Blind Curve

by Elizabeth Karre

  Text copyright © 2013 by Lerner Publishing Group, Inc.

  All rights reserved. International copyright secured. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise—without the prior written permission of Lerner Publishing Group, Inc., except for the inclusion of brief quotations in an acknowledged review.

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  The images in this book are used with the permisison of:

  Cover and interior photograph © Transtock/SuperStock.

  Main body text set in Janson Text LT Std 12/17.

  Typeface provided by Linotype AG.

  The Cataloging-in-Publication Data for Blind Curve is on file at the Library of Congress.

  ISBN: 978–1–4677–1244–6 (LB)

  ISBN: 978–1–4677–1666–6 (EB)

  Manufactured in the United States of America

  1 – BP – 7/15/13

  eISBN: 978-1-4677-1666-6 (pdf)

  eISBN: 978-1-4677-7101-6 (ePub)

  eISBN: 978-1-4677-3351-9 (mobi)

  “What’s going on?” I yell. No one answers.

  I stand on tiptoe to see over the heads of all the kids pushing and talking right outside the school doors. I’m a short girl. I can’t see anything except flashing red and blue lights.

  A loud siren makes me jump. An ambulance speeds off down Lexington.

  I tap a girl in front of me.

  “What happened?”

  She looks worried. “Someone got hurt.”

  Before I can ask more, my phone buzzes. It’s Pakou.

  Bad news. Come bus stop.

  I see her waiting as I run across the street, barely looking for cars.

  Watch out! she yells in Hmong. She looks sick.

  “What? What?” I say.

  She grabs my arm. “You didn’t even look—you could get hit.” She starts to cry. “I saw it, I saw it all. They came flying down the street, racing. Kids were messing around. Somebody got pushed into the street and he got hit, hit by one of the racers. But they didn’t stop. I couldn’t even call 911, I was so scared. And the ambulance was here so fast. But he must be hurt so bad. Or …”

  I give her a hug. She’s shaking.

  “But, Penny, that’s not the bad news,” she says, wiping away tears. “The bad part is that one of the cars looked just like yours.”

  I don’t own a car. I take the bus to school, or my brothers might drive me if they’re feeling nice. I take the city bus when I go other places if my parents won’t give me a ride. I don’t even have a license yet. I’m seventeen, but nobody in my family thinks it’s worth the money and hassle for me to take driver’s ed. It’s easier to get a license when you’re eighteen.

  But I do drive sometimes, and I do have a car. A 1999 Acura Integra. I just don’t own it. Yet.

  The car’s in my brother Bee’s name. I found it online, and he took me to see it. He paid for it and signed the papers. But we both know it’s mine. I’m paying for it by doing his homework.

  The Teg’s a garage queen right now. She wasn’t in good shape when we got her, and there’s a lot I want to mod. And it takes me a while to get money for each part we buy.

  Part of me wishes that she’d never be finished. The time Bee and I spend working on her is the best. But he’s determined to have her ready for my eighteenth birthday. And I know no car is ever truly finished. But I just have a feeling that our time together will be over once he says the car is done.

  We do take the Teg out sometimes. That’s when I drive. Bee and my oldest brother, Toua, even made a video one time of me driving up and down our street, testing the exhaust. They’re laughing and yelling, “Penny breakin’ the law, breakin’ the law!” so loud you can hardly hear the car. Then they posted it on YouTube.

  If my parents ever found out, I’d be dead. But there are a lot of things my parents don’t know about their kids. Anyway, the Integra mostly stays in the garage.

  When I get home, I go straight to the garage. The Teg’s there, next to my mom’s minivan. The hood is open and the work light is hanging over it.

  I put my hand on the engine. It’s sparkling clean, like always. It feels warm. From driving? From the work light? I feel dizzy. My brain shuts down.

