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Running through Sprinklers Page 6


  A woman walks in the room and says, “I’m Ms. Lee, the new vice principal.”

  Ohhh. That’s who she is. I mean, she wasn’t teaching any classes I know of and she was always in the hall, smiling at everyone as they came in. Plus, she doesn’t look like a teacher. She looks cooler, prettier, like she doesn’t belong here but in New York City, in an art gallery, sipping red wine.

  She sits down across from me and looks at me with the most neutral expression for what feels like an eternity. I shift a bit on her crinkled-leather brown couch.

  “We know it was you who wrote on the bathroom wall. This is very serious. It’s technically vandalism.”

  “I’m sorry,” I say and look down at my feet, noticing my mismatched socks. I feel Ms. Lee’s gaze on them too. “I won’t do it again. I promise.”

  “I hope not. The punishment for school vandalism is suspension. But since it seems you’ve never done anything like this before, I’m willing to let you go with a warning. Do not do it again.”

  Phew. But I’m still not completely at ease. “So then why are the police here?” I ask.

  “Oh, they patrol all schools in Surrey regularly. It’s standard routine these days.”

  She looks through some papers on her desk and I scan her office for any clues of her life. There aren’t any framed pictures of family, but there is a big bouquet of flowers: white lilies. Probably from her husband. Except she doesn’t have a ring yet. Boyfriend?

  She looks up, surprised I’m still there. She says, “You can go.” And as I get up to leave she casually asks, “Things going well in class?”

  “Actually, it’s kind of boring,” I say.

  “How so?”

  “It’s so easy,” I say. “I need to be challenged.”

  Her: “You’re finding school too easy?”

  Me: “Yes, I think I could probably skip a grade.”

  “Oh?”

  The second bell rings.

  “Yah. We have a math quiz; gonna crush it,” I say.

  I slip into my desk as Monsieur Tanguay starts writing a weird equation with the strange spaces in between again. I hate these desks because the chairs are attached to them and it’s so tight, I can’t push back. I need to get out of here. I need to be with the grown-ups, I need to be with Nadine in high school, and I’ll do whatever it takes to make that happen. I can’t stay here. I have to convince the school that I can to skip a grade too. I have to get out of elementary school forever.

  26

  I TOTALLY FAIL the quiz, by the way. Two out of ten.

  At night, I can’t sleep. I can’t believe I failed that quiz. I’ve never failed anything before. How am I going to pull myself out of this and get back on track? Last year, I did super well in math, but maybe it’s because Nadine helped me out a lot, explaining things to me.

  Nadine.

  I have to stop waiting around, hoping that Nadine will invite me over after school, because she hasn’t, and I need to focus on myself and making myself better in all ways to be worthy of skipping a grade and going to high school early. If I do really well, maybe they will let me into high school for the next term, starting in January? It’s a possibility. I have a few months to work my butt off to make it happen. I can do it. I can.

  27

  TONIGHT IS THE first school dance of the year. There actually wasn’t going to be one this year, because members of the Parent Advisory Committee didn’t want their kids out late, but Jen told me she heard that Ms. Lee told them it was important to keep some sense of normalcy in the community and school by continuing to support activities like the dance. Ms. Lee also assured the parents that there would be a lot of volunteers supervising and that the police would send a patrol unit to sit in the parking lot. But even though it was happening, I still didn’t really want to go, not because I was afraid, but because I wanted to study.

  This all changed when Jen called saying we should go, like together, she and I, and that it would be fun, and I appreciated Jen calling me and asking because I kinda felt forgotten by everyone. Then I heard Nadine yell in the background: “Come over. I’ll do your hair!”

  So, like that, I’m at the Andos’.

  I sit on a chair and Nadine hovers above me. She puts her super massive hairbrush on top of my head and pulls it down, porcupines crawling lightly down my skull. Nobody brushes hair like Nadine. It’s gentle and ticklish and sometimes hurts a bit, but in a good way. It’s been a while since I’ve been in super close proximity to Nadine, other than sitting next to her in the car. And I don’t know how long it’s been since she’s touched me, even though she is just touching me with a brush. I haven’t been coming over after school like usual. Probably because I’ve been trying to study more. Probably because she hasn’t invited me.

