Even Zoe and Bernard didn’t believe that I was living with a SUPER-DANGEROUS predator.
“Aren’t you . . .” Zoe lowered her voice, “scared of snakes?”
“Zoe! You know we don’t use the ‘S’ word for Sam!” Bernard whispered.
“I am NOT—” I started to say.
“We know, we know. You aren’t afraid,” Zoe interrupted.
“Well, can we come over and see it?”
“Yeah, Sam, can we come over? We’ve never been to your house.”
There was a reason for that. Multiple reasons.
1. Butterbutt. A total liability
2. Lucy. She’d ask WAY too many questions.
3. Na-Na. Her English isn’t very good, and I didn’t want to embarrass her.5
4. We don’t have any normal snacks at my house. My mom does her grocery shopping at the Asian supermarket.
5. Fang might eat everyone.
But they were right. How would anyone ever know about my super-dangerous sidekick, Fang, and how brave I was if nobody ever saw him?
“Okay,” I said. “I’ll ask my mom if you can come over tomorrow.”
I wanted to impress my friends, so I asked my dad to make my two favorite dishes. Roast duck and turnip cake.6 Usually he only makes them for special occasions, but I told him this was a special occasion. It was the first time I was having my friends over. And I was going to introduce them to 
! And it was the first time they were going to meet Fang. It would go down in history as a momentous occasion.
When Zoe and Bernard walked through my front door, Bernard scrunched up his nose.
“What’s wrong?” I asked. The last time I’d seen Bernard make that face was when he accidentally ate mouldy cheese.
“What IS that?” he asked. His voice sounded all stuffed up, as if he was holding his breath.
“What’s what?” I replied.
Zoe held her nose. “That smell! It smells like . . . it smells like FEET!”
I looked down at my feet and smelled as hard as I could. All I could smell was the delicious smells of roast duck and turnip cake. I guess the turnip cake smell WAS kind of strong . . .
“Maybe you should put your shoes back on,” Bernard said.
“I can’t,” I said. “And um . . . you have to take your shoes off, too. That’s the rule at my house.”
“Maybe that’s why everything smells like feet!” said Zoe.
Right at that moment, my dad walked out of the kitchen.
“Hi, kids! Hope you’re excited for dinner! I made Sam’s favorite!” He held out the roast duck by the neck. “Do you want to help me chop it?”
Bernard turned a little green. “N-no thank you, Mr. Wu,” he said.
Zoe’s eyes looked like they were about to pop out of her head.
This was NOT going well. I had to distract my friends, and I had to do it fast.
“Next time,” I said to my dad. “I want to show Zoe and Bernard my room.” I turned to them. “Come on, let’s go and meet Fang. Unless you’re too scared . . .”
Bernard eyed the duck warily. “There is no way it is going to be scarier than THAT.”