The Reeducation of Cherry Truong by Aimee Phan Page A

said.
    â€œIt’s grown-up stuff,” Duyen said, waving her hand, further annoying Cherry. “You won’t understand.”
    Linh had turned twelve last month and Duyen was eleven, not much older than Cherry, yet they acted as if those years mattered a lot. They believed they were so mature. Cherry didn’t mind not having a sister. Cousins lorded enough power.
    The Vo relatives arrived in Orange County when Cherry was five. Duyen and Linh had known each other since they were babies, lived in the same house in Vietnam, and fought like sisters. Cherry knew she should love both of them, but she didn’t like being treated like a baby. Cherry wanted one of her aunts to have another kid, so that the three of them could keep secrets from someone else.
    Lum once tried to explain it to Cherry by pinching her arm.
    â€œOw,” she said, rubbing the sore spot.
    â€œYou’d rather I keep that to myself?” he asked.
    â€œYes!”
    â€œThat’s what grown-ups are trying to do when they keep secrets,” he said. “They don’t want to pinch you. They’d rather pinch themselves.”
    Cherry couldn’t understand why all grown-up stuff had to hurt, why there couldn’t be anything good to share. If everything worth knowing hurt so much, she wondered why people bothered talking at all.
    Another singer, Melody Ngo, floated across the television screen, wearing a glittery blue evening gown.
    â€œTurn it up,” Quynh said. “This is my favorite song.”
    â€œMine, too!” Linh said, eagerly turning up the volume to a level that hurt Cherry’s ears.
    Duyen rolled her eyes at Cherry again, but she turned to Linh and her new friend. The two older girls lip-synched the cheesy lyrics, forgetting the last few minutes in the room.
    *   *   *
    A loud whistle pierced their ears. Linh scooted toward the window and slid open the glass partition. The girls sat up, pressing their noses against the dusty screen.
    Lum waved from the grass square next to the parking lot, surrounded by other children from the party. His tie hung on a rosebush, shirtsleeves already rolled up.
    â€œWe’re playing Frisbee,” Lum said, cupping his hands into binoculars to see through the sun glare. “Come down, we’re picking teams.”
    Four boys and four girls were eligible for teams. The younger kids were sidelined as fans because they were too short to play. Duyen’s brother, Dat, demanded that he should be captain of the team opposing Lum.
    â€œWe need to keep the teams even,” Dat said, his chest lifting a little.
    Lum looked like he was hiding a smile. “Okay by me.”
    While Dat and Lum were in the same grade at school, they rarely played together.
    â€œWhy can’t you be nice to your cousin?” their mother asked, after Auntie Hien loudly complained that Lum ignored Dat at school. “He’s new to this country and you’re his family. It’s your duty to help him.”
    â€œI ask him to play lots of times,” Lum said. “He always wants to go to the library.”
    On Dat’s first day of school in America, Lum invited him to play in a game of softball at recess. But when a fly ball shattered Dat’s left eyeglass lens, a new pair, his parents forbade him from playing again. Dat obeyed his parents, but because of it, he remained dreadful at any kind of sport. Running down the block was enough to get him wheezing. Still, it didn’t keep him from wanting to win at everything.
    After picking off the two remaining boys Huy and Johnny, Dat chose his sister, Duyen, while Lum picked Cherry. And even though Dat didn’t know Quynh, he waved her over, leaving Linh to join Lum’s team.
    â€œI would have chosen you over her anyway,” Lum said, welcoming their sulking cousin to his team.
    They pulled off their shoes and threw them underneath the stairwell. In preparation, Cherry gingerly stepped