by Van Hoang
“I have to put you back in the temple,” she said. “You were a prisoner. If anyone finds out I freed you, I’ll be in big trouble.” From what she remembered about the Monkey King’s story, he’d been a mischievous demon-god who’d caused so much havoc that the other gods in the heavens had to imprison him. Whatever he had done, whatever the reason he had been trapped in that temple, she had to put him back. If someone had locked up the Monkey King, it must have been for a reason.
“I am not going back there.”
“You have to.”
“I said, let me … go!”
He threw a wild punch, connecting with her shoulder, and the force threw her back. She landed on the floor, wheezing as the breath slammed out of her. The room tilted, off balance.
The Monkey King’s face loomed over her, blocking out the moonlight. His carefree expression had shifted to something fierce and haunted. “Never going back,” he said.
Then suddenly, his dark expression was replaced with a smile. “Never, never. You’ll never catch me,” he sang, giggling. He stuck out his tongue, wiggled his fingers, and leapt out the window.
9
ON THE DRIVE TO SCHOOL, Ma was in a good mood. She hummed along to the radio, laughed at one of the commercials, and nudged Thom when she didn’t laugh back. Thom was too busy freaking out about the fact that she had released a demon-god into the world. Where was he now? How was she going to fix this?
“You okay, cưng?” Ma asked as they pulled up behind the long line of cars at the drop-off. “You so quiet today.”
Thom nodded. She rubbed the bruise on her shoulder, where the Monkey King had kicked her last night. Her neck was sore, her arms fatigued. She hadn’t felt this much pain since … since before she’d developed her superstrength. That meant the Monkey King was also superstrong, not to mention the other powers he was supposed to have.
What did she know about the Monkey King? He wasn’t really a god or a demon but somewhere in between, and she didn’t think he was truly evil, either. Just mischievous. Enough to get himself into trouble. Enough to be locked in a temple. And she was the one who’d let him out.
“You sleep okay?” Ma asked. But Thom barely heard her.
How could she have been so stupid? That had been the hair of the Monkey King, and that tiny temple he was trapped inside must have been enchanted. In Chinese dramas, those places were warded with spells and magic so demons and evil spirits couldn’t come in or escape. And Thom had taken the hair, as if it were a toy. She had released one of the most dangerous creatures in history.
But how could she have known? The Monkey King was supposed to be a myth. Someone should have warned her. There should have been some sort of sign at the temple. WARNING: REAL HAIR OF EVIL DEMON-GOD. DO NOT RELEASE. Or something.
Whoever had imprisoned him had done it for a reason. And she’d set him free. Freed a powerful mythical being. Who wasn’t mythical after all, but real. She had to undo it. She had to find some way to put him back.
“Cưng?” Ma said. She reached across the seat to feel Thom’s forehead. Ma wasn’t going to let up, not unless Thom gave her an answer. Or an excuse. She ducked away from Ma’s hand.
“I didn’t sleep well.”
“Oh no. My precious cưng. You have bad dream?”
Thom shook her head, then looked at her mom. Her hair was pulled back into a high bun, bringing out the sharp edges of her high cheekbones. She wore huge glasses, the black frames hip and out of place over her stern expression.
“What do you know about the Monkey King?” Thom asked.
“Ah, Tôn Ngộ Không!” Ma grinned. “That what we call him in Vietnamese. I always love his story when I was a kid.”
“Is he … a bad guy?”
“Bad? Maybe. A little. Not bad or good, somewhere in the middle. He make a lot of trouble, though. And no one can defeat him. Even immortals and gods can’t beat him—only Buddha was able to trick him. Because you have to be smart to succeed, remember?”
Thom turned her face away and rolled her eyes.
“That’s why you go to school and have to study hard. Become doctor or lawyer.” Ma paused and shrugged. “Or dentist, I guess.”
“So Buddha tricked him and defeated him?”
