The Trouble Begins (13 page)

I cross Fortieth Street. At the end of my street a car screeches up next to me and a bunch of big Mexican guys jump out.

“There's the kid,” they yell.

“You messed up my sister,
muchacho.
You're gonna pay.”

“You stole my bike, you little runt. And you wrecked it too.”

I ride around a tree that blocks them for a second while I get past. I take off down the street on my bike; two of them run after me. The other two pile back in the car and come screeching along behind.

Tire, don't go flat now. I'm almost home. I hate being scared. I hate them.

I slam in the gate. At the same time my dad slams out onto the steps from inside the house. I know the only reason he's home now is because he got the call from the principal. The Mexican guys chasing me stop for a second at our fence. They yell angry stuff at us in Mexican. I hang on tight to my bike. If I leave it to run inside they might take it. Then one, two of them push through our gate. My dad is down the steps like a tiger. I drop the bike behind me to stand with
him if they try to do anything to him and he needs help. There is a flurry. Mostly grabbing shirts and pushing. I get knocked down but I am up again fast.

Sirens! A screech of brakes. The Mexican guys and my dad and me stand facing each other across the little broken walk that goes up to our front door. Angry ugly scary faces. Rough breathing. Two policemen run up with their clubs out. They push between us on the little walk. One makes the Mexicans step back. The other moves toward my father and me.

“Get off my property! Don't touch my son!” He stands where he is. Mexican and Vietnamese and English words fill the air. One of the Mexican guys lunges at my bike. For a moment I pull and he pulls. The policeman with a red mustache makes him let go.

“He stole the bike. He beat up our sister,” the guy yells. He is young but with thick muscles and short dark bristly hair. He is so angry he is like a wire about to snap. The policeman herds him over to a corner of the yard.

The other policeman, a big black guy like a football guy on TV, talks to me. “You steal that bike?” he asks. He looks at the bike with a snort like it's not worth stealing.

“No,” I yell like the Mexican guy so they'll believe me. “I found it.”

“Why you hide it from everybody, then?” my dad shouts. “Why do you say you borrow it?” What he says helps the Mexican guys. He thinks I stole it too.

“Well?” asks the policeman quietly because he's sure I stole it.

How can I tell them all the stuff so they'll listen? How can I tell them that I found it under a mattress in the alley and fixed it and it didn't have a seat and now it does because I found a seat too and I didn't tell them because I didn't want them to make me get rid of it because we don't have bikes and it just seemed like a good thing to hide it for a while. It's too much to say. They won't listen to it all. The truth is simple. I don't say anything except, “I found it,” with my head down. I know they won't believe me. A great bike like this just lying around someplace.

The red mustache policeman comes back from the squad car. “It doesn't belong to either one of them,” he announces. “A bike with that number was reported missing up in North County a couple of months ago. You can all go home now.” He crosses his arms and stares at the Mexican guys.

“What about he beat up our sister?” yells the bristlyhaired guy from the corner of the yard.

“That's another matter. You'll have to file a complaint,” says the black policeman, sighing.

My dad looks like he's gonna jump on me now. “She tripped at school,” I say, looking down. I know he won't believe this either.

The policemen wait until the Mexican guys get in their car and roar away. They put my bike in the squad car. They finish writing down some stuff. The red mustache one looks at me where I stand behind my dad. “Where do you think you're gonna end up if you steal stuff?” he asks. I shrug. My dad swats at me. “You listen to your dad, young man,” the policeman says. His radio blares and he and the black policeman walk to
their car and drive slowly away. I see people who live near us outside their houses, staring. Of course that old man is outside too. He's almost falling over his fence, he's trying so hard to hear.

My dad grabs the back of my shirt. I twist and see his angry face. Behind him Thuy and Lin and Vuong stare out from the front door. Nobody will believe me. I duck down and yank away. My dad would never expect me to do that. He loses his grip on my shirt. I run. He shouts. I run faster away to the backyard. I jump the back fence. I run down the alley toward the big apartments at the end of our block.

