Running through Sprinklers Read online

  And that’s when I get the idea. I know what can bring us together.

  19

  AFTER SCHOOL, I’m in Nadine and Jen’s room, where they share a bunk bed. Nadine has the bottom, Jen has the top. It used to be the other way around, but they switched it this year.

  I’m digging through Nadine’s side closet: Baby blue and baby pink clothes fly behind me like shooting stars.

  Nadine: “You really don’t have to do that.”

  She is sitting over her pale wooden desk, the exact color of the ballet studio’s floor. She is doing her math homework: geometry. She rotates a compass in a slow twirl. She lays the pencil down.

  “Thank you,” she says. “It’s really nice of you.”

  “That’s what best friends are for,” I say.

  It takes me two hours to color-coordinate and fold everything and by the time I’m done I’m wearing her white leg warmers and pink headband, I don’t know how or why, but she doesn’t seem to care too much. I close the closet door and hang her satin pointe shoes on the little knob (a ribbon on a present). After, I sit on Nadine’s bed, hoping she’ll notice.

  Nadine: “Don’t you have homework?”

  Me: “Not really.”

  Jen walks in: “Uh, yeah we do. We have a math quiz tomorrow.”

  Me: “It’s so easy, it’ll take me just a couple minutes to review. I can do it later. Anyway, we have another matter to discuss.”

  Nadine: “Oh. Like what?”

  “Daniel. I think we should start our own investigation.”

  Jen is into it: “Yes! Great idea!”

  “You think?” Nadine says.

  Me: “The police haven’t been able to find him and we know him, so I think we have an advantage.”

  Nadine: “We don’t really know him that well. We sort of went to the movies with him once and didn’t talk to him. Do you even remember having a conversation with him?”

  “Yes, the day he disappeared, at the baseball game.”

  “You did?”

  “Well, I don’t know if I actually talked to him. But I was the last person to see him,” I say.

  Jen: “What Sara’s point is, is that we know him more than the police do.”

  Nadine: “That’s true, we do.”

  Me: “And we know our neighborhood better too.”

  “Very true.” Nadine pauses, then says, “Okay. Let’s do it.”

  I continue to lie on Nadine’s bed and begin reading a teen magazine even though I’m not a teen, and then all of a sudden, Mrs. Ando is touching my shoulder, waking me up. I get up and she walks me home, because no kid is allowed to walk home alone after dark anymore, and I collapse on my bed and fall asleep still wearing Nadine’s headband and leg warmers. My own clothing is scattered everywhere on the bed and on the floor, like friends.

  The next day, I barely pass the math quiz. Barely.

  It was just one test, though, and I still have the whole year to make it up, right? At least I think so.

  20

  IT’S FRIDAY NIGHT. I am practicing piano. (Yes, lame, I know.)

  Through the window I see Nadine dragging out a trash bin alone, which I worry is kind of dangerous. She pauses and looks into the distance, to the forest. I try to play my sonata as beautifully as possibly for her and I think it’s affecting her because she starts to sway from side to side in her pink jelly shoes and she looks happy for a moment. And my fingers hit every key with so much love for her that my last note is so soft you can barely hear it. I look over and she gives a little wave. I bow a bit. She slowly turns as though she can still hear the music, because she is still kind of swaying, and goes back inside.

  Ring. Ring. I run to the phone. My sort of sticky bare feet make squeaky noises on the kitchen floor.

  Me: “Hello?”

  “It’s me.” (Nadine! Yes!) “Nice piano playing, by the way.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Turn on the news. Now.”

  I peek into the living room. Dad is already watching.

  The screen shows a picture of an older man wearing a white T-shirt and jeans. He has familiar rosy cheeks.

  Nadine: “It’s Daniel’s dad. The police say they want to locate him to ask him questions.”

  “So he took him?” I say.

  “They say he’s a person of interest. That doesn’t necessarily mean he is a suspect, but . . .”

  “Maybe.”

  “Exactly. It’s so sad. Sometimes I can’t sleep, thinking about the whole thing.”

