by Alice Pung
About the Book
It’s 1983, and the long-awaited baby has finally arrived. But Marly never realised that a new baby would take up so much of everyone’s time! No one’s helping her with her costume for the school concert and she feels like she’s invisible. Marly’s secret plan is to perform the Moonwalk, the dance she’s been practising all year. But will she be ready in time, and can she dance in front of the whole school?
Join Marly in the final of four stories about a daring girl torn between two worlds.
Contents
1 Thrilling Moves
2 A Special Delivery
3 Granny’s Little Helper
4 Homecoming
5 Dancing Machine
6 One Month Celebration
7 Their Own Rooms!
8 A Private Performance
9 The Concert
10 Acceptance
Marly’s grandparents have arrived from Vietnam to live with Marly’s family and things are not at all as she’d envisaged. Grandma is driving Marly crazy with her preparations for the new baby and her constant attempts to turn Marly into a ‘young lady’. And when Grandpa brings home a pet goat, Agnes, angry neighbours want her taken away. When things get dangerous, Marly bravely steps in and protects her family. But as her family feverishly prepares for the arrival of the new baby, Marly starts to wonder: has her courage already been forgotten? Does she really want this new baby in her life or will things never be the same?
MARLY woke up early Tuesday morning to watch her usual cartoons, but on almost every television channel were news reports that Australia had won a boat race called the America’s Cup. It was the first time in 132 years that America had lost the race. A man named Alan Bond, who owned the winning yacht called Australia II, was being celebrated as a national hero. Marly heard the Prime Minister, Bob Hawke, say on television, ‘Any boss who sacks anyone for not turning up today is a bum.’
Marly’s father was at home, having toast for breakfast. Usually when she woke up her dad had already left for his early morning shift.
‘I went to the factory but they gave us a day off for the America’s Cup,’ he said to Marly. ‘Granny will make you some scrambled eggs.’
‘Granny always boils an egg for me,’ grumbled Marly. ‘I don’t like scrambled eggs.’
‘You will when you find out what we’re going to do with the shell. Go outside and fetch me an egg.’
Marly went to their backyard chicken coop where their hen Chooky roosted. She scrabbled around the hay-covered bench until she found a warm egg, and took it inside for her dad. With a pin he poked a hole at the top and bottom of the egg. Then he asked Marly to blow into the top hole, so that all the egg came out of the bottom hole and into a bowl.
‘Your grandma can scramble this for you later,’ Marly’s dad told her. ‘What we are interested in is the shell.’ He took the hollowed-out shell from Marly and lit a wax candle. Tilting the candle over the top hole of the egg, he slowly dripped wax in until the shell was half full. Then he asked Marly to draw a face on the egg, so she did. A great big smiling humpty dumpty face. When Marly’s dad set the egg down on the table, it stood up on one end by itself! The wax was keeping it upright. And when her dad told her to flick it and try and knock it down, the egg kept bobbing back up when Marly pushed it over. It was magical.
‘It doesn’t fall down!’ Marly exclaimed in awe. This was the coolest toy ever, she thought. She wanted to take it to school and show her class.
‘I’ll walk you to school after breakfast,’ her father told her. Marly gleefully put the roly-poly egg in an empty take-away container padded with toilet paper.
It was wonderful walking to school with her father instead of Grandma, Marly thought. She could not remember the last time she had spent time alone with her dad, who was now busy preparing for the arrival of Marly’s new brother or sister. In fact, Marly’s whole household – her mum, dad, grandma and grandpa – were so excited about the new baby that often Marly felt forgotten. But today, clutching the egg in its plastic container and walking with her dad to school, Marly felt on top of the world.
‘Do you know what resilience means?’ her father asked her.
Marly shook her head. Her father explained that it was being able to bounce back up again after something disruptive happens, like the roly-poly egg. Disruption. It was a new word for Marly, one she really liked. She knew that in the next few weeks there would be lots of disruptions to her life.
‘Many things will be different when the baby arrives,’ her father told her, ‘but you have to be resilient, Marly.’
