by Alice Pung
Marly really felt sorry for her mum. She knew that sometimes when someone tells you to stop crying, it just makes it even worse. Marly’s mum was trying to quieten down, stifling her sobs to small sniffs. ‘I want to make you a costume,’ she said determinedly, ‘anything you want.’
Marly hesitated and glanced at Grandma. Then she told her mum about the glove and fedora, and even the glitter socks.
Her mother nodded and smiled through her tears. ‘Okay.’
Marly nearly jumped up and down on the spot! ‘Really, Mum?’
‘Yes, of course.’ Marly’s mum looked defiantly at Grandma. Grandma’s face was not pleased. ‘You can’t – ’ she began, but Marly’s mum interrupted loudly: ‘I can’t help out my own daughter, Mother? I’m going nuts cooped up in the house! Do you want me to go mad?’ Marly saw a fierce, scary glint in her mother’s eyes she’d never seen before and was worried that her mother might indeed go mad. Grandma must have noticed it too, because for the first time ever, she didn’t say anything.
‘Hey, Mum, look at this!’ Marly showed her mother a new spin she had been practising, to cheer her up. Her mum smiled and Marly could have hugged herself in glee.
‘NO morning breakfast egg for you,’ said Grandma. ‘I need to collect them.’
Marly frowned. For the past week, she hadn’t been allowed to eat the eggs from Chooky because Grandma was collecting them for the baby’s one month celebration on Saturday. And after school one afternoon, while Grandma was standing at the sink, Marly had noticed that Grandma’s hands were covered in red.
‘Did you cut yourself, Grandma?’ she’d squeaked.
‘Ha! I’m not clumsy like you,’ scoffed Grandma. ‘I’m dying the eggs.’
Sure enough, when Marly went to the stove, she saw that Grandma had a pot simmering with red food dye, and twenty eggs floating in it.
‘Why do the eggs have to be red, Grandma?’ asked Marly. ‘Why don’t you make them other colours as well?’
‘The colour red is a symbol of luck and happiness in Chinese culture,’ explained Grandma. ‘That’s why when you get married you will wear red.’
‘Gross!’ said Marly.
‘Would you prefer to wear a fluffy white dress instead?’ asked Grandma.
‘No! I hate dresses,’ said Marly. ‘And I’m not getting married, ever!’
‘Hah, look at her talk nonsense,’ muttered Grandma. ‘Of course you are getting married. And of course you are wearing a dress to your brother’s one month anniversary.’
Marly made her mouth into a straight angry line. We’ll see about that, she thought.
‘What happens at the one month celebration?’ she asked.
But Grandma just replied, ‘Girls shouldn’t ask too many questions. Go help your mum with ironing those shirt pockets.’
Marly stomped off to the lounge room where her mum was feeding the baby and staring at him with loving eyes. Her mum was looking happier now that Grandma was allowing her to do some light ironing work. Grandma had agreed to move the ironing board into the kitchen, so that Mum would not be doing it in the garage. Marly sighed and grudgingly went back to the kitchen to finish the ironing. At least her mum’s one-month staying-at-home period was almost over.
That evening, when her father reassembled her pirate ship bed, Marly asked him about the baby’s one month celebration.
‘In Chinese culture,’ her father explained as he tucked her in, ‘when a baby is in the mum’s womb, the whole nine months of their time there is counted towards their age. And the Lunar calendar has ten months. So when a baby is one month old, it’s actually their one year birthday. Babies died all the time in ancient China, so if they survived their first month of life, it would mean that they had a good chance of growing into adults. It also celebrates the end of your mother’s time of staying at home, sitting through the month.’
Dancing in the kitchen that night, Marly thought about what her father had told her.
The next morning Marly sat at the kitchen table, eating a bowl of Coco Pops, while her mother drank some special pork and ginger soup Grandma had made.
‘Did I have a one month celebration?’ she asked her mum.
A funny look crossed her mum’s face.
What’s that supposed to mean? Marly wondered. ‘I didn’t, did I?’ she said, the truth dawning on her.
‘Well, um, we were a lot poorer then,’ said her mother.