  “Me too,” I say. “Want to come over for a while?”

  “Sleepover?”

  “Yah.”

  “I’ll be right there.”

  I unfold the low black table from Korea with pearlescent flowers and fish engraved on it. When Nadine arrives, we sit at it, cross-legged, drinking cold chocolate milk.

  I pull out a notebook and we sketch out a plan to search through the forest.

  I’m happy because we have a mission, something we share: We are going to find Daniel Monroe ourselves. I know it may seem like I’m using the disappearance of that poor kid as a ploy to keep my best friend around, but I never said I was a great person.

  21

  I’VE CALLED OUR first meeting about Daniel Monroe at our house, in our living room. James drags chairs from the dining room into the living room, forming two rows, all facing the front where there’s a big map of Surrey that I drew on a flip chart using smelly felt markers. The trees smell like peppermint, the trunks like cinnamon, the baseball diamond like black licorice.

  On the coffee table, James has lined up apple juice boxes like dominoes. He closes the French doors.

  In attendance:

  Me

  Nadine

  James

  Jen

  Megan (too little to understand but Nadine is babysitting)

  I lead the meeting, standing in front of everyone. I point to the flip chart with some random ruler I found in the junk drawer in the kitchen and say, “There are three possibilities for what happened to Daniel.”

  Jen clears her throat. “Well, the obvious one is that he was kidnapped. Maybe by some crazed childless couple who wants a kid.”

  Jen (to me): “What else did you come up with?”

  Me: “Well . . . Nadine and I think his dad could have kidnapped him.”

  James: “Why would his own dad kidnap him?”

  Jen: “Maybe because of a custody battle. His dad could have just decided to nab him. It’s super common.”

  Nadine: “I don’t know if I think that anymore.”

  Me: “Yes, because, what we really think is . . . he could have run away. We think he is camping in Green Timbers Forest.”

  “Why the forest?” Jen says.

  James catches on. “Because he told me he wanted to camp there before the summer was done! That’s it! That’s where he is!”

  “Yes!” I say.

  Nadine: “I’m sorry, I have to stop this.”

  What on earth is she doing?

  “I talked to my mom about this meeting. We should be leaving this to the police. Plus, they probably have already checked the forest.”

  I can’t believe her. I thought she wanted to find him together. She decided all this without even talking to me? How dare she?

  James: “But, Nadine, we know the forest really well. At least the area near here. We really have a chance to find him.”

  “That’s right, Nadine,” I say. “Remember how we said he might be in the forest?”

  Nadine: “The idea that the whole country is looking for him and he’s just pitched a tent in the forest is insane. I don’t think so.”

  “But I thought you wanted to do something to find him,” I say.

  “I did, and I’m sorry. But it’s irresponsible for us to take matters into our own hands. Let’s leave it to the police. They know what they are doing.” She looks at Jen and Megan and says, “Time to go home.”

  Jen: “But I don’t want to go home.”

&
nbsp; “We have to finish our chores today. It’s Saturday.”

  “Fine, whatever. But you’re doing the toilets,” Jen says.

  Nadine takes Megan by the hand and puts her shoes on. Jen remains silent in an angry way and follows them. As they walk down the driveway, Nadine turns around and mouths, I’m sorry. I’ll call you later.

  She doesn’t call me later. I think she had a ballet recital and a lot of homework. Or else she just forgot.

  22

  “THREE PEOPLE. Perfect number of people for dim sum,” Mom says.

  Around us, the hum of a Chinese restaurant. Dad, Mom, and I sit around a round table. James is at a friend’s house, not like he really has any, but whatever, yeah.

  This is actually Nadine’s favorite place. No one loves dim sum as much as Nadine. “The dumplings look like magical edible jewels,” she once said to me. She used to come with us here almost every month. But she didn’t today. When I called this morning to ask, she said she had too much homework. I’m not sure if it’s because of what happened yesterday, though I don’t think I did anything wrong.