Marly nodded and promised her father that she would try her best.
At lunchtime, Marly sat on the bench in the school playground, watching Yousra perform all the different circus skills her class were practising for the end-of-year concert – somersaults, cartwheels, huge leaps in the air. Yousra told Marly their plan was to end with four human pyramids. ‘You get it, right?’ Yousra said. ‘We’re doing dangerous things to the tune of “The Safety Dance”! It’s going to be so cool.’
‘Yeah, I get it,’ Marly said with a smirk. Then she sighed. ‘Mrs Louden’s got us singing “Daisy”. And what’s worse, we have to do some kind of happy tap dance while carrying a bucket that’s supposed to be filled with milk.’
‘That’s lame,’ Yousra agreed.
Marly got off the bench and demonstrated the moves to Yousra. She knew them off by heart already. There were just five steps – skip, shuffle, hop, stomp, stomp – repeated four times and then three twirls and a curtsy, all done while passing a bucket from one hand to the other. Marly added her own dramatic flourish at the end by shaking her invisible bucket upside-down and then pretending to be shocked that all her milk had tipped out.
Yousra chortled with glee. ‘Oh, man, you crack me up. I can’t believe you remembered the whole dance.’
‘Well, it’s pretty easy,’ complained Marly. She showed Yousra the moves again, but when she tried it, Yousra didn’t seem to get it.
‘Man, it’s not that easy. It’s just because you’re so good at dancing,’ said Yousra.
‘Maybe I should pretend to be a whole year older and sneak into your class instead,’ Marly laughed. ‘Then I can be top of the human pyramid instead of carrying around a stupid bucket, wearing a stupid dress.’
Yousra laughed. Then a mischievous light came into Yousra’s eyes. Marly knew what it meant – Yousra had had one of her bright ideas. ‘You are so much better than everyone else in your class at dancing – you should so do a dance by yourself!’
‘Uh uh. No way!’ said Marly. She felt jittery just at the thought of dancing in front of anyone other than Yousra, let alone doing it on stage in front of the whole school. ‘Everyone will laugh at me.’
‘But you’re so awesome! And no one knows how awesome you are except me. Come on, Marly, they’ve all got to see this. You’ve got to show everyone your moves,’ Yousra said, and started trying to moonwalk across the playground.
Yousra was the only friend who knew about Marly’s obsession with Michael Jackson and his moonwalk. Marly had seen it on television once, and it looked magical – like he was gliding backwards on rollerskates. Ever since then, Marly had practised and practised to try and float across the floor the same way. But even though Yousra thought she was amazing at it, Marly knew her moonwalk just wasn’t quite right. And these days, she struggled to find the time or the space to practise. Grandma, who lived in their house now, was always telling her off for behaving like a boy instead of doing chores. At least Grandpa likes my dancing, Marly thought. Grandpa and Yousra – my biggest and only fans.
Yousra was h
alfway across the playground now and looked like she was running away backwards from wild bears instead of moonwalking. Marly found herself giggling as her friend jigged straight through the boys’ makeshift football pitch.
‘Oi! Watch it!’ yelled Kane as Yousra bumped into him. ‘You made me miss the mark!’
‘Come on, Marly,’ Yousra shouted across the playground. ‘Show us how it’s done.’
Marly smiled but shook her head and stayed put on the bench. She loved her best friend’s unabashed energy and how Yousra thought Marly was some kind of dancing genius. Marly wanted to believe Yousra. She wanted to believe that the other kids would think she was awesome. But deep down, Marly just didn’t trust them. She knew that when they looked at her, they just saw an Asian girl whose grandparents sometimes brought her weird lunches to school, tapping at the back fence and speaking to the other kids in Cantonese as if they could understand. When this happened, Kimberly and Kylie would come bouncing up to Marly, pretending to be helpful, but telling her, ‘Your grandma is at the back fence speaking that funny ching chong again. We think she wants us to tell you she’s got your lunch. It smells weird, like cabbages.’ Even when Marly tried to fit in, like when she’d first had all the cool Donkey Kong cards, nothing changed, not really. She’d realised that even when she had the same stuff as other kids, it still didn’t change who they thought she was – an Asian girl who didn’t belong.