‘That’s not true,’ said Grandma, who was standing by the sink. She turned to Marly. ‘We don’t do a celebration for girl babies.’
Marly ate the rest of her breakfast in silence. She felt hurt, even though she knew that her mum was trying to protect her feelings while Grandma had just blurted out the truth. The feeling was like a pebble in the bottom of her stomach. Even her parents didn’t think she was as special as her brother.
Even worse, that night after dinner she heard her grandma say to her dad, ‘You picked a good name for him, son.’
‘But I gave him his name!’ protested Marly.
‘Not his English name,’ explained Grandma. ‘His real name. His Chinese name. He’s a Chinese boy after all.’
Marly had no idea that her brother even had a Chinese name – her parents had never discussed it with her. The pebble in her tummy felt heavier. ‘What’s his real name then?’ she asked.
‘Well,’ said Marly’s father, ‘we were going to reveal it at his one month anniversary, but I will tell you now, Marly. It’s Kaisin. It means happiness.’
Marly thought it sounded lame. She was going to call her brother Michael no matter what her parents or grandparents said. He would go to school in five years’ time, and Marly knew he wouldn’t be able to get away with such a weird name. It was better to have a name that everyone else could understand. Even better, a legendary name like Michael. She was surprised at how protective she felt. She wanted to help her brother fit in, she wanted to guard him from her family’s old-fashioned, irritating ways. Yet she was dreading the celebration, and she didn’t want to be alone.
‘Can I bring my friend Yousra too?’ she asked.
‘You mean your black friend?’ asked Grandma.
‘Stop calling her black!’ said Marly. ‘She’s Egyptian.’
‘You don’t need to invite anyone outside this family. Your cousins will be there,’ said Grandma.
When the Saturday of the one month anniversary arrived, the house had been cleaned from top to bottom, and food was set out on the kitchen table: the red eggs, dumplings, fried noodles, even a whole roast suckling pig.
Grandma dressed baby Michael in his best outfit that had a matching shirt with buttons down the front, and little overall shorts. ‘Look at him, so active and alert,’ she said with fondness. ‘He knows it’s his special day. He’s so happy.’ Grandma was so distracted by baby Michael that she forgot to dress Marly in a dress until it was too late and the doorbell rang. ‘I’ll get it!’ said Marly excitedly, dashing to the door in her yellow polyester tracksuit.
Aunty Tam, Uncle Beng and her cousins Rosie and Jackie had arrived with a bag of oranges and two new jumpsuits for the baby. Jackie was holding a toy Star Wars lightsaber. ‘Got this from my mate Ethan at school,’ he said proudly. ‘He gave it to me for my birthday.’ The lightsaber lit up a neon blue when Jackie waved it around.
‘Cool,’ said Marly. ‘You can be Luke Skywalker and I’ll be Darth Vadar. Why don’t we pretend that Grandma’s curtain is the entry to the Death Star?’
She ran behind the shower curtains and jumped on her grandparents’ bed. She pulled the blankets over herself to make a cloak.
‘Aha!’ came Jackie’s yell on the other side. ‘I’ve found you! You will dieeee!’
There was a flash of blue light as he struck the curtain, and then suddenly the whole shower curtain came tumbling down with a crash.
‘Oops,’ said Jackie, hiding his lightsaber behind his back.
‘Aiyohhh! So close to the baby’s cot!’ yelled Grandma. ‘Wah! You two! T
he sky tumbles down when you’re together.’
Marly felt terrible, and thought they were very lucky that baby Michael was not hurt.
Grandma turned towards Marly, ‘You are the older one, and a girl too. You should have been setting a good example to your cousin, but all you do all day is run around like a headless chook! Go into the kitchen and help bring out the plates of food.’
It was Jackie’s fault, thought Marly, marching into the kitchen, but she was the one who got into trouble. And why wasn’t Jackie asked to help out in the kitchen? It confirmed everything Marly suspected – that everyone thought boys were better than girls. They got more freedom, more presents, more love. She handed out the plates of food with a furious face, and got told off by Grandma for being such a sook.
‘This is supposed to be a celebration,’ said Grandma, but it sure didn’t feel like one to Marly.
