The Trouble Begins (16 page)

We're on our way back to class. I catch up to Mrs. Dorfman at the front of the line. “I don't want to be in the dragon,” I tell her. I tell her loud so she knows I mean it.

“If that's your choice, Du,” she answers, with her lips tight together after she speaks. I don't want to walk up front with her. I wait for the end of the line. Blubbery Veronica passes by me. Rosaria's got her arm around her. Veronica's holding two parts of her dumb little pink bear with the stuffing coming out. I guess that was what Anthony and Jorge were throwing back and forth. She can't tell on them because she's not supposed to bring toys to school.

On the way home I think about Santa Claus. I've heard someone say on television that Santa Claus is real. The teacher said it too. All the kids, even in fifth grade, talk about Santa Claus. They say he doesn't give toys to bad kids. It wasn't so dumb to ask if he was real. They think I'm dumb no matter what I do.

I open the door to our house. Wonderful smells come from the kitchen. I know what it means. My grandma feels good enough to cook. In the kitchen there is a plate piled with round golden buns. I know they are filled with vegetables and pork chopped into tiny bits. Those are the kind we sold in the Philippines if we could get the stuff to make them. People bought them so fast. I reach out my hand. “Not that one,” my grandma says, coming into the kitchen.
She hands me a bun that is not as round or golden. It tastes just as good. She is putting on her hat like she is going off to work in the sun. She covers the plate that has the perfect buns with a paper towel. “Come, Du,” she says. Where are we going with a plate of buns? She never goes out of the yard. I follow her down the front walk and out the gate.

We're going to the old spy man's house! I do not want to go. We paid him back with food already for telling about the bike. We don't have to feed him forever. “No, Grandma, no,” I plead. I grab her sleeve but she shakes my hand off. That old man's going to think we're crazy. He'll just throw the buns away because they're not from Burger King. He'll think he's better than us because we bother him all the time. I stand back with my head down. He comes to the door.

My grandma pushes the plate to him. I glance up. He looks bothered. He doesn't take the plate. “You… call… school.” Grandma talks in her English. “About Du.” I know just what he's going to say and I'm right.

“What?” he says. I know I'm there to help her with English but I can't. I can't ask him for help. I can only look down. I wish this was over.

“You call school about Du,” she repeats slowly. I know she's practiced this at home. It's all she can say. She pushes the plate at him.

“Du what?” he says.

She points at me. “Du,” she repeats. My grandma doesn't know I took apart his lawn mower and gave away his oranges.

“Oh, him.” The old man laughs. I want to run home. Everybody laughs as soon as they hear
Du.
“You want me to tell them at school that he didn't steal the bike?”

My grandma looks at me. “Du,” she says sharply. She wants to know what he says.

“Yeah,” I whisper. “That's what she wants but you don't have to.”

“Certainly, madam,” answers the old man. Who does he think he is, talking like that? I don't even know exactly what he said but I know it means yes. He takes the plate. She bows. I would like to disappear completely. Then the old man bows back. Finally we go home.

My grandma knows me. She knows I hated going over there but she made me go anyway. I throw myself down in front of the TV. “Why, Du?” she says in Vietnamese as she takes off her hat. “He is a nice man.”

“Everybody laughs at me.” I think about Dragon Butt Du Du and the thing about Santa Claus and the dumb reading group and being chosen last for teams.

“Everybody, Du?” she asks softly.

“Yeah, everybody,” I say. She smiles at me. I think, well, anyway Jorge and Anthony, and they make other kids laugh. And Jordan laughed today about Santa Claus. “The teacher thinks I'm a troublemaker,” I add.

“Do you make trouble for her?” asks my grandma. We both know the answer.

The principal comes to our class right when it's time to go out for PE. We wiggle around in our seats because we don't want to use up our PE time listening to him. “I have something very important to tell you,” he says. He waits for a long time until we all sit still and look at him. “I have something to warn you about,” he says. We settle back. This is going to take a while. I look out the window. PE isn't much fun but it's better than this. “Someone in your class has made a very serious accusation against another person in your class. A criminal accusation.”

Big words. Everybody knows who he means. Everybody looks sideways at me and Veronica, except the principal. Why doesn't he just say who it is? I get ready for more trouble. I stare straight ahead now.

“I have just found out from a very reliable source that this accusation is totally false. The person accused is entirely innocent.” He stops for a long time and everyone is quiet but eyeballs are moving. “From now on,” he continues, “I would like everyone to think very carefully before they take chances with the reputation of a fellow classmate. Defamation of character, which means telling bad, untrue things about people, such as accusing them of stealing, is a very serious charge.” He pauses with his finger tapping the air. He looks straight at Veronica. “I hope I'm understood.”

I don't understand all his big words but I know what he means. That old man must have come to school and told him about the bike. I bet he feels stupid making me write all those lines and calling my dad.