Marly watched Kimberly and Kylie now. They were over by the bike sheds, smirking meanly at Yousra. They act like they’re so grown up, but they’re not, thought Marly angrily. They were listening to Kimberly’s new Sony Walkman, each girl with one earplug in her ear. Marly couldn’t help feeling jealous, wishing she had her own Walkman so she could listen to Michael Jackson cassette tapes whenever she wanted. But it was no use asking her parents for one. Their house kept filling up with new things, but it was all for the new baby.
‘So, when is your mum going to have her baby?’ Yousra asked Marly as they headed inside. Marly frowned. She kept feeling annoyed when people talked about the baby. She knew she was being unreasonable, but she couldn’t shake the feeling that this baby was taking over everything, and it wasn’t even born yet!
‘Any day now,’ Marly replied. ‘Mum is getting massive. She’s like a balloon about to pop.’
‘Do you know if it’s a girl or a boy yet?’ asked Yousra.
‘No,’ replied Marly. ‘But I hope it’s a girl so that my grandma can put her in scratchy puffy dresses and tie her hair in ribbons, and leave me alone!’
‘Geez, I wish my grandma would buy me new dresses,’ sighed Yousra, ‘but Mum says I can’t have any new dresses until Dad stops sending so much money to Grandma in Egypt!’
Marly and Yousra picked up their bags from the hooks in the school corridor and waved goodbye. When Marly walked into class, she could see Kimberly and Kylie still sharing headphones, and Marly was close enough to hear them singing the words to David Bowie’s latest song, ‘Let’s Dance’, while swaying from side to side. They had no idea how to move. Marly wished she could show them, but she wasn’t about to risk being laughed at, so she sat down at her desk and daydreamed about surprising everyone at the end of the year with her perfected moonwalk.
After school, Marly found Grandma waiting in her usual spot by the school gate to walk Marly home, even though Marly’s house was only around the corner and she knew she’d be fine walking home on her own.
‘You’re even bouncier than usual,’ said Grandma when Marly started skipping. ‘Girls shouldn’t be jumping around, rowdy and uncontrolled, behaving like a street kid.’
Marly slowed down to walk at Grandma’s shuffle pace. She hated how Grandma always picked on everything she did.
‘That’s better,’ said Grandma. ‘When you get home, be a good girl and do your homework, and then you can help me wash the snow peas. I know how much you love doing that!’
Marly sighed. Just once, she had pretended to be enthusiastic about helping Grandma wash and prepare snow peas, all because her mother had given her a lecture about helping Grandma with a glad heart. And ever since then, Grandma had started doling out even more work to Marly, shouting out orders: ‘Wash the dishes!’ ‘Scrub the grouting of the tiles on the floor with a toothbrush!’ ‘Pull the hairs out from the hairbrush!’ ‘Help me tip this bucket of dirty water into the garden!’ And even while Marly was doing these disgusting chores, she was still meant to remain clean and act like a good girl, which meant no water fights with soap suds or pretending the hairbrush was a microphone.
When they finally arrived home, Marly found her mother sitting sideways on the sofa with boxes of buttons, price tags and tiny plastic bags all spread out in front of her. Her big baby belly was resting on the sofa cushion as she put a button in each bag, stapled it to the shirt label and put it in a pile on the coffee table.
‘Do you need help, Mum?’ Marly asked. She knew the big white van that delivered the fabric and collected the finished clothes was coming tomorrow, which meant that her mum had to complete everything by the end of today.
‘No,’ replied her mum. ‘I’m almost done.’
‘You need to rest!’ shouted Grandma from the kitchen.
‘You know I can’t sleep during the day,’ protested Marly’s mum. Marly thought her mum seemed like a small child when Grandma talked to her like that. But for once, Marly found herself agreeing with Grandma – her mum looked exhausted.
‘Let the girl finish up! Go and lie down!’ ordered Grandma.
