“I want to be the teaser,” Marty announces. Because we are going to be on TV my sister is wearing her red pullover sweater and red-and-blue-plaid pedal pushers.
The man in charge frowns at her.
The other TV person, a woman, says to the man, “She really is a beautiful child.”
“Too short,” he says. “We need her for the tail.”
Mimi’s just smiling in her silly way, like the big-headed wooden dolls they have in the window of the store, and of course Xiao Lu doesn’t say a word. I know his mother is standing right outside; from time to time I hear the curtain of wooden beads clicking as Aunty Winnie peeks in.
The way it ends up is this: I am the teaser, Xiao Lu the head, Mimi the front of the body, my sister the back.
The TV man yells, “Ready!” and Uncle Frank, Mimi’s father, comes in with his giant tape recorder. He switches it on: bong! bong! bong! Chinese cymbals and some other kind of high-pitched boingy instruments. It sounds as bad as the Cantonese ladies arguing in Chinatown.
“Okay, tease the dragon, honey,” the woman tells me, and I hear the camera start to whir.
I begin to walk backward, staring into the glaring golden eyes, reminding myself that it’s only old Flat Face behind them. I insert my thumbs into my ears and wiggle my fingers.
“More,” says the man.
I stick out my tongue. I know I look ugly.
“That’s good,” says the man, “but you, the head, let’s see some more action. Jump up and down. All of you.”
The gaudy head inclines toward me slightly, and the floor quivers from the thumping of three pairs of sneakered feet.
At six o’clock that night our family crowds around the television set in the living room. They do all the other news first—national, local, until it’s nearly six-thirty. Finally: “And tonight marks a special celebration for some members of our community. This is the beginning of the year of the horse according to the Chinese calendar.” And there we all are, in black and white. All you can see of me is my back, braids flopping up and down. The camera pans onto the dragon’s head, which is wagging ponderously with Xiao Lu’s corduroys baggy beneath, and then down the length of the body. It lingers a moment on the tail, which gives a mischievous little wiggle. Through the Chinese music, we can hear people laughing. And that’s it, it’s the end of the newscast.
“I was great,” says Marty. “Ma, wasn’t I great?”
“Very realistic. Just like dragon.”
Daddy doesn’t say anything at all, although I can tell he is pleased we have done something Chinese.
One Saturday afternoon a month Xiao Lu comes over to our house while his mother goes to her mah-jongg club. Our mother doesn’t play mah-jongg. “Gambling’s waste of time,” she says. “Just look at your aunt and uncle.”
“What about them?” I ask.
“They don’t even own their own house. Track, sports, you name it. Your uncle has no control.”
Daddy quizzes Xiao Lu in Chinese. Xiao Lu answers with his head hanging.
“Hah,” our father says, pleased. He says to us: “You treat him like an elder brother. With respect.”
This one afternoon, the afternoon we get into trouble, the three of us are out in the backyard performing a play. It’s our own version of Captain Hook, where I’m the evil captain and Marty the princess, and Xiao Lu the good captain who’s supposed to come and save her. Xiao Lu is just standing there looking miserable, not saying his lines.
“Whatcha doin’?”
I look up to see David Katz lounging up against the outside of our fence. I’m surprised to see him, he usually ignores us when Xiao Lu is around. He says: “Hey, I got some cherry bombs. Let’s set them off on Witch Dugan’s front porch. It’ll scare her something wicked.”
“Why don’t you just do it yourself?” I ask.
“Stupid. There has to be a lookout.”
My sister, lashed with clothesline to the dogwood tree, rolls her eyes. “You’re the one who’s stupid. All she’s gonna do is call your parents anyway. She’ll know it’s you.”
“It’s him, isn’t it?” David glares at Xiao Lu. Then he presses his palms together like he’s praying and gives a little bow. “Ah so.” He walks backward down his driveway and around the corner of the garage till he’s out of sight, bowing with every step. The fact that it’s David doing it makes me queasy in a way it never has before.
Xiao Lu gazes after David, cowering to the ends of his hair, which stands up softly on his long head. Then he puts his plastic silver sword down on the picnic table and hunches his shoulders. I feel like strangling him.
“Now what’s the matter?”
“I don’t feel like playing anymore.”
“You want to watch TV?”
“Okay,” he whispers into the collar of his oxford shirt. It’s the kind everybody at school makes fun of, with a strip sewn to the back. Fruit loops, the kids say, and pull till it rips.
“Go inside,” I tell him. “My mother will give you tea and plum candy.”
I untie Marty and we go to find David, who is pitching pebbles into the goldfish pond. “Let’s go to Kramer’s,” he says, a little too casually. I know right away what he means. Kramer’s Pharmacy on Whitney Avenue is David’s favorite shoplifting target.
The three of us saunter down Coram Drive and make a left onto Whitney Avenue, past St. Cecilia’s, which has open doors for Saturday mass. The bad boys are all Catholic. I wonder if making Chinese eyes at someone is a sin, and if they have to confess it to the priest in his screened box.
In the drugstore we wander around, waiting for old man Kramer to get busy with someone’s prescription in the back of the store. David is a pro. Once he even stole a steak from the supermarket. He goes first, a Mars bar in his sock, and then watches Marty and me from a nearby aisle. I grab blindly, but my sister’s brow wrinkles, choosing. Afterward, I go to loiter in front of the birthday cards until Marty comes up and pinches the skin under my arm. Mr. Kramer is back in his regular place, by the front cash register. As we come up, he asks us what we would like.
“Just these Neccos, please,” I say in my politest voice.
“Remember to count your money,” Mr. Kramer quavers, as he always does.
My knees are shaking, I hope he can’t see. I tell myself that people think that Oriental kids, especially girls, never do anything bad.
“Piece a cake,” David says, his mouth full of caramel goo, as we walk home.
I’m still worried. “Do you think he saw us?”
“Nah. Kramer’s blind as a bat.” Marty offers me half a Nestle’s Crunch bar. I eat it, along with some Neccos, although I’m not hungry.
When we get past the L-bend, the Lus’ old beige Rambler is pulling away from the curb in front of our house. Daddy is standing on the front porch.
“YOU BOTH COME HERE.”
“Oh-oh,” David says cheerfully, his mouth still full. “See you later.”
In the living room Daddy begins to pace, hands clasped behind his back. I’m trying, unsuccessfully, to think of convincing reasons we would have left Xiao Lu by himself.
“So what you have in your pockets?”
“Candy.” I am not a good liar, and worse when surprised into it.
“Let’s see!” Daddy’s eyes have stretched into menacing slits like the Peking opera masks he gave me for my birthday. I reach into my pocket and put everything on the coffee table: the half-eaten roll of Necco wafers, the three packs of Juicy Fruit I stole.