Half and Half (6 page)

“What's this?” asked Grandpa.

The thing he held up was limp, transparent, and slippery. It didn't have any flavor of its own, and you could taste only the gravy. I had eaten it before, and if I hadn't known what it was, I would have enjoyed it a lot more. I hoped very hard that Dad wouldn't tell Grandpa the truth.

But of course Dad didn't hesitate. “It's jellyfish.”

“I brought it over today from San Francisco,” Nainai said with a pleased smile. “You soak it until it's soft, and then braise it in soy sauce, wine, and ginger. Good, isn't it?”

Grandpa gulped and put his hand over his mouth. But he was game, and took another bite. This time he even managed to swallow.

Grandma couldn't quite control her shudder when Grandpa passed the dish of jellyfish to her. “I'll have trouble picking it up with my fork,” she said, and passed it on. It was a weak excuse, and we all knew it.

Nainai looked down at her plate and didn't say anything. I felt I had to do something. I helped myself to a huge serving of the jellyfish.

“I bet some of the things we eat must seem really gross to people in other countries,” I said. “Hey, we should have a contest! Let's go around the table, and each person has to think of the grossest thing that gets eaten by people.”

There was a silence as we all thought furiously. Ron raised his hand first. “The French eat snails, slathered with butter and garlic.”

“Not bad, Ron,” said Dad. “Snails are gross enough, but snails with butter and garlic get even more points.”

Mom was next. “Let's see … Australian aborigines eat larvae. It's an important source of protein out in the bush.” She had gone to a conference in Sydney, Australia, last year.

“What's larvae?” I asked.

“They're worms,” said Ron, grinning.

I remembered that when I had baby shrimp in a salad for the first time, they looked a lot like worms, and I refused to eat them. Dad didn't try to force me, but another
time he served prawns, which were just bigger shrimp. I was okay with them, and after that he served smaller and smaller prawns until I got used to the idea of eating the tiny, wormlike baby shrimp. But I had to admit that real worms were a different story.

Ron seemed to be enjoying my discomfort. “Insects go through a larva stage before they go into cocoons and become fully adult.” He turned to Mom. “Your larvae beat my snails.”

“We eat fried grasshoppers in China,” said Dad. “Those are adult insects. They're nice and crunchy, and they taste good with a dash of soy sauce.”

We couldn't decide whether larvae got more points than adult insects, like grasshoppers. In the end we voted for larvae as being more gross.

“Back in Scotland, I always began my day with blood sausages,” contributed Grandpa.

“Yech!” I cried. “What are blood sausages?” “They're sausages made with pig's blood,” said Grandma. “Very nourishing they are, too, especially for children who are sickly.”

“I don't think you deserve lots of points, Mother,” Mom
told Grandma. “Blood sausages sound bad, but they don't actually look bloody.”

It was my turn, and I thought hard. I finally came up with something my friend Amanda had told me. “In Japan they eat something called natto. That's rotted soybeans. They're kind of slimy, with strings that are like snot from your nose. If you put some natto in your mouth, the sticky strings flop all over your chin.”

I looked around at the disgust on everybody's face and thought I had won the contest for sure.

But Grandpa wasn't giving up. “Nothing can beat haggis!”

I knew about haggis, and I had to admit that Grandpa had a winner there.

“Oh, come on,” said Mom. “When did we last have haggis—really?”

“I made it for Robert Burns Day only last year,” Grandma said proudly.

“What is haggis?” asked Nainai.

“You take a sheep's stomach and fill it with a mixture of sheep innards, oatmeal, suet, and spices,” said Grandma.
“Then you cook it for a few hours until everything is soft and mushy. You eat it with a wee dram of whisky, and there's nothing like it!”

“There's nothing like it, even without the wee dram of whisky,” muttered Mom. I got the feeling that she wasn't quite as crazy about haggis as Grandpa and Grandma.

“Looks like haggis is the winner,” said Dad.

But Ron wasn't giving up. “Hey, how about lutefisk?”

