A Glasshouse of Stars Read online

  You point out your bedroom with its pink bed frame and one pink square wall, but there is no pink light from the wardrobe, as it is daytime. Hastily, you hide your rag doll under the pillow and hope he didn’t see it. You show him the alcove you like to sit inside and daydream.

  “Do you want to draw?” you ask him hopefully, but Josh says he has to go home or else his mother will get worried.

  “She worries all the time. She still has nightmares about that one time when we got accidentally separated. She’s better about it now, but…” He trails off, looking forlornly at the apple core sitting on his fork.

  You watch Josh leave and you find yourself feeling a little empty. All the furniture in the front room seems to shrink to half its size, and the house feels empty too.

  You glance up at the cream-colored wall. From deep inside, Big Scary pulses in pink three times quickly, three times slowly, and then three times quickly again, which you recognize as a code she is trying to send but which you can’t quite grasp.

  Back up in your bedroom, tucked inside the alcove that fits you snugly, you take out your colored pencils and start drawing. You make a story about a girl who meets a boy and they become friends. The story ends with them playing on a space rocket, heading toward the stars, because you like happy endings; you want your characters to be happy living inside your books. Stapling the pages together, you feel a happy feeling inside your heart, but at the same time you feel the loneliness more than before. You are certain that if Josh stayed longer, you would have been able to open up. You look at the happy faces in your book.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN Wolfberries

  With as much noise and fuss as possible, your six other Aunties arrive. On a rainy Friday morning they bring with them sweet mung bean cookies, dried ingredients to make herbal soups, and cartoon-printed pajamas for you from the pasar malam back home. They are counterfeit, of course, with HELLO TTKIY printed on them, but they are real pajamas and you love them. Most importantly of all, your Aunties bring a breath of loud, fresh air.

  They want to know if you can speak the New Language yet, have you become a New Citizen, and has your skin changed color accordingly. “You look white,” they say as they compare arms with you. They want to know why it is so cold. When it will stop raining. Where to buy seasonal vegetables, a bigger rice cooker, five pounds of chicken wings and a whole chicken. There are six of them, but they all speak like one beast. Six heads, but only one voice.

  Standing there, grouped together like big and small steps, are your cousins, from seventeen-year-old Biaoge, looking deeply uncomfortable, to little Biaomei, grinning at you with a smile of mystery and mischief.

  Ailing drives First and Second Aunty to the shops in the van she’s rented, and it is not long before the scent of jasmine white rice fills the air, large mixing bowls are heaped with turmeric-dipped chicken wings, and a whole chicken is simmering away with wolfberries and red dates. The latter is for Ma Ma, who First Aunty describes in her expert medical opinion, when she places a hand on your mother’s forehead, as “heaty.” You want to correct First Aunty and tell her it’s just Ma Ma’s bad temper and that it’s her new personality since she became pregnant, but you must respect Aunty, so you say nothing.

  You sneak a look at Ma Ma through the crack in her bedroom door, but instead of being stony and silent, she is sitting on the bed with a slight smile on her face, folding laundry and humming to herself. It is clear that she is happy that everyone is here, even if they are pushy and noisy. The pile of blankets obscures her large tummy, and looking at her profile, she appears young and radiant. At a glance she could be Ailing, a free agent and much maligned, but her own person all the same. You wonder why Ma Ma left her family in the first place.

  Quietly, you inch away and quickly go up the secret spiral staircase to the second floor, where the noise of your aunts, calling to one another from different ends of the house, drowns out the thoughts in your head about the past and the future and brings you back to the present.

  “So this is what life affords you when you’re the only son of the family,” says one Aunty.

  “And therefore the only one to get an education,” says another.

  “Stop speaking ill of the dead—that is such bad luck,” scolds the voice you clearly recognize as belonging to First Aunty. “He paid for all your children’s tuition fees, so shut up.”

  “You’d think he was an emperor, wouldn’t you?” pipes up one remaining voice you think belongs to Sixth Aunty.

  You know the house has many bedrooms, but you didn’t realize it has this many. Big Scary seems to grow to accommodate, even though the offerings are simple. Most of the rooms are furnished with only sheeted mattresses on the floor. Your aunts do not mind; they say they are used to it being like this back home. Your older cousins sit around, swap comics, and pretend to be unfazed. Biaoge silently ponders the obligations of his role as the firstborn boy in the family tree.

  The bathrooms must have multiplied as well. You are glad that Big Scary thought to factor this in. Although your aunts tell Ma Ma that they are ever so grateful, not to fuss, and that everything is fine, you know that it is really only some politeness clause in your cultural contract; if your aunts had to wait to have a shower or to sit on the toilet, you wouldn’t hear the end of it!

  Sitting side by side on a queen-sized mattress in one room, looking around curiously, are the two daughters of Fourth Aunty, Lifen and Lihua. You are not allowed to call them by their real names, of course, but by their titles, Biaojie and Biaomei. One year older and one year younger than you, respectively. They are dressed in identical stiff satin dresses because this was their first plane trip too, so it was a big deal. They both look as though they can’t wait to take them off.

