by Lisa Yee
Get what done? I wonder if this is another one of Yin-Yin’s wacky projects, like wanting to turn our yard into a miniature-golf course. I dug fifteen holes before Mom made me stop.
“Do you have everything?” Yin-Yin asks.
I nod and surrender my backpack. It is bulging with groceries. My grandmother breaks into a wide smile as she empties it. Fish sauce, ground pork … she cradles the cilantro and then smells it as if it were a bouquet of flowers.
“Thank you, Stanford,” she says, giving me a squeeze. “I will put all this to excellent use!”
“I thought it was for Ramon’s birthday? What’s going on?”
“What’s going on is they never have dim sum around here,” Yin-Yin says. She maneuvers around the big kitchen as if she has always cooked here. I perch on one of the long steel counters and watch her, like I used to at her house and then later at ours. This is the happiest I’ve seen her since she arrived at Vacation Village.
“My mother taught me how to make dim sum,” she tells me as she minces scallions. “You know, Stanford, your great-grandparents used to live in China in a hut with a dirt floor.”
I didn’t know that. Until this moment I never actually thought about my great-grandparents.
“They cooked over an open fire and slaughtered their own chickens.”
Okay, now I’m hearing more than I want to.
“When my parents first came to America they were shocked. They had never even imagined stores stocked from floor to ceiling with groceries, iceboxes in your house to keep food from spoiling, and a man in a white suit who would deliver milk and eggs to your front door. Coming from a land where food was scarce, America was like heaven to them.”
Yin-Yin searches for a big bowl and finds one. “I always wanted a daughter to pass on my recipes to. But your auntie Mary in San Francisco has shown no interest in dim sum. No interest in cooking at all,” says Yin-Yin as she rips open the wonton-skin packages. “Can you believe that her family goes out to eat every night? I’ve offered to show your mother how to make dim sum several times, but each time she has said, ‘Thank you, Yin-Yin, but not today.’ I know what that means. It means ‘Not today and not ever.’”
There’s a sudden twinge in my chest. I don’t like it when Yin-Yin talks about my mom like that, any more than I like it when my mom complains about Yin-Yin. But my grandmother doesn’t say anything more. Instead she is cheerfully cooking in Ramon’s big kitchen.
I watch as Yin-Yin folds the scallions into the pork, adding a dash of soy sauce and some spices. Expertly she grabs a blob of the meat and drops it dead center onto the first wonton skin lined up on the counter. Then she uses a beaten egg to seal the edges. Together we curve the wontons into half-moon shapes. Mine don’t look as good as hers.
Yin-Yin hunts around and comes up with a metal basket. She turns up the heat on the deep-fry vat. It is already filled with oil. “Thank you, Ramon,” she says.
Soon the sizzling sound of wontons frying fills the kitchen. The smell is delicious. I can hardly wait to eat one. Yin-Yin hands me a plate and puts paper towels down on it. I hold it out and she dumps the golden-brown wontons on it and fills the deep fryer with more. Together we blot off the oil as we wait for the next batch.
“Careful, they’re hot,” my grandmother warns as we each reach for a wonton. I don’t care if I burn my tongue. I’ve missed Yin-Yin’s fried wontons almost as much as I’ve missed having her live with us.
It is hot, so hot that I fan my mouth as I bite into one. Ooooh, but it is soooooo good. Yin-Yin and I grin at each other and help ourselves to more.
The second batch is ready and there are no more left to cook. “With Ramon’s deep fryer, I can cook even quicker,” Yin-Yin says admiringly.
As she starts to empty the wontons onto another plate, the kitchen door swings open and someone booms, “What is going on in here?”
We both freeze.
Yin-Yin plants a sweet smile on her face. “Well, hello, Ramon. I thought you were out for the afternoon.”
“I was,” Ramon barks. He does not look like a cook; he looks like a boxer. Ramon’s younger than my dad and more muscular, with his hair slicked back and tattoos on both arms. His eyes scan the messy countertops. “Mrs. Wong, what are you doing in my kitchen? You know this is off-limits to residents. I could get fired for this!”
Yin-Yin is now batting her eyes at Ramon. She approaches him cautiously, holding a plate of fried wontons out in front of her like a shield. “I made these for you, Ramon,” she says innocently. “I thought you might like to try the famous dim sum I once made for Elvis.”
