by Susan Tan
While I’m here, I thought I’d write more of my bestselling life story. Because even though The Blob doesn’t look like much, I need to finish my book and be world-famous before it’s born. Just in case.
To be honest, I don’t understand why my whole family made such a big deal about the picture. When I first heard about it, I thought I’d at least be able to see the baby’s face, and if it looked nice. I even thought it might be waving hello, which I’d like because then I’d know it was excited to meet me and happy to be my sister. But it’s just sitting there. Like blobs do.
And if it’s not excited to meet me, I don’t know why I should be excited to meet it. Plus, even though I tell Alien-Face McGee that girls are better than boys ALL THE TIME, I was actually kind of hoping The Blob would be a boy, because my mom calls me her “special girl,” and what if she decides The Blob is special too?
But at least there’s ONE thing I can see from the picture of The Blob that I’m happy about (even if the rest of it is very disappointing).
From what I can tell, The Blob has absolutely, positively no hair.
Which is very good news.
* * *
You see, I don’t remember much (or anything) about being a baby. But I know there were some things I was very good at. For example, I learned how to talk early on, which isn’t surprising from a future bestselling author.
Soon after that, I learned about something called “quiet time” and that it’s Not Acceptable to do things like wake your mom up screaming her name in the middle of the night. Which makes her run down the hallway to your room, thinking something’s wrong and you’re being kidnapped or dying or eaten by a shark, only to find you standing up in your crib, holding on to the bars, and saying, “Mommy, let’s talk.” My mom was Not Happy the one time this happened. Which I can understand now (though in my defense, I probably did have something interesting to say).
My point is that I was an excellent baby, what my Grandpa Jenkins calls “a great kid” (though sometimes I’m also what he calls “a pill,” but we won’t go into that).
But there’s one thing that wasn’t so great about me as a baby, something you can see in all the photos. For all the greatness and talent inside my head, the outside of my head was a mess. As if being named Priscilla Lee-Jenkins wasn’t bad enough, when I was little, I was bald. And being bald is a hard way to enter the world.
Being bald means people in the park stop your mom and say things like, “What’s his name? He’s just precious!”
“You mean the little boy in the green dress?” my mom would answer.
The doctors said I’d grow out of it, but the problem didn’t go away. By the time I was almost four, even my grandparents, who think I’m the most beautiful grandchild on Earth, were beginning to notice.
“Does this happen a lot in America?” my Nai Nai asked, looking suspiciously at my mom’s hair. “Ay yah!” (This is the Chinese way of saying “My goodness!” or “Oh no!”)
“She looks like an old man,” my Ye Ye said, rubbing my head.
My Grandma Jenkins started patting my mom’s shoulder whenever we came over, and saying things like “Not to worry, dear, she has personality.” (But I don’t know what that has to do with my hair.)
Of course, I wanted hair. But I was so little that at first, I didn’t really notice that I was bald and everyone else wasn’t. For a long time, I didn’t mind it THAT much.
But then, the summer when I was four, which means my head was still mostly bald with a small patch of fuzz around the edges, my cousin Helen came to visit.
My cousin Helen is my age, which means that my Grandma Jenkins thinks we should play together and be “as thick as thieves.” But I don’t like playing with Helen because she bosses me around, plus I’m not a thief (I’m a future author extraordinaire).
Helen lives far away, and every summer, her mom and dad send her to spend a whole MONTH with my Grandma and Grandpa Jenkins. While she’s here, she goes to a special summer camp for kids who play music (I wanted to go to this camp too, because I’m EXCELLENT at the kazoo, but apparently that doesn’t count). When Helen’s here, I have to share the playroom, which is usually just for me, and my grandparents always throw her a birthday party with all her friends from the special camp, who make me feel shy.
And as if all of this wasn’t bad enough, that summer, Helen had hair so long, it reached below her shoulders.
She wore long, light brown braided pigtails that she held together with matching bows.
When she took the bows and the pigtails out, her hair fell into perfect corkscrew curls.
