As time went on, I took over all the shopping duties. Mother seemed happier and less tired these days, but she forbade me from trying back-door tricks again.
“It’s too dangerous, and we can’t afford more trouble,” she often told me.
I made no promises to her. By myself, I did whatever I could to get food for us.
When spring came, I found a safer way. I followed a group of old women from the market to a village at the edge of the city. There the villagers were selling eggs, rice, and vegetables. They were glad to sell to us, since they could charge us more than they could the government. The first time, I eagerly filled my basket with rice cakes, tofu, and carrots. But on the way home, I realized I had made a mistake. The bamboo basket
grew heavier with each step. The older women were long gone, carrying their food in homemade cloth backpacks.
By the time I dragged the full basket home, my clothes and shoes were wet from the fog, and blisters covered my palms. That night, I sewed myself a backpack from Father’s old jacket. I didn’t show Mother my palms.
By the time my blisters turned to calluses, I had become skilled at bargaining and trading. In the village, I learned the easiest way to get the best deal was to wait until the old women bargained down the price, then haggle with the farmers for an even lower price. I usually paid less than the old women.
Using the ration tickets I’d saved, I could get soap on the black market, along with toothpaste and sometimes even brown sugar.
After one incident at the market, I learned to get hold of the goods I wanted before showing my ration tickets. A big-eared boy who was half a head taller than me offered to trade a small bag of peanuts for two of my egg ration tickets. I was so happy to see the plump peanuts. Without thinking, I took out my ration tickets
hidden inside my shoe. The boy grabbed them and ran. With one shoe in hand, I chased him for two long blocks. When I caught up with him, I grabbed him by the back of his collar. I screamed and yelled and hit him with my shoe until he gave me the bag of peanuts.
That night, Mother and I enjoyed peanut and red date soup. With a smile on her face, Mother told me this soup helps the blood’s circulation. I nodded and pushed down the urge to tell her how getting the peanuts had already made my blood run.
All summer I often wondered what Father would think if he saw me fighting and yelling at the market.
In the fall I began my last school year with Teacher Hui, our homeroom teacher. She had tried to protect me from Gao and his gang. Once, after Gao spat on my chair, she kept him standing in the back of the classroom all morning. When she heard Yu call me “bourgeois girl with long hair,” she told Yu the length of someone’s hair had nothing to do with a person being bourgeois.
Since the beginning of the semester, we had had no textbooks. Teacher Hui taught us reading from
the central government’s newspaper, The People’s Daily, and the red book. In the afternoons, when she attended the teachers’ political study, the Young Pioneers ran the classroom, and now Gao and Yu were in charge.
All the girls in my class had cut their hair in Jiang Qing’s style, above their ears. Teacher Hui and I were the only two who still kept our hair long. I’d overheard her tell another teacher that she curled her bangs by heating an iron poker on the stove and rolling the bangs around it. I wanted to try it, but I had no bangs. Mother said I was too young for them.
This year I was finally able to make two braids the same size and weave in the loose strands. I was proud of my long hair. With everyone in the city wearing baggy Mao jackets and looking the same, I thought that with my long braids no one would mistake me for a boy.
One rainy morning, I walked into the classroom with my clothes half soaked. Gao stood behind Teacher Hui’s desk. Despite all the meat and eggs his father fed him from the back door, he had only
grown wider. The name Gao meant “tall,” but he stood there like a big round steamed bun set on a pair of duck feet.
“Everyone, look at the poster!” Gao commanded, sniffing his runny nose. Eyeing the big piece of white paper pasted to the middle of the blackboard, he puffed up proudly and read, “Chase out the bourgeois teacher! Get educated by the working class!”
I knew better than to ask where Teacher Hui was.
Yu blocked my way with her leg as I walked to my seat. I jumped over it and ignored her. A big green gob of spit lay in the middle of my chair.
Trying hard not to show my fear and anger, I took a deep breath and reached into my bag for a piece of paper to wipe it off. Someone punched me in the back. Two paper balls hit my head. I turned. Yu, Gao, and their gang stood behind me, laughing.
I remembered Mother’s words, “We can’t afford more trouble.” Teacher Hui was not here. No one would stop them. As I stood between my desk and the bench, they surrounded me. I had nowhere to escape.
Gao swaggered in front of my desk, waving a pair of scissors near my face. “You! Daughter of the American spy! Cut your hair, or we will do it for you!”
Punches landed on me, sending sharp pain all over. I was pushed and hit from all sides.
“Cut it now, now, now!” They cheered like cawing crows.
I swallowed to catch my breath and remained firm against the desk. Blood rushed to my head. I would rather have died than let them cut my hair.
My teeth ground in my dry mouth. “Get away from me, you stupid pigs!” The words burst out.
Gao spat. The thick spit hit my face and smelled like sour cabbage. My cheeks burned. “How dare you call us stupid pigs,” Gao screamed. “I’m going to tell my father!”
“Kill the bourgeois bug now!” Yu yelled.
Within seconds, more punches landed on my shoulders and head. They pulled at my jacket so hard the buttons tore off. I tried to shield my head with one arm; the other tightly held the straps of my schoolbag. Yu grabbed my braids violently and it felt
as if they were being yanked off my scalp. Gao opened and closed the scissors in the air. “Let’s cut her bourgeois hair now!” His face turned dark red.
The images of Mrs. Wong’s long black hair falling on the yellow leaves and the baby doctor’s yin-yang haircut flashed through my thoughts.
No! I would not let them humiliate me. I would show them that I was not weak, and I would risk my life.
I swung my schoolbag fiercely against Gao’s head. Clunk! Clunk! My abacus hit him. His eyes grew wide in surprise and pain. Once, twice! He fell over backward, knocking down the row of benches and desks behind him.
The beating stopped. The rest of them glanced at one another. I pushed my desk forcefully on top of Gao. Like an angry tiger, I roared, “I will kill you if you dare touch my hair!”
With an ear-piercing scream, Gao cried, “Help! Help! Ling is killing me! I am bleeding.” His arms and legs thrashing around, he lay there tangled in desks and benches. Blood dripped from his nose. The scissors were knocked two rows away. Wiping the spit
off my face with my torn sleeve, I had an urge to spit on him, but I didn’t.
Yu and the others stood frozen, staring at me as if I had suddenly grown three heads. They parted, moving a few inches away from me. With my schoolbag in hand, I held my head high and walked out of the classroom.
I wondered if those heroes in revolutionary movies, who’d rather die than surrender, felt as good as I did.