“Yeah, no one else could do it because he outsmart and overpower them all. He’s undefeatable! He have lots of power—invisible, strong, he can fly. He’s supposed to be a demon-god. He was born from a crystal that fell from the heavens and raised by demons, and then learned a lot of magic from an old master.” She glanced at Thom. “Why? You have dream about Monkey King?”
Thom nodded. “Yeah, it was weird. He appeared in my room last night. He called himself ‘the handsome Monkey King.’”
Ma snorted. “Oh, yes, very handsome, with his hairy face. What a weird dream.”
“It felt real.” Thom wanted to tell her mom the rest of it, but Ma cut her off. They had arrived at the front of the school drop-off line.
“You just have such strong imagination.” Ma planted a kiss on the top of her head. “Okay, have good day at school—I pick you up after practice.” Then she drove away, leaving Thom conflicted on the sidewalk in front of school.
Ma was right, Thom told herself; it must have been a dream. The Monkey King wasn’t real.
The bruises felt real. Thom stretched her neck and felt a slight ache.
But when she tugged on the neckline of her sweater, her shoulder was smooth, the skin tone even. No bruise. No Monkey King. It really had just been a dream.
* * *
Thom still had fifteen minutes before school started, so she paused by the drinking fountain on her way to class, trying not to look lost and bored as other kids moved around her in groups. Everyone had a friend or a clique to belong to, and she couldn’t help feeling alone and isolated, an island in a sea of moving students. She pretended to be busy, studying the walls, which were painted bright yellow, casting a fake cheeriness over the scene. Some teachers had hung examples of good work, mostly posters from art projects or pictures from field trips. Everything here was so clean, so sparkly and gleaming. Even the lockers, painted in the school navy blue, seemed to glitter. And it smelled nice, a pleasant soapy smell.
She checked her phone. Her best friend, Thuy, would know what to do if Thom told her about the Monkey King. She would be able to tell what was real or not. But Thuy still hadn’t responded to her last text, from three days ago.
Thuy hadn’t answered the texts from last week, either, when Thom had told her about the upcoming Monrovia game, or the one after, telling her at least there was one other Asian girl on the team, or the one after that, which simply read Everything okay?—because it was weird that her best friend was not answering.
The boxed READ symbol beneath the last message stabbed her in the gut each time she saw it. Nothing labeled you a loser more than an unanswered read message.
Thom thought about sending another text, but the last thing she wanted was to come off as desperate to the only friend she had—even if that friend was Thuy and Thuy would never think that of her. Or would she?
“Hey, Thom!”
Thom jumped, nearly dropping her phone.
It was Kha, her new neighbor. He waved and grinned like they were best friends. If Thom had given him any sign of encouragement, he might have thrown his arms around her. Dressed in a long black-and-white-striped tee and tight jeans with Chucks, he was practically bouncing on his toes.
“Uh, hey,” she said, and thank goodness the bell rang, because she had no idea what else to say.
“Can you show me to my next class?” he asked. “I don’t really know where I’m going.”
It wasn’t like she could say no. Not without being completely rude, anyway.
Stares followed them down the hallway, kids stopping to look from Thom to Kha, probably wondering if they were related or something. Kha didn’t seem to notice, still giving Thom a wide smile, as if they were at Disneyland and not at DeMille Middle School.
“Is that…?” she said. “Are you … wearing…?” Something was on Kha’s face. His cheeks shimmered like pearl, like the highlighter Kathy used to accentuate her cheekbones, the one Ma refused to let Thom have. “Is that makeup?”
“What?” Kha rubbed at his face, and when he looked at his hands, there was nothing there. His skin wasn’t shimmering anymore, either.
That was weird. She could have sworn his skin had been shining. “I thought … I saw … I don’t know…” She didn’t know what was wrong with her, how sometimes she spat out words like she wasn’t sure she was allowed to use them. “Never mind.”
The crowd parted to let them through, which never happened at DeMille. Everyone usually shoved one another in the rush between classes, because tardiness was a pretty big deal. Three tardies, and your parents get called. Four, and you get detention.
“Listen,” Kha said in a tone like he meant business. “Maybe we can hang out. Later.”