This was just too much. Bows and pigtails and curls? When you’re bald and your mom is trying to tape a bow to your head because it won’t stay on, then and only then will you understand the agony of this terrible injustice.
Of course, I didn’t blame Helen for having brown curly pigtails. That’s not something you can control.
But I did, absolutely, positively, no question about it, blame her for the princess party.
* * *
A princess-themed birthday party should be a great thing, and I was excited when I heard that Helen wanted one. Playing princesses is one of the best games out there, especially when Colleen and I play it at recess. We take turns being princesses and dragons, and sometimes we even pretend that we’re princess dragons, which is an excellent game because you get to wear a crown AND breathe fire.
I’d invented an AMAZING princess story too. My name, I decided, was Catherina Rosalindia Lightningglass, and I was the princess of a kingdom where everyone rode sparkly blue horses and sometimes grew wings. It was a very good story. I was dressed in my very special princess dress, which was sparkly purple and even had a lacy skirt underneath.
When I got to the party, Helen was standing with a group of girls from camp, laughing by the goody bag table. She was wearing a pink and yellow princess dress, and her hair was braided in pigtails tied with matching yellow bows.
And on the top of her head, she wore a beautiful, sparkly, silver tiara that clipped onto her hair.
“Hi, Cilla.” Helen waved when she saw me. She reached over to the goody bags and took something silver out. “We got crowns for everyone. Sorry you can’t wear yours,” she said, making a face and handing the crown to me. Behind her, I could hear her friends giggling. “But your dress is pretty,” Helen said, trying to sound encouraging. “We almost match!” Just then someone called her name, and as Helen and all her friends walked off, I heard one of the girls say, “What kind of princess doesn’t have hair?”
I watched Helen walk away, her princess dress swishing. I touched my bald head. Even though I was wearing my very special princess dress, I suddenly didn’t feel like a princess, and I was sure I didn’t look like one. Catherina Rosalindia Lightningglass didn’t seem like such a great name anymore either. It even felt a little silly. My bald head would stand out next to all the sparkling tiaras.
Unless …
Then I was running, away from the party, up the stairs to the playroom. I opened the arts and crafts drawer and pulled out a great big bottle of glue. Smearing glue all over the bottom of the tiara (also my fingers and possibly the floor), I closed my eyes, held the crown high above me, and with a deep breath squished it down hard, pressing it to my head.
“Priscilla Lee-Jenkins, what are you doing?”
I spun around. My Grandma Jenkins stood in the doorway. And she was Not Happy.
I gave her my best “who me?” look, but that wasn’t a good strategy, because the tiara slid to the floor, which left a gluey mess across my head and down my dress.
Now, I know I’m a literary genius with a great and epic future ahead of me, but this was all a little too much. So I burst into tears. I told my grandma the whole story, starting with Catherina Rosalindia Lightningglass and the wings and Helen’s friends and the baldness. I think she stopped me somewhere around “taking my destiny into my own hands.” (I probably didn’t quite say this, since I was four, but I meant it, so th
at’s what I’m writing here. This is called Creative License, which means that if you’re an artist, you can change things that happen in real life to make them more interesting. I use it a lot.)
“Come now, dear.” She gave me a hug, or a sort of hug, because the glue was all over me and had smeared more while I cried. “Of course you can be a princess.”
“No,” I wailed. “Princesses aren’t bald, and if the tiara won’t stay on, I definitely won’t be a princess. Also, I have glue on my head so now I’m going to be funny-looking and sticky.”
My Grandma Jenkins took a long, deep breath.
Then my grandma—my “no messes,” “no silliness,” “no nonsense, Young Lady” Grandma Jenkins—went over to the arts and crafts drawer, looked through it for a minute, and pulled out a small jar.
“Well,” she said, with a sigh, but also a funny kind of smile at the corner of her mouth, “we can do something about that.”