  “You have such awesome hair,” Nadine says. “I would, like, kill to have your hair. It’s so wavy and has so much body. Mine is suuuuuuper straight.”

  Jen walks in wearing jeans. “Is this okay to wear?”

  Me: “Yes. It’s an elementary school dance. Who cares.”

  Nadine laughs a bit and I think, This feels great. It’s like we are on the same page, equals. Things feel normal again. Until I realize she is helping me get ready for a dance she is not going to.

  Nadine to Jen: “Hey, wouldn’t you kill to have Sara’s hair?”

  “No. That’s a little extreme,” Jen says. “Definitely not worth twenty-five to life in prison.”

  Nadine continues, “Actually, Rachel has pretty cool hair too. Some of it is so blond, it’s almost white.”

  Jen: “That’s called albinism.”

  “Rachel? Who is Rachel?” I ask.

  “She’s a girl in my school. She’s really pretty. Her hair is so long and blond. She even has highlights. Natural highlights.”

  Jen rolls her eyes. Nadine tells me to lie on Jen’s bed and close my eyes.

  “I’m going to pluck your eyebrows ever so slightly,” she says. “They’re a bit bushy.”

  Jen: “Seriously, Nadine? They’re fine.”

  “No, it’s okay,” I say. “I want to.”

  I rest my head on Jen’s pillow and close my eyes. I can feel Nadine breathing on my face, she’s that close, then the cold metal of the tweezers touches my forehead and then RIP! RIP! RIP! RIP! RIP! I scream, “STOP!!”

  I grab the tweezers from Nadine and run to the bathroom. I pull the rest of the stray hairs out myself, tears streaming down my cheek into the sink.

  I look in the mirror. I made it worse. Half of one eyebrow has disappeared.

  She did this on purpose, I think. She’s done everything on purpose. Like how she made me go shopping with her for new clothes for her new school. Just to spite me. She’s getting some sick pleasure from seeing me like this, hurting me like this.

  I come out and Nadine and Jen are in the hall. Nadine and I just stand there looking at each other.

  Jen says, “It looks fine, honestly.”

  “Your hair grows back so fast anyway,” Nadine says. “And it’ll be dark at the dance. No one will notice.”

  I walk past both of them angrily and go downstairs to put my shoes on.

  In the school gym:

  I am hypnotized by the blue and red flecks of lights from the disco ball as they dance along the walls and on people’s cheeks. They calm me down and make me feel better.

  The gym isn’t that full. I’m guessing only sixty percent of the kids came. Mrs. Ando stayed to chaperone, which is kind of awkward if I decide to dance with a boy.

  It’s a slow song and all the boys dance with the girls at arm’s length. Girls with their hands on the boys’ shoulders; boys with their hands on girls’ hips, rocking back and forth. I’m dancing with my friend Josh. Mrs. Ando drinks punch with Ms. Lee and some of the teachers and watches us. She waves hello when she sees me.

  During the fast songs I don’t know how to dance to the music so I just pull Jen aside and whisper in her ear, as if I have something important to say, but I don�
�t, it’s just because I don’t know how to dance to fast songs. I do dance a bit with Jen and Josh but in a joking way, like monkeys or robots. Josh does the Running Man. It’s pretty good.

  It’s another slow song. Jen goes off to talk to a teacher. Ricky Grant asks me to dance. Why does he want to dance with me? He’s always flipping his eyelids at me, which really makes me mad because there is nothing I find more disgusting. In class, he taps me on the shoulder (he sits behind me), and I turn: It looks like there are earthworms on his eyelids. I fall for it every time.

  As we dance, he presses himself up against my hip a bit. Eww. Whoa, what? I pull away and he becomes less weird.

  While I dance with him, I close my eyes and try to imagine that I’m dancing with someone else, like a friend, like maybe Josh or something, or even Nadine, even though I’m kind of mad at her right now, but then I hear the lights go on and I open my eyes to see Ricky’s face and the volleyball net against the wall and the primary-color lines on the floor and Mrs. Ando looking at me. The dance is over.

