An-Ya and Her Diary (8 page)

I told Wanna that I found my dog. She said—

But, An-Ya, you didn’t hold her yet or spend any time with her. Why don’t you take her out and play with her and then make your decision?

I said—

I already decided. She is the one.

I’ll tell you the rest of the story tomorrow. My dog needs to go to the bathroom.

95

Dear Penny,

So the pound man took the dog I picked out of the cage. The pound man was big, and his gigantic belly peeked out of his red shirt. He needed to fight off the two big dogs, who tried their very best to get out too. He was kicking the big dogs and yelling at them. I thought those dogs were going to bite off his belly button. He grabbed my dog while sticking his knees into the big dogs and threw her at me. I caught her and right away she fit perfect in my arms. She wasn’t the prettiest dog, but she was quiet. Her ears looked like white bat ears and her eyes were big and black. Her white fur was dirty with brown paw marks from being stepped on by the other dogs in her cage.

Wanna and Ellie said that she looked like an angel. They petted her head and told her over and over how sweet she was. Wanna said that I should name her Angel, and I thought it was an ok name. But what I thought about most when I was holding her was how I could feel her bones. She was so thin that her bones stuck out and jabbed my arms.

I decided to name her Angel Bones.

I like the name. Wanna and Ellie think it is a little strange, but they are happy that I used Angel, so they didn’t say much about it.

I wonder what her life was like for the first two years. Did she get lost? Did she run away? I don’t think that it was a good life. Angel Bones seems scared that I will hit her. I have to watch where I put my hand when I pet her, because if I put my hand up high and come down, she hides her head. I guess it might take some time for her to trust me.

The good news for you is that I don’t think she chews stuff. I will put you up on my dresser until we are totally sure that she won’t tear your pages out.

96

Dear Penny,

Sometimes I feel angry. I know so many words in English. So many. But there are not enough words in the world that would help me to be able to say exactly how I feel. Why am I so angry? It is like there is a black spot in my heart that I can sometimes cover up but sometimes I can’t. When I fail at covering it up, when I can’t hide from the blackness, I feel alone, afraid and angry.

Holding Angel Bones and petting her until she falls asleep in my arms helps turn the black spot to gray, but the spot never goes totally away.

97

Dear Penny,

So many things happened today that I don’t know where to start. First, I will tell you about the new neighbors. No, no, no—First I will tell you about Lex’s brother. I was walking down the street with Angel Bones, and I ran into Jazz and Lex. They were with a boy that I never saw before. I found out that he was Lex’s brother and his name is Levi. He is the same age as me but taller. Lex and Levi’s parents are divorced. Levi decided to live with his dad in Arizona for a while, but changed his mind and now he is living here again. Anyway, they all talked to me like I was their friend. I just listened and said—

Nice to meet you
.

Levi has dark brown hair that falls over his eyes a lot. When he talks, he sweeps his hand across his forehead and brushes his hair off of his face. His eyes are bright blue and when he looks at me, it makes my ears burn.

98

Dear Penny,

The other thing that happened yesterday was this girl who showed up at our house. I was standing in the kitchen and I heard Angel Bones begin to bark. If a stranger comes to the door, Angel Bones gets excited and has this big loud bark. I don’t know how such a loud bark comes out of such a little dog. Anyway, I went to the door, and there was a girl my size with dark brown skin and lots of hair braids that were tied with green bows.

What’s up?
—She said

I said—
The sky.

Daddy told me that joke, and this girl thought it was the funniest thing she ever heard. She laughed and laughed and said—

You must be An-Ya. I’m your new neighbor. My name is Sitka Bailey and I live down there.

She pointed down the hill toward the lake. I asked her how she knew my name, and she said that her family met Wanna at the market and Wanna told them that I would be thrilled to have a neighbor my own age.

What? Why would Wanna say that?

I asked the girl about her name…Sitka. What did it mean?

