by Lisa Yee
Gus pretends to pluck bugs from my dad’s hair, which is pretty funny since Dad is really proud of his good grooming.
“Can Stanford come with us to the park to watch the fireworks display?” Digger asks, adding, “Please, ma’am.”
My mother glances at my father. He doesn’t say anything. Dad doesn’t like Digger. She looks at me. I raise my eyebrows in an attempt to signal her that I want to go, but not if it’s going to be a problem.
“Sure, why not?” Mom replies. “Nothing much is happening here.”
“Man, what was going on at your house, a funeral?” Digger asks when we walk down the middle of the street. When cars appear, we yell at them and act crazy.
“His grandma had to go to an old people’s place,” Gus explains as he finishes hooting and flapping his arms at a station wagon.
“I don’t even have any grandparents,” Digger says.
“I have six grandparents,” Gus brags. “You should see all the stuff I get for my birthday.”
We round the corner. Stretch is sitting on the curb, and Tico is stuck in a tree. The Roadrunners are now complete. After we get Tico down, we all head to the park. There’s a crowd already there. Still, we manage to get a good spot on the grass.
Gus produces three boxes of sparklers from nowhere. He quickly sells the sparklers for fifty cents apiece. “One box of a dozen only costs two dollars,” he informs us. “I should have gotten more, then I’d be rich.”
“My mom thinks it’s great that you guys have summer jobs,” Tico muses. He starts to snicker. “She says that you both must be very mature.”
Gus and I look at each other and make pig noses. Then he takes out one last box of sparklers. We light them and use them as swords, making sure everyone gets a chance to die.
Digger springs for sodas and popcorn and those glow sticks that light up when you crack them. I spot Marley standing alone in the crowd staring up at the stars. He is wearing his “Beam Me Up, Scotty” T-shirt. I take my glow stick from Digger, and when I look again, Marley has disappeared.
It’s getting dark. A voice on the loudspeaker announces that the fireworks will begin in five minutes. A murmur crosses the crowd. As the national anthem plays, little kids run around and squeal. The adults sing “The Star-Spangled Banner,” but not the Roadrunners. We’re too cool for that.
At last, the first firework explodes against the night sky with a burst so loud I flinch. Glowing white ribbons tumble downward. A blast of green meets them halfway up and lights up the darkness once again. Blue, red, and gold, a rainbow of shapes and colors takes over. It is beautiful. For a moment, I forget my troubles. For a moment, it’s just me watching the fireworks try to touch the moon before slowly showering back down to earth.
JULY 5, 12:48 P.M.
After English I visit Yin-Yin. I can tell that Sarah must have stopped by before she left for Summer at Sea. She’s placed pictures of herself all over the place. I try not to gag.
“How are you doing?” I hand Yin-Yin a box of Sugar Babies. She loves Sugar Babies, even though they are bad for her teeth.
Yin-Yin puts on a big smile. It’s so fake it hurts to look at it. “Oh, it is just lovely here. They have bingo and you can eat all you want. They even have a beauty shop.” She doesn’t look like she’s been to the beauty shop. Her hair is all messy and her sweater is buttoned wrong. “How’s summer school?”
“Miserable,” I tell her.
“How’s Millicent?”
“Miserable.”
“Tell me something I don’t know,” she says, popping a Sugar Baby into her mouth. She closes her eyes when she chews, and for a moment Yin-Yin looks like she’s in heaven.
“I’m getting a pimple. A big one,” I say, pointing to my chin. Really, it’s going to be huge. I’ve had zits before, but this one’s going to be in the record books. It’s like a mountain growing on my face. Stanford Mountain.
After I show Yin-Yin my pimple, I tell her how horrible Mr. Glick is and how Millicent Min is even worse. Then I give her a report about home.
“Sarah forgot to take the compass I got for her trip. And Mom and Dad had a big fight about Dad’s job. So now they’re not talking and when they do, they’re superpolite to each other. I think I liked it better when they were yelling. At least then they were speaking.”
“Your parents are acting like little kids who don’t know how good they’ve got it,” Yin-Yin says. “What they need is some of my dim sum.” She looks lost for a moment. There’s no stove or refrigerator in her room, only a coffeepot.
