Since I had flopped face-first onto the bed at five in the morning (falling asleep before my nose made contact), it felt like I’d only slept ten minutes when my alarm blared.
Given our late-night tryst, it was no surprise that Chase and I both fell asleep at school the next (the same?) day. And in Mr. Robinson’s class, to boot…
“Oi!” he yelled, snapping his fingers. “You’re both asleep? Been sneaking out late at night?”
I wanted to chuck my pencil at him, even though he was right (for once).
“Everyone saw that one coming, whaaaaaat!” some douche yelled from the last row.
Robinson chuckled, then turned back to the board. “This is your one and only warning. Enjoy the rice paddies on the weekends, okay, kids?”
Every last fuse of mine lit. As they crackled to the root, I knew this would blow up in a nuclear meltdown of swears, insults, and who knew what else.
But before I could find my words, Wendy Pemberton, of all people, jumped in. “Jesus, Mr. Robinson, can you give it a rest already? If you want to be funny, at least come up with something original.”
I don’t think Wendy and I had spoken since… fifth grade? When I’d told her I’d never had brownies before. I think she had side-eyed me in response?
That plus the fact that she was one of the more popular kids left me speechless.
Chase, however, did not know the social hierarchy and was not fazed, calling out, “Rice paddies, really? It’s racist but so lazy. Should I assume all of you are hanging out at the hot dog factory this weekend?”
I racked my brain for something to say, but all I could think about was how Robinson hadn’t been that far off, since cornfields were essentially the American analog to rice paddies. The anger bubbled up and erupted as I yelled, “Wángbā dàn!”
I hadn’t meant to say it in Chinese—it was just how the thought had formed in my head.
Mr. Robinson’s face finally turned serious. “What did you just say?”
“She called you a turtle’s egg,” Chase answered honestly, leaving out that he was giving the direct word-for-word translation and not what the term actually meant to Chinese folks, which was, for some reason, “son of a bitch.”
Chase and I burst into laughter. I couldn’t get over the irony—how the very thing that had led to our discrimination had become our secret weapon—and I just kept going until tears pooled in my eyes.
“Allie’s lost it—boning Chase must’ve flipped some switch in her,” someone whispered from the other side of the room.
I gave them the finger. With both hands.
“Counselor’s office,” Robinson said calmly, pointing to the door. His voice was even, but his face was flushed and his eyes tight. Chase and I air high-fived, then left the room holding hands as a statement. Everyone else could suck it.
As we journeyed to the other end of the school, we walked in silence until one of us couldn’t take it anymore and whispered “turtle egg,” which would result in us doubling over in laughter. Rinse and repeat. It didn’t seem the joke would ever get old.
And then I almost peed myself when Chase turned to me and said, “What do you think that one asshole turtle did in ancient China to fuck it up for the rest of them?”
I think we might have stopped in the hallway and laughed for a minute straight, me bent over at the waist, supporting myself on my knees, and Chase leaning back, clutching his belly.
When we reached the front office to find it empty—even Mrs. Dumas’s post—I clapped my hands, shocking Chase. Finding a time when the office would be vacant had been one of the Swiss-cheese holes in my scheme, and bada bing, bada boom, Fate was handing it to me on a silver platter, maybe as recompense for Racist Robinson.
I grinned mischievously. “This is perfect. You see, I have this plan.…”
I was crouched beside Mr. Laurelson’s locked office door.
“Jiā yóu, jiā yóu!” Chase chanted while waving imaginary pom-poms.
“You’re supposed to be keeping a lookout, not telling me to add oil,” I murmured, not taking my eyes off Chase’s lockpicks in my hands.
He laughed. “I never thought about that before. Funny how that works, you know? You memorize that ‘jiā yóu’ is how you cheer people on, and you never stop to think about what the words mean.”
“Emphasis on the you, Yu. Some of us think about it.”
I imagined him rolling his eyes but didn’t look up to check—I didn’t have much time, especially since Chase had to run to his locker earlier to grab the lockpicks.
