“DeMille is a good school. Lots of good teachers—”
“It sucks!” Thom blurted.
“Hey.” Ma’s chopsticks clattered on the glass table. “No bad words.”
Thom cowered under the Asian stare of death, Ma’s eyes widening, the whites showing, her pupils hardening to sharp black points.
“‘Sucks’ is not a bad word,” Thom muttered.
“I pay lots of money for you to go to DeMille. You should be grateful you have opportunity. I make lots of sacrifice for you.”
Thom stuck her chopsticks into her mound of rice and swirled everything around until the dumpling broke and bits of green veggies and pink-and-white shrimp meat spilled out like guts. She hated it here, hated her school, hated how everyone stared before quickly looking away, hated the way her teachers spoke to her like she was dumb and then were surprised when she spoke English just as well as, if not better than, the other students. She hated how everyone commented on the fact that she had no accent—as if having an accent were a bad thing—hated how everyone laughed behind their hands or how a group of girls stopped talking when she approached.
She missed her old life.
“Are you listening to me?” Ma asked.
Thom nodded.
“Hey,” Ma said, trying to sound cheerful. “How ’bout we go get boba, hah?”
Thom’s mouth watered at the thought of an ice-blended lychee frostie with tapioca pearls and jelly, or, no, maybe iced milk tea and popcorn chicken. But then she pictured walking out of the café with her mom, holding her cup with its jumbo-sized straw. It would be just her luck that Bethany or Sarah would see her doing the most Asian thing possible in Troy, as if she weren’t enough of an outsider already.
“No,” Thom said, and Ma’s face fell. “It’s too far.” Another thing she couldn’t get over—the nearest boba place was thirty minutes away. Back in LA, there was one on almost every block.
“That’s okay,” Ma said, too cheerful. “It’s worth it. We can get wontons too!”
Oh God, wontons. Thom missed wontons. But she couldn’t risk running into a classmate. So she used the only excuse she knew Ma would understand.
“I have a lot of homework.”
Ma went quiet, then let out a breath. She reached out and patted Thom’s hand. “I’m sorry, cưng,” she said. Thom knew Ma cared about her; she knew that everything Ma did was for her future. It didn’t mean she liked it. “I know things are hard, but just give it some time, hmm?”
Thom nodded, and Ma squeezed her wrist—the equivalent of a Vietnamese hug—before picking up her chopsticks again.
But how much time was this going to take? How much longer did Thom have to keep this up?
4
AT SCHOOL THE NEXT DAY, there was an announcement from the administrator’s office.
“Good afternoon, Dolphins.”
Everyone snickered, and imitated dolphins giggling, which happened every time their mascot was mentioned. The teacher stood up from her desk and shushed them so hard the blood vessel in her forehead threatened to pop.
Thom stared at the speaker at the front of the room, the one part of the wall that hadn’t been covered in colorful butcher paper, bright inspirational posters, or examples of other students’ art projects.
“Welcome back to another wonderful school year,” Peter Jenkens, the student body president, announced over the intercom. “Woo-hoo! Don’t forget that the early-bird rate for the fall dance ends September fifteenth. Pay now, or you’ll be charged an extra fifteen bucks! Also, DeMille Middle School’s first-ever annual Culture Day is coming up in a few weeks! Students are required to pair up with someone else in their homeroom and present an art project. For extra credit, you can also dress up or join the talent show! Sign up with Mrs. Stevenson if you plan to perform. Slots are open for dancing, singing, and … poetry reading?” The sound of papers shuffling came across the intercom. “Uh, okay. Even if you don’t perform, participate by dressing up in your culture’s best traditional outfit and show us all where you come from!”
As if. Thom looked around the room, but no one was paying attention to her. They were all whispering to one another. One student was busy drawing mustaches on an inspirational poster of a celebrity telling them to read. The teacher was distracted, but it’s not like she would notice, since so much motivational artwork covered the walls.
Who was going to want to pair up with Thom? She made a mental note to never tell Ma about Culture Day. If Ma found out about the extra credit, she would probably dress Thom up, from head to toe, in ancient Vietnamese garb, and then Thom could kiss making friends here goodbye.
Maybe she could partner with Kathy Joon. Bethany and Sarah would probably work together, so Kathy would need a partner, and she was Asian, too. Then again, Kathy was different. She was like magic, made of bright, shiny hair and a honey-milk complexion wrapped in the silky sheen of popularity. Was Kathy going to dress up in one of those puffy Korean dresses? A hanbok? She would look so cool.
Even among Asians, Thom had always felt like a minority. Everyone usually assumed she was Japanese, Chinese, or Korean before eventually getting to Vietnamese, and probably only because they had heard about the war at some point.
Kathy turned around, and Thom didn’t look away fast enough. To Thom’s horror, their eyes met for a full second. Kathy’s eyebrows lifted slowly before she whispered something to Bethany, who glared at Thom over her shoulder.
Thom lurched upright. She didn’t know what to do. She forced her lips into a smile, hoping that would do the trick, but Bethany looked away.
Thom’s face grew hot. Why had she stared at Kathy like that? Her mind had been on traditional dresses and Culture Day, but now they were going to think she’d been obsessing over Kathy like some stalker freak.
As soon as the bell rang, she hightailed it out of there. It didn’t matter how fast she ran, though; she would still have to face them during soccer practice. God, why couldn’t she just be normal? No wonder she had no friends.
* * *
It turned out that she had nothing to worry about, because the dynamic trio treated her the same way they always had: like she didn’t exist.
After the nearly lethal kick yesterday, believe it or not, Coach Pendergrass seemed to trust Thom more, sending her after the ball and calling her forward in the drills. But it didn’t take Coach long to come to the conclusion that yesterday had just been a fluke. Thom still couldn’t kick the ball right—she tried to only tap it with her toe, and even then it flew too fast and too far for her teammates, which made them shoot her dirty looks. Some of them retaliated, kicking the soccer ball straight at Thom. But it didn’t hurt—at least, not physically.
By the time practice was over, Thom was ready to burst into tears. Her throat hurt from holding them back, and she didn’t even bother changing, just stuffed everything into her gym bag and rushed out of the locker room.
Ma was reading a paperback when she reached the car. Thom yanked the door handle so hard it fell off. Fumbling, she quickly tried to reattach it without Ma noticing. But when she looked up, her mother was staring with her mouth open.
“Thom,” Ma said from inside the car.