“Mrs. Wong, I’m already in enough trouble with management for that rum-cake fiasco last week. I really don’t have time —”
“Just one,” my grandmother coos. She waves the plate under his nose. “Just one, Ramon.”
“Oh, all right.” He looks angry as he snatches a wonton. There is no expression on his face as he chews. “Elvis was a lucky man,” Ramon remarks when he is done. “But Mrs. Wong, we both know that I’m not Elvis and you didn’t make them for me today. Now please get out of here before we both get in trouble.”
I grab Yin-Yin by the elbow. “You heard him,” I hiss, dragging her away. As we make our way down the hall, I ask, “Did you really make dim sum for Elvis Presley?”
“Who said anything about Elvis Presley?” she replies. “I made them for Elvis Price, my old neighbor.”
As we approach her room, she stops abruptly. “Wait! The other plate.”
“I’ll get it,” I tell her.
Slowly I open the kitchen door. I see Ramon sitting on a kitchen stool. Most of the dim sum is gone. His eyes are closed as he eats another wonton. He doesn’t look mad anymore.
JULY 27, 1:20 P.M.
It’s Saturday. No one’s at the park but Digger. I start to turn around, but it’s too late. “Hi, Stanford,” he shouts, waving.
I wave back. “Where are the rest of the Roadrunners?” I ask. Even when Digger’s nice to me, I can’t relax until at least one other guy shows up.
Digger bends down to tighten the laces on his BK620s. “How should I know, I’m not their baby-sitter. Hey, where’s your fan club?”
“What are you talking about?”
“That girl you were with the other day. She didn’t seem like your type. She seemed like a nerd.”
I ignore him.
We play a little one-on-one. As usual, Digger’s fouling all over the place. I don’t call him on them because I am in no mood to argue. Hearing my parents argue this morning was enough for me.
As I attempt to forget about Digger and play against him at the same time, I see Marley watching me from behind a tree. He’s writing something in his stupid Star Trek captain’s logbook. I try to pretend he’s being transported to another galaxy. It’s hard to play basketball when you are ignoring two people, but I do what I can.
Finally I see Gus coming up the walkway. He’s got an ice-cream cone in each hand and is eating both, which is a very Gus thing to do. Tico’s with him. He’s carrying a soda the size of a bucket.
“Heads up,” Digger shouts. He tosses the ball to Gus and knocks an ice-cream cone out of his hand. “Oh hey, I’m sooooo sorry,” Digger says.
Gus just glares at him. His pistachio cone is slowly melting on the ground.
“Pick it up,” I urge. “Hurry, you’ve only got five seconds before it goes bad!”
“It looks like the Wicked Witch of the West,” Tico observes. “Or is it the East? ‘I’m melting! I’m melting!’” he cries.
We all watch the ice cream slowly turn into a puddle. I know if I dropped a perfectly good ice-cream cone, I’d still eat it. I’m not fussy about stuff like that, although I do have my standards. I would never eat food off the ground that didn’t belong to me.
Now Gus and Digger are having a stare-down, or should I say, “glare-down”? Chocolate ice cream from the surviving cone is running down Gu
s’s arm, but he ignores it. Finally I shout, “Hey, I thought we were here to play basketball!”
Digger and I are on the same team. To make up for Gus’s ice-cream cone, I let Tico sink a couple of easy shots and I’m purposely sloppy so Gus can get in a few baskets too. Digger growls at me, but I ignore him. Even though I’m not playing my best, we still beat them.
Gus looks glum and Tico looks like he’s relieved the game is over.
“We make some team, right, Stanford?” Digger says, grinning. “Digger and Stanford, the dynamic duo! Remember how good we did on the B-Team? We should be on the same team all the time.”
When Digger and I are on the same side, we do get along pretty well. Mostly, when the Roadrunners play each other, whatever team I am on wins. Digger’s the second-best player; that’s why we’re usually against each other.
I glance at Gus and Tico. Neither looks happy.
“Whatever,” I say.
For a moment Digger looks hurt. Then he says in a mocking voice, “Oh, excuse me, I forgot that it’s a blessing to play on the side of the almighty Stanford Wong. All bow to Stanford!”