Lutefisk is a Norwegian dish, and it's made with salted cod. There are lots of Norwegians in Seattle, so we locals know all about it. Dad had to explain what it was to Grandpa, Grandma, and Nainai, who were from out of town. “You soak salted cod in lye for a long time, until it's nice and soft. So it has a strong taste of baking soda.”

Mom grinned and added, “In texture, lutefisk is very much like a garden slug.”

We decided to give the most points to lutefisk, although haggis came close. Nainai didn't look uncomfortable anymore, and Grandma made another try at eating the jellyfish.

After swallowing, Grandma took a moment to recover
before turning to Nainai. “I hope you're going to the Folk Fest with us this weekend?”

Nainai nodded. “I'm going to the children's literature session. You've heard that my son will be talking?”

“Indeed, yes!” said Grandpa.

“Fiona's father and I are going to give her a very nice surprise,” said Nainai. Her eyes were bright as she looked at me.

Knowing about Nainai's “nice” surprises in the past, I wondered a little nervously what it would turn out to be this time.

Once, Nainai brought me a pair of Chinese cloth shoes as a nice surprise. They were made of silk, and the embroidery was so beautiful that it was a shame to walk in them. It turned out that I couldn't walk in them anyway, because the shoes were an inch shorter than my feet.

Nainai had shaken her head and said a few quiet words to Dad. I learned afterward that she thought my feet were enormous. Having small feet was a sign of class, and in the old days, women in China had their feet tightly bound with bandages to prevent them from growing normally. I did
inherit some things from my mom, including bigger bones than most Chinese.

“Fiona is going to be a busy girl at the festival,” said Grandma MacMurray. “She'll be in our junior troupe for the Scottish dance performances, too.”

Nainai didn't know what Scottish dancing was like. “Does it involve bagpipes?” she asked. “They're very loud, and my ears hurt when I listen to them.”

I admit that the pipes were something you had to get used to. But they do grow on you.

“The music isn't always from bagpipes,” Mom said. “For Scottish dancing, you can have flutes, drums, fiddles, and all sorts of other instruments, too. Our troupe will just have my father's fiddle to provide the music.”

“I hope you didn't mind having all those dancers here for the rehearsal last night,” Grandma said to Dad. “Did the noise bother you while you were working?”

Dad smiled. “I started writing when Ron was two and Fiona only one. They made a lot more noise than all your dancers. When Fiona was hungry for her bottle, she was a match for any bagpipe.”

“Too bad Ron isn't taking part in the festival,” muttered Grandpa. He was still disappointed that Ron hadn't even tried on his kilt yet.

“You forget, Grandpa,” said Ron. “I am taking part. I'll be in the kung fu competition.”

Nainai smiled warmly at Ron. “I'm so glad you're interested in kung fu. Size doesn't matter there. Sometimes a small person can defeat someone much bigger.”

She probably meant that as a compliment, but it was exactly the wrong thing to say to Ron. He turned a dull red and looked down at his plate.

Grandpa quickly jumped in. “What do you do at your kung fu exhibition, Ron?”

Ron looked up. “We start with an exhibition of punches, kicks, flips, and cartwheels. Then we pair off two at a time and have bouts.”

“Are your bouts like the fights we saw in that martial arts film you took us to last year?” asked Grandpa.

“Don't I wish they were!” said Ron.

Grandpa frowned. “For my part, I'm glad they aren't. I was shocked at how violent things became!”

“Didn't you enjoy the fun, Grandpa?” I asked. I had
been sitting next to him during the movie, and now I remembered that he hadn't laughed at all.

Grandpa stared at me. “Do you mean to say that the film was supposed to be funny?”

We had gone to one of the Hong Kong action movies, which often include a lot of slapstick. “You mean you thought the movie was serious?” asked Ron, and he began to sputter.

We all broke out laughing, and Grandpa laughed the loudest of all. He had to make up for not having laughed during the movie. “I did think some of the scenes were funny,” he admitted. “But I didn't want you to think that I found the Chinese men ridiculous.”

