. “Did you enjoy our little performance?”
Since he was a million feet tall and I liked to find the positive in things, I focused on that.
“You guys can march,” I said. “Seriously.”
“I knew it,” Walt said, rocking back and forth on his heels. “We stink. Merv over there has two left paws.”
The panda picking up the xylophone shrugged.
“Sorry, boss,” he said. “I told ya, music ain’t my thing.”
I liked how relaxed he was, how relaxed all of them were, which made me think they were more on the hugging side and less on the punching side. Besides, when had I ever gotten hurt inside of a hallucination?
“No matter,” Walt said. “We’ll get it, eventually. But according to my internal clock, it’s poker time. Care to join?”
“I’ve never played,” I said, following them back onto the football field, feet sinking into fake grass. Mind blown.
“I’ll teach you,” Walt said. “I’ll teach you a lot of things.”
The pandas made a circle around the fifty-yard line and plopped down simultaneously, making the entire field shake. I went down with them, landing in between Walt and the panda with the trumpet.
“Larry,” he said, extending his paw.
“Sophie,” I said, shaking it. “Thanks for having me.”
Walt shuffled and dealt, and Larry mixed drinks, pouring from one flask then another, adding a bamboo stirrer at the end. He handed one to me, which I handed to Walt.
“I’m a Manhattan man, myself, but Merv likes mint juleps,” Walt said. “They’re a bit of a girly drink, but he’s an old friend, so we make an exception.”
“They’re all soda with a stick of sugarcane,” Larry whispered, handing me a cup. “Don’t tell Walt.”
I sipped and smiled. It tasted like the time I ate several sugar packets at a diner, only better. Walt pushed a pile of jelly beans over to me, the apparent poker chip of choice, and the game began. I folded almost immediately, every time, but I didn’t care. According to Walt, the best way to learn was to lose and then start again. Kind of like surrender.
“Why am I here?” I said.
“Humans are funny,” Walt said. “Never content to just enjoy this Manhattan, this poker game, this pack of pandas.”
He held up his cards. “Can anyone beat a full house?”
The rest of the pandas groaned and shook their heads.
“That’s what I thought,” he said. “It’s the Walt show, baby!”
We surrendered our jelly beans on the bass drum in front of Walt, and he scooped them up. But instead of keeping them, he poured them into my whale pocket, red, green and yellow cascading into its gray body.
“He looks like he gained five pounds,” I said.
“But at least you have snacks,” Walt said.
“How do you know I like snacks?”
“You’re fourteen,” he said. “Besides, sometimes you just know things.”
Like how I knew my dad wasn’t like other dads. He lived some
where other fathers didn’t, a place filled with lions and lollipops, Bernoulli and bowling balls. He was either in his basement inventing something or off on an adventure trying to prove theories that existed only in his head. I was too young to understand physics, but Dad had taught me the value of believing in things you couldn’t see. Just because I didn’t see the same things Dad saw didn’t mean they didn’t exist.
Walt stood up and tapped the sugarcane stirrer on the outside of his cup.
“Everyone? Can I have your attention? I’d like to make a toast to our newest friend here.”
The pandas stopped talking and turned to face me.
“Sophie, you showed up today whether you wanted to or not. And you did it with curiosity, a big heart and a willingness to learn. From all of us to you, welcome to our tribe, of which you’ll always be a member.”
He raised his cup. “To Sophie.”
A chorus of white and black paws went up in the air, red cups waving.
“To Sophie!” they yelled, voices echoing across the field.
To me, I thought, feeling like I belonged for the first time in forever. Even if it was only for a few minutes. Even if no one could see them. Even though they were pandas, they were my friends—reminding me that I still had the ability to make them.
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Wind hit me in the face, and the concrete curb was cold against my skin. Colder than the fake grass I’d been on, colder than being surrounded by pandas. I wasn’t sure how long I’d been gone—sometimes it was minutes, other times hours—but the parking lot was empty except for a few kids hanging out in the doorway and football players filing out on the field. The same field where I drank soda with sugarcane and played poker. The same field where I’d found my tribe, only to have them disappear. Typical.
I heard a whistle, but it was just the coach, gathering the guys for practice. I stood up and my pearls swung forward, hitting another necklace. A whistle on a chain, like the coach wore. Like Walt wore. I put it up to my lips and blew it once, twice, three times.
“Walt? Larry? Merv? Anyone?”
I don’t know why I thought the pandas would come back, since it had never happened before. My episodes were always different, which is what made them so unnerving. Maybe if they’d contained a cast of recurring characters like any sitcom, I’d have been more amused than unsettled. I took off the whistle and turned it over and over in my hand as if it contained a clue. And then I spotted Fab Physics Guy leaning up against the fence. Since I wasn’t sure how long I’d been gone, I had no idea how long he’d been there or what he’d seen.
“Hey, there,” he said, walking toward me. “Are you okay?”
I had been until he showed up. So I took a deep breath. Remembered my list. And since it was too late for steps two, three and four, I picked up my bag and resorted to step five—tossing jelly beans and running like a New York Marathoner until I reached my house.
FOUR
I was craving some serious headphones-wearing, Bauhaus-listening time, but Mom attacked me as soon as I walked through the door.
“You’re home!” she said, shoving a Chinese takeout menu in my face. “Ready to celebrate your first day with a little General Tso’s chicken?”
