by Susan Tan
I love mostly everything about Chinatown. I love the sound of Chinese, even though I don’t understand it. I love the fish with big heads and wide eyes that swim in a tank by the door. And I love the food, which comes on big, steaming plates that we put in the middle of the table and share.
Today, though, just as my Nai Nai and I sat down, a waiter walked by with a plate of something familiar for another table, something that I used to love, but don’t anymore. I haven’t thought about it in a long time. My Nai Nai saw it too, and looked at me with her eyebrow raised and a question on her face. But I just said, “No thank you.”
Now I’m home, and my mom is working at her desk. I’m lying on the fuzzy rug next to her, because I can keep her company on the condition that I work too, and don’t talk or bother her. I’ve been pretty good at this so far, and only interrupted once to ask if she ever lies on the rug, because it’s so comfortable. And when she said no, to ask her why not. And maybe a third time to tell her about how someday I’ll have a desk of my own, because all serious writers do. But I’ll also have a fuzzy rug like this one, because I love it so much. But that’s it.
At first, I wasn’t sure what I’d write about this afternoon (other than the rug). But I can’t stop thinking about Chinatown, or that plate. They have a story all their own. And this story happened when my hair was just long enough for bows but still too short for pigtails, when I went to a place called preschool.
* * *
Preschool is a fun place. Your mom drops you off in the morning and you’re a big girl about it, but really you don’t want her to go because even though you’re brave you have a stomachache and pneumonia and leprosy and will miss her. But once you’ve hung up your backpack and put your lunchbox in your cubby, you feel better.
Plus Miss Jill is there to give you a hug and say, “Why don’t we go play with the puppets?”
And afterward, you forget about your stomachache and pneumonia, because preschool is mostly great.
However, there is one drawback to preschool—other kids.
I found this out one day when we were sitting around the sharing rug, which was a rug decorated with the letters of the alphabet where we took turns going around in a circle and saying our favorite things. On this particular day, Miss Jill asked us to share our favorite foods.
It was an easy question, and I was excited to answer, because if you can’t get excited about food, then what else is there? I had a big smile on my face when I shared my answer too, because sharing was my favorite part of the day, and I loved thinking about my favorite food, which my Nai Nai always ordered especially for me when we were in Chinatown.
So I said, “Snails.”
“What?” shrieked a girl with long pigtails.
“Snails,” I said, confused that she hadn’t understood the first time.
“But … what do you eat?” another boy said, and didn’t even look embarrassed that he hadn’t been listening.
“Snails.”
“Like … with shells?” a boy with a pip-squeak voice asked.
In the literary world, this is what’s known as a Tough Crowd.
I looked at Miss Jill, because they all clearly had some sort of brain fever that made you forget animal names, and probably needed to go to the hospital. But Miss Jill looked confused, not worried, like she was putting on a brave face before leaving to call the ambulance.
So I put on a brave face too. “Yes,” I said, gently.
“Eeeeeeeeeeeewwwwwwwww,” they all said.
This wasn’t the reaction I was expecting.
“Now, guys,” Miss Jill cut in. “That isn’t very nice. I’m sure Cilla can explain.”
I looked at her, surprised. Had she caught the brain sickness too? “Explain what?” I asked, but my voice had suddenly gotten a bit smaller and higher, and I had a feeling in my stomach like I’d done something wrong.
“What you mean by snails. You don’t eat real snails, right? Maybe candy ones?”
“No,” I whispered, wishing it wasn’t my turn anymore. “Just … real snails.”
“Oh,” Miss Jill said. “How interesting. Um, where do you even get those?”
“Chinatown,” I said, my voice all funny.
“Oh,” Miss Jill said again. “Well, thank you for sharing, Cilla. Ryan, why don’t you share next?” And then the conversation was over, but the other kids were giggling, and my face was burning and I suddenly didn’t like sharing time as much as I used to.
When my dad picked me up from school that afternoon, I didn’t know I was still thinking about it. But when he said, “You’re awfully quiet today, Cilla. Everything okay?” I found myself asking, “Dad, are we Chinese?”
