Her chest heaved as she took a deep breath, and Pink almost lost his balance in her swaying pocket.
“Okay,” she muttered under her breath. “Okay. Let’s do this.”
She walked over and stood awkwardly in front of the new girl, who looked up from her book. “Hullo,” Jing Wei said cheerily. “I’m Jing Wei, who’re you?”
“I’m Suraya.” She shuffled her feet. “Is it okay if I sit with you?”
“Ya, of course.” Jing Wei slid over to make room for her on the step, and Suraya sat down, smiling shyly. “I got pork in my lunch though. Is that okay?”
“Ya, it’s okay, I don’t mind.”
“I know some Malay girls don’t like when I eat pork near them.” Jing Wei shrugged, spooning another heap of rice into her mouth. “But I dunno why. Not like I force you to eat it also, right?”
“Right.” Suraya took a small bite of the kaya and butter sandwich she’d made for herself that morning and glanced down at the other girl’s book. “What are you reading?”
Jing Wei’s small face lit up. When she smiled, her eyes crinkled up until they almost disappeared. “It’s a great book! It’s called A Wrinkle in Time. You know it?”
“Know it! I’ve read it like four times!” Suraya’s smile was so wide it nearly cracked her face in two. “It’s one of my favorite books.”
“Wah, four times! It’s only my first time, but I’m almost halfway through already. I like that Charles Wallace, he’s damn smart.”
Suraya nodded, wiping a spot of kaya from the side of her mouth. “You like to read?”
“Oh ya.” Jing Wei scraped the last of her rice out of her container, which was black and shaped like Darth Vader’s helmet. “My mother said that’s how I ruined my eyes, because I read all the time. As if that’s a bad thing. You read a lot too?”
“Yes. I . . . don’t have many friends, so I have a lot of time to read.”
“Hah? No friends? Why ah?” Jing Wei regarded her with frank curiosity, pushing her glasses back up her nose, and Suraya shrugged.
“I don’t know,” she said. “I’m new to this school, and I live pretty far away. But even back home I don’t have many friends. I guess other girls just . . . don’t like me.”
“You seem okay to me.” Her smile was wide and friendly. “And you like to read too! If you like Star Wars then we’re definitely going to be friends.”
“I’ve never seen Star Wars,” Suraya confessed, and then began to laugh at Jing Wei’s expression of open-mouthed dismay.
“Ohmygoooooood, never seen Star Wars? You serious? You have to come to my house and watch it, I’ve got all of them, on Blu-Ray somemore.”
It was the first time Suraya’d ever been invited back to someone’s home, and Pink thought his nonexistent heart might burst with happiness and pride.
“Okay,” Suraya said happily. “Okay, I will. And you can come to my house and look at my books.”
“Cool!”
“Hey, are you done?” Pink frowned; Suraya’s own container was still half full of the soggy sandwiches she’d put together that morning.
“Ya, why?” Bits of rice flew out as Jing replied through her last mouthful.
“I want to show you this secret spot I like to go to during recess, before the bell rings. You know. To get away from people.”
Their secret place? Pink felt his heart sink. Their own special spot, the one place they went to for a little peace during the chaos of the school day?
She was taking this strange new girl to their secret place?
Pink felt it then: a shimmer in the air, a ripple that told him change was coming, a hot flame of anger licking delicately at his insides. We have nothing to lose, he’d told Suraya, but suddenly he wondered: She has nothing to lose. Do I?
But Suraya and Jing Wei noticed nothing. They raced happily toward the frangipani trees, secure in the knowledge that they’d each found a friend.
Ten
Girl
SURAYA HAD WATCHED the animated movie Pinocchio exactly once, and then never again, because the bearded puppet master Stromboli, with his dark beard and his wild eyes, freaked her out and gave her nightmares for a week. She’d taken the DVD and hidden it in the crack between the bookcase and the wall, where there was space for little else but dust and geckos. It was, as far as she knew, still there.
But when she looked back on the moment she met Jing Wei, she would say that, much like the little boy made of wood, this was the moment that she felt like she became real. This was the moment she began to blossom into herself. It was as if having Jing accept her showed her that it was okay to accept herself too. She stopped stooping and trying to hide behind her hair; she walked tall and looked people in the eye when they spoke to her. And it was refreshing to have a friendship she didn’t need to hide, for once.
With Jing Wei by her side, she learned to laugh, and even to make jokes of her own. They were never apart, and the other girls got used to seeing the two of them together, the tall, lanky figure of Suraya beside the petite Jing, who barely came up to Suraya’s shoulder. The two exchanged books, shared their food—as long as it was halal, of course—and talked about everything, from what they’d read to their families. Suraya even showed Jing her notebook, a new one, its thin blue lines slowly filling with a cast of colorful characters, improbable scenes, fantastic beasts. She’d held her breath as Jing flipped slowly through the pages, and didn’t let go until she heard Jing’s breathless, drawn-out “Coooooooooooooooool.”
Jing had a huge family, a cast of thousands, and her stories were often peopled with colorful characters: grandparents, uncles, aunts, and a never-ending stream of cousins, whom she divided into cousin-brothers and cousin-sisters.
She was fascinated by the idea of a family consisting of just two people. “But you don’t have any cousins or anything?”
“No,” Suraya said. “It’s just me and my mother.”
“And your dad?”
Suraya looked down, studying the frayed tips of her shoes intently. “He died a long time ago. I was really little. I don’t even remember him. My mother never talks about him.”
She looked up to see Jing looking at her with frank sympathy and understanding. “It’s okay. My dad died too, you know.” She pushed her glasses back up from where they’d slid down her nose. “Just last year. He loved Star Wars. We used to watch all the movies together, have lightsaber battles.” She lapsed into silence, and Suraya’s heart ached for her.
“How did he die?” she asked gently.
“Heart attack. He didn’t even know there was anything wrong. He had a pain, he said. We thought resting would help. Next morning . . .” Her voice trailed off, and Suraya thought she detected a glint of tears behind those glasses. “Anyway. That’s why Ma moved us back here, so we could be closer to family.”
Suraya nodded. “I wish we had more family,” she said wistfully.
Jing glanced at her. “You have me now what.” Her tone was light, but her hand brushed against Suraya’s as she spoke, and her smile lit up her entire face.