by Meg Xuemei X
After I quickly cleaned myself up, I examined myself. Bruises and scratches were scattered over my body, but I had succeeded in protecting my head and my inner organs.
After I poured myself a glass of cold water and drained it down my dusty throat, I looked at the old clock on the wall. I had to leave before my family arrived.
With no intention of going into the streets to meet more unexpected assailants, I cowered in the public courtyard outside my house and brooded over my next actions.
Physically, I wasn’t hurt that much, but my pride was injured. I knew not to look to my big brother and sister to stand by my side. As for my mother, she would reward me with a few more slaps, because she hated losers. My father would say, “Be careful next time. Don’t look for trouble.”
The only person I could count on was myself.
The next day, I did my best to pay no heed to the persistent chanting of “slut” in my face. I stayed inside the classroom all day. I didn’t even take time to go to the public bathroom, for fear of another attack. At my last class, before my math teacher laid out his teaching material on the worn wooden podium, I walked up to him. “Mr. Dang,” I winced, my hand pressing against my stomach, “I can’t attend class. I gotta go home. I’m feeling quite sick.”
“What’s the problem?” asked Mr. Dang. He had a broad face and small eyes. And he was old. He had his thirtieth birthday last week.
“Stomach pain!” I said, my other hand grabbing the waistband of my pants as if I urgently need to use the bathroom. “Bad food!”
He was quick to wave me away, not wanting me to stay a second longer in his class. “Next time, don’t eat bad food if you can help it!” he called behind me. Many townspeople ate bad quality food because we were poor.
As soon as I was out of sight from the school, I ran in the opposite direction from my house.
Crooked-teeth lived on the east side, the better part of town. Their houses, though also flat, weren’t as old as mine and were less packed and much brighter. They weren’t the richest in town either, but the residents there thought they were better than us, who lived in the lower part of the bank.
Crooked-teeth and her kind usually took the shortcut across the bridge over the upper east part of the Ducklings’ Nest. Then they’d have to cross the small woods that had dwindled recently because the town planned to build the first shopping mall there within five years.
I climbed a huge elm tree like a squirrel. Perching on a branch and hiding behind thick leaves, I awaited Crooked-teeth, my hands tightly holding a net that I took from a fisherman who lived not far from the elementary school. If Crooked-teeth passed by the woods alone, I’d cast the net down onto her and then jump on her from the tree. I felt it unnecessary to give my enemy fair warning.
Having spotted Crooked-teeth crossing the bridge, I lowered myself. She walked like a swaying crab, as if she owned the bridge. Beside her was another third grade girl, who wore a ponytail. I recognized that ponytail as among those who attacked me. This wasn’t the ideal situation I had planned for. Ponytail didn’t live in this part of town.
No way could I take down two birds with one stone. But I must try if I wanted to stop them from chanting “slut” in my face at school.
I studied the net in my hand. It was meant for one person. Two could easily break free from it. As I pondered an alternative plan, the girls approached the tree where I hid myself. I remained motionless, but my heart fluttered like a bird caught in my own net.
“We won’t let her slip away tomorrow,” Crooked-teeth said. “If that mouse thought she could get off so easily, she’s mistaken.”
“How long are we going to hunt her?” asked Ponytail.
“Until we find the next game,” Crooked-teeth said. “I wish she had more spirit!”
“You’re so mean!” Ponytail bumped her friend with her hip playfully.
Crooked-teeth shoved her friend a bit too hard, sending Ponytail right under my tree.
Ponytail stumbled. It was now or never. Spreading the net, I leaped down with it. The net trapped Ponytail head to toe. Squealing, she collapsed to the ground. One strike, I had knocked her out.
Standing a few feet from her captured friend, Crooked-teeth looked dumbfounded. Before her eyes travelled back to me, I lunged at her, driving my fist straight into her gut. I didn’t want to give this big girl a big moment to act.
