Krysta groans. “Your parents are so weirdly strict!”
Sometimes I wish I remembered more about the way things were back home. Then I’d know which of my parents’ rules are because of where we came from and which are because they simply like to say no.
Maybe things will be different once we have our ration cards.
“Can I tell you a secret?” I whisper.
Krysta’s eyes widen, and her lips curve upward. “What is it?”
Even though Mama told me not to tell anyone, for fear of jinxing things, I can’t stand to bottle our news up inside for another second. So I go ahead and spill everything. “And the citizenship ceremony is on my name day!” I say when I’m done, practically jumping up and down. “I couldn’t have asked for a better present!”
Krysta’s frowning, so I hurry to explain. “It’s the day honoring the saint I was named after. In my family, it’s an even bigger deal than a birthday.”
I expect Krysta to jump around with me, but she’s as still as a statue.
“When is the ceremony?” she finally asks.
“Monday,” I say. “Can you believe it? In two days, I’ll finally be like everyone else.”
For some reason she doesn’t seem excited. Instead her nose scrunches up as if she’s smelled something rotten. “You’ll still be different, you know,” she says flatly. “I mean, look at Four-Eyes. He takes his rations, but he’ll never be one of us.”
The words hit me like a punch to the stomach, and I can’t stop myself from blurting out, “There’s nothing wrong with Daniel.”
Krysta’s eyebrows go up.
Careful, Mira.
“Are you friends with him now or something?” she asks.
“Of course not,” I snap.
“Krysta!” Mrs. Perez calls, knocking on the door. “Are you done in there?”
“Coming!” Krysta calls back. She dabs one last coat of clear gloss onto her lips before opening the door.
“I checked your activity chart. You haven’t practiced your piano today,” Mrs. Perez says. I can hear the sounds of the party ramping up below.
Krysta snorts. “Mom, what do you want me to do, play scales in the middle of the party? No one wants to hear that!”
“You should have thought about that earlier,” her mom says. “You know the rules. A half hour of practice every day, no exceptions.”
“But, Mom. I can’t—”
“No exceptions.”
Krysta’s face is tight, but she doesn’t argue. Instead she grabs my arm and pulls me down the staircase. It’s strange to see Krysta under someone else’s control, when at school she’s the one who makes the rules.
As we weave through the crowd of men in pressed suits and women in shiny gowns, I realize that Krysta is dragging me toward the piano.
“Does your mom really expect you to practice in front of everyone?” I ask.
“She does this every time we have people over to show off what a perfect, talented daughter she has,” Krysta says, her voice laced with bitterness. “Last time we had a party, she made me show off my fencing moves. I thought if you were here, maybe she’d leave me alone.”
I glance down at the floor, wondering if that’s why Krysta invited me to be here tonight.
But when I look up again, I realize that instead of bringing me to the piano, Krysta is pulling me over to her father.
“Dad, save me,” she says. “Mom wants me to practice piano in front of everyone. Will you talk to her?”
Mayor Perez sighs. “You know your mother. Perhaps it would be better to go along with it.” But as he dabs at his temples with a handkerchief and glances around at the growing crowd, I can tell he’s cringing at the thought of anything messing up his big party.
“How about a trade?” Krysta says. “If you help me get out of this, I won’t tell Mom you’ve been cheating on your diet.” She sounds like she’s joking, but I can hear the threat in her voice.
I expect Mayor Perez to simply laugh and tell her she’s on her own. After all, the mayor has a reputation for never backing down from a fight. But Krysta’s dad actually cracks a smile and says, “I’ll see what I can do. But never bring up the diet thing again, okay? Your mom would kill me.” Then he gives her a playful pat on the shoulder and rushes away.
“Wow,” I say. “I didn’t think that would work.”
Krysta shrugs. “My dad’s the easy one. It’s my mom you have to worry about.” She glances around. “Are you hungry?” She grabs some snacks off a waiter’s tray and then waves me toward a nearby couch. We perch on the white leather, munching on appetizers and rating everyone’s hairstyles.
“Sorry,” Krysta says after a little while.
“For what?” I ask.
“About the citizenship stuff.” She looks down at her napkin. “I guess I just got freaked out. Once you’re like everyone else, you can be friends with whoever you want.”
I blink at her. “You really think I’m only friends with you because of that?”
“Come on, Mira. I know I’m not the easiest person all the time, but…” She shrugs. “Forget it.”
I can’t help thinking back to the first time we met, when she showed up at my door, so excited to have someone new in her neighborhood. Even though we were strangers, she confessed that the other kids were scared of her because of who her dad was and that she never had anyone to hang out with. I’ve always been a little scared of her too, but I guess I’ve also always understood her. If it weren’t for Krysta, no one would want to hang out with me, either.
“You’re wrong,” I tell her. “You’re my best friend.”
She squeezes my hand, and I squeeze back. “I really am happy that you’ll finally get to use Amber,” she says. “You’re going to love it.”
“Attention, everyone!” her dad calls out. “I’d like to say a few words!”
The crowd quiets down, and everyone turns to look up at Mayor Perez standing in front of the giant white fireplace. Krysta’s mom is posed beside him, smiling as usual, even though she must be annoyed at her husband for taking their daughter’s side about the whole piano thing.