After the party, when Marly was cleaning up and taking out the rubbish, she discovered one of the shower curtains folded up by the kerb. Usually Granny did not throw anything away, but the top ring holes of the curtain had broken off and the rings had snapped. Marly grabbed it and took it back inside, hiding it from Grandma. At least something good has come out of this terrible mess, thought Marly.
Very late that evening, when everyone was asleep, Marly got up and laid the shower curtain flat on the kitchen floor. She put on Grandma’s slippers and began to dance. But this time she could not get the gliding move of the moonwalk to happen. Instead, she moved as if she were a tornado. She danced a furious dance full of energy and leaps. She had no idea she could jump so high or so silently, like a wild cat. It seemed like she had danced for over an hour, and when she finally sat down on the floor to catch her breath and take off her slippers, Marly felt like she had let go of a lot of bad feelings.
That’s when Marly discovered she’d made a tear at the front of Grandma’s right slipper. It flopped open like a hungry mouth. And then she saw that her double spin had ripped the sole of the shoe from its seams as well. There was no hiding it, so Marly guiltily put the slippers back near the kitchen entrance and crept to bed.
The next day, Grandma discovered what Marly had done.
‘I know you have been wearing my slippers,’ said Grandma, ‘because who else in this house has feet my size?’
Marly couldn’t even lie about it now. She hung her head. ‘I’m sorry, Grandma,’ she said.
‘Hmmph,’ said Grandma. ‘At least you have good taste. Let me show you how to mend things. You’ll learn something useful.’ Marly was so surprised that Grandma had not yelled at her or made a bigger fuss that she sat down and let Grandma teach her how to sew.
Grandma showed Marly how to thread a needle and tie a knot with the thread by winding it three times around the needle and sliding it downwards. She showed Marly how to make her stitches close together so that they appeared invisible. Then she passed the shoe to Marly for her to repair. It took Marly ages! Granny sat with her, pulling sequins off an old evening handbag Marly’s mother owned.
‘What are you doing, Grandma?’ Marly asked.
‘This bag is broken at the clasp. See? But these little gems are still good to be reused.’
An hour later, Marly passed Grandma the shoe for inspection, and so that Grandma could tie a knot and cut the thread.
‘There you go,’ said Grandma. ‘As good as new. You did a good job on the slippers, so you can keep them.’
‘Really?’ asked Marly.
‘Yes. At least they look nicer than those boy’s running shoes that you always wear.’
WITH her slippers mended and the plastic shower mat as a perfect dance floor, Marly practised diligently every evening when everyone else had gone to bed. The more she did it, the more excited she felt about the school concert. Dancing made her happy too, because she could forget everything else while she did it.
Every evening Marly bugged her mum about making her costume. She knew that her mum had not even started it yet – in the afternoons when Marly returned from school, she saw that the garage, where the sewing machine was kept, was still locked.
‘Maybe I’ve almost finished it,’ her mother finally snapped at the end of the week after Marly had asked her for the hundredth time. ‘What if it’s locked in the garage as a surprise?’
Marly had never considered this, and she felt a jolt of relief and excitement.
‘By the way, there’s a letter for you,’ Marly’s mum told her.
‘You mean you want me to translate a phone bill?’ Marly asked with a sigh. Her mum could not read English because she had arrived in Australia as an adult, so she always asked Marly to translate phone and electricity bills and other post. Marly hated doing it. Often, she would also have to call up the phone company if there was a mistake and they had been charged too much, and no one wanted to talk to a ten year old.
‘No, it’s a letter for you,’ her mum said. ‘It has your name on it.’ Although Marly’s mum could not read, she had learnt the letters of the alphabet, as well as her own name and the names of the rest of the family. She handed Marly a blue and pink envelope with yellow balloons printed on one side.
A letter for me! thought Marly. Excellent! It must be from Lauren. She got a pair of scissors and carefully cut away one end of the envelope so she could keep it. The letter from Lauren was full of bouncy exclamation marks, telling Marly how brave she was to perform the moonwalk in front of her school. Marly grinned. Yousra, Mrs Louden, Grandpa, her mum and now Lauren – she felt like she had a whole team of supporters.