“Agghhh!” She doubled over for a second, but then got up. Snapping out of her stupor, she swung her fist at me. The stroke had weight but lacked speed. I bent backwards and ducked the blow. Before her arm finished the full arc, I had thrust two of my fingers toward her eyes, as a decoy.
She threw her arms before her face to protect her eyes, which was exactly what I wanted her to do. Forcing her into a false defense to expose her weakness, I jumped behind her in a blurry speed. My hand dragging her hair, I pulled her down with all my strength. And I gave her kneecaps a good kick to make her more cooperative on her way down.
She screamed in pain, but managed to fall on her side. I wouldn’t give her a chance to rise and fight me. With my knee ramming against her back, I rolled her, forcing her to lie face down. She was going to eat dirt, as she had made me the other day.
A whimper stirred behind me. I snapped my head. Ponytail had regained consciousness. She was struggling to free herself from the fisherman’s net. I shot her a vicious, warning look. I knew I must overcome her again, but my hands were engaged with Crooked-teeth. As I was trying to solve my dilemma, Ponytail disentangled herself from of the net.
“Don’t even try—” I hissed.
She burst into a run. My heart lurched in fright. I must end this business before their backup arrived. But when I saw Ponytail running back toward the bridge, I let out a breath of relief. Evidently, she feared me more than her friend here now, so she chose to abandon Crooked-teeth rather than call for help.
Smirking, I wiped off the sweat with the back of my hand. It was better to be feared than to be loved.
Ponytail ran along the bridge, still looking over her shoulder to see if I was chasing her. I bared my teeth, but I doubt she could see me. Wasting no time, I turned my attention back to the big girl.
Half sitting and half kneeling on her back like a little monkey in victory, I gripped her hair tight, pressing her baby-fat face against the grass and dirt. “Think because you’re bigger and run in a pack you can bully me at your pleasure?”
She gasped. “It wasn’t my idea! I didn’t see your naked bu . . . legs in the river!”
“Whatever! You were the first one pointing your fat, ugly fingers at me,” I said. “So I’m telling you now: call off your dogs. If any of you ever touch me again, I’ll slit your throats with a pencil knife.” I paused before I snarled, for a more drastic effect, “Whatever it takes! I have nothing to lose. I don’t even care about my own family.” My natural low, raucous voice sounded convincingly menacing, even to my ears.
Crooked-teeth shook her head vehemently to stress that she wouldn’t even try. “You—you didn’t fight last time.” Huh, she had a hard time comprehending how I could suddenly turn into a ferocious fighter.
I sneered. Don’t ever underestimate a strategist. At a young age, I had already grasped the truth that you couldn’t fight the collective, as they were an unbreakable machine, but you could disassemble the machine by tearing its parts off.
“I fight on my own terms,” I said. “And where I swim and how I swim is nobody’s business. Do you understand?”
She forgot to respond.
“Say you understand!” I grabbed her hair harder and pushed her head back into the dirt.
Crooked-teeth nodded, crying. “Un . . . Understand.” She struggled to get the word out.
“Very good. Consider this a fair warning. Get near me again, it’ll be white blade in red blade out of your fat belly button.” I spat and released her. Before I disappeared like a ghost in the woods, I kicked her butt goodbye.
At midnight, when my family w
as sound sleep, I rose quietly. I went into the kitchen and squashed three tangerine peels, half an onion, and five small ChaoTianJiao (the hottest southern pepper), and mixed them in a bowl of water. At four o’clock in the morning, I got up again, poured out the homemade reddish water into a spray bottle, and hid it in my schoolbag.
I sought out the second-in-command, a boy who was two years older than I and lived near my neighborhood. When I spotted him treading alone around a corner, three blocks away from his home, I tossed aside my backpack and lunged at him from a side street. I kicked his crotch first. He shrieked in pain, but straightened up fast, his face reddening with fury. “Slut!” he called, his fist landing on my nose. That hurt! I didn’t expect him to be much faster than Crooked-teeth. But I was quick too. Scowling, I grabbed his wrist and twisted it, turning my face sideways. My teeth sunk into the hand that was still connected to my face.
