The Trouble Begins (5 page)

I'm early to school. Walking here I think of my grandma's story about the snake. There was a snake that kept trying to eat a turtle but it couldn't because of the turtle's hard shell. The snake thought it would be good if he had a hard shell too. He asked the turtle how he got his shell and the turtle said he got it by hitting himself over the head with a magic stick. The snake asked the turtle to hit him over the head with the stick because he, the snake, had no
arms and couldn't do it himself. The turtle agreed. That's the end of the snake. The story's supposed to keep kids from being dumb and greedy like the snake but also to teach kids to be smart and tricky like the turtle. I'm a dragon but I like the tricky turtle too. I will be trickier than that old man.

I wait by the fence until the class lines up. I tag along at the end of the line so no one will hear the squishes or smell the smells. I washed but my arms and hands still have black stuff on them. I sit at my desk at the back hardly moving but it doesn't work. Anthony smells the fish smell.

“Hey, Du Du,” he whispers. The others around me laugh. I know what
Du Du
is in American because I heard it before and asked Thuy. It sounds the same as dog doodoo. “Hey, Du Du, your shoes are full of doo-doo,” whispers Anthony again.

I jump up and crack him over the head with my notebook. “Shut up!” I yell. Suddenly everything is very quiet. Mrs. Dorfman looks at me through the top of her glasses. Her frizzy yellow hair makes her head look big. She stares at me so long that kids start to whisper. Some are laughing. I look down at my desk top. Mrs. Dorfman doesn't say anything. She gets out the pad of yellow slips. She writes so loud I can hear the writing. She tears the top sheet off. She waves it at me.
Squish, squish, squish.
I walk up the aisle. My smell goes all across the class. Everybody's whispering or giggling now. I take the yellow slip.

“Class, turn to page one hundred twenty-five,” she says. Now she doesn't look at me at all. I go out the door. I take my time walking to the Counseling Center. I've been there
four or five times already. The lady who runs it is Ms. Whipple. I remember because the first time I went Jorge told me she's called Ms. Whipple because she whips you. I was scared. Now I know she doesn't even yell at you. She just talks sadly about whatever you did. I don't look at her face but I know she's leaning forward trying to see inside me. I don't want her to. I look at her hands with bright pink nails twirling a pencil. Ms. Whipple points at a corner near the magazines when I come in. All the little cubicles are full. I like it better here than in class. It's more interesting. Big kids and little kids come in, angry or crying. I look at old magazines.

That night at home I run to answer the phone. I tell Ms. Whipple that my parents aren't home. True, but my grandma is. My grandma only knows about twenty words of English. I give her the phone. She says, “Yes, yes,” every once in a while. Then she says, “Good-bye.” This is easy. I'm glad my nosy sisters and brother are too busy reading their big fat books to ask what's going on.

My grandma looks at me. “Tell me, Du,” she says in Vietnamese. I tell her about hitting someone at school. She's not satisfied. “Why?” she asks. I say he called me a name. “What?” she asks. I'm ashamed to tell her but she holds my sleeve and looks at me. I tell her how they change my name in English and what it means. I tell her they say I am dumb because I can't read. “Your name is Du,” she says softly, “and
you are smart.” She keeps hold of my sleeve. She goes to the kitchen and keeps me with her. I help her chop vegetables.

I don't tell my grandma about the old man and how he ruined my shirt and my shoes with his tricks. She will say, “You were the monkey and you weren't careful about the snake. You took his berries. Now you're even.” But I don't think we're even. He called the police. My shirt's in the bottom of the garbage and my shoes still smell. And he's still a spy. Now what should I do to that old man to make it really even?

I look at the clock on the wall. Thirty-five minutes till lunch. Mrs. Dorfman has her deck of cards with our names on them. “Alan.” She calls the name from the card. “What answer did you get for number fifteen, please?”

“Three and five-eighths,” answers Alan.

“Did anyone get a different answer?” she asks. She frowns like he's wrong. He's right because that's the same answer I got. She fools a bunch of kids, though, who wave their hands around. “Rosaria,” she says, and smiles, calling on one of the hands.

“I got fifteen,” says Rosaria. Mrs. Dorfman does the whole problem on the overhead projector. This is going to take forever. I look around in my desk for something to do.

“So Alan was right.” Mrs. Dorfman beams. “Now the answer for number sixteen, please, Du.”

My paper's lost in a magazine I found in my desk. Everybody's waiting. I look sideways at Jorge's paper. “Four and three-tenths,” I say.

“Speak up, Du,” says Mrs. Dorfman. Then everybody laughs because that's what happens whenever she says my name. She wants me to say what I said again, only louder, but it's harder to hear with kids snickering and whispering “doo-doo,” which the teacher also can't hear. Dumb Veronica starts telling Mrs. Dorfman what she thinks I said even though she doesn't know either.

“Shut up,” I say. Then Mrs. Dorfman gets mad because she can hear that.

She sighs. She pulls out another card. “Jennifer, the answer to sixteen, please,” she says. I find my paper. I got the right answer. I look at the clock. Twenty-six minutes until lunch.

I hate school. I'm not going to talk again until I can speak American like my brother and sisters. At least, I'm not going to talk at school.

In the cafeteria the lunch is ugly. It's cheese—stringy like snot—on mushy noodles, and chocolate milk, sickly sweet and not very cold. I eat the apple slices. I raise my hand to be excused to go to the playground. Veronica sits next to me because Mrs. Dorfman makes us walk in line.
Veronica says, “You gotta eat half before you can get up, Du.” She says it loud enough for the lunch aide to hear. The lunch aide shakes her head at me—“No, you can't go yet”— and nods at my food—“Eat that first.” I shrug and sit there.