And so I, Cilla Lee-Jenkins, future author extraordinaire, descended the staircase, my grandma behind me, with a head that sparkled—no, dazzled—with glue and the half a jar of glitter Grandma Jenkins had poured over me, plus a few star stickers we’d found at the bottom of the drawer.
“Good afternoon, Princess Helen,” I said, when I reached the bottom of the staircase.
“Cilla!” Helen didn’t know what to say. “You look, you look…”
“Like a princess?” my grandma suggested.
“Like Cinderella at the ball!” Helen exclaimed. “Right after her fairy godmother used her magic!”
And I’ll admit it—I realized right then that I liked Helen maybe just a little.
Though I still think the bows were a bit much.
* * *
It was a long time before my hair grew to a normal length (though now it’s past my shoulders, which is probably the most exciting thing that’s ever happened to me, other than being destined for literary greatness). But after that day, I didn’t worry about it anymore (or at least, as much). My mom let me decorate my head with stickers in place of bows. And sometimes, for very special occasions, she let me draw on my head with markers.
But even though being bald wasn’t all that bad in the end, when I look at The Blob’s photo, I can’t help but stare very hard at it. In fact, I got up, just a minute ago, to take a closer look. I had to stand on a chair to reach it, and I put my finger against it, and followed all the lines of the picture. I don’t think I saw any hair. Though there was one line that looked like it maybe could be, might possibly be, the start of a pigtail. Which would be AWFUL.
So I took destiny into my own hands.
3
MY BRUSH WITH DESTINY, OR HOW I BECAME A FUTURE AUTHOR EXTRAORDINAIRE
Today on the playground, my best friend Colleen and I talked about what we’re going to be when we grow up, which is also known as destiny. Destinies are GREAT things to have, because they mean that you already know what you’re going to do with your life, so you don’t have to worry about it anymore. This is nice, because there are so many other things to worry about (like making friends and being afraid of the dark). Colleen wanted to know all about how I knew I’d be an author, which was fun to tell. She’s not sure about her destiny yet, but it’ll probably involve robots and space travel. We’re both very excited for this, because when she’s a world-famous astronaut, I’ll write stories about her adventures and it will be AMAZING.
Playing destinies with Colleen made me realize that there’s an important story I haven’t told you yet. Because the whole point of this book is that I’m a future author extraordinaire. So I should tell you the story of how I found this out, before you wonder if we’ll ever get to it.
It all started one day at the grocery store. My mom was paying the cashier and I was waiting for her by the gumball machine. I was maybe five years old, which means my hair was just past my ears, and I was imagining what would happen if I melted all the gumballs into one giant gumball, and what color it would be, and how long it would take to chew, when I was interrupted by a person who can only be described as a Rude Individual.
This is true for several reasons. First, she interrupted me when I was clearly concentrating, which is rude. But what’s even worse is that she interrupted me to say, “Oh my goodness, look at you!” She bent down next to me, which was NOT appropriate. We’re strangers, so if I’m not supposed to talk to them, it doesn’t seem fair that they’re allowed to talk to me.
“Aren’t you something special!” she exclaimed. “What an interesting face you’ve got there! Those eyes!”
Now that is rude. If there’s one thing I know in this world, it’s that you don’t comment on people’s faces. Like this woman, who had lips that puckered like a fish and wore bright orange glasses that matched her bright orange hair (and not in a good way). It wouldn’t have been appropriate to say something about her face, even when it looked like that, because people take their faces personally and you don’t want to hurt their feelings. That’s why, when I call Ben McGee “Alien-Face McGee,” I don’t do it because his face looks anything like an alien’s. I call him that because I’ve made up a story about how he’s an alien who was sent here to spy on us in human disguise, which means his Alien-Face lurks underneath waiting to burst forth. Though that’s a longer story for later.
Anyway, I’m a Polite Individual, so I didn’t tell this woman that talking to strangers, staring at my face, and then calling it names meant that she was being a rude one. I just didn’t look at her, and looked instead at my mom, who was trying to get the clerk to hurry.