“Isn’t it funny that they chose ‘add oil’?” he continued. “Or I guess it could be ‘add gasoline,’ which makes a little more sense. But why not, like, ‘add food,’ especially when we’re cheering on a human? Jiā fàn! We can say ‘jiā yóu’ if we’re cheering a car on.”
Well, I knew what phrase I would be using in the future to encourage Chase. I peeked at him for a moment and saw that he was staring at me with a lopsided grin on his face. “Eyes on the front door!” I admonished. “Mrs. Dumas could be back any second!” Seriously, he had one job. But I couldn’t keep from smirking as I turned back to the lock.
“You should’ve let me do this part,” Chase said as he nudged my foot with his.
“That’s the thanks I get for making sure your fingerprints aren’t all over this?” I didn’t voice the real reason, which was that Mr. Laurelson would be easier to deal with if I was the one most at fault for the B&E.
I was after Chase’s shiny blue binder, which I was convinced held his origin story. And this would also give me access to my own file, which might very well contain some answers, given the buffet of notes I could sample from and the fact that my mother had, for some reason, spoken to Mr. Laurelson about Chase even before she’d caught us attached at the lips.
Of course… I’d only told Chase about my desire to dig into my own files. When he had followed up with “What do you think you’ll find?” I, in full spy mode, had answered smartly and slyly, “I don’t know. How about we remove the interrogation light from my eyes now?” Too bad the spy I’d been channeling was Mr. Bean’s Johnny English. Like I said earlier, it was a Swiss-cheese plan, okay?
If Chase noticed something was off, he didn’t say anything. Probably because he’d just assumed the weirdness was me being me. Who knew that would ever serve me well?
My palms sweated like an Asian American art major at Thanksgiving dinner, but finally, one more twist and… click. I had so much adrenaline coursing through me I couldn’t believe I’d fallen asleep in class a short while ago.
“Stay out here,” I whispered to Chase as I ducked inside.
“I’m familiar with the plan,” he said as he took his rabble-rouser seat—fittingly, I might add.
“Always has to get the last word,” I muttered even though he couldn’t hear me anymore.
I did feel terrible going behind the back of the one adult in this school who trusted me, but I also reminded myself that I was keeping Mr. Laurelson from having to make a tough decision. Better for me to steal the information than have him break any rules to give it to me—so, really, I was doing him a favor.
No time for this. After breaking into the filing cabinet, which only took a couple of seconds because the lock was ancient, I went straight for the lone blue binder. Then I snatched up the bloated green binder that stuck out like my thumb after my last butterfly twist attempt gone wrong. Both so easy to locate among the rest, just like me and Chase.
As soon as the binders were open, side by side, on the desk, I switched to turbo mode, snapping photos of each page—with Chase’s cell phone, since my mom still had mine. It was quite the wrench in my not-at-all-thought-out plan, since I was lying to him and thus would have to transfer and delete his files before I returned his phone.
Yes, it bothered me that he was trusting me with something as personal as his phone and here I was, liar liar pants on… smolder, but he was the one being so cagey about his weird relationship with his mom. And if my endgame was to find a way for us to be together, that nullified any wrongdoing, right? Right.
Just as I was reaching the last few pages, I heard three cacaws from the other side of the door. That lovable weirdo. Chase had insisted on birdcalls, but I’d told him to cough or talk loudly—you know, normal things easy to cover up. I thought we had agreed on mine, but apparently not.
I rushed through the last bit, but I got what I came for and more.
After putting everything back in place, I glided to the door and tap-tappity-tap-tapped—our secret code—before hearing the tap-tippy-tap response that signaled the coast was clear.
“What was the ‘cacaw’ for?” I asked as I slipped out and fiddled to relock the door.
“Nothing. You can go back in if you need to. I just really wanted to cacaw. I still believe it’s the better signal.”
I finished and we moved toward the exit. “Except they cacaw in comedy and use coughs and other actually stealthy signals in serious spy movies, so I guess that means I’m the James Bond and you’re the Johnny English.”
He laughed. “Fair enough. And… maybe I cacawed because I missed you.”