I sit around outside the wall there until I'm so cold and hungry that's all I can think about. I don't want to go home but I don't know where else to go. Finally I think of the shed. I go back down the alley. I climb through the window into the shed. It's pretty dark in there now with the last daylight from the window. Cat is curled up asleep in the corner on some old bags. Her slit eyes partly open when she hears me come in. I sit on the trunk for a while. I don't want to make anything out of the building set now. Slowly I crawl over to Cat. I talk to her in Vietnamese. She watches me carefully but she stays curled up there. I stick out my hand. She sniffs my fingers. I don't have any food but she lets me pet her smooth warm fur. She purrs.

My stomach hurts. I am so hungry. I want something to eat so bad I'm thinking about going into the house. I don't care what my dad does. Maybe he's not so mad now or he's gone back to work. He doesn't believe me about the bike. He'd believe the others but they'd never fix up a cool bike.
Now it's gone. At least those Mexican guys didn't get it. Stupid Veronica went home and told about the bike and said I beat her up. The principal made me write all those lines and then called my dad anyway.

I talk to Cat because she trusts me. “Cat, you're the only one that believes me. I came in here and you're all curled up and warm and you let me pet you when I don't even have any food. I'll bring you something later. I'll have to hurry so I'll just throw it through the window. Watch for it.” I say good-bye to Cat. I climb through the window again. I take a deep breath and walk up the back stairs. I hope my dad went back to work.

It is quiet when I open the back door. I know I have to face them. I walk into the dining room. Thuy and Lin and Vuong look up from their books. They jump up from their chairs. Everybody yells at once. My dad is still home. He and my mom crowd around the table with the others. Everybody shouts how bad I am. Except my grandma. She just looks so sad as she takes my arm and sits me at the table. I don't want to cry. My mom is crying. My dad is tight and angry, waiting for the others to finish their yelling.

He makes a big circle with his arm. It means “Get out of here.” The others know what it means. They shuffle out. Even my grandma. I wait with my head down.

He stands over me. “We did not come here to be robbers,” he growls. “You bring shame to the whole family.”

I wait. “I didn't steal it,” I choke. “I found it.” He doesn't say anything. I think he wants to believe it but he can't. He doesn't know what to do. Nobody in our family ever stole before.

He shouts in Vietnamese. “Stealing? Robbing people of what they work for? Beating girls at school? This is shameful. Dishonor for our whole family like …” I am sitting frozen here at the table afraid to move because he might explode. The doorbell rings. No one ever rings our doorbell late at night. More trouble. It is the police or even the Mexicans returning. My dad stops yelling to listen.

A man's voice talks English from the front doorway. My dad strides out to see who it is. I creep across the room to hear too.

“Madam, I couldn't help overhearing the incident on the sidewalk today.” It's the voice of the old spy next door. I stick my head around the door to the living room. He's standing in our doorway with his bald head and his bushy eyebrows. He's talking to my mom, who opened the door. Thuy and Lin and Vuong are behind her. Nobody says anything. My mom probably doesn't understand what he's talking about. The old man changes his voice. He talks very loud and slow. “Your boy did not steal that bike,” he announces. “I saw it in the alley, piled on the garbage cans, the night before he found it. I am the one who threw away the bicycle seat.” There's silence. “Well,” he says. “Just thought you'd want to know.” He turns to shuffle back down the stairs.

“Wait, wait,” my mom cries, grabbing the back of his sweater. He stops. She pushes past the others to run to the kitchen. She comes back with a plate covered with a paper towel. “For you, for you,” she says. “Thank you. Thank you.” She bows. She hands him the plate. I think she's crying again.

He takes the plate. “Thank you, madam,” he says. He goes home.

