by Andrea Cheng
“Some. But it was very difficult for enslaved people to learn to read and write. In fact, it was considered a crime for which they could be punished. Any other ideas?”
Nobody knows.
“Sometimes we can use documents or old pictures.” Ms. Remick shows us a record of slave sales. Strong back, good teeth, 500 dollars, it says. The words turn my stomach. Then she shows us pictures of a slave auction. There is an auctioneer measuring a man who is being sold. He is standing on a step called an auction block. I see my classmates shifting their feet under their desks. I learned about slavery in second, third, and fourth grades, but I never really thought of a person being sold.
Ms. Remick says she knows it is hard to look at some of the pictures, but it is all part of learning what happened in the past. By piecing together a lot of things, you can start to get a whole picture. “It’s kind of like being a detective,” she says. “You have to make some guesses and then see if they’re true.”
“We did that last year when we did our science fair projects,” Camille says.
“Good connection,” Ms. Remick says. “I never thought about how similar studying history is to studying science.”
“In fourth grade, we made timelines of our lives,” Simon says. “That was kind of like piecing a puzzle together too, because you can’t remember when you were really little.”
“Another wonderful connection.” Ms. Remick seems so genuinely pleased with our ideas.
“My grandpa made me a timeline of his life,” Camille says. “To show me when my dad was born, and my aunts and uncles, too. It was so long, it went across our whole living room.”
I wish my mother would make me a timeline of her life. When Grandma comes from California, she tells me about Dad when he was little. But Mom doesn’t talk much about her life in China. We have one picture of her with her sisters and brothers in a park in Shanghai, and another of her parents on their wedding day. Since I was three when we visited her family in Shanghai, I can hardly remember anything. Sometimes I want to ask Mom more, but it seems to make her sad.
When I get to the lunchtime CAT meeting, Andee is the only one there. She says the teacher at Our Lady of Angels wants to see if that school and ours can do some projects together. “She suggested fundraising for a cause, but it’s sort of hard to just raise money for something we don’t know that much about and then send a check. I mean, we raised three hundred dollars for the orphanage in Africa, but we never really felt connected.”
“I feel connected to an orphanage,” I hear myself saying. “Sort of.” And then, all of a sudden, I’m telling her about my sister. “When my parents went to China to adopt her, they couldn’t actually go to the orphanage. I’m hoping I can visit it this winter.”
Andee is listening hard. “Do you know anything about the orphanage, like what they might need?”
I shake my head. “The only thing I know is that it’s called the Lucky Family Orphanage.”
Andee smiles, and I see that she has fluorescent green rubber bands on her braces that match her earrings. “I wonder if they named it that because the orphans form a lucky family or because whoever adopts them is a lucky family.”
I think about that for a minute. I hope Kaylee feels lucky that Mom and Dad adopted her. But I hope she also feels lucky that someone found her and took her to the orphanage where people took care of her. “Maybe a little of both.”
“Either way, we could have a Lucky Family Bake Sale to raise money,” Andee says.
Thinking about luck gives me an idea. “We could bake fortune cookies.”
Andee is quiet for a minute. Maybe she thinks fortune cookies are a dumb idea. “I wonder,” she says, “if two Asian kids sell fortune cookies, do you think people will think . . . I mean, it’s such a stereotype.”
I know what Mom would say. Don’t worry about what people think or who is what race. But Andee is right. Suddenly there’s something I have to know. “Do people ask you what you are?”
Andee plays with her earrings. “All the time. Mostly they ask me where I’m from, or when I’m with my mom, they ask me if I’m adopted.” She looks up. “What about you?”
“In elementary school, a couple of the boys pulled the corners of their eyes at me and chanted Anna Wang, Ching Chung Chang.” I don’t think I’ve ever told this to anyone.
Andee looks sad. “I didn’t really hear stuff like that.”
“Did your teachers mix you up with other Asian girls?” I ask, thinking of how people thought Camille was my cousin.
Andee nods. “All the time.”
“Maybe we should just bake regular chocolate chip cookies,” I say.
“The thing is, fortune cookies would be more fun to make, and I think people would buy them, which is the whole point of a bake sale. Plus it won’t be just us selling them. It’ll be Sam and Simone and everyone in CAT.” She is talking faster now.
“My mom said that fortune cookies don’t even exist in China.”
Andee hands me a slice of apple. “That’s funny. I just assumed they were invented there.”
“My mom never saw them until she got to the U.S.”
“Let’s go for it. The Lucky Family Fortune Cookie Bake Sale. I’ll contact the teacher at Our Lady of Angels, and we can bake the cookies at my house.”
“One of my best friends from elementary school goes to that school.”
“Do you think she’s in their community service group?”
“I’m not sure. Now that we go to different schools, I don’t see her that often.”
I hear a knock on the door, and Mrs. Smith is there. “Anna, I enjoyed your essay. It is much improved. But you could make it stronger with a few changes.” She gives me the paper, which has red marks and comments all over the margins. “I’d like to see a revision.”
“Thank you,” I mumble.