  No way was my brother Bee one of the racers. If he was driving the Teg, it was just to test something. He has study hall last period and he leaves school early lots. My mom doesn’t like it, but sometimes one of my sisters has to drop her kids off before my mom gets home from work. And Bee swears to her that he just comes home and does his homework here instead of in study hall. Really, he leaves his homework in the Teg for me to do, and he works on his car or my car.

  I see his schoolbooks on the seat now. I open the door to the house and yell to my mom, “I’m home!” I close the door and settle in the Teg to do our homework.

  I’m jumpy, waiting for Bee to come out and join me. But he doesn’t.

  I do English first, trying to lose myself in reading. I skim Bee’s American History and answer the essay questions. (Are you wondering about our handwriting? It’s pretty similar.)

  But while I’m working on my math, my mind wanders. It’s not like we think we’re too good for street racing. Bee and Toua and their friends go to the spots around the warehouses on University where people hang out with their cars and sometimes race at night. They’ve even taken me a couple of times so I could get some ideas for the Teg. (Again, my parents would kill me if they knew.)

  But they’ve never raced their cars there … at least that I know. Even if they did, racing around some warehouses and side streets when there’s no one around except other gearheads is different than speeding down a crowded busy street by a school in the afternoon. Racing in Midway pisses off the cops, but racing on Lexington? That’s just stupid. And wrong.

  Besides, my brothers keep pretty clean. Sure, they like to act tough with their friends and at school and they love to show off their cars, but they don’t get in trouble. They don’t have anything to do with the Hmong gangs.

  Once my family was having a picnic at Como, and Johnny Xiong was there playing flag football. He’s in my grade and he waved to me.

  “How do you know Johnny?” Toua demanded.

  “He’s in my health class,” I said.

  “Why is he waving to you?”

  “I don’t know. What’s your problem?”

  Then my parents butted in, and Toua told them that Johnny and his brother had just joined a gang. My parents forbid me to have anything to do with him or anyone else who was a disgrace to the Hmong people. Then my dad and uncles started talking about the Vietnam War, and that’s when I stopped listening. Nobody asked how Toua knew who was in a gang or not.

  While my thoughts are spinning, my niece comes to the door and says my mom needs me inside.

  If your parents are immigrants and you’re a girl, you know what it’s like. My parents have traditional expectations for me. They’re not trying to marry me off while I’m in high school or anything crazy, but they think there are certain things girls should do.

  I don’t have a lot of traditional interests. Like kids. In my culture there are a lot of kids. Everyone loves kids, except me. I don’t hate kids. I even like babies because they’ll sit on your lap and chew on a toy or something while you do something else. They’re soft and warm. But once they start walking and getting into your stuff and whining and grabbing—ugh.

  My mom takes care of my sisters’ kids a lot. My mom and dad work. My sisters and their husbands work.
Somehow everyone’s schedules move around so someone’s always taking care of the little kids. Of course, my brothers and me are supposed to help, too. But Bee and Toua get out of it way more than I do because they’re boys. Even though they actually like playing with our nieces and nephew. Unlike me.

  “I need to cook,” my mom says, her knife flying across a pile of vegetables. She nods her head at the little kids peering over the edge of the table.

  “Where’s Bee?” I ask.

  She shrugs.

  I sigh and grab a couple of sticky little hands, pulling them into the other room.

  “Play Hmong tag with us!” Lucky begs. “Like Bee does!”

  “I don’t know how to say the whole thing,” I mumble, even though that’s not true.

  “I know it!” Jalia says proudly. “My mom says it’s an important part of our hair … hair …”

  “Heritage,” I say, rolling my eyes. Ever since my younger older sister, Song, started working at the Hmong arts organization, she’s been all about Hmong culture. She’s started calling me by my Hmong name even though she was the one who picked out Penny for my English name.

  “Penny Lee—people will think you’re white if they just see your name on paper,” she said to me once.

