The Trouble Begins (12 page)

Here, Cat. Your dinner's mostly soy milk and rice but there's a little piece of chicken I saved too. Eat it up. You can watch me while I paint these signs. I had to borrow one of Thuy's black smelly markers to make good big signs. “Neatness makes people want to read what you have to say,” says Mrs. Dorfman. I'm not usually neat but I will be now. See. You're a fat cat lately, Cat. Maybe I better bring you a diet soda like Americans drink.

I wish that old man would go someplace. I can't put up the signs unless he's gone. He doesn't have any friends to visit or to eat his oranges because he's so mean. I saw those pictures of his son and his wife. Maybe his wife is dead. He's old. But his son doesn't visit him either.

Finally that old man is leaving. He's walking to the bus stop with those skinny white legs sticking out of those shorts. Now for his orange tree. I'll put up those signs and he'll get a big surprise when he gets back. I have to be quick and do it when no one is looking. He'll never know it was me. Lots of people like the look of those oranges. Maybe I wish he did know it was me. He has to know he can't spy and wreck my shirt and smell up my shoes and take away my bike and get away with it. He never knew I messed up his lawn mower. At least, he never told my dad. I don't want to
do anything to the stuff in his shed now. Cat sleeps there and I don't want him to find her. He might hurt her. And I like to make stuff with that building set in the trunk. I don't want him to figure that out and lock it up. This'll be good enough if it works. It has to work. I'll just put this one sign up fast on his fence right in front of the tree. Now run down the street and put the other one at the busy corner. He'll see it when he comes home but it'll be too late.

It's fun waiting for the bus in front of my sign. FREEORANGE in big black letters with an arrow. It looks great. Lots of people saw it. Some of them are still down there picking oranges. I didn't pick any so it's not my fault if they're all gone. Here comes the Number 10. That's the one he took.

He's creaking down the bus stairs. He sees the sign but he doesn't get it. He's got grocery bags to carry. He's getting closer. He can see his orange tree if he looks up. There! He sees it. He's starting to run but it's a pretty slow little run. That Mexican lady's getting in her car with a box of oranges.
“Gracias,”
she calls. He drops his groceries down to go faster.

He's at his fence but it's too late. All but the very top oranges are gone. He doesn't even tear up the sign. He just creaks up the stairs into his house like he's sad and he doesn't even see that guy in the tree that waves at him. Now we're even. I paid him back for what he did to me. I'm laughing. Kind of. I wonder what my grandma would say if she knew.

I got a bike now like all the other guys in my class but I can't ride it. I wonder what would happen if I rode it just once to show them. Even this morning no one would see me. My grandma's asleep and everybody else is gone. I could go down the alley and hide it again after school. Later I'll tell my dad how I didn't really borrow it, I
found
it in the alley because someone threw it away and I fixed it up.

I hate school. I ride my bike to school for the first time and the principal is out at the bike rack. He hurries over when he sees me. “You have to lock your bike up to leave it here, Du,” he tells me.

“Not that thing,” says Anthony, behind the principal's back. “Who'd want it?” I look mean at Anthony so he knows I won't forget he said that.

“You have to take it home unless you lock it.” The principal says it again louder. A teacher hurries over to talk to him.

“The seat looks like a piece of doo-doo, Du Du,” whispers Jorge. “The tires are flat. Did it cost a dime or a nickel?” I want to make Jorge shut up but I don't know what to do with my bike. I feel dumb just standing there.

“You can lock it up with mine.” It's Todd, who sits in the front of the room so I don't talk to him much. He puts his chain through both our bikes. I walk off to class with him and leave the principal and Anthony and Jorge behind.

I stop to visit my bike on my way to the dumbest reading group in Room 10. It looks cool lined up in the bike rack with all the others and it's mine. I don't care if I'm late to Room 10 because we're reading the story about a skinny girl in a covered wagon for the third time. Some kids in the group still can't read it. We have to answer when the teacher shows us the cards with the hard words on them. They're so easy I won't answer. I have to sit there while
Jennifer reads out loud. It takes her fifteen minutes to read a page. I think about my bike. I think I'll look for a board so I can make a ramp to jump off.

