The Trouble Begins (9 page)

“We had a wonderful Open House,” announces Mrs. Dorfman the next day. “Now it's time to get back to work.” Anthony sits angry at his desk, daring anyone to say anything. I wonder what happened with his mom and Mrs. Dorfman after we left. Tiffany brushes her little brother's cracker crumbs off her desk. No one says anything about
how my mom went to sleep. I don't think they even know. I saw my mom sitting at the dining room table in the middle of the night when I got up to get a drink. She was looking at the Buddha and the pictures. I know she was thinking about Vietnam.

I hope that old man doesn't come home while I'm in here. It's his shed, even though the side with the little window is right on the edge of our yard. What if he caught me stuck there in the little window like I was when I climbed in? He'd have to be in our yard to see my legs kicking around high up in the air trying to get me through. If he unlocked the shed door he'd see my head and arms waving around stuffed in that window like a ghost up in the air. Maybe he'd be scared. If I saw him like that I'd think it was funny but I don't think he knows how to laugh. But he only comes in here for his
lawn mower and that's only on Tuesday. He won't see the window because he can only see that from our yard. That's why he boarded it up, I bet. He didn't want us looking in at his stuff. There's nothing here that anybody would want anyway. There's his lawn mower right by the door. It's as old as he is. He's always fixing his yard, making it look better than everybody else's. He doesn't do any work except mow that lawn. My dad's got more important stuff to do. He has to work to make money. My mom too. Then maybe we'll hire that old man to mow our lawn. I'll sit on the steps and drink a soda and point to the spots he misses.

Here are his tools. My dad says Americans all have tools but they can't fix anything. I'm gonna fix that old man's lawn mower for him. His lawn should look just like everybody else's around here. I won't take it all apart. I'll just loosen all these places so it falls apart when he pushes it. He'll think it just got so old it died. It's easy to loosen these bolts because he oils it so much.

I wonder what else is in here. I think my cat has a way to get in. When she comes for the fish or other stuff I give her she often comes running from the back of the shed. I hope the old man doesn't hurt her if he finds her inside. I better get out. It wasn't very smart of him to put this old trunk here so I could climb back out the window easier. I wonder what's in it.

A lot of old junk is what's in it. I'll make sure there's nothing good at the bottom. Old toys. This little truck is so heavy. I wonder if that old man played with a truck. Can it be that old? Here's a football and a baseball and bat. I have to be careful so I can remember where all this stuff goes back. The
whole bottom's covered with boxes. They could have good stuff in them. I'll come back later. He just went walking down the street. I don't want to be stuck in that window when he gets back. I'll fix the plywood back over it just like it was.

“Boys and girls, today we're going to be authors again. We're going to write another personal narrative piece for our portfolios.” Everybody groans. On the overhead projector Mrs. Dorfman puts a big plastic page with “Personal Narrative” in fancy writing. She covers up the bottom part. Then she talks and talks and talks. I look at car pictures in a magazine I found on the rack in the Counseling Center. I read it in my lap so Mrs. Dorfman and Veronica can't see it. Anthony's squirming around trying to shoot a miniskateboard over to Jorge with his foot.

“And the subject will be …” Mrs. Dorfman stops in midsentence. I look up. She's waving her pencil around like something wonderful is about to happen. She uncovers more of the writing on the projector. “Write About a Family Journey,” it says. She reads it in a loud excited voice. There's a picture of an American family waving from their car. Kids who usually write stuff raise their hands. “We wrote about that already,” someone blurts. That's what Mrs. Dorfman calls it when you just yell something without getting called on. I'm not a blurter because I don't talk. Sometimes Mrs. Dorfman makes the blurter stand up and apologize to the class. This blurter doesn't get in any trouble.

“Relax, relax.” She smiles. “All your questions will be answered in due time.”

“Du Du time,” whispers Anthony. Jorge laughs. I kick the mini-skateboard down the aisle.

“Paragraph one will be about where your family planned to go and why you decided to go there. It doesn't have to be a vacation. We're writing about the journey, there and back, and the destination, what we did there. Does anyone have a good idea he or she can share?” Kids raise their hands. One kid says, “We went to La Mesa on the bus.” Some kids snicker. I don't know why.

Alan raises his hand in the front of the room. “We rented a RV to go to Carlsbad Beach for my brother's birthday,” he says.

“Wonderful! That's a story,” says Mrs. Dorfman, smiling. She talks again about paragraphs and stuff like that.

Mrs. Dorfman smiles at the hand-raisers. “Those are wonderful ideas, boys and girls.” She pulls the sheet on the overhead down so we can see another line. “Paragraph two will be about the trip itself. Did you enjoy it? How did you pass the time? How did you think about your destination— where you were going?

“Paragraph three. Describe your destination, the place to which you went. Tell about your activities. What did you do there?” Mrs. Dorfman's talking faster now because almost everyone's yawning and wiggling around in their seats. Not just me. Her voice is getting louder. “Paragraph four.” She forgets to uncover the last line. She's staring at Jorge. He's leaning into the aisle to get back the mini-skateboard. Angela
won't let him have it. She moves it with her foot just when he almost grabs it. Angela's in the high reading group.

Suddenly everybody looks up. We are all interested. A little bug is walking across the overhead projector over the words. Kids elbow each other and whisper. Mrs. Dorfman doesn't know. She looks confused for a moment. Her eyes sweep across the room and land on me. She thinks I'm messing around. A good kid tells her about the bug. She squishes it with a tissue. Her voice is sharp now. “Write about the trip home and how you feel about your trip. Would you like to go back? Any questions?… Put on the proper heading. Let's get started.” Mrs. Dorfman shuts off the overhead.