  You stand in the doorway and look at them, and they stare back at you. You haven’t seen them before; they are strangers to you. You were born on your island home and your parents couldn’t afford to go back to the Old Land because they were busy saving all their money for the New Land. You feel shy, but Biaomei pats the space on the mattress next to her. You go and sit down.

  “What is school like here? Is it so much better than the school we have at home?” says Biaomei.

  “I heard if you go to school here, you can grow up to be anything, because it is a land of the free—is that true?” says Biaojie.

  Suddenly, they have so many questions for you that you can’t really answer because all this time you’ve been in survival mode. You’ve been kicking so hard at the deep water you’ve been thrown in, trying to float, that you haven’t thought about swimming, let alone noticed how great the pool is supposed to be.

  All the same, you feel quietly ashamed. You look at Biaojie and Biaomei, with the big personalities they have inherited from their mother and their blue satin dresses, already dirty, that can barely contain their spirited natures. You think that if they were in your shoes, they would thrive, they would not let a popular girl bother them, they would make lots of friends and Miss Cicely would adore them.

  But here you are, the one given the opportunity, and you are introverted, a dreamer, a wallflower. Somehow you will have to rise to the occasion even though you think it is impossible.

  Think of your ancestors—they were farmers since the beginning of time, you hear Ma Ma say inside your head. You turn, and behind you stands the entirety of family that came before you, rooted into the ground. Breaking their backs under a merciless hot sun in an open rice field. You, though, you will be a doctor. You will raise the status of our family name and bring honor in just one generation. Ma Ma is telling you to be grateful and to run as far as you can from the hard life, but all you want to do is turn back and cry with the ghosts over their hopeless fates because yours feels just as wretched.

  “Do you want to play?” asks Biaomei.

  “I am much too old for childish games, but I will for the sake of both of you,” says Biaojie, rolling her eyes.

  Even though your other cousins are much older than
you and they stand around pretending to be bored, the three of you fill the house with laughter and the Old Language, running up and down the stairs, giving Big Scary grief—until you think about Ba Ba and then you are quiet again. You wish Ma Ma would let you stay out of school while everyone is here. But at least you have the weekend, and that is enough in your heart to propel you forward.

  That night Biaojie shares her comic books with you. You laugh at the pictures of a tall, lanky man called Old Master Q and his stumpy friend, Big Potato. The two sisters squish up on the queen mattress to make room, and the three of you lie in a row in the same Hello Ttkiy pajamas. They are made of thin cotton, suited to a warmer climate, so you pile First Uncle’s crochet blankets on top and shiver deliciously under them. You think to yourself that before it even comes to pass, even though the specifics will be forgotten, this will be a memory you will always look back on with fondness.

  “What are we going to do tomorrow?”

  “Yeah, what are we going to do tomorrow? The olds are so boring!”

  Biaojie turns the light off, and for some reason it is easier to talk in the dark. You feel brave enough to say it.

  “I know somewhere that will amaze you both!”

  Your cousins murmur between themselves. They are already unconvinced, already claiming disappointment.

  “It’s magic.”

  Biaojie howls in laughter and her little sister follows along to appear mature, even though you caught her checking the house earlier to make sure there weren’t any monsters with wheels on the ends of their limbs like in the movie she saw on the plane.

  “I’m serious,” you say, feeling for your heart in the dark. Your cousins sense that they should listen.

  “There is a magic house made of glass out back. Inside is a whole orange orchard. The sun and the moon somehow meet inside, even though they never meet in real life. There’s also a pink serpent and a box of seeds that I will let you choose exactly one seed from. To begin with, anyway—you might have another if you visit again. Importantly, you can’t go in unless the black-and-white gatekeeper says so first.”

  You think about mentioning First Uncle, but that might scare them, and also, they might laugh at you for believing in ghosts.

  It is quiet. Then Biaojie calls you a liar. Biaomei is keen to support her sister, so she says it all sounds stupid. For a moment it stings, because it takes you back to school, but you push the pain aside and you laugh back at them. You’re going to show them who is stupid.

  It is quiet again. Biaojie says, “Fine,” and then changes the topic. She declares that she is a big girl, so she is now interested in boys. It is you and Biaomei who make sounds of disgust this time, and you feel much better. Your cousin, a whole year older than you, then wants to know if you have a boyfriend and you reply, “Of course not!”

  “Then why are you wearing a wedding ring?” Biaojie asks casually.

  “It’s on my middle finger,” you point out.

  Under the covers you twist Ah Ma’s ring around. You wonder if boys who are friends are actually boyfriends. With that, your mind stirs up the mocking sounds of: “They are lovers”… “Both as dumb as each other!”… “Going to special class together!”

  You push the sounds away with a yawn. Everything melts away until you are by yourself. A closet door opens and a neon pink light spills out, except you are only dreaming of yourself dreaming that you are back in your own room. Then the door shuts and it is dark.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN Magpie

  A magpie is warbling. Your eyes flicker open and you toss the blankets aside. Your cousins are entwined with each other and they yell for more sleep, but you march them out of bed. The rest of the house is asleep. Even Big Scary is still asleep, as there is not a single moan or creak. You feel the magic hanging in the air with the morning frost as the three of you descend the staircase, and you hush Biaojie for thumping so loudly with her big feet since anything might break the magic.