Then she hands me the permission form, and in red pen, she signed her name!
When I get home, I read the comments. Be more specific. Explain exactly what you mean. At the end of the essay, Mrs. Smith has written a note:
Dear Anna, thank you for explaining to me why it is so important for you to go to China. Now I understand that this is a chance for you not only to help your teacher and to learn more about your sister but also to learn more about yourself.
Your essay would be stronger if the ideas were in a logical order. Maybe you should consider putting the last sentence first since it seems like the main idea. I understand that you cannot find evidence for everything, but points still need to be supported.
Yours,
Mrs. Smith
I take out a clean sheet of paper and write:
Main Idea
I am Chinese, so it is important for me to see what China is like. In America the first thing people notice about me is that I am Asian, but in China, that will be different.
Being Chinese is important for my life and for my family. My dad was born in the U.S. but my mom was born in China. Even though I can’t visit her family on this trip because I am going to Beijing and they are in Shanghai, this is still one reason I want to go to China. It is important to learn about the country where my mother grew up.
The other reason is that my sister was adopted from China. I hope I can visit her orphanage, but even if I can’t I will find out more about China. That is also part of her story, and mine, too. She was born in China and I wasn’t, but we are both Chinese. And the best way to learn about China is to go there.
Once I started with the main idea, everything fell into place.
Chapter Seven
Baking Day
It takes us about half an hour to get to Andee’s house. Mom keeps saying we must be lost, but we’re following the directions that Andee sent. Take I-71, get off at Indian Hill, then wind along Indian Hill Road for a long time, past yards so big you can’t see the houses and Horse Crossing signs. Finally we see her house number and turn down a long driveway. I can’t believe Andee goes to Fenwick Middle School from
way out here.
She hugs me as soon as she opens the door. “I’m so glad you came early.”
I look around the kitchen, which is bigger than our living room. There are two computers and two ovens, and the refrigerator is three big drawers. “This kitchen is huge.” After the words are out of my mouth, I wish I hadn’t said them.
Andee blushes. “I know. Sometimes I feel . . . kind of embarrassed about this house.”
“It’s very nice.” I look out the front window. “Isn’t there a school closer than Fenwick?”
“I was kind of miserable in my old school.” She pulls her hair back into a ponytail. “It’s hard to explain. I mean, everyone thought my ideas were really strange. So my parents finally said I could transfer to Fenwick.”
“I didn’t know you could just transfer to another school if you don’t live there.”
“We have to pay tuition,” Andee says. “But it’s worth it.” She goes over to the counter where there are grocery bags full of the ingredients. “We’d better get organized.” She takes out cutting boards, mixing bowls, whisks, a mixer, spatulas, and spoons.
“Are your parents home?” I ask.
“My mom’s upstairs.” She sits down at one of the computers in the kitchen and pulls up the fortune cookie recipe.
When the doorbell rings, I open the door and it’s Laura!
“Hey, Anna, I didn’t know you’d be here!”
“And I didn’t know you’d be here.” Laura smiles, and suddenly I realize how much I’ve missed her. I introduce her to Andee, and soon there are six more kids, three from Our Lady of Angels and Simone and Sam and a girl named Hideat. Sam sits down at the computer and everyone starts shouting out ideas for fortunes:
“This is your lucky day, because you donated to the Lucky Family Orphanage.”
“Thank you from the Lucky Family Orphanage.”
“You may not win the lottery, but you will help a baby at the Lucky Family Orphanage,” Laura says.
Sam is typing as fast as he can. Then we print out the fortunes and cut them into strips.
We decide to triple the recipe. To make the batter, we have to first separate the egg yolks from the whites and beat up the whites with the mixer. Then we melt the butter and mix all the ingredients together. We put it by spoonfuls onto the greased cookie sheets, and slide them into the oven. “It says to bake them for five to eight minutes,” Andee says, setting the oven timer to six. Then she turns the kitchen computer so everyone can see it, and we watch a YouTube video about how to fold the fortune cookies.
“If we’re too slow, they’ll break,” I say.
“And if we’re too fast, we’ll burn our hands,” Laura says.
As soon as the timer rings, we get to work in small groups. The cookies are thin like flat pancakes. Sam takes one off the sheet, Laura puts the fortune on it, I fold the cookie in half and bend the edges up, and Hideat sets it on a rack to cool. When we’re done, there are ninety-two cookies on the racks.
“If we sell them for two dollars each, that’s almost two hundred dollars,” Hideat says.
When the cookies are cool, we pack them carefully in two boxes, one to take to Our Lady of Angels and one for Fenwick. We wash the dishes and clean off the counters, and Andee’s parents never come down. It would be strange to have a house so big that you didn’t see or hear anyone else for hours.
When everyone is gone, I follow Andee upstairs, where she introduces me to her mom, who is sitting at a desk in a kind of upstairs living room. “Andee told me about you,” her mom says. She has a wide smile just like her daughter, and very curly hair. “I heard you have a trip to China coming up.”