  Crisp white linen lies smooth under cold ceramic bowls and long chopsticks. A teapot. Mom takes it and pours hot golden tea into three little cups on the table. Me, with two fingers, tap tap on the table, Thank you. Nadine taught me this. I have no idea where she learned it.

  Women in black bow ties slowly push trolleys by our table. Mom either shakes her head no or nods yes, depending on what’s on the cart. Mom can understand some Cantonese, though she never lets the women with the carts know this.

  Mom nods, and with prongs the women quickly place wooden dishes on our table, whoosh whoosh whoosh, a stream of dim sum treats.

  In one dish: three steamed pork buns. Mom gives one to each of us. We all use chopsticks; Dad’s a pro. He can separate and slice and do the most amazing tricks and I swear he could even catch a fly with those things just like that guy in The Karate Kid. Nadine is really good too. I am so clumsy with mine. Mom says not to feel bad, she’s not so good herself.

  I poke a hole in the bun. It breathes out air, pork air. I manage to open the bun, revealing its orange insides. This is my favorite. It’s sweet and salty all at the same time. After, I eat the white fluffy bun.

  And then Mom nods her head for more. Siu mai look like underwater creatures, pink on the inside, wrinkly green on the outside. Sticky rice wrapped in banana leaves. I peel the leaf off and try to separate each piece of rice from the other; impossible. Mom eats chicken feet. Dad and I dare not touch.

  We eat a million different kinds of dumplings with different kinds of things inside. Mushrooms, vegetables, pork, shrimp. Dad eats all the shrimp ones; he can’t help himself. The shrimp ones are Nadine’s favorite too. She doesn’t like meat much.

  I go to the washroom and do what is a tradition for me and Nadine: Stop at the big fish tanks, which look like cubes of ocean stacked up to the ceiling. Each tank is a different underwater world. One with giant goldfish happily swimming around, another with slimy black snakefish slithering through, and one with a layer of crabs sleeping, a single crab crawling on top of them, until it finds a place to rest.

  I suddenly get very sad.

  “Time to go,” Mom says behind me.

  We walk down the stairs to the bakery underneath. I am so full. But I get the usual there, an egg tart, because it’s just what I always get. And Dad gets a coconut bun because that’s what he always gets. Nadine would get a sesame ball with red bean paste inside. If she were here.

  This is what we used to do at least once a month. Drop James off at his friend’s house, come to Chinatown with Nadine, eat dim sum, go downstairs afterward for some baked goods, go to a market to buy vegetables, then stop to see Mom’s Chinese medicine doctor, George.

  In the medicine store:

  Buckets of dried roots and other brown things. It’s so stinky. I plug my nose while we’re in there. All I can think: Poor Cookie. I can’t believe he had to live with this smell while exiled to the garage.

  We walk up and down the streets of Chinatown. Mom and Dad drift ahead and I try to catch up with them; I can’t see them anymore, but I do see a blond boy in a blue jacket walking and I try to catch up to him but somehow he floats up and away in a sea of people with dark hair, and walking right in front of me is Nadine, she is here, in Chinatown, what are the odds, and I tap her on the shoulder and she turns around, and it’s not her, it’s a woman, looking at me, confused and kind of angry I touched her. I’m so scared.

  Someone grabs my arm. It’s Dad. He says, “Stay close.”

  I realize I’m crazy for hoping that Nadine and I are still forever best friends, like how we were before. I need to be realistic. I have to try my hardest to make sure we remain best after-school friends. This is my new goal.

  23

  SINCE IT’S A nice day, our moms miraculously let Jen, James, and me ride our bikes to school. I feel it’s a little immature doing this; it’s probably better to walk or be driven, but Jen and James really want to bike to school and I don’t want to fight it, because I have bigger problems, so it’s like what the heck, you know.

  After a few blocks, I feel strange. Then I notice the constant hum of the same car engine for a while. “Guys, let’s get moving,” I say. “I think someone is following us.”

  We start pedaling as quickly as we can. I look at James and he’s pedaling so hard he’s standing up on his bike, lunging his face forward, chin out, thinking it’ll make him go faster. We cut through a grassy field, just missing a ditch, down a path between two houses, and into another cul-de-sac.