He gets on his knees and bows to me. I just shake my head.
“Just because you made the A-Team you think you’re better than us,” Digger says, brushing the dirt off his knees.
“That is such a lie,” I tell him.
“So now I’m a liar?”
“Forget it,” I mutter as I walk away. “I’m out of here.”
I head to Stretch’s house. I hope he’s home.
“Why weren’t you at the park?” I ask Stretch as he lets me in. We head up to his room. I look around. “Oh, I see.”
There are piles of clothes everywhere. Stretch starts tossing the ones that are too small into boxes marked “Salvation Army.” He holds up an Alan Scott T-shirt. I nod and he throws it to me. I slip it on over my tank top. It may not be BK620s, but I’ll take what I can get.
“Gus and Digger were at it again,” I inform Stretch as I start going through his CDs. I put on Mongo Bongo’s greatest hits. “Today was lame. Tico and Gus were off their game and Digger was out to get them.”
Stretch nods. He’s seen it all before.
“Sometimes I think there’s not enough room in the Roadrunners for both Gus and Digger. But then, if someone has to go, it might have to be Gus, since Digger is like in charge of the Roadrunners. Hey, did you hear? Mr. Ronster said he was going to buy us all Lakers jerseys this year.”
Stretch raises his eyebrows.
“I know,” I tell him. “If you add that up with the game tickets and everything, it’s going to cost him a fortune!”
It must be nice to be superrich. Digger’s dad also donates big-time to the school’s Booster Club. He’s paying to get the gym floor refinished in time for the Hee-Haw Game.
Stretch finishes filling up the boxes and we carry them into the kitchen. There’s a bunch of bananas on the counter. I break one off and toss it to Stretch, then peel one for myself.
“Wanna go get some ice cream?” I ask through a mouthful of banana.
Stretch grabs his wallet and we start walking like monkeys. He’s really great at swinging his arms and I’m an expert at making monkey sounds. This is what I like about hanging out with Stretch. With him, I can just be myself.
JULY 28, 3:39 P.M.
It’s Sunday. Used to be that Sundays were the days my father and I would do stuff together. Of course, that was a million years ago. Today, instead of hanging out with Dad, I’m going to the mall with my mom. When did the world get turned upside down?
“Honey, how does this look?” Mom comes out of the dressing room and models a navy blue suit. It looks exactly like the other five navy blue suits she’s tried on.
“Great,” I mumble as I tug at a piece of rubber on my shoe. I’ll bet BK620s never fall apart. “Can we go now?”
“Does it make me look fat?” she asks.
Why are females always so worried about looking fat? Skinny girls scare me. “Mommmm, you look fine,” I groan. I am getting hungry. “Why can’t you just wear your old clothes?”
Mom is still inspecting herself in the mirror. Now she’s holding in her stomach. “I haven’t bought a new suit in ages. Now that I’m back to working full-time, I think I deserve one, don’t you?”
I nod. Hey! There are tons of straight pins on the floor. I start picking them up and sticking them into the wall. I am going to see if there are enough pins to make a fancy letter S.
“Do you like work?” I ask. Mom works at a think tank. That’s where a lot of smart people get together and solve problems. Yet we’ve been here for hours and she can’t even figure out what suit to buy.
Mom nods and disappears into the dressing room. “I do. I feel really important there, like I’m making a contribution.”
After a few minutes she reappears in yet another blue suit. “I get noticed at the office,” she says as she admires herself in the mirror. “I feel like a somebody.”
I wish my dad would pay more attention to my mother. Mom’s really pretty, even if she doesn’t think so. She has shiny black hair that she puts in a ponytail when she’s at home, and she wears warm-up suits even though she’s not into sports. Although from what she tells me, she used to be really good at dancing.
Mom and Dad used to go dancing all the time when they first got married. She keeps a photo of Dad twirling her on the dance floor tucked into the corner of her bathroom mirror. My father is really handsome. Lots of people say that I look like him, but I don’t see it.
Nowadays the only dancing my mom does is when she takes her aerobics class.
After an eternity, Mom appears with one of the navy suits slung over her arm. “I think this was the best one, don’t you?”