The twinge of guilt I felt for lying to him was fleeting, because he wrapped his arms around my waist and kissed me until I could no longer feel my lips or knees.
Once we left the scene of the crime, I led Chase to the poorly lit, ancient computer lab, which was (shocker) empty when we arrived.
Chase drew a smiley face in the dust on one of the screens. “So, uh, why are we here?”
I pointed to his phone. “Uploading the photos to my Dropbox so we don’t lose them.”
And because I don’t know if I’ll be able to look at all of yours before I’ll need to delete them.
He tried to clean off the nearest station but ended up generating a dust storm. As he dissolved in a fit of coughs and struggled to pull his shirt over his nose, I used the distraction to hurry and get everything in motion. When the upload progress bar appeared, I relaxed slightly, then scanned through the files on his phone in an attempt to sneak a couple of his pages in.
Chase used his sleeve to wipe the monitor in front of us. “Do you want to pull them up on the screen?” His voice was muffled and slightly nasal from the neckline pressing down on his nose.
Hello, Swiss-cheese hole. Of course he would ask that. I hesitated, continuing to read as fast as I could while the other half of my mind worked to plug up the hole.
“But we don’t have to,” he added quickly. “You don’t have to share your files with me if it makes you uncomfortable.”
I felt like the disgusting human being I was. I briefly considered just spilling it all, but then I saw him gazing at me with that kind, hopeful look he reserved for me; I couldn’t say anything that would jeopardize that.
He’ll never know, I reassured myself.
Or you could just ask him about his family, a tiny voice said, but I had already thought this through. If the shoes were reversed, I would rather he find out about my family from anywhere but me.
“Let me just weed through these useless pages,” I stalled. “Just… trying to find something… interesting.”
I had no clue what I was looking for—it would’ve been nice if there’d been a big red arrow pointing to exactly what I needed—but there had to be something in my files that was related to my mother’s objections. Something I could pull up on the screen so I could stop acting as shady as Shady Pines on an overcast day.
Most pages were Mr. Laurelson’s notes about my mother with some thoughts scribbled on the side.
Monthly meeting to discuss Ali’s progress. Expressed my concern of too much pressure. Do not think I communicated effectively; she kept mentioning shame, Ali’s future prospects, her husband’s failure. Worried she is increasing the pressure on Ali because of Mr. Chu.
Note to self: check in with Ali.
Note to self: Isn’t Mr. Chu a professor?
But then I reached the date around the time Chase first showed up.
Mentioned Chase to Ali’s mother during monthly progress meeting, thinking she might be friends with Mrs. Yu.
My fists clenched; I thought Mr. Laurelson was better than that.
Not only did Mrs. Chu not know her, but she seemed concerned. Asked me personal, in-depth questions about Chase and the Yus (which of course I did not answer because of confidentiality).
Note to self: don’t bring up the Yus in the future. Keep an eye on Ali and Chase.
Hmm, so it sounded like my mother first learned about Chase from Mr. Laurelson. I wasn’t sure what to make of that.
I swiped until I found the note from my rabble-rousing:
Ali and Chase sent to the office today. Coincidence because of the race-related incident in class, or something else? Was Mrs. Chu right to worry since Ali has not been sent here in a long time?
Well, that sucked. Chase wasn’t making me more of a rabble-rouser—well, he was, but it wasn’t a bad thing.
My swipes grew jerky with anger.
Then, finally, I paused on the second-to-last page of my file as if there were flashing red lights on it, not just because it would plug the hole, but also because I was genuinely onto something. I pulled it up on the monitor so Chase could look too.
Mrs. Chu called three times today and left messages asking to transfer Chase Yu out of Ali’s classes.
I checked the date and time. Early this morning.
I continued reading.
Called back and explained this was not possible without a legitimate reason (which she did not provide—she just said “it’s important”). Tried to bribe me with homemade scallion pancakes. I refused. She proceeded to threaten me, and I gave her another warning. Warning 2 (this week).