But there was more – inside the envelope was an invitation to Lauren’s eleventh birthday party, with pink and blue balloons printed on purple paper. Wow, thought Marly, I’ve never been to another kid’s birthday party before. She was so happy, she felt like one of the soaring balloons on the invite. It had been a day full of wonderful surprises.
Marly asked her mother if she could go to the party, and her mother told her to ask her father. That night, as she pushed the sofas together to make her pirate ship bed, Marly thought it was a day where nothing could go wrong. She put the invitation beneath her pillow, and, despite Grandpa snoring like a cane toad and Michael grizzling, fell asleep dreaming of Lauren’s big house in Parkville and all the treats she would get to eat. Her father was working the late shift, but Marly knew she would hear the door open when he came home, because their house was so small and her bed was close to the front door.
Sure enough, hours later, Marly woke to the front door opening.
‘Hey there, young pirate,’ said Marly’s dad, sitting down beside her. ‘Are you still awake?’
Marly pulled out the invitation from under her pillow to show her father. She was wide awake with excitement now.
‘Wow, what a nice looking letter,’ he said to her. ‘It’s very kind of that girl to invite you to her birthday. But who will take you? I have to drive Grandpa to Peter’s farm on Saturday, remember?’
Marly felt like a pin had popped her balloon of happiness. ‘But it’s just one afternoon!’ she protested.
‘If I take you, then I will have to wait around and pick you up. And those people live on the other side of town,’ said Marly’s dad. ‘Sorry, kiddo. There will be more birthday parties for you to go to when you are older.’
Marly lay in her pirate-ship bed, unable to sleep. She was too disappointed to sneak into the kitchen to do her dancing. Finally, she tiptoed down the hallway and found the torch. Underneath the blankets, Marly got out her coloured pens and notebook and wrote a reply to Lauren.
Dear Lauren,
Thank you for your letter and party invitation but sadly and disapointingly my dad can’t take me to your party. He has to take Grandpa to see his goat. I am so upset and angry. I wish I could come but happy birthday anyway.
Your friend always,
Marly
Marly drew a series of very sad faces after her name. Then, worried that Lauren might not want to be her friend for missing her party, Marly added:
P.S. I will ask my mum if she can make you a dress because she is also sewing me a Michael Jackson costume.
Marly posted the letter the next day and then tried not to think about it again as it made her feel angry and the pebble in her tummy just got heavier.
On the Saturday of the party, Marly sat on the front doorstep, holding baby Michael. For some nasty reason Grandma had forced her to wear a dress that morning. ‘It’s about time you started looking like a respectable young lady,’ Grandma had said. And Marly hadn’t been allowed to go to Peter’s farm to help Grandpa. If she went outside at all, she thought, it would just be to hold Michael and watch ants crawl. But anything was better than sitting inside, getting told off by Grandma. So she sat on the step and stared at Michael.
His hair had started to stick up all over his head, like a soft hedgehog. He was getting cuter every day, Marly thought. Cuter and less floppy. As his neck became stronger, Grandma and Marly’s mum let her hold him for half an hour every day, to settle him before his sleep. Marly loved cradling him close. It was surprisingly comforting. All day Marly had tried hard not to let everyone and everything annoy and disappoint her.
Suddenly, Marly noticed a twitch in Michael’s face. He still had his eyes closed, but Marly saw the corners of his mouth lift upwards – he was smiling! It was the first time Marly had seen him smile, and it made her heart leap. She didn’t realise how magical a surprise it would be. It was as if he had smiled just for her!
Marly was so rapt that at first she didn’t notice the enormous silver car pulling up their driveway. A woman got out of the driver’s seat – it was Lauren’s mum! When Marly had first met Lauren’s mum she had been terrified of the tall, slim lady with hair pulled back tight from her face, dark sunglasses and a smart blue suit. But today, Lauren’s mum looked different. She was wearing the white shirt that Marly’s mum had given her, and tan pants with brown leather sandals. Her hair was not pulled back in a tight bun, but hanging loose around her face. She looked younger and prettier.