Thom’s heart stopped completely, and blood roared up her head and into her ears, like she’d reached the top of a roller coaster and dropped. Then her heart gave a sort of leap before she forced herself to calm down.
No one here had ever asked her to hang out. That’s why she was excited. And a bit confused. Not because it was Kha.
She was even more confused because it was Kha. If any other kid had asked, she would have been happy but not totally shocked. But Kha was a little too cool for her. He looked like he had stepped out of an anime, with his fitted jeans and his fashionable T-shirt, while Thom had thrown on the first thing she’d seen, a comfortable but old hoodie she couldn’t remember the last time she’d washed. Even his shoes were cool, the laces tied in a stylish ladder formation. Thom clicked her heels together, trying to hide one of her ratty sneakers behind the other.
And Thom knew Kha was cool from the impressed expressions on people’s faces after they looked him up and down. All she’d ever gotten was a raised eyebrow or an unamused quirk of the lips.
Why would Kha want to hang out with her? Whatever he saw in her, she was sure to let him down. This was way too much pressure, especially after the night she’d had.
They reached Pre-Alg, and Kathy was standing at the door talking to her boyfriend, Peter. She looked perfect as always, in a simple black cotton shirt and a pink miniskirt that wasn’t too short but wasn’t too long, her straight black hair flowing down her back. She glanced over at them, her eyes sliding over Thom with the usual indifferent derision before landing on Kha with sparked interest.
Kha flashed a grin. “Excuse me, can you move?” he said. And even though the words were kind of rude, the way he said them was teasing, like he’d been friends with Kathy long enough to be mean to her. How did he do that? Was it some magical gift? Why couldn’t Thom have gotten that power instead of her freakish strength?
Kathy smiled, flipped her hair, and moved out of the way.
Kha turned to make sure Thom was following. Everyone watched them take their seats together. You would think something amazing had happened, like they’d found out Thom and Kha were secret celebrities.
When Mrs. Abbot walked in, she stopped short. “Wow, is this really my class?” She pretended to double-check the room number. “Why is everyone so quiet?”
“New kid.” Oliver Jones pointed at Kha.
“Very astute observation, Oliver. Thank you.” Mrs. Abbot was all about that no-nonsense straight-to-business I-don’t-care-if-it’s-Harry-Potter-sitting-in-the-front-seat type of teaching. She dropped her stack of files on the desk. “I hope everyone did their homework, because you can start passing it to the front.”
There was a collective groan.
Mrs. Abbot called Kha up to talk to him privately. Kathy turned in her seat to grab the homework from everyone behind her, and Thom’s eyes met hers. Her lips twitched, as if she were about to give Thom a friendly smile but had caught herself in time.
Thom tried to ignore the curious glances people were giving her and Kha when he came back. She was taking notes when Kha tapped her knuckles, then the corner of his notebook. She frowned at him, but he nodded at the paper, and she sighed and leaned down to read the tiny note he’d written in the corner.
Meet after school at library?
What was going on? Why was he trying to be her friend? There was no reasonable explanation. Maybe he was messing with her, like those popular kids had messed with Carrie in that horror movie. Ma hadn’t let her see it, but she knew the general idea, and she was not going to fall for it and end up covered in pig’s blood. She might not have Carrie’s psychic abilities, but she could still hurt a lot of people with her superstrength.
Not that she would ever let that happen, of course, which meant that she wasn’t going to fall for Kha’s trick from the start. She had no intention of meeting him anywhere.
He was still waiting for an answer, so she shrugged.
When class ended, Mrs. Abbot called Kha again, and they left the classroom together.
Good. Hopefully, Thom could escape to her next class without running into him.
Kathy bumped into her as they both rushed from their seats, knocking her backpack off her right shoulder. “Oh, sorry,” Kathy said. She looked at Thom, and Thom froze. Kathy was talking to her. Meeting her eyes.
“That’s okay.” Thom picked up her backpack and then held it awkwardly, not knowing what else to do.
“Was that your cousin or something?” Kathy asked.
“Who?”
“The new guy.”
