Red Butterfly Read online

  THANKS

  FOR DOWNLOADING THIS EBOOK!

  We have SO many more books for kids in the in-beTWEEN age that we’d love to share with you! Sign up for our IN THE MIDDLE books newsletter and you’ll receive news about other great books, exclusive excerpts, games, author interviews, and more!

  CLICK HERE TO SIGN UP

  or visit us online to sign up at

  eBookNews.SimonandSchuster.com/middle

  For Olivia

  Part One

  Crawl

  Mama’s Piano

  Mama used to have a piano

  with an on/off switch

  and a dial to make drums beat.

  It stood on metal legs

  next to the window

  that looks across at

  rows of other apartments,

  with tiled paths

  edged in concrete planters below.

  Mama would sit on a stool,

  crack the window

  to let in the outside air

  as she played

  from memory,

  eyes closed,

  shoulders straight,

  body swaying

  forward and back,

  as if she were a tree

  bending in a slow breeze,

  as if her fingers were leaves

  tapping sounds into the air.

  We sold that piano

  because food

  became more important

  than music.

  Now, two years later,

  Mama’s fingers can only

  run over the edge of the tabletop,

  remembering what it was like to be free.

  To Market

  Mama sends me

  for leafy, green

  qingcai today

  because she prefers it

  over cabbage.

  She’ll fry it

  with a little oil,

  salt,

  and garlic

  from the garlic braid

  hanging from the

  oil-sticky

  kitchen window.

  Then we’ll eat

  at the fold-out table

  with the peeling top

  and Mama will chew

  slowly

  because her teeth hurt.

  I take

  one thin blue note

  from the food envelope

  in Mama’s drawer

  while she goes over our rules:

  Don’t talk too much,

  but be pleasant,

  not afraid.

  Don’t chat with strangers

  or tell them

  where you live.

  She doesn’t need to tell me.

  The rules are natural.

  They seal me in

  like a second skin.

  I could not behave differently

  if I wanted to.

  Natural

  I’m used to her never leaving our apartment.

  If she does, she covers herself

  in a head scarf,

  long gloves,

  sunglasses,

  collar turned up

  in nighttime and in summer.

  But she hardly ever leaves.

  She says the China air

  makes her shrivel

  like a peach

  left in the sun,

  which may be

  because she’s turning

  seventy soon.

  She says she can see enough of China

  from our sixth-floor

  window,

  which may be

  because the stairs

  make her knees creak.

  But I’m not sure

  if any of those

  are the real reasons she stays.

  Red Butterfly

  I ride with my hair

  whipping back,

  a long,

  flapping

  black flag.

  Wind

  presses my face,

  freezes my lips,

  laces the cracks in my knuckles with blood.

  The city

  is a blur.

  No one stares,

  no one asks questions

  when I am alone,

  pedaling my ruby-red bicycle.

  No one knows I am different,

  that I have an American mother,

  that even though I look Chinese,

  I’m American on the inside.

  When I ride

  I am like the ten million others

  moving in slow motion

  down frozen streets

  in January.

  Except I am faster,

  flitting between them,

  a red butterfly.

  Far-Away Eyes

  Mama’s eyes

  yearn

  for Montana,

  where she was born,

  raised,

  married.

  My older sister Jody,

  who is almost

  forty,

  was born there,

  still lives there.

  My daddy

  lives there too,

  though he didn’t always.

  When I was little

  he lived in China

  with Mama and me,

  though I don’t remember much

  about that,

  just hugging him

  the day he said good-bye.

  I have pictures to prove

  he was here, though—

  a thin man with a scruffy-faced

  half smile,

  holding a small me

  to his hip.

  In the picture

  I am looking up at him

  like he’s the world.

  Mama is thinking about Montana now

  when she says,

  The mountains, Kara!

  Oh, if you could only see the mountains!

  Tianjin, our city,

  is pancake flat,

  no mountains for miles.

  Though I’ve heard

  if you leave in a car

  you can drive to where the Great Wall snakes

  up-and-down peaks

  steep as upside-down paper cones.

  I’ve seen pictures.