She said that her mommy gave birth to her under a gigantic tree that was called a Sitka spruce. Her Mommy wanted Sitka to grow up big and strong just like the beautiful tree.

I asked the girl what her mommy was doing giving birth to her under a big tree. She said her parents were out hiking and that was when she was born. She said that she was born a preemie and was small.
Preemie
was a new word to me. Sitka said preemie means born early. She said that her daddy and mommy were doctors, so it was no big deal. They knew what to do.

Sitka asked me what my name meant, and I told her. In Chinese the
An
means peaceful and the
Ya
means elegant.

I never told someone the meaning of my name before. My name means something.

Sitka said it was a cool name, and I told her that her name was interesting too. Oh, Sitka also really likes Angel Bones, and Angel Bones seems to like Sitka too.

99

Dear Penny,

Today Sitka came over and asked if I wanted to go for a walk. I asked Wanna and she said that it was fine as long as I took Ellie too. It didn’t seem fair to me, but I wanted to get out of the house, so I took her.

Sitka changed her hair bows to red to match her shirt. I asked her if it hurt having her hair in all of those braids. She said it hurt when her mommy was braiding it, but after it was finished, it wasn’t too bad. I told her that I was growing my hair out and maybe I would try braiding it when it got a little longer. She said she would teach me and that it was easy to do, but since I was Chinese and not African, I might look dumb with a lot of braids. I agreed. It would probably look dumb.

I told Sitka that people in China don’t ever see people who look like her with such dark skin and that people in China like their skin really white. Sitka asked me if I thought the same thing—if I thought it was better to have really white skin. I lied and I said no.

It was hard to have a good conversation with Sitka since Ellie was constantly interrupting and Angel Bones was pulling me all over the place. I really need to teach Angel Bones how to walk on the leash better.

Sitka likes Ellie and holds her hand and gives her piggy back rides and tells her jokes. I don’t know why she likes her so much, but Sitka makes me laugh too, so I will just deal with it. Everyone seems to like Sitka. I don’t know what it is about her, but it is hard not to like her.

100

Dear Penny,

Today Daddy had a talk with me and Ellie. We sat on the sofa and he said that he had some bad news. He said that our family was having money problems. Daddy said that a lot of people were having money troubles in America and that meant that the beautiful houses he drew wouldn’t be built. People didn’t need him to draw houses because they couldn’t afford to build the houses that he drew. He said that we would now need to save our money and we wouldn’t have money for anything extra—like going to the ice cream parlor and stuff. He also said that sometimes money troubles make marriage trouble and that he and Wanna needed us to be good so that they could work on their marriage. I didn’t know what he meant by being good, but I think he meant that I better not cause trouble because if I did, then our family would fall apart. I also don’t know what Ellie thought of all of this stuff, but she did say—

Daddy, is that why you and Mommy don’t hug and hold hands? Is it the money problems? I can help, Daddy. I have a piggy bank that almost full. You can have all of it, Daddy, and we can make the money problems go away. Ok?

Daddy pulled Ellie onto his lap and told her what a good girl she was and thanked her for her offer. I didn’t realize that Ellie even noticed that Wanna and Daddy stopped holding hands.

101

Dear Penny,

Today I was sitting under the willow tree and trying to teach Angel Bones how to sit. I heard someone calling my name and turned around to find Levi on a bike. He has this cool bike that is dark blue with yellow lightning bolts on the side. He asked me if I wanted to ride bikes with him, but I told him that I didn’t have a bike to ride. So he parked his bike in our driveway and came over and sat next to me under the willow.

I was totally confused and didn’t know what to say. Why would he want to spend time with me? I mean, any girl would be more interesting than me, and his face looks so soft and his blue eyes sparkle and well, why me?

