As soon as I’m home I get myself a big piece of Randy’s marble cake. It’s a day old, but a lot of food tastes better after it sits around. My mom’s spaghetti is an example of this. So are the peanut butter cookies she makes.
I chew the marble cake and think about the two flavors in my mouth. They somehow aren’t that different. Maybe frosting would have changed that by making a third taste to separate the swirls.
Or maybe it’s just that I love frosting.
While I’m eating I think about Gillian, who is Dorothy, and Coco, who is Toto. I think about Kevin, who is the Wizard, and Dana and Kitty, who are the witches. I don’t think about the Lion or the Tin Man or the Scarecrow because I didn’t spend much time with them. I think about Gianni and of course Shawn Barr.
I decide to visit Mrs. Chang to talk about her audition. Maybe she’s changed her mind and now doesn’t want to be in the play. That can happen when people ask for something and then the roadblock is removed. They realize it never mattered.
I’m worried that if Mrs. Chang is in a harness and doing wire work, she might fall or crash into Olive and me.
I know that she could be in the chorus in the Emerald City and sing onstage and still be part of the show. That feels like a better idea.
The harness is really not very comfortable. I didn’t tell her when I was with Olive and Gianni because I didn’t want to hurt Gianni’s feelings.
I use Randy’s cake as an excuse. I wrap a piece in waxed paper and take it down the street. I ring the bell, and I guess Mrs. Chang’s always standing on the other side of the door, because it opens immediately.
Maybe she’s like Ramon and she can hear me coming from a long way away.
I wrote a report about that. One of the reasons dogs hear sounds from a distance four times farther than people is because they have eighteen different muscles in their ears. These muscles move to give their ears a better angle on the noise.
I don’t think people have any muscles in the outside part of our ears. They are just a place for jewelry and for keeping eyeglasses from falling off. If we could move our ears, that would be very interesting, but not something you could learn to do in gym class, even if you tried really hard to build muscle strength.
I hold out the piece of cake to Mrs. Chang, and I say, “For you. Homemade.”
I don’t explain that Randy baked it since she doesn’t know him and also, he’s not here to get the credit.
I think it’s a good sign that Mrs. Chang is not wearing her winged monkey costume. She’s in stretchy yellow pants and a white shirt that is too big and maybe once belonged to a man. It’s the kind of shirt that a large person would wear untucked with a tie. Somehow it looks good on her.
“Come in, Julia.”
“I brought you chocolate and yellow marble cake. Swirled around inside, not made of actual marbles. But no frosting.”
“Did you bake it?”
Too much time passes.
Finally I say, “It was cooked right in our oven.”
We go through the entryway down the hall to the kitchen. I like it in here. The drying plants hanging from the ceiling and all her big wooden bowls give off a good feeling.
“Should we have tea with our cake?”
If she means the stuff that tastes like dirty flowers I would say forget it, but instead I’m polite and say, “If you want that.”
Mrs. Chang heads to the refrigerator and pulls out a glass jug. “I also have goat’s milk.”
All of a sudden the dirty-flower tea sounds great.
Who drinks goat’s milk? Where do you even get it?
We were goats in the photo for the pet parade. But I can’t imagine how you’d get milk from that animal. I’ve been around a few goats, and they smell like a room full of wet socks.
I say, “Tea is really good with cake.”
Mrs. Chang puts away her goat jug and gets to work making us tea. She then places the cake slice on a plate and cuts it in two pieces in a very careful and attractive way. I already had mine at home, but she doesn’t know and it would be rude to let her eat alone.
I think that we are going to have the cake here in her kitchen, but instead, once the tea is ready she puts everything on a big red tray and starts toward the two doors that lead to the yard.
I follow.
She steps outside onto a little pebble path that runs around the corner to the back of the house. From the street you can’t see any of this, so it’s a new area to me.
Once again I’m in for a big surprise: She has ducks!
I know that there are people who keep chickens for their eggs. But ducks?
I look around and I also see a small pond and a grassy spot and then a thing that looks like a wooden doghouse, but I guess is a duck house.
The three ducks I see are as white as snow.
One is standing in the grass, and he’s using his bright orange beak to dig. He’s moving dirt and he’s mad. He stomps his big orange feet like a cartoon. Only he’s real. The color of his feet and his beak are pure pumpkin. It’s just shockingly bright.
“I can’t believe you have ducks!”
Mrs. Chang sets the tray on a round table where there are also two chairs. She says, “Don’t give them any cake.”
I guess the ducks speak English, because as soon as she’s said this sentence, all three of them turn. They stop what they are doing—two were doing nothing—and they start toward us.
