Blackbird Fly (7 page)

I used to count the number of times my mother refused to get me a guitar. Last time I counted, it was up to twenty-two. Twenty-two times. I can't remember the first time I asked, but from then until now, it's been no twenty-two times. You'd think that after twenty-two times, she would know how serious I am.
But she doesn't care. She doesn't understand music. I don't get how someone who doesn't even have a favorite song could have been married to someone who loved
Abbey Road
so much that he wrote his name on the tape in marker and kept it his whole life. She didn't understand. She wasn't like me or my dad, or even Mr. Z. He understood music. That's one of the reasons he was everyone's favorite teacher at school—because he knew what was important. It's not just about math or science or English. Sometimes it's about other things too.

When I finally leaned over and grabbed the twenty bucks, my heart was beating so loudly that I almost couldn't hear Elora Sullivan singing “Oklahoma” on the other side of the door.

It was hard to pull out the money without opening the wallet, but I was too nervous to pick it up, and I didn't want to leave any fingerprints, so I tugged and tugged until it came free, then quickly stuck the bill into the pocket of my jeans and sat down.

I'd never stolen anything before. I'd never done anything at all before, really. I made good grades, and I'd never been sent to the principal's office or been yelled at by a teacher. Not even once. Stealing definitely wasn't something I wanted to do, but how could I ignore fate?

My leg bounced up and down. My heart was going a hundred beats a minute. When I heard Mr. Z call another name, I took my eyes off the office door and looked around his office. A few worn-out instrument cases were shoved in the corner. The books on his shelf were about bands and music. Most of the spines were cracked.

That's when I saw it. I couldn't believe I hadn't noticed it before: a poster of the Beatles' album cover for
Help!
I wondered if that was Mr. Z's favorite album. I wondered who his favorite Beatle was. Probably Paul. Grown-ups always seemed to like Paul best.

I pulled the twenty bucks out of my pocket and
turned it over and over in my hand. Even if it was fate, maybe I'd find another way. Mr. Z could probably use all the twenty-dollar bills he could get.

This time, when I leaned over the desk, I picked up the wallet and opened it so I could put the money back where it belonged. My heart wasn't beating fast anymore, and my fingertips weren't tingling—at least not until Mr. Z opened the door.

“Apple?” he said. He looked at me, his wallet, and the twenty dollars like it was all a puzzle he couldn't figure out.

I opened my mouth to explain, but what could I say? I was holding the wallet in one hand and the money in the other.

“What are you doing?” he asked.

“Uh . . .”

“You'd better come with me,” he said. He put the wallet in his back pocket, then led me out of the office, right in the middle of swing-choir auditions. Marie McCarron was standing in front of the group, waiting
to audition, but when she saw Mr. Z leading me by the elbow, she stopped fidgeting, and everyone—including Alyssa and Gretchen—watched us leave.

I prayed to become a blackbird and fly away, but instead I made it all the way to Principal Earnshaw's office and waited while he and Mr. Z spoke in another room. Principal Earnshaw walked back in alone and looked at me through his round glasses. His face was scrunched-up so much that I thought they would pop off his nose.

I didn't know what to say or do, so I looked at my Chucks.

“I'm going to have to call your mother,” he said. He was looking at his computer. “How do you pronounce her name?” He picked up the phone and dialed.

“Glo.”

He studied the screen closely and raised an eyebrow. “Glo?”

“Her name is Amihan, but everyone calls her Glo.”

He kept his eyes on the screen and tapped his finger against the desk. My mom didn't answer right away. She was probably getting ready for work.

“May I speak to Glo Yengko, please?” said Principal Earnshaw. He glanced at me like he still didn't believe that was her name. “This is Principal Earnshaw at Chapel Spring Middle School. I have your daughter here and—” Pause. He repeated, “Earnshaw. From your daughter's school?” He nodded. “Yes, I'm the principal. I have your daughter here. . . . Yes, Apple . . .”

He was on a different kind of merry-go-round. The kind where you have to explain things three times, because my mother's English isn't always the best, especially when she doesn't know the person.

“She's in my office,” he continued. “If possible, I need you to come here as soon as you can.”

She arrived ten minutes later, wearing her scrubs. When she came into Principal Earnshaw's office, she sat in the chair next to me and put her arms around
her purse. She always holds on to her purse like someone will snatch it at any minute.

Principal Earnshaw cleared his throat and looked at my mother over the rims of his glasses.

“Mrs. Yengko,” he began, “I'm afraid we have a serious matter on our hands.”

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw my mom turn her head to look at me, so I focused on the plant against the wall. Two of the leaves were brown.

“Your daughter has been caught stealing,” said Principal Earnshaw.

“Ay naku,”
my mother said. “Stealing what?”

“Money from Mr. Zervanos's wallet.”

“Ay naku!”
She reached over and nudged my elbow so hard that it slipped off the armrest. “Is this true?”

I stared at the plant. The air conditioner came on, and the leaves rustled.

“Who is Mr. Zervanos?” asked my mother.

“The band director,” said Principal Earnshaw.

My mother was silent then. All last year I'd begged my mother to let me audition for swing choir. She said no a total of twenty-seven times. Her excuse was always the same—that I needed to focus on homework because “brains get you places, not music.” The conversation always began with the same three words: “Education is key.”

I once asked why I couldn't go to college and play music at the same time. Maybe I could even get a music scholarship, I'd suggested.