“Uh, yes, sweetie. We are.” My dad pushed his glasses higher on his nose, which is what he does whenever he’s thinking or nervous. “I’m Chinese, and your Nai Nai and Ye Ye are Chinese, and you’re half Chinese.”
“Oh,” I said. I’d known this, I guess, but I’d never really thought about it before. And then something else occurred to me.
“But does being half Chinese mean that I’m not really Chinese?”
“No,” my dad said, firmly. “It means that you are Chinese, but also something else. You’re as Chinese as me and your Nai Nai and Ye Ye, but you’re also Caucasian, like your mom. Which means you get to be both things, which is very special.”
I had to think about this for a while.
“Okay,” I said, finally. “But, Dad?”
“Yes, sweetheart?”
“I don’t think I like snails anymore.”
The next time we went to Chinatown, my Nai Nai ordered snails even though I didn’t want them. And when I had a bite, because my mom and dad insisted, I decided I didn’t like them.
“Ewww, gross,” I said.
My mom said, “But, Cilla, you love snails.”
My dad said, “How about you try another bite?”
But I said no, because suddenly the taste had become something bad, though I didn’t want to say that because I didn’t want to hurt my Nai Nai’s feelings.
My Nai Nai looked at me for a moment, not like she was angry, but like she was trying to figure something out. “This happens with children,” she said, finally. “Tastes change. Here.” She called over the waiter. A few minutes later, a plate of something hot and delicious-smelling and new came to our table. “Bamboo hearts,” she said. “Try.”
They were flat, soft vegetables that came on top of a pile of steaming hot spinach. I poked at them with my chopsticks. They smelled good. And they didn’t seem like something that anyone at preschool would call “gross,” no matter how little imagination they might have. I took a bite.
“Yum!” I said.
“Yay,” my dad said.
“I want to try some,” my mom said.
“A favorite?” my Nai Nai asked.
“Yes.” I smiled back.
“It’s my favorite, too,” she said. “Much better than snails. It’s a very special, grown-up food.”
“Wow!” I exclaimed. This was a big deal. “Also,” I said, “did you know that we’re both Chinese?”
“Yes,” my Nai Nai replied, patting my hand with her soft, papery one. “Have some more.”
* * *
Bamboo hearts are called tzuck sang in Chinese, and I get them every time I go to Chinatown, including today. They’re delicious, and my Nai Nai always gives me the last piece, even when I say I’m too full. Which is VERY nice of her, since they’re her favorite too.
But I never had snails again, which is maybe a little sad.
Or at least, that’s how I felt, suddenly, at lunch today, when I saw that plate of snails go by.
I think my Nai Nai understood, though. When I said no and got quiet, she took my hand and asked me to tell her more about my book. Nai Nai didn’t know what a bestseller was, so I had to explain that it’s a book you write if you want to be famous. Everyone will buy it (because it sells the “best,” obviously).
“Ay yah!�
� she said, when I told her.
“I know,” I said with a big smile. “It will be GREAT.”
And then, even though we were just talking about books, she said that no matter how busy things got with the baby, she and my Ye Ye would always have time to play with me, and to listen to my stories.
After lunch, she surprised me with an order of tzuck sang just for me, which came wrapped in a small container, to take to school for lunch the next day. This was very exciting because I’ve never had tzuck sang all to myself. Plus, when I brought leftovers from Chinatown to school for lunch last year, which I was kind of nervous to do, Colleen tried them and LOVED them. And if she AND my Nai Nai love something, it means it definitely and officially can’t be gross. So tomorrow, Colleen and I will be able to share tzuck sang, and I bet she’ll even let me have one of the chocolate cookies her mom packs in the special dessert pocket of her lunchbox.
Which means that this chapter can come to a happy, delicious end.
5
KINDERGARTEN AND OTHER TRAGEDIES
When you’re upset, you’re supposed to use your words to say why. My mom and dad tell me this all the time (though every once in a while when they yell, my mom says, “For heaven’s sake, Nathan, use your words.” So I think it’s something they have to work on too.).