He cried and cursed, yanking back his bleeding hand. His other one shot out in amazing speed and locked on my throat, cutting off my air supply. I felt the blood ceasing to circulate in my body. Nausea and panic mixed in the pit of my stomach as his grip continued to tighten on my neck.
I should never have underestimated this opponent, just because I was able to bring two of them down yesterday. I should have known I could never overpower this boy in a straight, hand-to-hand battle. He proved to be bigger, stronger, and faster. I couldn’t afford a mistake and I had made one. I was done.
Hope dimmed. But then I caught a glimpse of fear mounting in his eyes. A faint light switched on in my eyes. He didn’t have the guts to finish me off. My mind whirled—if only he allowed me to suck in a breath of air, if only I had enough strength to reach the weapon in my pocket.
I rolled my eyes back to my head to show him the severity of my condition.
“Surrender!” he called in a quivering voice, loosening up his grip on my neck.
Still controlled by his grip, I was unable to nod. My eyes returned to normal. Looking submissive, I made an effort to blink my eyes to admit defeat. The moment he released his lock on my throat, I pulled out the spray from the pocket of my outerwear and shot the spicy water right into his eyes.
“Never!” I growled.
He screamed. His hand let go of my neck to cover his eyes. I grinned. I’d made a potent concoction.
But I wasn’t done with him. I was careful not to get too close to him. I wouldn’t underestimate him again before he went down. I sent a devil’s kick to his kidney and moved toward his back. I was just about to attack his kneecaps to force him to kneel, when the boy burst into a run toward his house, one hand pressing his kidney, the other on his red-rimmed eyes.
He was a good fighter and had quick wits—I’d give him that, but I chased him all the same. I wouldn’t give up the chance to make him eat dirt. I knew I must get him before he reached his home.
“Mother!” he screamed, hearing my rushing footsteps in hot pursuit.
I stopped hunting him. Once he called out to his mom for help, he was history. And I didn’t want to get too close to his territory.
“Go to your mommy!” I let my vicious laughter trail after him. I knew he wouldn’t come back for more of me.
And the next day, I took down a smaller boy with my mother’s whip. Under my interrogation, he admitted that he was the one who told on me, and even went the extra mile, giving up all the names of my attackers and their routes and weaknesses.
When I got to the sixth opponent, the rest came to me separately to pay tribute for a truce: a small box of candies, a candle, a pencil box, and an apple. I accepted all and stopped the war.
My message was out clear: despite Xirena’s small size, she had the will of steel and guile and cruelty that no one could match. And she always hit back doubly hard.
After I engaged in two more fights, no group ever picked on me again. It wasn’t worth the trouble for them. So, I gained the reputation of a brute, instead of slut. In order to live up to my reputation and make sure any bully left me alone, whenever someone would throw me a look of disapproval, I glared back and bared my teeth until they turned away.
Ever since, I’m known as the black sheep of the town. Everyone stays away from me. Everyone except this new boy. And unlike anyone, he sees something else in me, beneath the crudeness.
And he wants my friendship.
How could it hurt to have a hottie like him as a friend? Maybe he’ll even hold your hand and laugh at your jokes? a small voice breathes in the back of my mind.
I don’t tell jokes! I rebuke the voice and turn to inspect the boy’s copper speckled eyes. All I see is kindness and compassion, things no one else has shown me. The warmth spreads, wrapping around me like a cocoon. Suddenly I feel liquid prickling against my eyelids. I instantly fight it back. I don’t cry, just like I don’t smile. I haven’t dropped a tear since I was seven.
Cold fury rises in me. How can I be so weak? I almost melt down just because someone shows me a little kindness? And what is this stranger doing here? Does he think he has the right to disarm me with his sweet talk and bright smile, only to hurt me doubly hard when I let my guard down?
My body stiffens. Humans always group together like hens to feel safe. Wherever you go, you see millions of them. They all look the same, walk the same, and talk the same. I’d rather not be one of them.