Veronica's talking to the girl on her other side. I take my chocolate milk and pour it into Veronica's backpack. I stuff my cheesy mushy noodles into the empty milk carton. I raise my hand. The lunch aide nods—“Yes, you can go now”— and smiles happily at my empty tray. As I leave for the playground I hear Veronica shriek.

In the afternoon our class goes out to play softball. Mrs. Dorfman says to choose teams, boy, girl, boy, girl. I get chosen last. After the last girl. In the Philippines I was the one who chose the teams. We didn't play stupid softball there. We played kick-the-ball even though we had to make the ball from maybe an old tire or just trash tied in a bag. When no one was around to stop us we played throw-rocks-ashard-as-you-can. Here Mrs. Dorfman sits on the bench and grades math papers. She looks up. “Don't throw the bat,” she calls. In the field I stand with my hands in my pockets. When I'm up to bat the teacher watches. I sling the bat hard, almost to first base. “You're out, Du,” she calls.

We're getting ready to go home. A boy from the smart kids' class brings a note for Mrs. Dorfman from the office. “Du,” she calls above the noise. “You're to go to the office immediately.”

“Oooh, Du, you're in trouble,” kids whisper. I stroll slowly out of class. I pass Veronica on the playground on my
way to the office. She is hurrying back to class with blurry eyes and a snotty nose. She doesn't look at me.

The principal calls me into his office. I stare at his tie. It has red and green giraffes on it. The principal points his finger at me. “Young man, you have not yet learned to respect other people's property.” I don't say anything. “What shall we do about that?” His finger jabs the air. I'm pretty sure this is about Veronica but sometimes I think I did one thing and they say I did something else. I don't say anything. Why would anyone cry and tell the principal about milk in their backpack? Dump it out is what I would do. Then I'd pour some glue in the other guy's shoe.

The dumb giraffes, and thinking about shoe glue maybe, make me smile. The principal's hand slams down on his desk. “This is not a laughing matter.” His voice is slow and angry. “You will have to pay for the young lady's three library books and her white sweater.” I shrug. I don't have any money. “I will call your father to arrange for reimbursement.” I don't know what that is but my stomach drops. My face stays the same, I hope. “Your rude attitude is only making this worse,” he adds. Rude? I know what that means but I haven't even said anything.

“Look at me, young man,” he commands. I look from the giraffes to his red face for only a second. Then I look at his shiny shoes. “Henceforth, you will eat in the detention corner.” Good, I think, I won't have to sit next to Veronica. I have to get home fast to answer the phone. He waves me out but when I'm leaving he calls after me, “I will telephone
your father at his place of employment.” I'm not sure what he means. Then I'm mad at myself because he sees that I'm not sure and repeats himself. “I'm calling your father at work, young man. I have his number right here.” He waves a white card around. There is no escape. My dad will be called at work and asked to pay.

I walk home slowly. Now I don't want to answer the phone. Not if it's my dad. When school first started he yelled at me about doing my homework but now he just yells at Thuy and Lin and Vuong if they're watching TV, not me. Now when he looks at me he sees my new clothes are messed up already. I know because he orders me to change but the other clothes don't look any better. He doesn't know that's the old man's fault.

Once I asked Vuong why Ba always looks so mad and yells at us for almost nothing. “I think it's because Mr. Vronsky, his boss, yells at him and he hates it so he yells at us,” answered Vuong.

“That's not true,” Lin butted in. “He yells at us so we'll work hard and be the best.”

“Every time you cost him money means more time he has to work for Mr. Vronsky. He wants to have his own business where he's the boss,” added Thuy. “Everyone can see that you don't work. You just mess around all the time. He hates that.”

“I don't mess around,” I said, and laughed at her. I grabbed her big eraser and her box of paper clips and her apple with the bite out of it. I tossed them into the air one at a
time and caught them until all three were going at once. I'm a good juggler.

“See!” Thuy shouted. “See what I mean.”

I inched over to the window, still juggling, so if the old man was watching he could see a real show. I got the eraser and the paper clip box and the apple going really high until the paper clip box popped open and the paper clips flew everywhere. Thuy chased me until I tossed her her apple.

That was funny then but now I know, walking home, that what Lin said about my dad is true. He's angry because he doesn't think I work hard enough. I'm worried that he might be really angry this time. When I get home I think I'll try to fix the railing I broke on the front porch.

At home everything's the same so I forget to worry about my dad being angry. My grandma's sleeping. Thuy and Lin and Vuong are doing homework. I look out the window but the old man isn't spying now. He's probably opening cans of mushy American food to eat. I go outside to look for wood pieces for the railing. I mess around with some metal strips I find. I saw something called a catapult in the social studies book. I bet I could make one if I find some wood. I look in the alley. There's that gray cat I saw on the old man's wall. I wish she'd let me get close enough to pet her. She's even faster than me. She thinks I can't see her sleeping behind the trash cans.

I go out in front. Nothing's happening in any direction. The Mexican man isn't even fixing his truck or his car.
Screech,
go somebody's tires. A car comes fast down the street. It's the same kind as my dad's. It is my dad's. Why's he coming home in the middle of the day? Then I remember. He's coming because of stupid Veronica. I go around in back quick. I go in the back door.