Now they're all talking at once again. They're laughing. My mom's laughing and crying. Only my dad's not laughing. “So, not a robber,” he says, “but still lying, hitting girls at your school.” He shakes his head sadly like that's something beyond understanding. I start to explain but he interrupts. “You lied about the bike, borrowed it, you said.” He turns his back on me and walks slowly to his room. My grandma hurries to the stove to make some food. The plate my mom gave to the old man was the dinner my grandma saved for me. Golden spring rolls with a bowl of red sauce. Now I'll have soup with noodles.

I lie on the couch at night when everybody has gone to bed. The old man came over to tell my family the truth. Even after I played that mean trick with his oranges. I wonder why. He threw that old bicycle seat away for me to find. I feel bad about his oranges. I guess I won't trick him anymore. I wonder if the Mexican guys will try to get me when the police aren't around. They still think I stole the bike. So does everybody at school. The Mexican guys think I beat up Veronica too.

Thuy slams the front door. She races to Lin and Vuong, studying at the table. She's yelling and jumping around. Thuy never slams the door and she never yells and jumps. This could be interesting. I leave the TV. I check the window but I don't see the old man watching.

“I won! I won!” Thuy cries, waving around a piece of paper. We crowd near her as she brushes papers aside and puts the paper in the middle of the empty space. A little piece of paper. “Thuy Nguyen,” it says on one line. At the end of the line it says “$250.00.”

“A check for two hundred and fifty dollars. Wow!” Vuong is impressed.

“My poster!” Thuy cries. “My Fair Housing poster won first prize.”

I remember the thing. She was crabby when I drank orange juice near her while she was working on it. “Get out of here, Du. Don't spill that,” she ordered. She had her nose down to that poster for days, coloring little tiny houses all over it. She covered the table with eraser crumbs until late at night. Still, I wish I had that much money. She'll give it to my dad, of course.

Saturday is a long day. I get up early to look for Cat. I blow some weed seeds toward the old man's grass. He was okay about the bike. The seeds won't grow anyway or he'll pull them up before they have a chance. He'll get some exercise. It's good for him. I watch cartoons.

Thuy calls from her bedroom. “Get ready, Du. We're going to Fashion Valley.”

“I don't want to go,” I say. I don't know what Fashion Valley is but if Thuy likes it, it's boring.

“Okay,” Thuy says. Thuy and Lin and Vuong head for the door. Now I might want to go.

“All right. I'll come,” I say like I don't really want to. I don't know if I do or not.

“Your shirt's dirty. Get your jacket,” orders Lin. It's going to be like this all day, I think, but I follow them out the door.

We wait at the bus stop. Thuy has a hundred dollars. She gave her prize money to my dad but he gave some of it back. He's proud of her for winning over all the other kids. He thinks you should get paid for work.

Thuy pays for us on the bus. We bounce along. More and more people get on the bus. Vuong gives his seat to an old lady. He jerks me out of my seat by my arm so another lady gets my seat. She's not so old. I think of my grandma. I'd want people to let her sit down. The bus sways around a corner. It's fun trying to hold on. We stop. Everybody's pushing to get off.

Huge stores with sidewalks as wide as three houses, and more big sidewalks above them. Fancy lights and glass everywhere. Music. Crowds of people. Good smells. This is Fashion Valley. We go in a big store. It's where Americans buy all the fancy stuff I see on TV.

Thuy hurries us into a store that sells cameras. In the back is a big cardboard thing that has snowy hills and pine trees painted on it. Thuy has a coupon from the paper. She makes us all get in front of the snow things to get our picture taken. I feel dumb. The guy who takes the pictures pushes us around to the right place. I'm in front. “Cheese,” he says. I wrinkle up my nose. I hate cheese. His camera flashes.

Thuy chooses a frame for the picture. She pays. They'll send it to my mom and dad when it's ready. “It's a Christmas picture,” I complain. “Christmas isn't for a long time.” Also Thuy knows we don't do Christmas.

“Ho ho ho, Merry Christmas,” shouts Vuong, pretending
to be dumb Santa Claus. Lin swats him. Thuy hurries us out of the store.