Stupid, stupid, stupid. As I head to the park, all I can think of is how stupid I am. I planned to cheer Yin-Yin up. Instead, all I did was complain. Maybe she’s right. Maybe Mom and Dad need some dim sum. Maybe we all could use some dim sum.
JULY 7, 10:33 A.M.
Ugh. Tomorrow is Monday. That means summer school and Millicent Min, two of the most disgusting things in the world. At least today I can have some fun. I’ve already finished all my homework. I had to or else risk Millicent getting on my case with her whining, “Stan-turd, can’t you do anything right????”
The Roadrunners are at the park. Gus has jumped on Tico’s back, and Tico’s spinning around trying to throw him off. Gus’s dark curly hair flops all over the place. You can’t even see his face.
“Stanford!” Digger yells when he sees me. “Duck!” He hurls the ball at me. I catch it with one hand and toss it back.
“Let’s play!” says Gus as he stumbles around.
Digger is looking at me funny. What is it about him that always makes me feel like I have a booger hanging out of my nose? He stares right at you like he’s daring you to look away. Never look away from Digger. He might take that as an invitation to sucker punch you, then he’d say he was joking.
I don’t like Digger’s jokes even though everyone at school always laughs at them. Half the kids are impressed with Digger because his dad’s on television and his family has a lot of money. The other half are scared of him because of his temper.
Digger’s not scared of anyone or anything. Well, maybe just one thing.
A while ago, we were walking in the middle of the street, spraying passing cars with cans of soda. A car turned the corner and Digger yelled, “Get it!”
We all shook up our cans and sprayed the car really good, then ran. Only Digger didn’t run. Instead, he stood still, totally frozen. We stopped and turned around just as Digger’s dad got out of the car. He opened the back door and glared at Digger. “Get in!” he yelled.
I had never seen Digger look scared before. We didn’t see him for three days, and when Digger finally showed up he wouldn’t look at any of us. He didn’t offer an explanation for his absence, or the bruise on his cheek, and we didn’t ask.
“You okay?” It’s Digger. “You’re zoning out.”
“C’mon!” Gus cries. “I wanna play ball, I wanna play ball!”
I touch my good-luck charm to make sure it’s still there. I wish it worked for things other than basketball.
JULY 8, 7:54 P.M.
Today when SSSSpy turned in his homework, Teacher Torturer murmured, “Handing it in on time is half the battle.”
I spent the rest of the class trying to decode what he was saying.
Somehow Mr. Glick has found out that Millicent Min is tutoring me. “Millicent Min! What a delight,” he gushed. I was not sure we were talking about the same person. “Please give her my regards.”
“I sure will,” I answered, knowing full well that I wouldn’t.
This afternoon Millicent was her usual pain in the neck. She and the library lady picked three books for my summer book reports. Right now Millicent’s making me read The Mixed-Up Files of Ms. Franks and Beans, or something like that. The other two books are Number the Stars and Holes. Forcing me to write another report about Holes must be Millicent’s warped idea of a joke.
For this Mixed-Up book Millicent has me read parts of it out l
oud, then she quizzes me. The story is not as bad as I thought it would be. There are these two kids who run away and camp out in a museum. Some days I’ve felt like running away too.
It’s dinnertime now. Dad’s late, so it’s just Mom and me. She finishes rearranging the utensils. “There!” Mom says. “Maybe they will stay that way now.”
I sit down as she puts the spaghetti on the table. It looks like a plate of worms. Dead worms with blood all over them. When I add Parmesan cheese, it looks like maggots.
As I poke at my food, Mom asks, “How are you doing in English?” and “How are you and Millicent Min getting along?” and “How are you feeling these days?” Why is she always drilling me? Doesn’t she trust me? It’s obvious she doesn’t think I’m very smart. If she did she wouldn’t be paying Millicent Min to harass me.
Mom picks at a piece of garlic bread and says, “What book are you reading now?”
“Stop asking me so many questions!” I yell. “What if I asked you questions all the time? Like why did you send Yin-Yin away? Don’t you love her? Are you too lazy to look after her? How hard can it be? She’s really old and can’t run very fast.”