“Who’s that?” the woman asked, clearly not good at reading looks. “Is that your mommy? Well, she must be so pleased to have such an unusual daughter. Now, what are you, exactly?”
The question startled me.
It was a big question, and it made me think. What was I?
No one had ever asked me this before. I wasn’t a “Priscilla,” that’s for sure, and I was much more than a “Lee-Jenkins.” I was a daughter, and a girl, but lots of people are daughters and girls, so that wasn’t enough. I wanted to be something special. I wanted to be something great.
And this was my moment.
My chance.
To declare myself to the world, to decide who I was.
What was I, Cilla Lee-Jenkins? What did I want to be?
And then it happened. An answer came, bubbling up from deep inside me.
“I,” I said, breathless with the wondrousness of it all, “am a future author extraordinaire.”
I expected a big reaction, as I’d just realized my destiny of greatness, right then and there by the gumball machine. But the Rude Individual, it turns out, was also not very bright, and just looked confused.
“No, dear, I mean what are you?”
But then my mom was suddenly there next to me. “Can I help you?” she said, taking my hand.
“I was just asking your fascinating daughter what she was. You don’t see looks like that normally, and I just had to know.”
“Well, you heard her, didn’t you?” My mom was polite, but her words were careful and clipped, so the Rude Individual would understand. “She is a future author extraordinaire.”
Then my mom said, “Come on, Cilla,” in a singsongy voice, and we got to the car and she put me in my car seat, and said, in a short, funny way, “Well, what a Rude Individual.” And then we went to the ice cream store and got cones with sprinkles.
And the very next day, I got a present—a sign of my very own to hang outside my bedroom door, which was painted blue and said in big, white letters: “Priscilla Lee-Jenkins, Future Author Extraordinaire.”
Which, as I told Colleen today at recess, goes to show you that even though parents can make AWFUL decisions (like having Blobs, and calling me Priscilla, and saying that there’s not-a-chance-on-earth-young-lady that they’ll agree to name the baby Glimmerella), they’re not all bad. And sometimes, parents get it right.
4
PRESCHOOL BLUES
/> Today, my Nai Nai took me to the craft store. She’s making pillows and curtains for The Blob’s room, and wanted my help choosing the fabric.
The Blob is going to have the small room across from mine, which we used before to hold books. So far, there’s a crib and a rocking chair inside, but otherwise it’s pretty empty. The rocking chair is fun, but I wish the books were still there instead of in boxes in the hall (I liked to play in that room, and pretend it was a cave).
Shopping was okay, mostly because Nai Nai said she’d make me new pillows too, because being a Big Sister is something to celebrate. This isn’t true, of course, but I love it when my Nai Nai makes me things. She makes all of our curtains, which is very special, especially because Grandma Jenkins says that good custom-made curtains are impossible to find these days. I keep telling her that Nai Nai would be happy to make her some too, but she never remembers to call. But maybe she will when I show her the new pillows Nai Nai’s going to make for me, which will be AMAZING because I picked out fabric that’s blue with sparkly penguins on it. I wasn’t sure what to pick for The Blob, mostly because I still don’t want it moving into my house. But my Nai Nai found white fabric with ladybugs on it, which I like.
After the store, we went to Chinatown for lunch, which is always great. Nai Nai orders my favorite foods, and we eat with chopsticks. I love chopsticks, though they took me awhile to learn how to use. But now I’m EXCELLENT at them, and Nai Nai is very proud.
While we waited for our food, we took the chopsticks out of their paper wrappers and folded the paper back and forth, like a fan, to make chopstick holders. After we ate, we got bowls of sweet soup made of beans for dessert, which I was allowed to slurp. In fact, no one minds if you slurp your soup in Chinatown (which I can’t do at home), and no one cares if your elbows are on the table (my Grandma Jenkins is VERY concerned about this). There are some special rules that you do have to learn, though. For example, when the check comes all the grown-ups have to fight over who’s going to pay it (which is funny to watch), and you can NEVER put extra soy sauce on your food.