Chapter

13

AFTER I SCARF DOWN DINNER, I head to the hallway, grab the phone from the side table, and pull it into my room. Then I close my bedroom door as much as I can while leaving it open enough for the phone cord to snake through the crack at the bottom.

If I win Student of the Year again this year, I’m going to ask my parents for my very own phone. There’s one at the electronics store that’s made of clear plastic, and you can see all the colorful components inside, like a big red bell or the green circuit board with different colored nodes. When you pick the receiver up, the teal pad behind the numbers lights up. Even the cord is a fun rainbow spiral.

Until that happens, though, if I want to talk privately, my only option is to bring the boring hallway phone into my room, then balance on the edge of my bed just right so I can talk with the door mostly closed.

I rotate the dial to the number I want and let it spin back to the beginning before twisting it again to the next one.

Vivian answers right away. “Hello?”

“Biǎo mèi!” I exclaim. “I did it! I asked Mom and Dad about Camp Rock Out and they said yes! Dad promised that he’d talk to your parents, too. All we need to do is get good progress grades, and they’ll sign us up. Isn’t that great?” I wait breathlessly for Vivian to squeal with excitement.

But there’s only silence from her side of the phone.

“Viv? You still there?” I say. “Everything okay?”

I hear a rustling on my cousin’s side of the phone, like she’s plopped down on her bed.

“I’m glad your parents are on board with us going to Camp Rock Out,” Vivian finally says. “Especially for you, because you love this music so much. But to have it all depend on our progress grades? Wǒ bù zhī dào, biǎo jiě. What did Mr. Silvers say about helping me with English lit?”

“He said he can’t give you any special tutoring,” I admit. “But he did give you an extra week to turn in your essay. For the rest of us, it’s due next Monday, but you’ve got till the Monday after.”

“Oh, great. That’ll help, for sure,” Vivian says. But I can hear the faintest note of disappointment in her voice.

“I was hoping the school would be able to do more, but Principal Klein seems pretty set on not making any changes,” I say. “Apparently, you’re what’s called an ESL student—English as a Second Language. Mr. Silvers said that schools in California used to have special classes to teach kids like you English, with real trained teachers. But they don’t do that anymore after some law passed a few years ago.”

“I didn’t realize that there was a label for me,” Vivian says. “Too bad about that law, huh?”

“Yeah. But, Vivian, you’re studying so much already! With that extra week, you’ll be fine,” I try to reassure her.

“Maybe. I’m trying so hard, but it’s not easy. What if I let you down?”

“That won’t happen! How can you even think that?” I admonish her.

But inside my head, I cringe. Maybe I was wrong. Maybe I did make things worse for her with this deal I made.

At the same time, though, maybe a teeny tiny bit of extra pressure from her biǎo jiě will make a difference. I mean, it’s got to click for her eventually. She’s been able to do well in her studies back in Taipei, no problem.

Vivian sighs loudly. “You never know. There’s still so much I don’t understand in the story that I can’t even start on the essay yet.”

I wrap the phone cord around my fingers and watch the tips turn purple. Then I release the cord, and they turn back into their normal pink again.

The extra essay time doesn’t seem to be enough for her to feel better about everything.

Take care of your biǎo mèi, Ah-ma’s voice says in my head. Do more.

“Why don’t you come over tomorrow after school? We can work on our homework together, and I can answer any questions you might have about the book.”

“Okay,” Vivian says softly. “Thanks, Lily. I better go.” She hangs up quickly.

I stare at the phone, then get up to return it to the hallway table. Back in my room, I throw my arm over my eyes and flop backward onto my bed. Maybe this isn’t such a good idea after all.

But as I land, something hard pokes me from behind.

I roll over and fumble around the bedsheets. When my fingers brush up against a hard, square shape, I grab at it.

It’s my Temple of the Dog album. It must have fallen out of my backpack this morning.

Yeah, this feels like the right moment for some gloomy grunge music.

I pop open the jewel case and slide the CD into my stereo. “Hunger Strike” starts, and as the opening chords start in a slow, steady rhythm, I grimace as I think about how I could have done more this afternoon to get Vivian the help she wants. Instead, I chickened out.

Like usual.

If I had gone to Camp Rock Out last summer, I bet I would have had the courage to ask Principal Klein for ESL support today. I mean, getting up onstage and baring everything in front of an audience has got to be the best practice for speaking up in front of someone as important as she is. I might even have had the guts to say something to Marcos when he laughed at the idea of girl rockers.

I need to get to Camp Rock Out this summer.

And it’s gotta be with Vivian, my future drummer.

Then, right as Eddie’s and Chris’s powerful voices join together and start crooning about how they’d take from the powerful but not the powerless, it hits me.

One of the coolest things about Temple of the Dog is that they’re a temporary band that got together one time to honor a friend’s memory. Chris Cornell was the front man for Soundgarden, and Jeff Ament and Stone Gossard were in a different band called Mother Love Bone. But that didn’t matter. What mattered was that they cared about the same person and wanted to make music for him. So they got together and recorded an album.

Maybe I can help my cousin feel better about her schoolwork if I join forces with other kids who care about the same thing I do. Kids with family and friends who need ESL help, like Vivian.

Kids like Marcos Alvarez. Like Yoona Kim. Marcos’s cousin is having trouble with English, too, and Yoona tutors a bunch of Korean kids.

But would they be up for figuring this out together? They barely know me. Plus, Marcos was a jerk about the whole girls at Camp Rock Out thing. Do I really want to be around him more?

Vivian needs me, though. Plus, Ah-ma expects me to do more as the older sister cousin. While going to the principal isn’t something me or anyone in my family is going to do, figuring this out with other Pacific Park Middle kids can’t be that hard.

And it’s important enough for me to try.

It might be time for me to finally form my own band.