Marly watched her mum press on the arm of the sofa to push herself up, and slowly walk out the door. Then she began putting buttons in bags and attaching the tags.
Grandpa came into the lounge just as Marly was attaching the final tag, and silently sat down next to her. He smelt like earth, and Marly could see dirt stuck under his nails from digging in the garden. Marly couldn’t remember the last time she’d had grotty hands like that. Before Grandma and Grandpa had arrived from Vietnam, Marly had spent hours with her cousin Jackie digging up worms and making mud pies in the back garden. But Grandma had soon put a stop to that.
Every weekend, Grandpa got picked up by their friend Peter Zolj in his ute, and taken to Peter’s farm to visit his goat Agnes. Marly loved going with them, but for the past month she had been kept at home to help her mum and grandma with the sewing work and housework. She had hoped that Grandpa would tell her parents that she was needed at the farm, but even he seemed to have forgotten how useful Marly was for collecting hay for the animals, helping mend fences and even having a go at the ride-on mower. ‘Be a good girl, your mum needs you at home,’ he’d said to her, patting her arm before he eagerly hopped into Peter’s car.
Marly felt betrayed. The only outlet she had for all her energy was dancing, but when Grandma had seen the sort of moves Marly was practising, Granny had told her off for scuffing the lino floor. ‘That’s not dancing,’ Grandma had said, ‘that’s skidding.’
Grandpa turned the TV on, and Marly translated the news for him, pleased to be out of Grandma’s way. When the commercials came on, there was one for Michael Jackson’s new record, Thriller. The album cover showed him in his dazzling white suit and black shirt, leaning coolly on the floor with one elbow.
‘What is a Thriller?’ asked Grandpa.
Although Marly’s family didn’t have a record player, Marly had heard many of the songs played over the radio or sung by the kids at school. The title song ‘Thriller’ seemed to be about ‘night creatures’ and zombies walking about a neighbourhood. Marly had never seen anyone dance to it, but she could imagine exactly how they would look if they did. She leapt on the sofa and launched herself off it, then walked around like a zombie. Grandpa laughed and stomped his feet from the sofa, and Marly felt great. With Grandpa as her audience, she felt like a real entertainer.
‘You crazy girl,’ he said, clapping his hands together, ‘What kind of demon dance is that?’
‘It’s the Thriller, Grandpa.’
<
br /> Marly was happy that she could joke with at least one person in the house. Aside from his day off, her dad was hardly home, doing as many hours as he could at the factory before the baby came, and her mum and grandma were always arguing about something.
‘Oh, you should dress up like a demon when you do it! That’ll give Grandma a scare,’ Grandpa said. ‘Get me an orange, Marly, and I’ll make you some monster teeth out of orange peel!’
‘Who needs orange peel?’ Grandma said as she appeared from the kitchen to bring a hard-boiled egg and saucer of soy sauce to the coffee table. ‘Is someone going to throw up?’
Grandma believed smelling orange peel cured all vomity feelings, so she kept a jar of dried orange peels in the car because she got carsick.
‘No, but Marly wants an orange,’ Grandpa said as he winked at Marly.
Marly stifled a giggle when Grandma brought an orange and knife to Grandpa. Grandpa waited until she was safely back in the kitchen before he peeled away the orange skin and cut out a set of wobbly, pointy teeth. ‘Here you go,’ he said to Marly. ‘Stick these in your mouth!’
Marly went to the bathroom mirror to look at herself. She started dancing like a zombie again, and felt a thrill as she watched herself – the teeth made all the difference. She looked like a zombie. She even felt like she was a zombie. And when she danced like that, she forgot everything else – the new baby, how boring all her chores at home were, she even forgave Grandpa for not taking her to the farm. Then a thought struck her: if she had the right costume, then maybe she wouldn’t be scared of dancing on stage. If she just pretended she was someone else when she danced, she wouldn’t care what the other kids thought . . .
As Marly jived back into the lounge, grinning her zombie orange-peel grin, she made up her mind: she would dance at the school concert. All she needed was time and space to practise, and a killer outfit to make her feel like she was Michael Jackson.