“We’ve done a lot of good in my years in office,” Mayor Perez says. “But our work isn’t over yet. There are a lot of problems to tackle in our town. In our country. We have a certain way of life here, and when I’m reelected, I will do whatever it takes to make sure our town continues to thrive.”
As I listen, I can’t help remembering what Krysta told me about her grandparents. The way Mayor Perez is talking, you’d think his family had been in the country for generations, just like his wife’s. Maybe if you think of yourself in a certain way long enough, you start to forget that you were ever anything else.
* * *
After the fund-raiser, I’m waiting outside Krysta’s house for Tata to come walk me home, when I hear Mayor Perez’s voice filtering out from the backyard.
“What do you expect me to do?” he’s saying.
“You do what you have to do,” a gravelly female voice responds. “We have to take action now before it’s too late.”
I know I shouldn’t spy, but I can’t help creeping toward the fence that lines the backyard and peering through the cracks. Inside the yard, I spot Mayor Perez standing by the shed with two older men and a woman. It seems like an odd place for a business meeting.
“There’s only so much I can do within the law,” Mayor Perez says, unlocking the shed door.
“We funded your last campaign, remember?” the man with a shiny bald head asks. “Without our support, who knows if you’ll be reelected?”
“My well has been dry for months.” The woman shakes her head, but her gray hair doesn’t move. “This can’t go on, Sebastian. You need to fix this.”
“Here,” Mayor Perez says. He hands each of the people a paper bag. “My well is getting low too, but this should hold you for now.”
The bald man glances inside, and his lined face wrinkles even more. “This is barely enough
to last me a week!”
“You need to make it last,” the mayor says as he closes the shed. Before the door shuts completely, I catch a glimpse of a well inside. “If we’re asking everyone else in this town to ration, we should learn to do the same.”
The woman laughs. “Considering how much money we’re giving you, I don’t think we need to learn anything.” She marches back into the house with the bag, followed by the two men. Mayor Perez lets out a deep sigh before he hurries back inside.
I stand there staring at the shed for a long time. There’s only one reason why there’d be a well hidden in there. We learned about Amber wells in school, how they were outlawed years ago when the rationing started. It’s illegal to have one, let alone use it. But clearly Mayor Perez doesn’t care.
Krysta’s words come back to me. Everyone bends the rules, Mira.
10
On the morning of the swearing-in ceremony and my name day, I wake up to a breakfast of deviled eggs, mushroom-and-cabbage pierogi, and all the other favorite dishes Mama has made especially for me. Then I suffer through a phone call with Babcia, Tata’s mother, whose tinny voice sounds as though it’s coming from across the galaxy, not from across the ocean. She tells me how much she misses me and complains about how I never call her and weeps when she declares that she won’t get to see me again before she dies. I dutifully tell her about how well school is going before Mama finally rescues me by taking the phone.
After breakfast, my parents give me my name day presents: colorful pens and crisp new notebooks and a collection of poetry that Mama had one of her friends from back home mail over. Then we put on our nicest clothes and get ready to drive into the city for the biggest present of all.
Mama fastens on her favorite necklace that she saves for special occasions. The beads are made of polished amber, the nonmagical kind that looks like pieces of rust-colored rock. Then she tells me to hold out my arm, and she fastens the matching amber bracelet around my wrist.
I suck in a breath as the beads sparkle up at me. It’s the first time my parents have let me wear jewelry.
“Make sure to blow-dry your hair before we go,” Mama reminds me, “or you’ll catch pneumonia.” But her voice is gentle and she’s smiling.
When we arrive in the city, instead of circling around to find a parking spot on the street, we actually pay to park in a garage. Then we cram into an elevator with other nicely dressed people.
“Leave that,” Mama says, brushing my fingers away from the collar of the new dress she bought me for the occasion. The fabric is so itchy that I can imagine my skin getting redder and redder underneath.
Mama looks as poised as ever in one of her work outfits, and even Tata seems relaxed in a suit, though I think it’s been years since he put on anything so formal. How are my parents both so calm when our lives are about to completely change?
We wind through a maze of gray hallways, following signs for the room number listed on our paperwork. I imagined that the ceremony would take place in a palace, full of velvet seats and marble statues. Instead it’s in a big conference room with the same dull carpet and off-white ceiling tiles as in the rest of the building. Some chairs have been set up in rows; there are fewer people being sworn in than there are kids in Miss Patel’s class.
We line up to check in at a desk by the door. I cringe when it’s time for the official-looking man to read our names off his list. He’s stumbled over so many others in front of us. But I’m surprised when the consonants roll off his tongue with ease. I glance at his badge and see that his name is long and hard to pronounce, like mine. For some reason, that makes me less nervous. Maybe he was in my place once. Maybe his hands shook and his stomach gurgled and his toes tingled in his new shoes.
Soon the man from behind the desk stands up and, in a droning voice, asks everyone to take their seats. Then he reads from a piece of paper in his hand, about the solemn and important privilege that will soon be bestowed upon us. He asks us to rise.