  In case you’re wondering, “Hmong tag,” as Lucky calls it, just uses a chant you say to decide who’s it. Like eeny, meeny, miny, mo in English. You do this finger thing … with Bee and the kids, it always turns into a wrestling match.

  My mom thinks Song’s kids are kind of wild because Song listens to Hmong hip-hop and her husband takes the kids to b-boy battles. I think they’re wild because they’re little. And because Bee always gets them hyper when he’s home. I’m not in the mood for hyper now. Or ever.

  “I’m tired. How about you watch Dora,” I say, grabbing the remote. There’s some whining, but they settle down around me on the couch.

  I tune out the annoying voices from the TV and pick up my flower cloth. I do like some traditional things, like sewing. It’s not like I ever had a choice to learn—I was younger than Jalia when my mom and sisters taught me. But I’m good, really good. Song keeps saying Jalia wants me to teach her, but I don’t have the patience. I can see Jalia now watching me out of the corner of her eye, and I feel kind of bad.

  But this is not the time. Selling my flower and story cloths at my aunt’s stand in the farmers’ market is one of the ways I earn money for the Teg. The market will be opening again in a few weeks, and I want to have a lot of cloths ready. My cloths sell better than a lot of older women’s because my designs are the best blend of old and new. Of course, no one says this, because they want me to be humble, but I know it.

  See, it’s not like I don’t care about Hmong culture or history. I even cry sometimes at night thinking about what people in my family went through to get to the United States before I was born. One of the first story cloths I helped sew was my family’s story of the refugee camp. But my parents don’t get that Hmong kids are into other stuff now too. Like hip-hop and breaking. And cars.

  I also make money doing homework for people other than Bee. Or more exactly, they pay to copy mine. In that case, it’s not like I’m the smartest. Lots of my customers are plenty smart, like Johnny Xiong. They’re just lazy, but they have money and they want to graduate, so they get enough from me to slide by in class. It’s not very honest, and it’s another thing my parents would kill me for, but they won’t let me get a real job.

  We need you at home.

  You focus on school.

  Why do you need money anyway?

  They’d never understand.

  The kids are glued to the TV, finally, so I sneak back out to the Teg to do Bee’s math. It’s the only place in the house (well, outside, I guess) that feels like it’s private. Maybe Bee’ll be home soon, and we can start installing the new valve guides.

  I walk around the car, admiring how low we got it finally. I wanted the Teg totally slammed so the tires are tucking, no finger gap action here. If you’re not careful, the car still scrapes sometimes.

  I settle in the passenger’s seat again, flipping through Bee’s notebook. A paper crane falls out. It’s a note from a girl, of course. I won’t read it. Bee knows I keep some private stuff in the glove compartment of the Teg, and he never messes with it. I’m tucking the crane back into his notebook when something written on the crane’s wing catches my eye.

  X Rate, civic, $100, Mon 10—you in?

  Dope.

  The second is Bee’s handwriting. The first part—I’m not sure. It might be Yer Yang’s writing. But I know right away what it means.

  X Rate is what Johnny Xiong’s older brother Chai calls himself. Too much being called Chai Tea in junior high, Toua said. Chai’s been driving a Civic lately—he was working on it all winter, Johnny said.

  Toua told me to stay away from Johnny because he’s in a gang. But my brothers don’t really like me talking to any guys. (I’m not sure how I’m supposed to get married and have lots more grandkids for my mom if I’m never allowed to date.) I’m not scared of Johnny—if he’s in a gang, it’s just because Chai is. I’m not friends with Johnny or anything, but we do have a business relationship. It’s one way, though—I don’t buy weed or anything else he’s selling.

  But Chai is something else. He graduated or left school last year, but I remember how people got out of his way in the halls. He got in trouble for bringing a box cutter to school. He got in a lot of fights. He’s scary.

  And my brother’s going to race him for $100 on Monday.

  Bee’s still not home by the time I finish our homework. I’m flipping through Super Street trying to decide about underglows when I hear the garage door open. It’s just Toua. He knocks on the roof of the Teg and goes in the house.