  You think no one else will be up this early on a Saturday, but you are wrong. There is definitely a human eye looking through the hole in the fence. You march right up to it and press your own eye against it. A shocked Kevin falls backward on his side. You grin at the annoyed head that pops up over the fence. You want to tell Kevin that you were looking for him after school; that you wanted to show him something in that moment… and you still want to show him.

  But you turn your head, seeking approval from your cousins. They have their arms folded and drawn inward, trying to appear hostile in their pink pajamas. Driven by group courage, you turn back to Kevin and engage in the longest exchange you’ve ever had with him.

  “Why are you up so early? Are you looking for trouble?”

  Kevin stares at you with an expression that says he hears that sort of comment all the time. “Why are you up so early? You must be looking for trouble too.”

  Now that the shoe is on the other foot, you feel insulted. You go to snarl at him, but you catch in his eye a look of hurt that you never saw before—perhaps because you’ve never purposely tried to be mean before, or even considered that he could be vulnerable—and you drop whatever comeback you had in your mouth.

  “Do you want to see?” you say in a kinder voice, and you point at your cousins and then to the glasshouse.

  “What? That disgusting old thing? What could be interesting about that?”

  Your chin lowers itself toward your chest without you being able to help yourself. You understand that he is only being mean because you were mean. That now you are locked in this spiral and it’s hard to get out. You understand what it’s like to be in his shoes. Kevin notices this change in you and his faces softens.

  “Let’s go look at the disgusting old thing, then. Maybe we’ll find something cool. Like a nest of spiders.”

  Kevin pulls himself up to the top of the wooden fence and jumps over to your side, unafraid to land in the long grass. You didn’t think he was capable of understanding that other people have feelings because he doesn’t seem able to control his own. Maybe he is not who you think he is. It is so strange, but for that moment you believe you might be more than what you think you are.

  Biaojie and Biaomei are both reluctant to leave the bottom step and go into the wild-looking backyard. They whisper to each other.

  “What language are you two speaking?” Kevin says to them. “You need to speak the language that everyone speaks in this country.”

  You are not sure they fully understand what the strange boy from next door is saying, but you do and you feel embarrassed for everyone. Then it occurs to you that you’ve heard this sentiment being spoken before.

  Outside the principal’s office. At the punishment wall. The two teachers coming out of the faculty room. It appears Kevin has taken the message to heart and made it his own. You feel incredibly sad. You want to show him the glasshouse more than ever.

  You want to show him how the glasshouse will help, heal, and protect him. That he is worth more than he considers himself. But you don’t quite have the words to say it, so you think you will let the glasshouse tell it to him. You want to put your hand on his shoulder and ask him to stand next to you while you open the glasshouse door, but you are still wary all the time about what other people think of you.

  So you march Biaojie and Biaomei up the flattened grass path while Kevin loiters in the yard pretending not to be interested. You see the black-and-white cat sleeping on top of a pile of old wooden crates. She acknowledges you with a stretch and a yawn. You nod in return.

  Slowly turning the decrepit handle, the door of the glasshouse creaks open inch by inch. You all squeeze in, giggling because it feels as though you are doing something mischievous. You are busy trying to catch Kevin’s reaction from behind you. Your cousins are pushing you forward, so you turn back around. And…

  The glasshouse looks on the inside exactly how it looks on the outside.

  There’s just a jumble of old gardening equipment, a tower of empty plastic pots, and when
something in the corner rattles, you all scream.

  You stare at the situation in dismay. A pot falls over and dirt spills out.

  “Is this the orange orchard?” Biaojie points to a skinny plant in a pot that has turned brown and died due to neglect.

  “And is this what you meant by the sun and the moon?” teases Biaomei, pulling on a rusty wind chime that depicts the solar system. At her touch the metal moon falls off and rolls under some junk. From the middle of the junk pile comes a loud hissing noise.

  “Well, that is obviously the pink serpent,” scoffs Biaojie, tossing a rake aside and moving a rusty old lawn mower out of the way. The hissing sounds again, and your older cousin bends over to take a look into the gap.

  That is when the very real pink serpent slithers out at lightning-fast speed and, with more screaming, you retreat just as fast out of the glasshouse and toward the back steps.

  “You are a liar!” is the first thing that Biaojie says. She is happy that she was right.

  “That was scary, it wasn’t fun at all,” says Biaomei, looking teary.

  Had it been a dream? Your imagination? Something worse? But you know it’s real because you still remember the feel of your blue wisteria, the knotted wood of the trunk against your back. The smell of orange blossoms and fresh soil in the air. The sun’s magical rays on your skin. You stare back at the glasshouse with a sense of embarrassment. And disappointment, but mostly betrayal. You greeted the gatekeeper. You did everything right.

  Your cousins stand awkwardly in silence before an “Ahh!” comes from Biaojie.