I visit my bike again on the way back to Mrs. Dorfman's. Everybody's talking at once when I get back to class but I can't figure out what's happening. Mrs. Dorfman doesn't even mind when everybody blurts. She never likes it when I blurt, which is one of the reasons I don't say anything anymore. I feel dumb raising my hand like the kids in front.

We all go to recess. Anthony and Jorge get me out in four square by teaming up. Anthony hits it real soft and high to Jorge and Jorge slams it out of reach in the corner of my square. I go mess around at the gym bars. I stroll in slowly when the bell rings.

Veronica's got her hand raised, waving it around like she's trying to chase flies. “Boys and girls, please get out your math papers from yesterday,” Mrs. Dorfman says. She won't look at Veronica. Veronica won't put her hand down. Mrs. Dorfman finally says, “Veronica,” in a tired voice. Everyone knows she's going to complain about something from recess.

“Du stole my brother's bike,” she says. “I saw it locked up in the bike rack and Christie said it's Du's. He rode it to school. He stole it from my brother a month ago.”

“I did not!” I blurt.

“If there's stolen property, it's a matter for the police,” announces Mrs. Dorfman. “I am not paid enough to be judge
and jury for everything that goes on around here. Veronica, after math you may go and discuss this with Mr. Martin.” We correct our math papers. Mine doesn't need correcting but I see that Veronica's does. A lot. When she gets up to sharpen her pencil my foot is out in the aisle. She's so clumsy she trips right over it. No one would care except she hits her big mouth on the corner of Tiffany's desk and her lip starts to bleed. It's just a little bit of blood. Nobody at this school cares what anyone says to you or what they do to you but if there's even a little bit of blood the teacher acts like you murdered somebody.

“He tripped me,” cries Veronica, struggling to her feet.

“I did not,” I blurt. “She tripped herself.”

“He stuck his foot out. I saw it,” calls out Rosaria. She's Veronica's friend.

Mrs. Dorfman is angrily scribbling on a yellow slip for the Counseling Center. Good, I think. I won't have to sit here for boring math.

The Counseling Center is the same as always. I look at magazines. Ms. Whipple talks to me about kindness to others. I nod and say, “Uh-huh.” The phone rings. Suddenly it's different. The principal wants to see me this time. I sit on a hard chair outside his office. I watch the secretary work the computer for an hour. She never looks at me. The principal calls me into his office.

“What do your parents think of this type of behavior, Du?” he says. I shrug. “That's what I thought.” I make myself look at his face like Vuong said I should. His eyebrows go right across his nose. “Report back here after school,” he
commands, pointing to the door. He tips his head back and both eyebrows raise up. I go so I don't have to look anymore.

I sit at the table in his office. I hear everybody laughing and messing around outside as they go home. His table has piles of papers on it and a bowl like a frog with paperwrapped candy and crumbs in it. He doesn't offer me any. I don't want it anyway. I copy the school rules over and over on cheap paper that tears if I erase. But I don't have to erase. It's not hard. I can do it without even thinking. Sometimes instead of “I will respect the rights and property of others” I write “I will respect the fights and potato chips of others.” Nobody's going to read them. I don't know how long I'm supposed to do it but I never look up and I never ask.

It's like sewing. I don't think about anything anymore. I just do it. One page, both sides. Two pages. Three. Four. The principal shuts off his computer and stands up. I keep writing. “I hope you have learned your lesson, Du.” He holds out his hand for my stack of papers. I don't want to look at his face but I hand them to him. He tears up all my copying and throws it in the trash. “You may go home,” he says. “Your parents have been notified about the stolen property.” I leave. He called my dad at work again. He told him about my bike. He doesn't know that now my eyes are hot and my insides feel tight. He has won.

Todd's gone but my bike's in the rack. I should ditch it in the alley on the way home. But it's my bike. I fixed it. It goes
pretty fast after I pump up the tires. And I didn't steal it. I found it. I'll just ride it home and tell my dad even if he is mad. He'll know I rode it to school anyway.

I felt angry when Veronica said I stole her brother's bike but now I don't feel angry. I know it's going to turn into a big thing. I want to just keep riding my bike straight down the street to wherever the street ends. Someplace out where there are just trees and grass. Except my front tire's getting flat.