I get to my feet with the others, and I hold up my hand and repeat after the man. Strongly accented words echo around me. There aren’t many of us, but at that moment we fill the room with our voices.
“To uphold the laws of the land. To defend its people and its resources and gifts.” Our voices hush on “gifts.”
When the ceremony is finished, the man smiles and officially congratulates us. Tata puts his arm around my shoulder as Mama wipes her eyes.
The man starts passing out certificates that say we are citizens of Amberland. Some people around us simply fold up their certificates and slip them into their pockets, while others hold them proudly as though they’re made of gold. I feel the sweat from my fingers soaking into my certificate, so I hand it to Mama and ask her to hold on to it for me.
I secretly hope the magic will flood through me, trickle in from the half-dozen flags around the room and maybe even from the stained carpet under my feet. But of course, it doesn’t.
I’m almost disappointed, until I notice the official man standing by the door and handing out small bottles to the people filing out. Amber rations.
“Please pay attention to the weight and age guidelines on the label,” he tells us. “Overdosing can be dangerous to your health. Make sure to grab an informational pamphlet on your way out.”
“How do we get more?” a woman behind us asks in a thick accent I don’t recognize.
“Every family is allowed a gallon of Amber per month for miscellaneous use, but you’ll have to apply for that at your local town hall,” the man says. “If you do it today, you should be able to pick up the additional rations within three to five business days.”
“We have to wait a week?” the woman cries. “I thought we would have as much as we wanted right away.”
The man gives her a What can you do? shrug. Then he continues handing out the bottles.
“I suppose we should stop at the town hall on the way home,” Mama says, tucking her bottle into her purse along with an Amber Basics pamphlet. She laughs. “It’s so strange that I’ve been working with Amber for years now and have never actually tried it.”
“Do you think it tastes funny?” I ask, shaking my bottle. Now that I’m studying it up close, it almost looks like honey.
Mama smiles. “I bet it will taste a lot better if we take it with some pizza.”
“Really?” I ask.
Mama glances at Tata, who only grunts his agreement. “It is almost lunchtime,” she says.
Suddenly I’m buzzing with excitement again. If we’re celebrating with junk food, then things really must be different now.
* * *
At lunch, Mama and I clink cans of soda. I take a sip even though I’ve never liked the overly sweet taste, but it feels like the perfect thing for us to be drinking right now. Across the table, Tata doesn’t touch his water.
“Ready?” Mama asks, measuring a dose out into the little cup that came with her bottle. Then she pours a slightly smaller dose into my cup.
“Are we going to do two doses today?” I ask. According to Krysta, that’s how much the kids at school all take.
“We can start with one a day and see how we feel.” Mama glances at Tata. “Are you not taking yours?” His bottle is still in his pocket.
“Maybe tomorrow,” he says.
“But this is what we’ve been waiting for!” I say. “It’s the whole reason we came here!”
Tata’s face doesn’t change. “I came to this country for you,” he says softly. “Not to have magic for myself.”
Mama clears her throat. “There is nothing wrong with using Amber. They’ve done plenty of studies that say it’s perfectly safe in moderate doses. Even if you accidentally take too much, it usually works itself out of your system pretty quickly.”
“What happens if you take too much?” I ask.
“I’m sure you’ll learn about it at school,” Mama says, “but too much Amber overstimulates your body so that you feel jittery and nervous. In extreme cases people
experience shortness of breath, seizures, or heart problems.”
Tata scowls at the table.
“It’s perfectly safe,” Mama says again, patting Tata’s hand. “In appropriate doses, the benefits far outweigh the risks.” She turns to me. “Ready?”
Of course I’m ready. I grab my cup and bring it to my lips. Then I swallow the liquid in one gulp and wash it down with a sip of soda, barely noticing the sickening sweetness of the soda this time. I know that Amber is supposed to be tasteless, but as it travels down my throat, I imagine it tasting like sunlight and honey and possibility.
11
The next morning, I can’t quite look Krysta in the eye as I remember the conversation I overheard at her house the other night. Who were those people her dad was arguing with? Why does thinking about them make my stomach churn?
“So? Do you feel different?” Krysta asks as we walk our bikes toward the sidewalk.
“About what?” Can she tell what’s on my mind?
She laughs. “Duh! The Amber! You started taking it, right?”
Oh. “I haven’t noticed anything yet. My mom said it might take a while to start working.” But today Mama said I could take two doses like the other kids in my class. I can’t wait.
The day creeps by, and after what feels like an eternal gym class, instead of heading to the library, I finally join the rest of the kids for our magic lesson. As I walk to my seat, my breath comes out in short gasps like an excited puppy’s. Waiting for me at my desk is a thick, gleaming textbook. The Uses of Amber. I run my fingers over the smooth spine, almost afraid to open the book.
“All right, class,” Miss Patel says, flashing me a small smile. “Today we will be talking about Amber in medicine. Please turn to chapter eighteen and look for the section titled ‘Medical Applications.’ ”
The other kids absently flip through their worn textbooks as if they’re in any other lesson. I carefully open the cover of mine, the pages crackling with newness. Slowly I browse through the chapters until I find the right spot.
The Wonder of Wildflowers Page 4