He asked me what I was doing and I told him I was teaching Angel Bones to behave. Angel Bones was jumping all over him, and he said it was a good idea to teach her some manners. And then he asked if he could help me. So we tried over and over again to teach her, and finally, just when we were about to give up, she sat and stayed. Levi got really excited and gave me a high five—well, he had to explain the high five thing because I never did it before. He thought that was really funny that I didn’t know how to high five, and I was totally embarrassed. Anyway, I will never forget his hand slapping my hand. Actually, even after I got how to high five, I pretended I still needed help just to feel his hand touch mine again.

102

Dear Penny,

Sitka came over to make cupcakes. I didn’t know that she was coming. Wanna called and invited her and surprised me. I wish she would have asked me first. What if I didn’t feel like making cupcakes? But it was too late, and Sitka showed up at our house ready to bake.

Wanna loves to cook and bake. Whenever she is in the kitchen, she looks happy. She always wears a yellow apron that matches her yellow hair, and as she measures, chops, and stirs, her cheeks get really pink.

Wanna gave us each one of her old aprons to wear. Of course, Ellie looked ridiculous wearing an apron that was bigger than her body. Sitka thought that Ellie looked cute and every time she looked at Ellie, she would giggle.

The worst part is that when Wanna cooks she sings. Everyone but me seems to think that this is wonderful. Sitka and Ellie got really into it. I just sat and cracked my eggs and watched them.

How can Sitka be so comfortable with people that she doesn’t know?

We put rainbow colored frosting and sprinkles on the cupcakes when they were done baking. Everyone but me seemed to have a great time. At least the cupcakes tasted good.

103

Dear Penny,

Will the day ever come that I feel comfortable in this place with these people?

104

Dear Penny,

Wanna saw me teaching Angel Bones some more tricks and asked me how I trained her. I told Wanna that Levi helped me and she looked worried.

She said—

You mean Lex’s brother?

And I said yes. She said that she didn’t think he was a good person for me to be spending time with, and I asked her why.

She said—

He stole things. He went away for awhile.

What? So Lex and Jazz didn’t tell me the truth about why he was away? I told Wanna the story that I heard about why Levi left, and she said it was partly correct—Levi was in Arizona and his dad does live in Arizona, but Levi wasn’t living with his dad. He was living at a place to help children who have stolen or committed other kinds of crimes.

So I said to Wanna—

I have stolen things. Does that make me a not good person to spend time with too?

Wanna looked surprised and said—

Of course not. I didn’t mean it that way. You are right. Maybe Levi was having a difficult time and made bad decisions because of it. Just be careful, An-Ya. I don’t want you to get hurt.

So Levi stole things. I wish they would have told me the truth.

105

Dear Penny,

It is the middle of the night, but I want to write this down so I don’t forget.

I was dreaming about Abby again. She was sitting on the floor of the orphanage and staring at the wall with the big animals painted on it. Big tears were rolling down her face as she pointed to each animal and quietly said their names in English—
turtle, monkey, butterfly, rabbit, mouse.
And then she would point to herself and shake her head and say—no name. Over and over she kept repeating the animal names and pointing to herself and saying—no name.

It was so sad to watch her and I couldn’t speak to her. She couldn’t see me. She couldn’t see me standing there. I tried to touch her, but I felt nothing and she felt nothing in return.

No name.

And I woke up. I woke up and sat up straight in my bed.

I remembered her name. Just like that her Chinese name came to me as fast as it left me before.

I ran to Wanna and Daddy’s room and pounded on their bedroom door. Wanna called out—

What is going on? Is everything ok?

I opened the door and walked through the dark room over to their bed. Both of them were starting to get out of bed, and both of them looked worried. I have never gone into their bedroom before, let alone in the middle of the night.

I walked around the bed to Wanna’s side, and she stared at me trying to figure what in the world I was doing. I didn’t even know myself what I was doing and how I ended up in their room.

I said—

I know her name. I remember her name.

Wanna said—

Whose name? Whose name do you remember?

And she reached out to me and pulled me close to her. Wanna’s hands were warm, and she held onto my shoulders and stared into my eyes with concern.

I said—