  When we drive into the cul-de-sac, and Mrs. Ando pulls into my driveway to let me off first since it’s so dark, I see Nadine looking at me through her bedroom window. But when she sees me, she just closes the blinds.

  And while I was angry at her for plucking my eyebrows out, all I want is for her to open them again and wave hello.

  I have to try harder.

  28

  MOM DRIVES US to piano lessons at Mrs. West’s home in New Westminster. She lives in this super small white house with a green roof. It looks like something from a fairy tale, as though elves live in there, but it’s only my six-foot-tall piano teacher and her grand piano.

  Anyway, whenever it’s my brother’s turn, I go in the bathroom to look through her beauty stuff. She’s got some really cool soaps that smell like fruit—apple, strawberry, and lemon. I don’t like the lemon one so much, actually, because it smells a bit like bathroom cleaner. But around Christmastime she has a cranberry soap that I just love. Anyway, I open her medicine cabinet and there are so many perfumes and lotions and bath salts and magic potions and in the corner on the shelf . . . a bag of razors. The pink ones, with a moisture strip. I saw them in a commercial once. I carefully open the bag while James is playing the piano la-la-la-la-la so no one can hear the crumple sound of the plastic package la-la-la-la and slip one razor into my pocket.

  I actually, like, go pee, finally, and come out because it’s my turn la-la-la-la-la as though nothing happened.

  At home, behind the locked door in the upstairs bathroom, in the tub with the shower curtains drawn, I shave my legs, using soap. After, I wear pants at home to hide my hairless legs from Mom (my legs kind of hurt, like they are burning). I hide the razor, too (under a dresser, wrapped in toilet paper), because if Mom found it, she’d kill me with it.

  I wake up early and make boiled eggs and toast. I have hot water and lemon, too, along with a couple of sips of Dad’s coffee. I’m ready.

  During the verb test, I feel so confident and everything goes smoothly. When I’m done, I walk to the water fountain and let it run for a minute so it doesn’t taste like metal and to get it really cold. I gulp so much. I’m so thirsty. When I come up I wipe my mouth with my sleeve and smile and think, I know I aced it.

  The next day, we get our marks. I got 100 percent. M. Tanguay even drew a happy face at the top of the test.

  29

  HALLOWEEN! WOOO! Time to have a little fun. I wear a black turtleneck and black jeans and put on one of James’s old monster masks from a few years ago. Lame, I know, but it was a last-minute job. I didn’t think trick-or-treating was even going to happen this year, because all the parents are afraid of kidnappings and there’s some rumor about someone putting razor blades in apples. But then I looked through the window and saw all the small children dressed as ghosts and witches and goblins walking down the street, and Dad said we were allowed to go, but only if he came.

  Maybe there’s some hope that things might be going back to normal again. I’m so excited and happy that I don’t care how lame my thrown-together costume is. Anyway, at this point, it’s just about the candy. James wears his skeleton pj’s. James, Dad, and I walk across and knock on Nadine’s door. I can’t wait to see what she’s wearing.

  But she’s just wearing jeans and a guy’s oversize white dress shirt (who is she supposed to be, her dad?). Her hair is pulled back in a ballet bun and she’s barefoot. “What’s going on? Aren’t you coming?” I say.

  (Nadine: “Hi, Mr. Smith. How are you?”)

  (Dad: “Good, Nadine. How are you?”)

  (“Well, thank you.”)

  Nadine to me: “Oh, I forgot to mention . . . I’m not coming.”

  Me: “Why not?”

  “Because Mom said if I stayed home and handed out the candy this year, I could pick the candy. No more mini boxes of raisins,” she says, and plops a few lollipops in my pillowcase. “Pure. Hard. Sugar. Can you believe it?”

  “Raisins aren’t so bad,” I say.

  “Plus, I want to see all the little kids come to the door and say ‘Trick or treat!’ They are so cute!”

  Jen appears from behind her: peekaboo! She’s wearing a pink ball gown and a tiara. I don’t think I’ve ever seen her in a dress before. Maybe at my grandpa’s funeral like five years ago, when she wore a black velvet dress with white lace around the collar. Anyway, she’s also wearing a sash that says: MISS AMERICA. Her hair is messed up and she painted black circles around her eyes and there is an electrical cord tied around her neck.