But sometimes, when you’re sitting at recess by yourself, and life is awful, and your best friend hates you, and you’re thinking that maybe you should move somewhere far away like Alaska or Zanzibar, and you spilled milk at lunch and now your socks are making a squishy sound, it can be VERY hard to find the words you need.
Now, you’d think that being a literary genius would make me excellent at expressing myself. Of course, sometimes it does. For example, I’ve used my words to call the baby in my mom’s stomach Blobzilla, even though my parents have already picked out its name. They keep saying that it’s Not Acceptable to call my little sister The Blob or any of the other excellent names I’ve come up with. (Whatever happens, though, I won’t call the new baby by the name my parents have picked. I hate it. In fact, I hate it so much, I won’t write it down here. So there.)
But sometimes, being a future author extraordinaire doesn’t help with words at all, especially when you’re upset. Like yesterday, when I found out some TERRIBLE NEWS about The Blob, even worse than knowing that it’s coming at all.
I’ve mostly been trying to forget about The Blob over these past few weeks. Its room is slowly getting decorated (and I’ll admit that the pillows my Nai Nai made look very nice, though my penguin pillows are MUCH better). But otherwise, not much has happened with it, and I haven’t wanted to talk about it. And it’s been fun pretending like nothing’s going to change.
So when my mom came back from a doctor’s appointment and asked me to sit down on the couch with her, I hoped it would be about something completely unrelated to The Blob. Maybe she wanted to talk about painting the house purple (I’m always pushing for this), or buying a pony (this too), or quitting her job to open up an ice cream store (which would be GREAT, and I’d visit every day).
But then she said, “Cilla, I need to tell you something,” in a serious voice, and I knew I wouldn’t like this conversation. “The doctors did some tests to make sure the baby’s healthy, which it is,” my mom went on. “But they realized they got the due date wrong, which means the baby’s going to be coming a bit later than we’d thought. This means that if the baby takes a while, there’s a chance that it’s going to be born just before school starts, around your birthday.”
It took me a minute to understand what she meant.
“I wanted to let you know, sweetheart,” my mom went on. “There’s a very good chance that the baby will be born before then. And even if it’s born close to your birthday, it will still be your special day.”
“But,” I tried to find my words (it was very hard). “But it won’t be born on my birthday, right?”
“It’s really unlikely,” my mom said, “really.” But that wasn’t a good answer, because the only good answer to that question is “NO.”
My mom asked if I wanted to talk, and for once the answer to that was also “no.” Because how do you find the words to say how unfair it is that The Blob with the terrible name is not only taking your favorite food, and your parents, and your grandparents, and the room where you used to play cave, but now it wants your birthday too?
My mom was still trying to talk about my feelings this morning while we walked to the bus, but I didn’t want to. In fact, all I wanted to do was talk to Colleen about what my mom had told me, because Colleen always knows what to say, and is on my side, and I hoped she’d tell me that The Blob is AWFUL, which would be nice to hear.
But then things got even worse.
When Colleen got on the bus, something was different. She wasn’t smiling like usual, and she didn’t say “Hi” or “Cilla!” or “I have the best story to tell you” or any of the things she normally does when I see her in the morning.
Instead, she sat down next to me with a small sigh.
“Hi, Colleen,” I said quickly. “I have the WORST news.” And I told her about The Blob.
And I waited for her to tell me it was going to be okay.
But she didn’t.
Instead, she just crossed her arms and made a sighing sound.
“Isn’t that the worst thing ever?” I prodded.
“No,” Colleen said, suddenly, in an exasperated voice. “It’s not.”
I was surprised, and the bottom of my eyes got hot and itchy, and I didn’t know what to say, or what I’d done wrong.
“Sorry,” Colleen said, after a minute. “It’s just that my grandpa called last night. My grandma fell and hurt her hip.”
“Oh,” I said.
“She’s okay,” Colleen went on, “but she has to go to the hospital and have an operation.”