  Maybe I should take Mama there,

  let her perch

  on the back of my bicycle,

  ride all the way

  to the Chinese mountains

  so her eyes will

  return to me.

  Patience

  Mama says

  we will go to Daddy someday,

  move to America where we

  will all be happy.

  When you’re eighteen,

  Mama says,

  we’ll work everything out.

  Just seven more years,

  we’ll get on a plane

  cross the wide ocean,

  and make our home

  in the mountains.

  I say,

  We should go now.

  Mama pats my hand

  with her ropy, thin one.

  Patience,

  Kara dear,

  everything in its time.

  This is Mama’s

  answer

  to all my questions:

  she feeds me

  dreams and promises

  with patience required.

  That’s why I’ve mostly

  stopped

  asking.

  The Schedule

  The schedule

  has been taped to our refrigerator

  forever.

  7 a.m. Wake up

  7:30 a.m. Clean Chirpy’s cage

  8 a.m. Breakfast

  9 a.m. Study

  11 a.m. Television

  12 p.m. Lunch

  1 p.m. R
eading

  3 p.m. Errands

  5 p.m. Dinner

  6:30 p.m. Television

  8 p.m. Sleep

  We only deviate

  on Sunday,

  when we

  sleep late,

  watch extra TV,

  and Mama waits till ten

  to scramble eggs.

  When the tape

  peels

  around the schedule’s edges,

  Mama slaps on more

  so the paper

  is held by so many layers

  of sticky plastic

  it can never

  be removed.

  Cage

  Chirpy was my own

  green bird

  that lived in a

  delicate cage

  above Mama’s piano.

  He’d preen and chatter,

  scatter seeds on the floor,

  hop from one perch

  to another,

  black eyes like jewels.

  I wrote Daddy a letter

  and told him about Chirpy.

  He wrote back,

  said

  Chirpy was no kind of name for a bird.

  Jim was better.

  Come here, Jim

  Sing us a song, Jim

  Polly want a cracker, Jim?

  Mama promised Daddy was joking.

  Then one day Jim was

  gone,

  just a green

  tense

  feather bundle

  with stick legs

  tipped over

  on the cage bottom.

  I buried him

  in the garden soil

  far below our

  sixth-floor window,

  pausing for a moment

  to touch the softness

  of his feathers.

  Mama stashed his cage

  on top of her wardrobe

  in case we bought another bird

  (but we never did

  because birds

  and seeds

  cost money).

  Now she stands on a chair

  to tug the cage down,

  finds an old blanket,

  and tells me

  to spread it

  on the street corner.

  I will sit there

  until someone comes

  who wants a birdcage.

  Don’t take any less

  than twenty kuai,

  Mama says.

  We need at least that

  to buy a phone card

  to call Daddy.

  I know why we need to call Daddy.

  We’ve eaten

  qingcai and cabbage

  for two weeks now

  and the rice in the bag only reaches

  to my wrist.

  Jim’s cage is going

  the same way

  as Mama’s piano—

  because Daddy forgot

  to send us money

  to live.

  Beggar

  I despise

  sitting

  in Mama’s old coat

  (the sleeves

  of mine

  are too short)

  on a holey blanket

  like a beggar.

  I feel as filthy

  as the

  sidewalk’s

  spots of

  black

  gum,

  globs of

  yellow

  spit,

  layers of

  sticky

  dirt.

  The looks people

  give me

  are even dirtier.

  Nobody wants

  a used

  birdcage.

  Not even for twenty kuai.

  Desperation

  When I return

  after dark

  towing the unsold

  birdcage,

  Mama says,

  Plan B,

  and sends

  me to borrow money from

  our neighbor

  Zhang Laoshi,

  who’s older than Mama

  and bent like a witch

  from the story of

  Hansel and Gretel

  in our Brothers Grimm.

  I’m not usually

  allowed

  in Zhang Laoshi’s

  apartment

  (which is cold all winter

  and smells like

  a Chinese medicine shop)

  because Mama

  says Zhang Laoshi

  will fill my ears with

  nonsense.