My mother looks stunned. I push my plate away, race to my room, and lock the door. I’m panting as I reach under the bed and pull out the blue box. I crank up my radio so that it’s blasting. Still, I can hear my mother knocking on my door, calling out my name.
I open the box. My hands are trembling. I can’t believe I just yelled at my mom. It’s one thing for my dad and me to yell at each other, but I’ve never yelled at my mom like that before.
I pick up the needles and begin knitting frantically. I have no idea what I am making.
“Stanford?” Mom calls out. “Stanford? Stanford! Open this door immediately.”
She knocks again and I ignore it. Finally the knocking stops. Exhausted, I abandon my knitting needles, grab my basketball, and sprawl out on the bed. I spot a small black spider dangling from the ceiling. I’ll bet I can hit it with my basketball. I begin to take aim, then stop. Slowly, I put the ball down.
What has that spider ever done to me?
JULY 9, 6:37 P.M.
It’s eighty-nine degrees outside and I am freezing. Yin-Yin is pacing her room. “Did you bring it?”
I nod and take the package out from under my shirt. Yin-Yin slips the box of Kwan’s frozen Oh My! Shu Mai! into a pillowcase.
“Follow me,” she whispers. As we slip into the staff break room, she explains, “We’re not supposed to be here, so we have to hurry.”
Yin-Yin is looking a little better than the last time I saw her. She is wearing matching shoes, and her dress is buttoned the way it’s supposed to be. Her hair still looks kinda funky, like she slept on it funny, but I don’t mention it. We are too determined to complete our mission.
After microwaving the shu mai, we scurry down the hallway laughing and duck back into Yin-Yin’s room.
“Not so good,” she says, biting into an Oh My! Shu Mai! “Not nearly as good as mine.” I nod in agreement. “Well, it will do for now,” Yin-Yin sighs. “But don’t worry. Next time they’ll be better.”
JULY 11, 3:59 P.M.
If I hold the book up and stare at the pages, Millicent actually thinks I am reading. Ha! She doesn’t have a clue. Hey, this isn’t bad. When Millicent thinks I am reading, she’s not lecturing me. I just have to remember to turn the page every now and then.
“Wake up!”
Someone is hissing at me. Oops, I must have fallen asleep. I hope I wasn’t drooling. That happened one time in class and my notes got all smeared.
“We have to go over the parts of speech again.” Millicent is shoving some papers at me. “Here, I’ve made a list for you with examples. Plus, you should be up to at least chapter six in —”
“No fair!” How can she expect me to read six chapters when I have important things to do like watching Top Cop and working on my crossover fake-out two-pointer (otherwise known as the Stanford Shake ’n’ Bake)?
“Sit up,” Millicent orders as she points to one of the papers.
NOUN: A person, place, thing, or idea.
The brilliant tutor tried to teach the ignorant boy.
ADJECTIVE: A word that describes a noun.
The pea-brained basketball player did not even attempt to study.
VERB: A word that expresses an action.
The police arrested him and threw him in jail.
ADVERB: A word used to describe a verb or adjective.
The boy apologized profusely, but it was too late and he was fed to the wolves.
Is Millicent making fun of me? She’s making fun of me! I wad up her list. “It’s missing something,” I inform Miss Priss. I execute a classic Stanford Shake ’n’ Bake and hit Millicent right on the nose with her own paper. Two points! “It needs to say: ‘Millicent Min: Ugly jerk.’”
Oh god … now she’s lecturing me…. What have I done to deserve this?
Finally, finally, finally she shuts up. One more millisecond and I would have morphed into a blob of jelly or I would have disintegrated. Or, I know, I would have burst into flames. Digger says that in some countries people are just walking around and then, boom! They explode. He’s even seen it happen once when his family was in Spain to watch the bullfights.
As Millicent and I leave the library, I hope she catches on fire, but she doesn’t. Instead she turns right, so I turn left.
4:59 P.M.
I really needed to go to the right, but I didn’t want to walk in the same direction as Millicent Min. So now I have to take a shortcut through the park to get to the drugstore. Some guys from school are playing soccer. One yells, “Hey, it’s Stanford Wong. Hi, Stanford!”