  Me: “What are you supposed to be?”

  Jen: “Electrocuted Miss America.”

  I laugh because it’s pretty genius, you have to admit. But Nadine doesn’t and shuts the door quietly. As we turn around and walk down the driveway, I suddenly feel really immature and embarrassed about my costume and about the whole fact that I’m trick-or-treating. I mean, what am I doing? Halloween is for little kids. I have boobs now! I shouldn’t be doing this. I should be handing out candy, like Nadine. It’s kind of gray and foggy and I sort of want to turn around and go back to Nadine and help her out, but then I glance up at the maple trees in our cul-de-sac and they look like they are on fire, they are glowing so bright. Many of their leaves have fallen down, littering the driveways and sidewalks, and it’s so beautiful that I can’t stop. From above, I bet it looks as though a pumpkin was dropped and smashed on the city of Surrey, orange pieces everywhere. But really they’re fallen leaves.

  So I continue and join the unrecognizable neighborhood children in their costumes going up and down the streets and remember how much I love doing this.

  Our neighborhood is the best for trick-or-treating. It really is. The best part is that you get to walk through all the streets you don’t normally walk down and go into the cul-de-sacs you never go into. You get to see all the houses and how people have decorated them for Halloween. Some people really go all out and basically make a haunted front yard. But the haunted houses are especially scary this year, considering what happened. One front yard creeps me out a little more than most: piles of dirt to make it look like fresh graves, with an arm poking out of one of them. The arm looks real, too. Like it belongs to a young boy.

  As we walk up to one house, I notice that the garage door is halfway open, but I can’t see inside because it’s dark. This doesn’t feel right.

  We ring the doorbell and no one answers. I try knocking. Nothing.

  Then from over my shoulder, I hear, “Hello.”

  We scream and turn around, and it’s a goblin!

  It takes me a second to realize it’s a man dressed in a goblin costume (obviously), but it really freaked me out. He goes back into the garage and emerges with a whole chocolate bar each. Not the mini ones. Actual full bars, like the kind you get from the corner store. I’m a little suspicious of this. It’s too generous.

  Another house gives us a bag of chips, the kind you get in a packed lunch, which happens sometimes, and is l
ess suspicious. I think I’m getting worked up for nothing. Of course, there are a few people who turn off their lights and hide in their houses so they don’t have to hand out candy, but it’s rare, and we just walk past their houses anyway.

  The one strange thing that happens to me as I’m walking around is that I get kinda sad. I think it’s because when I’m at home and close my eyes, I can’t remember every house in our neighborhood . . . like, exactly. Their shape, their color, what kind of trees and shrubs they have in the yard. It just makes me kind of sad that it’s all a blur in my mind. So when I trick-or-treat, I look at everything so hard and try to remember every small detail, but I know I can’t because you can’t remember everything.

  30

  AFTER SCHOOL TODAY Mom, out of nowhere, says,

  “I was married to another man.”

  She is standing at the kitchen counter cutting long strips from a big chunk of raw beef. For stir-fry, I’m guessing. “To a Korean man,” she continues. “Before your dad. Just for a few months.” She says this like it’s a normal thing to say while handling raw meat. “We came over from Korea for his work. To Calgary. Then stuff happened. Then I met your father.”

  This is the thing that bothers me about the way Mom talks. It’s not her accent or that she doesn’t really pronounce things like you should; it’s that when she says something, she leaves so many gaps in between bits of information, and it’s like she expects me to understand what she hasn’t even said.

  I’m in my mom’s closet, looking through her old photo albums.

  In the albums: The pictures are only of her. By a car, on the beach, by a rosebush. I’m trying to find a picture of him. I wonder, if she never broke up with him, would he be my father? Would I even exist? And if I did, would I be full Korean? I wonder if our to-be-born souls are lined up in chronological order or if it depends on who your parents are. I wonder if souls are real at all. I stuff the photo albums in my backpack and go across the street to show them to Nadine and Jen. I hope Nadine is home. Please be home. Please be home.