“How long do the paragraphs have to be?”

“What if we never went anyplace?”

“Is this a rough draft?”

“What are we supposed to do?” Kids are blurting questions from all over the room. Jorge snatches the miniskateboard from under Angela's foot.

“Write a personal narrative,” snaps Mrs. Dorfman. “Anyone who does not have a rough draft of at least two pages will stay after school. No talking.” I look down at my magazine, where there's a picture of a blue truck with big wheels and lightning bolts on the side. Then I remember. It's Tuesday. I want to be there to laugh when that old man goes out to mow and his old mower falls apart all over his nice green grass. I rip a piece of paper off my pad. I write “Du” at the top. I write my personal narrative. “I went to Disneyland. I went with my mom and dad and brother and sisters. We went in the car. It was fun. I saw people dressed like big mice. I went on rides. I
ate lots of food. I would like to go again.” Mrs. Dorfman is walking up and down the aisles. She taps her finger on my paper. “Good job, Du,” she says. I've never been to Disneyland.

Anthony and Jorge have to stay after school but I get to go even though my personal narrative was just a little bit of one page. I run. I see that the old man hasn't mowed his grass yet. I get an apple and a banana. I look out the back window, where I can see the shed. Now I'm the spy. Finally he comes out his back door. He's so slow. He stoops over to pick up a little bit of nothing on his grass. He puts it in his shirt pocket. He looks over at our yard. I bet it was something that blew over there from our yard because we never mow. Our yard's full of high weeds and tall brown grass that hides rusty tools and cracked pots people left there long ago. Some places you can hardly walk. That's why the cat is my cat. She hunts in my yard. I see her crouched low and silent with just her tail twitching and I've seen a lizard tail out there and bird feathers she left in the shaggy bushes in back. In the old man's yard she'd never catch anything.

At the shed the old man tips the lock this way and that, trying to see. He does everything like slow-motion stuff on TV. I just want to see that mower fall apart. The door is open. Here comes the mower. It's just out of the shed when the first wheel falls off. He doesn't see it. He thinks it's stuck on something so he gives it a big hard push. He's standing there holding the handle and the rest of the mower is in a mess on the ground. I burst out laughing. He looks at it with his mouth puckered up. Then his head stays still but his eyes under his bushy eyebrows move toward my window. I duck. I
wait a few minutes. I look again. He's not there. Just that old pile of lawn mower parts. He's probably calling 911. He can't prove anything. I go away to watch TV.

“What are you laughing about?” asks Lin from the dining room. She's in there even more than Thuy and Vuong now, taking care of some plants she grew like they were little babies.

“Nothing.” I shrug. It's so funny I wish I could tell somebody but not Lin. She doesn't like anything I do.

Cartoons are over. I go look out the window again. There he is. He's made a table with some old boards. He has the lawn mower parts up on the table with a bunch of rags and oil and wrenches. He's kind of whistling, putting the lawn mower back together. He's sharpening the blades. I wish I could watch up close.

I go outside. I pretend I'm washing my feet at the outside faucet. I don't look at him but I look around for my cat. I see her on the roof of the shed. “Hey, Cat, come here,” I say in Vietnamese. She's fat now because I feed her every day. I hope she doesn't get so fat she can't run from the old man.

“You better leave that cat alone,” the old man calls. “She could have rabies.” I shrug. I don't know what that is but I won't ask him.

“You left the water on,” he says when I walk away, like he's telling me what to do. He can't tell me what to do.

“Your mower broke?” I ask as if I didn't know.

“I'm just doing some maintenance,” he says. “You'd need a scythe to cut that yard of yours.” I don't know what
maintenance
is and I don't know what
scythe
is. I go inside. I slam the door. Later I ask Thuy about
rabies
and
maintenance
and
scythe.
I know my cat doesn't have rabies. I hope he's not trying to catch her so they can kill her. She's too smart for him to catch her anyway. It would be fun to have a scythe and go swinging it all over the yard.

I swing a pretend scythe a few times but Thuy and Lin and Vuong keep reading. I swing it over near the window, where all of Lin's science experiment plants are lined up in their little pots. Lin keeps her head down in her book. This is odd. I make a whooshing sound and take a few more swings at the plants. I come as close as I can but I don't have a real scythe so I don't hurt them. Lin jumps up. Her eyes are red. Tears stream down her face.

“Knock them over! Throw them out! It doesn't matter,” she cries. She runs out of the room.

“What'd I do?” I protest before Thuy and Vuong can yell at me too.

“You're teasing her and she's already heartbroken,” Thuy answers.

“Why?” This is interesting. The plants looks fine. All exactly alike and about five inches tall in their little matching pots. I didn't hurt them.

“As if you care!”

“I care,” I argue. I would care if something bad happened to Lin but why would she cry about little plants?

“Lin cares about school. Unlike one of us,” Thuy answers scornfully. She means me, of course. “She's in a special Young American Scientist program and the plants are for her science project. She's supposed to find mutant speed-seed plants and then she grows more and more until they're all mutants.”

I don't know about speed-seed plants but I know about mutants from TV. They're usually giant blobs with crooked teeth and noses and their hands growing out of their foreheads. I shrug. I can see from the cute little plants that she doesn't have any mutants. “So?” I say.