Another boy calls out, “Stanford, if you ever give up basketball, why not give soccer a try?”
Weakly, I give them a thumbs-up and then continue trudging through the park. I have two zits now and they are really beginning to bother me. One’s as big as a house. Ooooh, wouldn’t that be gross? To live in a zit. You’d have to wear a scuba suit or an astronaut outfit to do that. Disgusting.
The drugstore isn’t too crowded. Good. Look at all the pimple medicines. Man, there are a lot of them. There must be millions of zits out there to have so many medicines. How am I supposed to figure out which one to get? Finally I shut my eyes and just grab one.
This line is sooooo slow. The lady in front of me has bought tons of dog food. She must have a really big dog. Hey, there’s a girl over there who’s kinda cute. She’s taller than me, but she has a really nice smile, plus she has sparkly eyes. I like sparkly eyes. I try to make my eyes sparkle back at her.
Ohmygod. She’s standing next to … it can’t be … she’s standing next to Millicent Min. No! She’s with Millicent Min.
This can’t be happening. I try to cover my zits. The girl is looking at me and smiling and sparkling. Wow, she’s cute. Oh god, now Millicent’s turning around and staring at me. She looks horrified. I toss the zit medicine and run out the side door.
Beeeeeep!!!! Oh no. I went out the fire exit! I can’t believe I did that. I bet that girl thinks I’m the biggest idiot. When Millicent gets through telling her about me, I might as well be on a Big Stupid Idiot poster.
I’m running, running down the street. Gotta get away, gotta get away. Hey, wait a minute…. I slow down. Millicent signed a contract. She’s sworn not to tell anyone she’s tutoring me! I guess we’ll find out if she’s good for her word. I can’t believe that Millicent Min has the power to screw up my life even more than she already has.
JULY 12, 9:14 A.M.
Mr. Glick played a totally mean trick on us yesterday. He started reading this story called “The Lottery.” At first SSSSpy didn’t care. He was busy drawing the most incredible maze on his arm. Then the story started to get interesting. I thought it would be about winning money, but instead it was about this weird town that seems normal but is totally Twilight Zoned out so you j
ust know that something bad’s going to happen. Right when we were about to find out what it was, Mr. Glick closed the book.
“Awwww,” several kids cried. I was surprised to hear myself join them.
“If you want to know what happens, then read it yourself,” Mr. Glick chuckled. “It’s your homework assignment.”
Even though I didn’t want to, I opened “The Lottery” before bed. The story really bothered me. Why did that have to happen to the lady? She didn’t do anything wrong, and what about her little boy? Did he have to be a part of it? Just because things are always done one way, does it mean they can’t change?
I couldn’t sleep at all last night just thinking about it. All this homework is not healthy.
“Who read ‘The Lottery’?” Mr. Glick asks now.
I raise my hand. Not too high so that I look like a kiss-up, but not too low so I don’t get credit.
“Good,” he says as he scans the room. “Who wants to start off the discussion?”
A couple of the kids in the front of the room shoot their hands straight up in the air, but Mr. Glick locks in on me. “Stanford? What did you think of the story?”
I check to see if I accidentally raised my hand. Nope. I hate it when teachers call on me in class. He’s waiting. I mutter something.
“What’s that?” Teacher Torturer asks.
“I said it was stupid,” I say louder.
The kids in the front still have their hands raised and are now frantically trying to get Teacher Torturer’s attention. It looks like they are going to fall out of their chairs.
“Stupid?” Mr. Glick echoes. Ooooh boy, here it comes. I’m in trouble now. “Can you explain why you feel this way?”
I mumble, “It was stupid to have a lottery in the first place. It wasn’t even for money; it was to see who was going to get stoned to death. Who’d want to be a part of a lottery like that?”
Mr. Glick looks at me and raises one eyebrow. SSSSpy starts to sink lower in his seat. Teacher Torturer turns to the class. “Stanford has an excellent point. Who would like to elaborate on that?”
I look around the room. A lot of kids are talking at the same time. Everyone has an opinion about “The Lottery.” I don’t say anything more in class, but I don’t zone out either.