“No time for both,” she'd said, and she told the story about how it was snowing when we came to Chapel Spring and how that meant we would have a better life, and to get a better life, you have to have a good education.

“Stealing is a serious offense at this school, Mrs. Yengko,” Principal Earnshaw continued. “We may have to consider suspension.”

My mother repeated it. “Suspension?”

“Yes. It means she would have to stay home for
three days and would make zeros on all her missed work. It's fairly serious.”

When my mother didn't say anything, Principal Earnshaw shuffled the papers around on his desk. “But,” he said, clearing his throat, “she is an exceptional student, and she's never been in any trouble, so we'll just suspend her for the rest of today.”

My mother glared at me. “Come,
Analyn
. Time to go home for suspension.”

“Okay, then,” said Principal Earnshaw, because my mother was now standing and tugging on the back of my shirt so I would stand up too. When my mom decides a conversation is over, it's difficult to regain control. The principal tried his best though. He quickly stood. “I will suspend her for the remainder of the day, and this is going into her school file. If anything like this happens again, it will be a five-day suspension.”

“Thank you, Mr. Shaw,” said my mother.

As soon as we got into the car she launched into
a Giant Mom Lecture. These lectures usually started with the word
oy
, which loosely translates to “I simply can't believe it” in English.

“Oy, Apple,” she said, shaking her head. “It's no wonder you have no friends to the house. You change your name for no reason, and now you steal money from teachers. You are a good girl,
anak
. Why did you do this? Children in the Philippines never steal from their teachers. We help sweep the floors and clean the classrooms every morning and every afternoon. That's the problem with America; they don't teach children respect. They spoil them. No hard work. In the Philippines, children have respect for adults . . .”

In my mind I screamed,
This isn't the Philippines!
as loud as I could. I screamed it until my throat was sore and all the windows in the car shattered.

“You can be known as Analyn the Thief or as Apple, a good American girl,” said my mother. “Your choice.”

I looked at the sky. It was bright blue with a round, perfect sun. I imagined a hole cracking open and transporting me into another dimension so I wouldn't have to listen to my mother. A dimension where I was starting a new life. Maybe, in the other dimension, I would form a four-person band and play lead guitar. Maybe, in the other dimension, there would be no such things as mothers or suspensions. There would be no Dog Logs. There would just be me. And I would be happy.

T
he thing I remember most about the Philippines is the water. It's the most beautiful water you'll ever see. It's sparkling shades of green and blue and feels like it covers the whole world. I can remember the way it smelled too—salty and wet—and how the sand felt when it pushed between my toes. Sometimes I wonder what my life would be like if we had stayed there. My mother says she wanted us to have a better
life, but when I think of splashing through the water and eating mangoes until the juice dripped down my chin, I don't understand how our life in America is any better. In the Philippines, I would be just another face in the crowd. No one could call me a dog-eater or a dog. Maybe I would even be pretty.

My mother says we came to America because there's more opportunity, but the real reason we came is because my dad died and my mom didn't want to be reminded of him. That's why she said we needed to leave everything behind; she was worried that if she took my father's watch or his beat-up tape player she would just keep remembering how much she missed him. Maybe it's because she wasn't prepared for him to die. It was sudden. A brain aneurysm. For years I was convinced that I would die of a brain aneurysm too.

I would've taken my dad's old tape player, but it was bulky. So I took
Abbey Road
instead and that old postcard.

I used to take out the postcard a lot and imagine that we'd never left the Philippines, but I've put so much stuff in my drawer that I can't even see it anymore. I've learned that it's not good to remember things. You have to look forward. That's what I'm doing. That's why I'm going to New Orleans. I'm going to reinvent myself in a whole new city, surrounded by music and new people. Jake Bevans won't be there and neither will Braden or Lance or any of their idiotic friends. While I'm playing my guitar, everyone in Chapel Spring will be talking about how I ran off and disappeared and was living like an adult, and Alyssa would be so jealous that she wouldn't know what to do with herself. For once the big announcement would be about me.

I pulled my red notebook out of my weekend backpack and stretched across my bed. I was just about to start writing out a new guitar-getting plan when my mother knocked on my door. I don't know why she bothers knocking, because she always comes
right in. Every time she does, I get a tight feeling in my chest like I want to scream.

She sat on the corner of the bed. “What's wrong?”

I flipped my notebook shut; it closed with a loud
clap.
My mother looked down at me. It was almost nine o'clock, and we hadn't spoken since the car ride home.

“Nothing,” I said.

She sighed and frowned. “Apple, what's going on with you?”

“Nothing.”

“Why did you steal that money? The Yengkos aren't thieves.”

“How would I know?” I mumbled. “All the Yengkos are in the Philippines. Only we're here.” Here in this crappy town, in this crappy house, with my crappy bike and our crappy napkins.

My mother crossed her arms. “Take my word on it then,
Analyn
.” She glared at me. “What's the matter with you? You don't have any friends over; you're
stealing from teachers; you're changing your name. You are turning into another Apple Yengko. Maybe you are turning American, I don't know.”

If she knew anything, she'd know that the problem wasn't that I was turning American, it was that I wasn't American enough. Nothing about me was American except my address and my school, and those things don't even belong to me. Not really.

“What happened to your friends?” she said. “You used to have friends. I remember.”

It's because of you! Because you talk funny and you cook weird food and you aren't normal like the other mothers! If I had an American mother, my life would be easy, like Alyssa or Claire or Gretchen! Instead I'm the third-ugliest girl in school!