“I don’t need a friend,” I say in a firm voice.
“Everyone needs a friend,” he says with such gentleness that I lose the strength to form another argument. “I know you’ve built a wall of ice, but I see light and fire inside. The flame might be small, but nothing and no one can snuff it out, not even you.”
Without my awareness, a tiny flame twirls in my eyes, expanding, and pushes the frostiness in them to the verge.
“Xirena.” The way he whispers my name sends a delightful chill over my skin. I’m surprised that my name doesn’t sound like a curse like it does from other people’s mouths.
He moves even closer. I don’t back down. The back of his hand brushes across my cheekbone. In my fourteen years, no one has touched me like this. All the physical contact I’ve experienced has been punches from my mother and fistfights with my sister, my brother, and other kids.
This is too much! My mind orders me to smash his hand away with indignation, but my body wants more of the touch that sends pleasure that I’ve never known down my spine. And the kick streams all the way down. I have to curl my toes to stop from shivering.
“I . . .” I want to say something to reciprocate his friendliness, but I don’t know how. “I’m fourteen!” I blurt out. My voice comes off as hoarse as usual, so my response sounds like an accusation, like it is his fault that I’m already fourteen or I’m not even fifteen yet. Either way, it echoes wrong.
“I know,” he says with a brilliant smile. “I know you’re fourteen.”
That kind smile lights me like the coal fire in winter one minute, only to strike grief the next. He has no clue what he’s getting into. He might think that he can lend me the fire he has. But when the ice melts, not only will the flame extinguish, but he’ll also be stuck in a world beyond coldness. Then it’ll be too late for him to run away from my glacier world. For I know, and only I know, there aren’t just blocks of endless ice in me, but something else lurking beneath, something that should never be set free.
Approaching footsteps ring out from the stairwell outside my apartment. I draw back from Kai in one smooth movement, and he drops his hand from my face.
Lucky for me, I’ve put respectable space between him and me when my mother charges in, with labored breathing from climbing the stairs. “I know you’re here to do a picture of me.” She smirks. She often does that, because many men have told her that her teeth resemble a string of pearls. But I regard them as shark’s teeth. “So I left work an hour early.” Her honey tone is aimed to catch flies.
I hope the way her facial muscles move makes Kai sick too. But his mind doesn’t seem to dwell on her features. He looks dis
appointed that she’s home early. Unlike me, he doesn’t know how to mask his emotion.
“Right,” he answers absent-mindedly and glances at me. My complexion has returned to stone. As I turn away, heading toward my room, I hear him telling the woman, “I forgot my painting kit. I’ll go get it.”
He shows up an hour later while my mother paces. He does a rough sketch for her in the living room, which is also our dining room, for half an hour and calls it a day.
He never finishes the portrait of my mother, and manages to avoid her in the days that follow. She holds a grudge against him. “You can never count on a seventeen-year-old!” She turns to glare at me. “That devil boy is even worse than you!”
I want to gloat over her humiliation, but I hold on to an apathetic mask. A scheme spins in my little head—what if I snatched Kai away from all the girls just to piss everyone off, especially my mother? That could be wicked fun.
I catch my reflection on the glass window. I’m still a badly dressed, icy-looking girl, but I know a pretty face isn’t everything.
TRANSFORMATION
Kai clears his studio, knowing I wouldn’t visit him while all the bugs, bees, and butterflies are around. He laughs upon hearing the analogy I used to refer to his friends, acquaintances, and models.
“It’s not easy to drive them away,” he says in a resigned voice. “They stick like glue.” But he has to be hard-hearted for my sake.
It feels surreal to step into his studio in person after spending a month watching it from behind the curtains.
I survey the art books on the shelves and extract one. The print quality of the world-known artists’ portfolios is excellent. Kai seems to love French impressionists. I do too, but I’m more into the cost of the books. They even smell expensive. I manage not to let a greedy glint into my eyes, for Kai is watching me. It’s a relief that he can’t read the thoughts coursing through my mind, as some of them aren’t very nice.