“I want you all to remember the Golden Rule of life and
of our school,” he adds as he finally heads for the door. “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”

I hear Anthony snicker, “Do, do, Du Du.” He's so stupid he can't think of any other joke.

At PE I feel pretty good because we play dodgeball. Nobody can ever get me out even when they team up and try to peg me. I'm too fast. I think about what the principal said and look at Veronica. Funny. Now she's in trouble because of me after all those times the other way. She looks like she's going to cry because everyone knows the principal was talking to her. She thinks she's Miss Goody-goody. When the ball rolls her way she just hands it to Rosaria. She's easy to get out anyway because she's so slow. The principal was blaming her in front of the whole class. She's not used to being in trouble. I wonder what it's like living in her house with all those big tough brothers.

Cat is going to like this. I got her two shrimps and a fish head. I wiped the sauce off the shrimps. She doesn't like hot sauce. I wonder where she is. She's usually back here or in the alley waiting for me. I hope that old man didn't see her and throw something at her. He thinks she has rabies.

I better look in the shed even though she doesn't usually go there in the day. She gets in through that cracked board in the back where there's a little hole. I'm surprised she can still squeeze in now that she's so fat. The board over the little window is starting to split from me dropping it all the time. I'll find a new one on Saturday.

There you are, Cat. Lying in here in the dark. Can I pet you today?

What are those? You've got kittens!

How little they are. With their faces all squished up and their eyes closed. Five I see. Two yellow, three gray like you. Your tail is twitching. You don't like me to touch them. Here, I'll watch them while you eat these shrimps. That old man just mowed his lawn. He won't mow it again for two weeks because it's winter. I'll help you hide them when he comes for the mower. We don't want him to find them. Now I've got six pets. I'll have to find a way to get more food.

Lin is nicer to me now because I helped her with her little plants. She still orders me around but she doesn't sound so bossy. I never do what she says anyway. When I come in from feeding Cat she's so nice that I start to wonder if she wants something. She does.

“Du, can you find me some dead bees?” she asks. This is funny. Why does Lin want dead bees? She doesn't even know it's funny.

“Sure,” I say but I don't ask why because I can see she's so excited that she's going to tell me anyway.

“I tried to get some but I was afraid I'd get stung and I squished them with the flyswatter so they're no good and now I need them by tomorrow,” she says.

This time I can't stop myself. She's got me interested. “Why?” I ask.

“I need to make bee sticks,” she explains. “I glue the dead bee on a toothpick and rub it across the flowers, and then pollinate the glabrous ones and the hairy ones just with plants that are like them. I have to keep them apart now that they have flowers, and there are only two days when it will work. Dead dry bees are best.” She shows me her little plants with their new flowers.

“I'll be right back,” I say. I know where there's an empty building where I let my little skunk go and I know it has a bee nest because I've see the bees going in and out under the roof.

Here's a dead bee just where I thought there'd be some. I have to crawl around the side of the alley to spot others in the weeds and glass and trash.

I jump up like a cricket when a car honks right next to my head. It's my dad coming home down the alley in his car. “Get in,” he orders, leaning over to the window. I only have about five bees but I'd get in even if I didn't have any. “Why are you crawling around in the alley like a bum? You should be doing your homework like the others. Are you going to live in the alley picking up trash for a living?”

I know he's had another bad day with Mr. Vronsky and I know he doesn't want an answer to his questions so I keep quiet.

When we go in our house, he just says, “You go wash,” with his nose wrinkled up like I smell from the alley. I drop the paper towel with five dead bees in it on Lin's book when I walk by on my way to the bathroom. I'm angry because my dad finds something bad about everything I do and I'm sad
too because I know he's disappointed in me. Now he doesn't even talk to me much like he does to the others. I don't know what to say to him either.

When I wash up and go in the kitchen I hear him yell at me again. “Du, you come here.” I slouch into the dining room to hear what I've done wrong now. “Lin told me how you helped her with her science project. She said you found some… hairy plants or something when nobody else knew what the teacher wanted. She said you were helping her more just now in the alley. Why don't you say so?” He laughs and points at the paper towel. “Dead bees,” he adds, shaking his head. I can't tell him that I'm afraid to talk to him when he's angry because I don't know for sure why he's angry. I don't even want to say to him that he looks angry. Lin has told him everything, though, about the plants and he's happy now. She told him no one else found mutants, just us, and that makes him happiest of all, to be better than everybody. “See, you're doing the best work for high school. How come you don't do good work for your school?” There it is again. I'm good right now but still there's something that should be better. I shrug and go watch TV.

School is always boring but today it's so boring I think I'm going to die. “I have some very discouraging news,” announces Mrs. Dorfman in the morning. “We have fallen three units behind in social studies.” She stops to let us think how terrible this is. I don't think it's terrible because I don't ever listen to social studies. The book doesn't even have good pictures. “We can't let this happen!” She stops again. Kids in the back are rolling their eyes and dragging out their books. “Today will be Social Studies Day!” There are groans. One of the groans is from me.