I agree even though I couldn’t tell any of them apart. “It looked really good on you. That color flatters your complexion,” I say, quoting a commercial for hair dye.
There, I’ve made Mom smile. I force myself to smile back even though I don’t feel like it. Now that Yin-Yin’s gone and Mom’s working all the time, our house feels empty. Just because I ignore my mother most of the time doesn’t mean I don’t want her around.
JULY 30, 3:45 P.M.
We’re in the middle of tutoring and I am exhausted. This reading-before-basketball routine is really wearing me down. I can’t believe I’m supposed to do this every day.
I picked up Holes yesterday and before I could stop myself I was reading the book. It threw me off because I’m not finished with Number the Stars. Reading more than one book at a time is really tricky. Sometimes I get the stories so mixed up they don’t make sense. Plus, reading is dangerous. It zaps all my energy, like right now. I’m so tired I can’t even sit up. I’m slipping down my chair. Slipping, slipping, slipping … hey, if I keep going I’ll be on the floor! That’ll be neat. I haven’t sat under a table in ages.
Wow! Who would have guessed that Mrs. Martinez has gum under her tables? It’s amazing. Really beautiful. There are so many different colors. They look like those sagmites or whatchamacallits in caves. I could stay down here forever, even though it’s pretty cramped. I almost forgot how great sitting under a table can feel.
Millicent’s tapping her foot. I wish she’d keep her foot still so I can tie her shoelaces together. What’s the matter with her?
“Okay!” Millicent says. “Stanford, get off the floor. There’s enough dirt down there already. Let’s go over plot again.”
Oh no. Not that. I hate plot, whatever it is. Just as I am about to complain, I hear someone blurt out, “Ohmygosh, Millie, what are you doing here?”
A pair of purple sandals approaches.
“I just came to get my library card,” the girl says, “and …” Oh no, oh no, oh no, she’s looking under the table. I try to stand and bump my head. It’s her.
“Uh, oh, hello there! I’m Emily Ebers, Millie’s best friend. I don’t think we’ve met.”
&
nbsp; I can feel my face burning. Even the tips of my ears feel hot. I crawl out and shake Emily’s hand. “Stanford Wong,” I tell her. “I’m just, uh, uh …” Panic. Panic. She can’t know that Millicent is tutoring me — she’ll think I’m stupid. What should I say?
“I’m just helping Millicent here with her studies,” I blurt out.
Millicent yelps, but I ignore her because Emily is looking me over. Oh man, she’s cute. Her eyes are doing that sparkly thing again. They’re sort of greenish-brown, which looks really great with her blond hair. I’m having a little trouble with my balance and start to sway back and forth. “This is a superfine library,” I hear myself say as I grab the table for support. “Really excellent.” Ooooh, how stupid! I sound so stupid.
“It really is excellent,” Emily says. How does she make her eyes sparkle like that?
“Yes, so true. Even the bottoms of the tables are clean. Uh, that’s why I was under the table. I check the tables’ tops and bottoms for cleanliness.”
“Oh, so you’re some sort of table monitor?” Emily asks, smiling at me. She has the nicest smile.
I smile back. “Uh, unofficially, yes.”
“Excuse me!” interrupts Millicent. “We really should be getting back to the books.”
I don’t want Emily to leave. I’ve got to say something. Anything.
“Um, Emily, I’m sure Millicent would prefer it if you weren’t here during our tutoring sessions.” I lower my voice and tilt my head toward Millicent, who looks like she’s just chewed on a lemon. “She gets embarrassed.”
Emily looks sad. I don’t want her to be sad. “Of course,” I quickly add, “if Millicent ever figures out the difference between plot and theme, then maybe we could get together afterward. You know, get a burger or something.”
“Oh! That sounds like a terrific idea. We’d love to go,” Emily says brightly. I just love the way she talks. Her voice sounds like it’s smiling.
Millicent looks like she is having trouble breathing. Emily sees this too and takes her aside. I start ripping a sheet of notebook paper into little pieces. Millicent will probably tell Emily that I’m stupid and she’s the one tutoring me. It makes sense, because if Millicent’s a genius, then only a super-genius would be able to tutor her, and no one has ever mistaken me for a super-genius.