“Oh,” I said again. And I wanted to say something more. But I didn’t know what, and I wanted to make everything better for Colleen, but I didn’t know how, and what did it even mean to fall and break a hip, and the word “hospital” made my stomach do a flip, and—
Colleen was looking at me, like she expected something. So I said, “Oh,” again, quietly. And then there was another, longer pause, and I tried to find something to say to make everything okay. But before I could, Colleen looked away, and said, “She’ll be fine,” in a short, funny voice. “But excuse me if I don’t want to talk about The Blob again,” she went on, with her arms crossed. “You’ll just have to deal with it on your own and not be such a baby.”
And I still didn’t know what to say. So I didn’t say anything.
We were quiet on the bus after that. We didn’t play or talk like we usually do. And I couldn’t look at Colleen, and I wanted to give her a hug. But I also wanted to tell her that she hadn’t been fair.
I spent the rest of the bus ride, and all of circle time and math, trying to think of the things I should have said. Some of them were angry, but most of them were sorry. And then, before we had a chance to talk, while I was paired with Alien-Face McGee for reading, I looked across the room to where Colleen had been sitting with Tim #1, and she was gone.
I thought maybe she’d been abducted by aliens or trolls (which was more likely, since Alien-Face was with me the whole time). Actually, I sort of wish it had been trolls, because then I could have rescued her, and she’d be sorry that she’d ever said anything mean, and she’d know I cared about her and her grandma. But that’s not what happened.
Instead, when I asked Ms. Bloom where Colleen was, she said that Colleen had a stomachache, and was waiting with the nurse for her mom to pick her up. Ms. Bloom looked surprised too, and said, “Oh, I thought she’d told you, Cilla,” because Colleen and I tell each other EVERYTHING. But Colleen left without telling me. Colleen left without saying goodbye.
Which I guess means that Colleen doesn’t want to be my friend anymore.
* * *
So I’m sitting by the swin
gs, by myself, writing. Alien-Face invited me to play on the balance beam with him and Tim #1, but I said NO, because how could I play at a time like this? Also, Colleen loves balance beams, so it would make me think of her and be sad.
I haven’t been this upset, or alone on the playground, or TERRIBLE with my words, for a long time. And sitting here feels a lot like it did the first time I found out that you can be really, really bad with your words, literary genius or not.
It all started in kindergarten.
* * *
Kindergarten is a big deal. It’s your first time at real school, and your first time riding the bus. Plus, when I went to kindergarten, my hair was so long that for the first time in my life it TOUCHED MY SHOULDERS.
So I was happy about going to kindergarten, right up till the morning I had to get ready for the school bus for the first time.
Then several things occurred to me.
First, there would be older kids there. I have a strict policy against older kids. This is because:
1. I worry they’ll be mean.
2. I worry they’ll squish me on purpose.
3. I worry they’ll squish me by accident, even if they’re not mean, because these things can happen.
I was also reconsidering this bus business. Yes, it was yellow and exciting, but there would be older kids on it too (see above), I wouldn’t know anyone, and what if I didn’t know where to get off and accidentally stayed on for too long and ended up in another school, or state, or country, and never found my way home?
When my mom came upstairs and found me in my pajamas saying “No thank you, Mommy. I’ve decided I don’t want to go to kindergarten,” she wasn’t as sympathetic as she could’ve been. In fact, she wasn’t sympathetic at all.
But when I finally came downstairs, dressed and ready to go, I told her my real fear, the actual thing that was the scariest about kindergarten, even worse than big kids. “But,” I asked my mom, “what if no one likes me and I don’t make any friends?”
And my mom knelt down so our faces were very close, and she held out her arms so I could cuddle into her shoulder, which is my favorite thing, and she said, “Priscilla Lee-Jenkins, you are someone worth knowing. So if anyone doesn’t want to be your friend, they’re missing out.” She gave me a piggyback ride to the bus stop, though I got down before the bus came so everyone would know I was a big girl. I waved goodbye to my parents as the bus pulled away, and I think Mom was catching a cold because she kept blowing her nose and wiping her eyes on my dad’s shirt.