Girl in Translation by Jean Kwok Page A

smiled at me as we walked on. “He’s a nicer boy than I thought.”
     
    I had to perfect my English. Not only did I write down and look up the words I didn’t know in my textbooks, I started with the A’ s in my dictionary and tried to memorize all the words. I made a copy of the list and stuck it to the inside of the bathroom door. I had learned the phonetic alphabet in Hong Kong and that made it easier for me to figure out how the words were pronounced, even though I still often made mistakes. Our class went to the public library once a week and I always took out a stack of books, starting with the embarrassingly thin ones for little kids. I slowly worked my way up in age. I took these books with me to the factory and read them on the subway. Almost all of my homework was done either on the subway or at the factory. For the bigger projects, I caught up on Sundays.
    By the time report cards were given out at the beginning of February, I wasn’t doing well but I was passing most subjects. I’d taken the national reading and math tests with the other kids but I didn’t know what the results were yet. On my report card, I got a few Satisfactories for Science and Math, a few Unsatisfactories, and the rest were all Fairs. In the comments section, Mr. Bogart wrote, “Kimberly must learn to apply herself with more effort. Please come see me at the PTA meeting. Submit dental note!” How were we supposed to pay for a dentist? I didn’t know what a PTA meeting was, but I wasn’t about to let Ma see any of this. I let her believe that we got report cards only once a year, at the end. I forged her signature, which was easy since I’d been signing her name since the beginning.
    The ice across the inside of the windowpanes in our apartment slowly dissolved and I could see through to the outside world again.
    At the end of February, the class bully started staring at me in class. His name was Luke and he’d been left back a few times so he was a head taller than the rest of us. He had a barrel of a chest covered loosely by the same stained gray top that he wore every day. His nostrils were flared like a bull’s, and even Mr. Bogart seemed to have given up on him, leaving him alone most of the time. I saw Luke shove the other kids around. If a kid dared to fight back, Luke became doubly vicious. His main weapon was his legs and he liked knocking people to the ground and kicking them. There was a rumor that once a kid had rammed him in the stomach with his head and Luke had pulled a knife and cut him. He also used a lot of words I didn’t know, like cock and mother finger.
    I asked Annette if she knew what cock meant.
    “Everyone knows that.” Her smile was confident. “It means poop.”
    Annette had recently told me that she was going to a private school called Harrison Prep next year. I would go to a public junior high school, of course. How would I manage without her?

    We said good-bye to Mr. Al. A large moving van had taken away most of his inventory, although he’d saved a few folding chairs and a single mattress for us.
    “Thank you, Mr. Al,” I said. I was thrilled to have my own place to sleep again.
    “Mmm sai,” he said, trying to say “You’re welcome” in Cantonese.
    “Your Chinese is very good,” I lied. Luckily, I knew exactly what I’d taught him, so I could usually guess what he was trying to say.
    “You beautiful ladies take care of yourselves,” he said, and he gave us each in turn a big hug. He smelled like tobacco.
    “May you have the strength and health of a dragon,” Ma said softly in Chinese. She looked in her shopping bag and pulled out a short wooden sword she’d bought from the kung fu store in Chinatown. She gave it to him.
    His broad face shone with pleasure as he ran his finger over the carvings on the handle.
    “She say, ‘Good health,’” I said, not knowing how to translate it further. “You supposed to lay that under pillow.”
    “What? And waste a good