Feather in the Storm: A Childhood Lost in Chaos by Emily Wu, Larry Engelmann Page B

the nearby middle school. They planned their vengeance methodically, just as the adults did.
    The next afternoon Xiaolan and I participated in a rehearsal for our school’s Mao Zedong Thought Propaganda Team. The best singers and dancers in the school were selected to be part of the team and performon the streets and for other classes and schools. After an hour of singing and dancing, the students and teachers left. Xiaolan and I stayed to sweep the floor and clean the blackboard. We had not yet been forbidden from participating in rehearsals but we were required to perform extra labor. When we were finished, we gathered up our books and walked to the door and spotted Sun Maomao and her brothers and sisters—the entire Sun brood—waiting for us outside.
    “There they are!” Sun Maomao shouted when she saw us. They rushed the door. We scampered back into the classroom, slammed the door shut and blocked it with a desk. We braced our backs against the desk and held the door closed. The Suns pounded and kicked the door, cursing and making threats. Each time they succeeded in pushing the door open an inch we pushed back with all of our might. Slowly the opening became smaller until, to the sound of expletives and threats from the other side, it clicked shut.
    “Are there just two of them? Are you absolutely sure?” we heard one of the Suns ask. Our desperation gave us the strength of many.
    “We have all the time in the world, you little black bitches,” one of the Sun boys shouted. “The longer we wait out here, the worse it is going to be for you. Come out and face your punishment.”
    We had no intention of facing them. Eventually Sun Maomao’s big brother announced, “We’ll sit here as long as you are in there, and we’ll save our strength for beating the shit out of you.” After a long silence, Sun Maomao screamed, “You filthy black bitches had better come out of there, or … or I’ll have my brothers … set fire to the building. I’ll see you bitches burn.”
    We didn’t know what they might do if we went out, but our imaginations were vivid. So we waited quietly while the Suns brayed outside.
    Hours passed. We heard them whispering and creeping up to the door to test it. The light faded. We soon found ourselves enveloped in darkness, whispering to each other, wondering if our parents might come looking for us.
    Finally there was no sound outside. We pulled the door open a crack and peeked out. We could see no one. We opened it farther, to see if that might lure the Suns out of hiding. There was no movement. We decided to make a run for it. We stepped outside and stood very still, watching and listening. The Suns had lost their patience that day. But we knew they would return. They had only postponed our punishment.
    Xiaolan and I raced to our apartment buildings. We heard chilling chants from a gathering far away. Big character posters, pasted on walls and hanging from ropes and wires, blew lazily in the breeze like flags or shrouds. The gaunt caricatures on the posters looked down on us like a gallery of ghosts as we hurriedly passed.
    As I was on my way home from the market one Sunday morning, Sun Maomao and her siblings stepped from an alley and surrounded me. Sun Maomao grabbed my hair, and her brothers and sisters kicked and punched me. The food I was carrying spilled to the ground and the eggs broke. The oldest boy proclaimed loudly, “You are Xiaolan’s friend. For every hair Xiaolan pulled from my sister, you will pay with ten.”
    They pulled out my hair and kicked me until I stopped resisting and they tired of beating me. They picked up the vegetables scattered around me and ran away, laughing and shouting, “Long live the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution!”
    Xiaolan and I continued to watch out for the Suns. On several afternoons we were ambushed and chased. Caught alone on the street once, Xiaolan was beaten badly.
    My only consolation was that Xiaolan and I remained loyal and