“No. Just a … friend.”
“You guys just looked really close, that’s all.”
“No, I … We just met.” Thom gave a nervous laugh. “I don’t know why he started talking to me…”
Kathy smiled slowly, an eyebrow raised. Even though she didn’t say it, Thom suddenly understood the reason why Kha was gravitating toward her. It was this thing Asian kids did: group together, befriend one another, uphold the camaraderie of being minorities. Of course Kha was friendly, but only because he didn’t have anyone else, at least not yet. Not because he actually liked Thom or thought she was cool. She was the complete opposite of cool, and everyone knew it.
“See you at soccer practice,” Kathy said after what felt like a century, in a tone that seemed to say, Even though I’d rather die.
10
THOM DIDN’T MOVE, THE CONVERSATION with Kathy replaying in her mind—the smirk on her face, the knowing sideways glance, like she knew a joke that everyone else was in on except Thom.
“Is this supposed to be a school?” a voice asked out of nowhere.
Thom shrieked, then slapped a hand over her mouth. The Monkey King dropped onto the desk in front of her, cross-legged and poking inside his ear with one hairy finger. He inspected the tip, then licked it.
She was too grossed out to speak. And shocked. She had convinced herself that what had happened last night was a dream or some hallucination. But here he was, still real and talking.
He scrambled to all fours, still on top of the desk, and leaned toward her. “Where are the masters? The fighting sticks, the sparring weapons? The armory? What happened to the fighting? Did I miss it?”
“W-what?” Thom stuttered.
“Do they expect you to go into the world without learning to defend yourself?” he asked, poking her sternum. “I would destroy all these students with one swipe of my cudgel.”
He sat back down on the desk, legs swinging. He was there. He was … real. The desk rocked back and forth, creaking, threatening to topple. She rubbed the spot where he’d poked her, feeling another very real bruise forming.
He leapt from the desk and bounded around the room, doing flips in the air as if he weighed nothing.
“They should teach you to fly,” he said, “to do something useful. What is this?” He picked up a pencil, chewed on the end, and spat out the shavings. He made a face. “They had better snacks when I was in school.” He went to the teacher’s desk next and riffled through he
r papers, sending them flying into the air over his shoulder. “Where are the Taoist teachings? The Seventy-Two Transformations. What is all this?”
“Stop that,” she hissed, slipping her backpack on and rushing toward him. “What are you doing here?”
He ignored her, making curious ooh-ooh sounds as he picked up Mrs. Abbot’s calculator. It was one of those expensive scientific ones that cost almost as much as a smartphone. Thom had wanted one for her birthday, but Ma said she could have it only if she got into the high school geometry course that was offered to some middle schoolers. That was before they’d moved from West City, though. Here in Troy, the highest math level for middle schoolers was algebra.
The Monkey King punched the keys, then tossed the calculator behind him. It clattered against the wall and fell to the floor in pieces.
“Hey!” She ran to pick it up.
She was trying to reassemble the pieces, hoping it wasn’t broken, when a large shape hurled toward her. Without thinking, she held up her hands and caught it.
It was a table—one of the large round tables that they used for group work, at least five times her size. She’d grabbed one edge of the surface in her left hand. It should have weighed at least seventy pounds, but it felt like nothing to her, like she was just holding up a book.
The Monkey King was suddenly right in front of her face, crouched beneath the table. His nose twitched. His eyelashes fluttered. “You are strong.”
Thom looked up. Pieces of dried gum dotted the bottom of the table in globs of blue and green and black. “You threw a table at me.” She lowered it to the floor.
“You’re strong!” He hopped gleefully around her in circles, clapping his hands and giggling his staccato monkey giggle.
“Hey. Stop that. You could have hurt me.”
“How are you so strong?”
“I’m not.” Heat spread up her neck.
Footsteps clicked down the hallway. Oh no, oh no. Someone else might have seen. She glanced quickly around the room, but they were alone. The door was closed, and Mrs. Abbot still wasn’t back. Thom’s breath rushed out in a whoosh, leaving her deflated.