  Today when I knock

  tentatively

  on her second-floor door,

  the spark of the forbidden

  shivers up my arms

  though I remind myself,

  Mama sent me,

  Mama sent me,

  Mama sent me.

  It still feels like

  all the other times

  I’ve snuck down here

  when Mama didn’t know.

  Zhang Laoshi’s Opinion

  Zhang Laoshi

  gives me her opinion

  on everything,

  from how much I spent on vegetables

  (always too much)

  to

  how long Daddy has been gone

  (much too long).

  Zhang Laoshi once told me

  it’s not natural

  for a mama

  to be as old

  as my mama.

  It’s not natural

  to have a sister

  as old as a mother should be

  or a niece and nephew

  as old as me.

  And I told her back:

  Well, it’s not natural

  for a mother to leave a baby

  next to the garbage drop

  wrapped in a blanket

  not thick enough to be a dish towel.

  That stopped

  Zhang Laoshi’s mouth.

  She is the one

  who found me

  when I was a newborn

  wailing

  in the cold.

  It was Zhang Laoshi

  who told Mama

  I was there,

  because she hoped

  Mama would take me

  for the night.

  What she didn’t plan on

  was my American mama

  keeping me forever.

  A Visit

  Zhang Laoshi

  sits me in a polished-wood chair,

  serves me sunflower seeds

  and hot chrysanthemum tea.

  Mama said to go in,

  ask for the money,

  and come straight back out.

  Don’t make conversation!

  But that would feel rude.

  Zhang Laoshi

  leans over,

  breath smelling of

  garlic

  and

  sour candy.

  Things must be getting bad,

  she says.

  Your father didn’t send money?

  We need the money

  so we can call him.

  An ache begins

  in the back of my throat.

  It’s not his fault.

  He works hard

  and sends us

  almost

  all his money.

  This month something

  just went wrong . . .

  I’ve said too much.

  Mama would be upset

  if she knew

  I was down here

  blabbing,

  but I hate Zhang Laoshi

  thinking bad thoughts

  about Daddy.

  She rifles through

  a blue ginger jar

  on a dark shelf in the corner.

  As she presses fifty kuai

  into my palm

  she says,

  If you’re ever hungry, child,

  come to me.

  I feel her gaze rest

&n
bsp; on my too-big coat

  on my too-short jeans

  on the wisp of hair that keeps trailing

  into my eyes

  no matter how often I breathe it away.

  I tuck the money

  in my sleeve

  and take another

  slow

  sip of tea.

  Mystery Words

  Whenever I’m with Zhang Laoshi

  she brings up the same subject:

  the night Mama brought me home.

  She talks about it

  like it’s a secret,

  lowering her voice to a whisper.

  Your mama has a good heart,

  Zhang Laoshi says,

  but even with her good heart

  she made a mess.

  She should have turned you over

  to the police,

  but she wanted to keep you.

  Her heart was too big

  to let you go.

  It was a bad choice,

  too much love,

  not enough brains.

  You have no /something/.

  She never /something/.

  Do you understand?

  Those /something/ words

  are missing puzzle pieces

  I don’t understand,

  but I nod

  so Zhang Laoshi’s bright eyes

  staring out from the folds of her

  blotchy skin

  won’t spot my confusion.

  Debt

  Mama takes Zhang Laoshi’s money

  with a sigh.

  We only asked for twenty!

  Now I owe her more!

  But then she softens.

  You told her thank you?

  How much

  we appreciate

  her kindness?

  I nod.

  Of course I did.

  I only said

  xie xie

  a thousand times.

  Reasons

  According to Zhang Laoshi

  the government allows

  parents to have only

  one child.

  Second children

  cost too much.

  China is overrun

  with people.

  Boys are worth more

  than girls.

  Children with disease

  or deformity

  are worth even less.

  Which

  puts me

  I guess

  at the

  very

  bottom

  of the barrel.

  My Secret

  Hidden under my long shirtsleeve

  is my one blunt hand

  with two short nubs

  instead of fingers.

  This is why my birth mother

  didn’t keep me,

  why she decided to try again

  for someone better.

  Mess

  I cannot use Zhang Laoshi’s words