  We’ve lost them. Phew. We slowly start to bike out of a different cul-de-sac and down a different road to school. Then I hear the same engine. A van pulls up next to us, and in the window: Nadine. With Mrs. Ando driving. Megan in the backseat, in her car seat.

  Nadine rolls down the window and leans back for Mrs. Ando to speak: “Sorry! I was following just in case! But I see that you’re fine! Bye!”

  Nadine says nothing, just leans forward to roll the window back up, nods hello (or good-bye?) as they speed off.

  And I wonder, if Nadine didn’t skip, would she be here, with us, riding bikes to school? She probably would be. Yes. Of course. But instead she’s the person who leans back in her seat and says nothing to her (after-school) best friend.

  At school, all I can think about is Nadine and how she is not here, sitting next to me, or in front of me, or behind me, like how we usually manipulate the sitting plan to our liking.

  As I’m thinking all this, I write her name over and over again in the same spot on the top right corner of my notebook, but it’s okay because it just looks like a scribble, so Monsieur won’t think I’m crazy, just a little messy.

  In the bathroom, in the last stall just above the toilet paper, I write: SS + NA BFFs 4ever. I write it in pencil to feel less bad so someone can erase it away easily.

  I always stand in the same place after school, waiting to get picked up. This is my little square of the sidewalk. I never leave it. It’s a great square, outlined with dirt. There are straggly weeds that grow in its grooves. There is one particular weed that is quite large. I am holding a water bottle above it and . . .

  “Did you just water that weed?” Jen is standing in front of me.

  “Uh . . .” A car pulls up. “My mom’s here,” I say. “I have to go to my piano lesson.”

  24

  IT’S SATURDAY AFTERNOON.

  Dad and I are going to a matinee today. We used to go every week, just him and me, but we haven’t gone in a while. I guess recently I’ve preferred to go to the movies with Nadine and have my dad drop us off a block away from the theater. I think also that everyone has stopped doing the things they enjoy since Daniel went missing.

  Sometimes, randomly, say when Dad is driving me somewhere, I’ll look at him and miss him and wish we hung out more, like before.

  I grab his hand in the car. I haven’t held his hands in years. They are so
soft.

  Everything Dad does is on the left. The way he votes, the way he tilts his head to the side when he’s thinking. He’s even left-handed.

  In the theater:

  The movie has already started and Dad is still outside in the lobby buying popcorn and pop. I kind of get worried that he won’t be able to find me in the dark, and keep looking back over my shoulder, ignoring the previews.

  Then I see a shadow move down the aisle. It’s him. He sits next to me (in the aisle seat, I always save it for him).

  I whisper, “How did you know I’d be on this side of the theater?”

  “You like to sit on the left side of things,” he says. “The couch, the movie theater.”

  We watch the movie. And it’s about a man getting killed, leaving his grieving fiancée behind. Little does she know, though, that he is actually still there, in spirit form, watching her and protecting her as she tries to figure out who killed him. Their connection is so strong that they feel each other and even though one is alive and the other is a ghost, she senses his presence and love wherever she goes.

  I want to know a love like this, but I know deep down that I will be forever alone because my best friend has left me. Things will never be the same and I will never find another friend so true and honest and pure in a way that matches all those parts of me that are true, honest, and pure. These are the real and the best parts of me, and she brought them out. So I have no choice but to do absolutely everything I can to turn things around and make her come back so I can be whole again.

  Dad puts his (soft) hand on mine, which is resting on the cup holder. “Are you okay, sweetheart?”

  I’m not, I’m not okay. And I want to tell him this, but when I open my mouth these words come out instead: “Yes, I’m fine. What a great movie. Thanks, Daddy.”

  25

  SO . . . SOMEHOW someone found out I was the one who wrote that thing in the bathroom. I’m not sure who it was, but someone told a teacher and lo and behold, I’m sitting in the vice principal’s office—not the actual principal’s office, which to me is a hopeful sign. The only thing that worries me is that there is a police officer talking to the secretary.