  He comes back out, backs out the minivan, and pulls his 300ZX in and opens the hood.

  “I’m thinking about red,” I say as I get out of the Teg.

  He grunts, unhooking the work light to move it over. “Too many potholes in this city. You hit one the wrong way, bye-bye underglows. You got money to spend, let’s talk about some JDM stuff. That’s how you get respect.”

  I shrug. Some of the JDM stuff is cool looking, sure …

  “How about JDM headlights? I know someone selling,” Toua says, pointing at a torque wrench. I hand it to him.

  “I thought those weren’t safe in the U.S. because of driving on the other side of the road,” I say.

  Toua raises his eyebrows. “The Teg leaving the garage anytime soon? You sneaking out at night?”

  I hit him automatically but feel my stomach clench.

  “Do you know where Bee is?” I say casually.

  Toua shakes his head. He’s my brother, so I love him, but he’s always bossed me and Bee around. No way I’m telling him about the note. Besides, I shouldn’t have read it.

  “Well, girls love underglows,” Toua says, stretching and scratching his stomach. I hit him again. If underglows are girlie, I’m not getting them.

  The door to the house opens, and this time it’s my mom. I can tell from her look that I’ve been in the garage too long, never mind that I’ve mostly been doing homework. I hurry inside to be a good auntie until Song picks up the kids.

  Bee and Toua walk in together right as I’m helping my mom put the food on the table. Everyone’s basically quiet while we eat, just a few comments from my mom or dad about work or clan gossip.

  After I help my mom clean up, I follow Bee out to the garage. I’m not going to say anything to him. I just want to see what I can figure out from talking to him. Maybe I’ll bring up Johnny. Bee doesn’t do the strict older brother thing as much as Toua.

  Bee moves the work light back to the Teg and opens the garage door.

  “Start her up,” he says. “Need to tune some more.”

  He hooks up the laptop while I get in and turn the key.

  “Rev,” he says from behind the hood. “Again.”

  We put the Teg thro
ugh her paces. Bee looks dissatisfied as I get out.

  “How much money do you have?” he asks.

  “Nothing really. But the market opens soon, so I’ll have more then. Plus—” I stop. I’ve never told anyone in my family that I let kids copy homework and sometimes tests for money. But either Bee has never looked at what flower cloths sell for and done the math or he doesn’t care how I get money for the Teg parts.

  “Plus what?”

  “Nothing.”

  “You got another way of getting money?” Bee asks, looking at me hard. He looks angry. I feel scared. “I saw you talking to Johnny Xiong,” he says before I can say anything. “You dealing for him?”

  “What?!” I say. I feel like he’s accused me of being a whore or something. I would never deal drugs. Would he?

  He looks relieved. “Sorry,” he says, putting a hand on my shoulder. “I just worry that I got you into this,” he gestures at the Teg, “and it’s expensive. I don’t want you doing anything stupid for money. I’ve always got you covered, you know.” He bends back over the engine.

  I’ve never asked him where he gets his money either. Everyone works for my aunt at the farmers’ market or picks vegetables sometime during the growing season, but nobody gets rich from what she pays. Toua and Bee are always buying or swapping cars and bikes and parts and reselling stuff, but I’m not sure how that works exactly.

  “You’ve already gotten a lot of stuff for the Teg,” I say, and it’s true. If Bee thinks she needs something and I don’t have the money, he’s usually too impatient to wait until I do.

  “Somebody was getting rid of it cheap,” he’ll say when he comes home with the part. Or “I traded some crap for it.”

  “Anyway,” I say, “I don’t mind going slow with it. What’s the rush? I’ll have the money for it eventually, and someday Mom and Dad will have to let me get a job. Or I’ll marry someone rich,” I joke.

  I mean it about going slow with the Integra. That way Bee and I will have a long time to work on it together.

  “So why were you talking to Johnny?” he says.