The ducks walk in a funny way.
Mrs. Chang raises a hand in the air and says, “No. Not now.”
The ducks aren’t good listeners. They slow down, but they keep coming straight at us. Their heads move with little jerking motions. If we had on music right now I think they’d be dancing.
Mrs. Chang looks like Mrs. Vancil at school after lunch when no one quiets down. She suddenly claps her hands and says, “You heard me. Not now.”
The ducks stop at the hand clap. They huddle together. They are still moving, only now it’s in a circle.
I turn to Mrs. Chang. “I love your ducks.”
She says, “I knew you would. After we have our tea and cake, I’ll give you something to feed them.”
I’m pretty excited, so I eat my cake very fast and I drink as much of the flower tea as possible. It’s better today than yesterday. Am I developing a taste for it?
That could happen.
I can see myself back at school in the cafeteria with Piper and Kaylee, taking out a thermos and pouring myself a small cup of this greenish tea. They would go crazy.
The ducks make it hard for me to concentrate on anything else, and so I forget about trying to talk Mrs. Chang out of auditioning to be a winged monkey.
I ask, “Do they ever drop any feathers? I’d love to have a duck feather.”
“Are you going to try to make a quill pen?”
“No. It’s for my scrapbook about the summer. I don’t make pens.”
Mrs. Chang understands. Just because she can make shoes and hats and costumes doesn’t mean the rest of us are craftspeople too. A few minutes later she finishes her cake and goes into the house.
I stay in the yard with the ducks.
Once she’s gone I would say that the warden has left the prison yard, because the ducks break their huddle and head right to me.
I’d be afraid, but these are pet ducks, so they must be trained. I clap my hands like Mrs. Chang did, but I’m not in charge and they know it.
It doesn’t take long before they are at my feet looking for crumbs.
I say, “The cake is gone.”
They don’t listen.
With the ducks this close I can see their white feathers, which are so complicated. I can’t imagine how the brain of the duck knows to grow these things. The center part looks like it’s made of the same stuff as my fingernails. But the other part is tiny layers of something that’s so fancy I suddenly wish I had feathers growing out of my head instead of this mess of brown hair.
I must have dropped a tiny crumb of cake on my right leather sandal, because the biggest of the three birds strikes my foot. I howl, “Cut it out!”
The ducks scramble back, and I don’t know who is now more upset—them or me?
Fortunately Mrs. Chang comes down the path, and the ducks see her and it’s like I’m now lawn furniture. They head to their leader.
This is the first time I realize that Mrs. Chang is dressed like a duck. She has the too-big white shirt and the stretchy yellow pants. If the pants were bright orange it would be a perfect match, but even wearing the lemony color she looks like their mom.
She speaks to the birds. “Julia is going to give you snacks. You be nice to Julia.”
The ducks seem confused. They look from Mrs. Chang back to me, but they really keep their eyes on her hands, which hold a banana, a bunch of small carrots, and a bell pepper.
I say, “Do they like that stuff?”
“Very much.”
Mrs. Chang takes a seat again in the chair by the metal table, and peels the banana. She passes it to me.
“Break off little chunks. It’s a real treat for a duck.”
She can say that again!
Now that I’m holding the banana, the ducks are all pushing each other to get at me. The banana must be a lot better than slugs, or whatever they get out there in the dirt.
I would like to have them eating right out of my hand, but I don’t want to see my finger snap off, so I toss a few banana chunks. The ducks scramble, and I have to keep throwing pieces because they look like they might attack each other if they don’t each get enough.
Mrs. Chang twice has to clap and say, “All right, calm down.”
They listen to her, but really only for a few moments and then they are back to being crazy birds.
After the banana is gone we move on to the carrots. They like these vegetables, but not as much. I end the feeding with pieces of the bell pepper, which is good, but not a duck favorite.
I’d love to have a duck, but I’m pretty sure my parents wouldn’t go for it. I can’t see them digging up the backyard and putting in a pond and duck house, even though my mom could get all the stuff she needed at a discount from work.
But we’d have to have more than one bird because I think a single duck would be very lonely. It seems like being part of a pushy group is a big joy for a duck.
These ducks have names, but they are in Chinese and they disappear from my mind right after I hear Mrs. Chang say them. I can’t expect the ducks to wear collars with name tags, even though that would be very cute.
Once the ducks realize that snack time is over, they go to the pond and get into the water and they paddle around in a very excited way.
Maybe I’m imagining it, but they seem to know that we’re watching.
And they look so happy.