When I started kindergarten, Dad decided that we should celebrate the first day of school like a rite of passage with Chinese food and old movies. The idea was that whether the day was good or bad, at least you’d have egg drop soup and Audrey Hepburn to look forward to.
“Pass your plate,” Dad said on the eve of my first day of second grade. He poured sauce over my moo shu and root beer into a plastic goblet and placed egg rolls on our plates.
“One, two, three!” he said, and we bit into our egg rolls simultaneously. It was part of the ritual, like a prayer that contained cabbage. So was the speech that followed.
“I’d like to make a toast,” Dad said as we raised our goblets. “To second grade. Be nice to Sophie. She sees the world differently, and that’s a good thing.”
He winked at me and then he stared like he was sizing me up, seeing how different I was from the year before.
“And to Sophie, I say, be free,” he said. “Be curious but thoughtful, adventurous but kind, led by your imagination but guided by your heart.”
“Hear, hear!” Mom said, bringing her glass to meet ours in the middle, plastic thudding, affirming the idea that we were in it together. Mom hopped up and threw her arms around us, squeezing, her tears dropping onto the egg rolls.
“Mom!” I said, moving the plate away.
“Sorry, sorry,” she said, wiping her eyes and smiling. “You know how I get with your father’s speeches.”
Dad grabbed her and kissed her cheek. Those were the days before the fights. Before Dad disappeared all the time. Before craziness came in and didn’t leave until he did. After that, Mom kept up the first day ritual, anyway. At first I complained, but after a while, I got it. Just as Dad predicted, it was nice to know that whatever evils the first day of school contained, at least I knew I’d get plum sauce and movie stars out of it.
“Longest. Day. In. Existence,” I said, tossing my backpack on the floor. I would have thrown it somewhere else, like a chair, but we didn’t have one. Mom called it the minimal look, but I called it “Sir Moves-A-Lot,” named after the famous ’90s rapper. It was also because we only owned the essentials—rust-colored sectional couch, long teak coffee table, kitchen table, dressers and beds. Oh, and Dad’s red beanbag chair, which I had in my room. Dad used to sit in it and verbally plot how he was going to unleash his greatness into the world.
“First days are always long,” Mom said. “My day was long, too. Do you want to talk about it?”
“That’s pretty much the last thing I want to do,” I said. “Would you care if I took a quick nap?”
“Not at all,” she said, sneaking in a hug. I was too tired to resist. “I’ll wake you when the food’s here.”
Balzac and I went up to my room, and he joined me in a group flop on the bed. Emotional roller coaster of a day? Meet my dear friend: the nap.
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One hour and three magical words later, I was awake.
“Egg roll time!” Mom’s voice floated up the stairs.
My eyes flew open and I rolled over on Balzac, who screeched and jumped off the bed.
“Sorry, buddy,” I said, swinging my legs around. A red jelly bean fell out of my pocket and landed on the blanket. It was a souvenir.
Souvenirs were physical objects that I brought back from my episodes. I didn’t steal them, they just appeared when an episode was over, like a whistle around my neck, which wasn’t there anymore. Or jelly beans in my pocket. I called them souvenirs because they reminded me of where I’d been. That’s what souvenirs were for, but in my case, the places I visited didn’t exist for other people. It’s not like I went to the Grand Canyon and brought back a magnet or something. I played poker with pandas on a football field. I brought back jelly beans and a whistle.
Most of the time, souvenirs were small, like a pocket watch or a feather, but sometimes they were bigger. That was why I started sewing extra-large pockets on my clothes, to give the souvenirs a place to go. And since I loved fashion—and squares were boring—I ventured out a bit. I sewed cloud-shaped pockets and tree-shaped ones. Squirrel pockets and guitar pockets and, one time, part of the Pacific Ocean. Pretty soon every pair of pants, every skirt was well equipped with a hiding place—and a story.
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“Sophie Sophia!” Mom called. “These egg rolls aren’t going to eat themselves.”
I went downstairs and saw our own moveable feast.
“There’s moo shu pork, General Tso’s chicken, veggie lo mein and two orders of veggie egg rolls. With extra plum sauce,” Mom said.
Her chopsticks were already sticking out of the moo shu, and she held a pancake in
one hand.
“I even convinced them to bring us jasmine tea.”
She pointed to a paper cup sitting in the middle of takeout boxes and sauce packets, curls of steam rising like a salute. I’d survived my first day of school. Now I just had to survive this town.
How to Survive a New Town
by Sophie Sophia
If you move to a big city, throw this list away. You won’t need it.
Order Chinese food, specifically moo shu pork. Evaluate.
Find a diner that serves coffee. Chains are a last resort.
Locate and frequent the following: bookstore, music store, thrift shop, cheap movie theater, Goodwill or Salvation Army.
If the above don’t exist, rely on the library.
If a library doesn’t exist, move to another town with haste and without apology.
Mom sat on the couch, but I sat on the floor, Indian style, so I could be eye level with the food. I opened the veggie lo mein and dug in. It was salty and sweet, on the edge of perfection. For a few minutes, hunger won out over conversation.
“Don’t put those there,” Mom said, breaking the silence. She nodded at the small pile of celery I’d started on the table next to me. “It’s disgusting. Just push them to the side of your dish.”