“I’ll be going in December.” Suddenly my trip sounds really soon.
Andee shows me her room, which is big with white walls and framed posters all around. She has a bathroom all to herself, and a little alcove that she calls the Art Spot. On the table are a few acorns and buckeyes and earring hooks.
“My brother and sister always get into my art and sewing stuff,” I tell her.
“You’re lucky to have siblings,” Andee says.
“Sometimes.”
“My parents were kind of old when they had me. Plus they have to travel a lot for work.”
We look at pictures she has framed on her desk, of her parents with her when she was a baby. “You were so cute,” I say. “You look like both your parents.”
“I have my mom’s hair,” she says.
“And your dad’s eyes,” I say.
When Dad comes to pick me up, I can’t believe the afternoon is already over.
Chapter Eight
Baby Gifts
After school I leave my revised essay on Mrs. Smith’s desk and head over to the gym. Andee already has everything set up, including a big sign that says SUPPORT THE LUCKY FAMILY ORPHANAGE. Under that she has written the Chinese characters for “thank you,” xie xie.
“Did your dad show you how to write the characters?” I ask.
“Actually, my mom knows Chinese better than my dad, so she helped me.”
Camille stops by. “I know I’m not in CAT, but can I help?”
Andee gives her some tape and asks her to put up a few signs in the hallway. A kid comes up to the table with two dollars. I hand him a cookie. He cracks it in half, takes out the fortune, and reads it. “Where’s the Lucky Family Orphanage?” he asks.
“China.”
He shows it to his friend. Soon kids start crowding around the table with two dollars in their hands. Mrs. Smith asks for five cookies, four for her nieces and one for herself. I put the cookies in a baggie and hand them to her. She gives me a twenty-dollar bill but she doesn’t want change. “It’s a donation,” she says.
By four o’clock we’ve sold out, and we have more than two hundred dollars in the coffee can.
When I get home, Mom is talking to Ms. Sylvester on the phone. They bought our tickets for December 11, returning December 24. I stare at the calendar by the phone. I’ll be gone for thirteen days, just before Christmas. That means I won’t be home to decorate our tree or make Christmas presents with Grandma or bake sugar cookies with Laura like we usually do.
Mom is explaining to Ms. Sylvester that it is important in China to give gifts to everyone, so she should take lots of things for the orphanage workers and the people who are organizing the adoption trip. Mom thinks small bottles of lotion and pretty soaps would be nice.
I look out the window. It is only November, but the cold came early this year and the trees are bare. The sky is white and there are snow flurries blowing around. I wonder how it looks in Beijing. It’s cold there in winter, just like here. Snowflakes must look the same all over the world.
Gifts for everyone, Mom says. But what about gifts for the babies? I know I’m taking money for the orphanage, but that’s not the same as a gift. Mom thinks that there were about fifty baby girls at the orphanage when they adopted Kaylee. What can I give to fifty babies? I see a ball of red yarn in the basket where we keep the newspapers. I could knit a few baby hats, but there’s no way I could make so many.
I call Andee. “Do you know how to knit?”
“Yup. Why?”
I tell her about my hat idea.
“CAT can help,” she says. “We can teach everybody how to knit.” That’s how Andee is. She takes my ideas and figures out how to make them work. “There’s this place near here called the Yarn Basket. I’ll ask them if they can donate yarn.”
“My mom has lots of knitting needles.”
“Hey, if my mom will bring me, can I come over to your house? We could plan this knitting project.”
I look around our living room. Dad’s accounting books and Mom’s nursing journals are in a mess on the coffee table. Kaylee’s toys are all over the floor. “Sure,” I say. “Come on over.”
I find Mom’s knitting needles in the basket and cast on forty stitches. By the time Andee arrives, I’ve knitted three rows.
“This is my family,” I say aft
er she comes in and I hang up her jacket.
Mom is standing at the stove. “It’s nice to meet you,” she says, smiling at Andee.
Andee sits next to me on the sofa and starts knitting really fast. “I went through an obsessive knitting phase in sixth grade,” she explains.
Kaylee comes over. “Mine,” she says.
“Not for you,” I say. “It’s a baby hat.”
“Mine,” Kaylee repeats, trying to take my knitting.
I pry her fingers off the yarn and she screams as if I’m killing her. Finally she gets her mouse and glares at us from the beanbag chair.
“Your house is so . . . lively,” Andee says. “I love it.”
“You mean crazy,” I say. “Let’s go upstairs.”
We sit on the floor of my room, knitting baby hats together.
After a while, we go down to the kitchen to have a snack. I know Andee likes apples, so I cut one up for the two of us. Then I take out two fortune cookies.
“I’ve only had these at restaurants,” Andee says.
“My grandma in California keeps us supplied.” I crack mine open. Do not fear what you do not know, it says.
“Isn’t everyone afraid of things they don’t know?” Andee asks.
I put the cookie in my mouth. “Sometimes these fortunes don’t make much sense.” Andee takes the slip of paper out of her cookie. Life is too short to waste time.
“We’d better get knitting,” I say.