Dad smiled. “Some of the Chinese men in that movie were ridiculous.”

Grandpa's face became serious. “I hope you don't use those terrible weapons we saw in the film, Ron, like the two sticks connected with a chain. Somebody can get killed with one of those. In fact somebody was killed in the film.”

“We don't use weapons at all in our bouts,” Ron said. “We go empty-handed.”

“There was plenty of swordplay during the Highland Games we went to,” I reminded Grandpa. “Those bouts looked lethal!”

“When are your bouts?” Nainai asked Ron.

“Our school is performing from ten to twelve on Saturday morning,” said Ron. “I come on around eleven.”

“That's good,” said Nainai. “There's no conflict. Your father's literature session is at four o'clock on Sunday.”

I heard a gasp from Grandpa. “The Scottish dancing exhibition is also scheduled for four o'clock on Sunday afternoon!” he said.

There was complete silence around the dinner table. Dad finally cleared his throat. “I know how much Fiona wants to take part in the dancing. She doesn't have to go to my talk. She's heard me lots of times.”

Nainai looked heartbroken. “But your surprise …”

“Never mind,” said Dad. “There will be other occasions.”

“No!” said Nainai, and I realized that she might look like a frail old woman, but she was a very determined one. “This is a very special occasion.”

She turned to me. “Fiona, your father's new book
features a brave young girl who helps the dragon overcome his enemies. Your father had you in mind as a model for the girl. At his talk, he was going to have you go up on the stage to take a bow.”

I was overwhelmed. Until right then, I had never really known how my parents thought about me. I knew when they were happy—when I got good grades in school and Dad gave me his slow smile, or Mom gave me a warm hug. I knew when they were mad at me—when Dad went very quiet and wouldn't look at me, or when Mom's eyes narrowed and her lips tightened. But I had never wondered what kind of person they thought I was. Did Dad really think I was like the brave heroine of his book?

Nainai continued, “You're supposed to wear a costume that's the same as the one your father drew for the book, Fiona. I even made the outfit and brought it with me.”

“You can't let your pa down, Fiona,” Grandma said to me. “We'll try to find another dancer somewhere.”

I could see she was very disappointed, although she tried to smile.

Grandpa turned to Ron with a question in his eyes. But Ron looked away and wouldn't meet his gaze. Grandpa
sighed. “If Fiona doesn't dance, we'll just have to find another dancer somehow and start from scratch.”

There didn't seem to be any way out of this mess. Whatever I chose to do, someone was going to be unhappy.

F
riday morning I rushed off to school before Grandpa, Grandma, and Nainai could get a chance to talk to me. I still hadn't decided what I should do.

I told Amanda about my problem as we were walking to the school bus. “Gee, it'd be too bad if you didn't join the dancers,” she said. “You would have dyed your hair for nothing!”

I didn't need this reminder that I still had to face the
other kids in school when I arrived with my orange Jell-O hair. I was wearing a hat on the bus that morning, but that would have to come off when we entered the school.

Sure enough, there were giggles when I took my hat off by my locker. And a girl who sits behind me in home-room asked, “What happens if you get hot? Is your hair going to melt?” But it actually wasn't quite as bad as my first day in school, when that nasty Fee-Fi Boy and his friends made fun of my name. Actually, it turned out that I wasn't the only one with dyed hair. At our lunch table, one of the other girls had bleached her curly black hair to a light brown, and there was also Harry Kim with his pale blond hair.

As I looked at Harry, I noticed that the dark roots were just beginning to show near his scalp. Pretty soon I'd have the same trouble with my own roots. In fact I was having trouble with my roots in more ways than one.

Still, I was glad when we got off the subject of hair and started discussing the Folk Fest. “You know, I like the juggling and the comedy acts outside on the lawns,” said Harry. “Some of those are more fun than the organized programs indoors.”

“I never miss the Celtic storytellers,” said Amanda. “There's one woman who accompanies herself on a harp. I hope she's coming again this year.”