Oh, Mǔqīn. That was like trying to bribe a lactose-intolerant person with a trip to Shady Pines. My mother’s scallion pancakes were the best in a hundred-mile radius, but they would’ve given Mr. Laurelson diarrhea since, by his own admission, he was used to boiled chicken and sandwiches, not something called “scallion oil pancakes” in their native language.
Because my mind was functioning at max capacity, it took me a minute to realize Chase was silent. When I finally broke away from the screen to look at him, his expression tugged at my heartstrings.
“Why does she dislike me so much?” he whispered. His words were questioning, but his tone gave them a hypothetical edge, like he already suspected something.
I placed a hand on his. “We’ll get to the bottom of it.” His look of both hope and fear was not lost on me.
I picked up the phone again (with no explanation to Chase of why I wasn’t using the monitor), and I didn’t have to scan much further to locate another flashing-lights page. At the end of the binder, from later this morning, was this:
Mrs. Chu called about the best timing for Ali to miss school to visit China. When I suggested waiting until the summer, she grew upset and huffed that that was “no longer an option.” When I asked with concern whether there was a family emergency, she said something confusing about how her family was from Hangzhou, where Ali would definitely not be visiting, and that I would never be able to understand.
Well, shit. Why was waiting no longer an option? Did this have to do with Chase?
“Your family’s from Hangzhou?” Chase said, reading over my shoulder.
I jumped in surprise and just managed to avoid banging Chase in the chin with my shoulder.
“Sorry,” he said sheepishly.
“Good job, Agent English,” I said, even though I was the true Johnny English here. And actually, he was onto something. “You know, I never knew we were from Hangzhou before.”
I pulled up a window on the computer and searched for “parks in Hangzhou, China, Liang, Chu.”
Chase pointed to the “Chu.” “If this is in China, the pinyin spelling would be ‘Z-h-u.’ ”
“Brilliant, double-oh-seven,” I said as I made the change and hit enter.
Two hundred fifty-one thousand hits, down from several million. Progress!
And at the top, through whatever school-library database we were connected to: a book and movie not available here but stocked at the Chicago Public Library.
The Butterfly Lovers: Liang Shanbo and Zhu Yingtai.
“That sounds vaguely familiar,” Chase said, pointing at the screen and leaving a smudge in the dust from excitement.
I nodded slowly, thrilled we were finally moving forward but clueless as to how everything fit together. “My mom used to tell me the story all the time when I was little.”
“It was a tragedy, right? Star-crossed lovers?”
“Aren’t all Chinese folktales tragedies?” I typed in “Liang Shanbo Zhu Yingtai Park.” Together, Chase and I read about the park dedicated to the Butterfly Lovers—yes, located in Hangzhou—with a temple, fountain, and garden. Nothing matched the photos I’d glimpsed from my mother’s stack, but that didn’t mean much, since I’d barely registered anything that day during the frenzy.
I refamiliarized myself with the “Liang Zhu” epic love story: families don’t approve, boy dies from heartbreak, girl goes to his grave on her wedding day, and then the usual—grave opens up, girl jumps in, boy and girl turn into butterflies to live happily ever after together as insects. The Chinese Romeo and Juliet.
Nothing felt even remotely related to me (except for the obvious, that Chase and I were star-crossed lovers of a sort, but that clearly had nothing to do with my mom’s motivations, since we were star-crossed because of her).
“I feel like we could find out more if we could type Chinese characters,” I said, closing the tabs in frustration. “Have you ever tried looking this kind of stuff up? It’s impossible. Although we’re making strides. At least there are translation options, even if they aren’t great. And there’s definitely entertainment value there.”
Chase sat up straighter. “ ‘All your base are belong to us’?”
“I was thinking more along the lines of how I once saw a picture online of a Chinatown store called Fuck Goods because they translated ‘gān’ wrong.” That dried-goods store probably attracted the wrong kind of English-speaking customer.
He laughed. “You win.”
I looked at the familiar tilt of his lips and the crinkle in his eyes that showed up only when he was amused or happy. Or looking at me. “Yeah, I really did win, didn’t I?”
We didn’t get much sleuthing done after that, and we certainly dusted off a fair share of the table.