Girl in Translation

“Yes, thank you. I am sorry, you are busy.” I stood up so hastily I almost knocked my chair over. I’d wasted her time and gotten us all into an embarrassing situation.

She raised a hand to stop me. “No, wait a moment. Please don’t make any decisions in your head until I’ve had a chance to talk to your mother, okay? I’m sure we can work something-”

“We not have phone.” By now, I could feel the tips of my ears burning.

Dr. Weston dropped her hand. “All right, maybe we could schedule an appointment.”

“My mother work. And she don’t speak English.”

There was a moment of silence, very awkward for me, then she said, “I see.”

She set her papers aside and escorted me to the door. “Thank you for taking the time to come and see our school.”

While we were working on a science experiment in class, I mentioned the test I’d taken at Harrison to A

“Did you do okay?” she asked, worried for me. “That is a really hard test. And they look at all kinds of other things too. Lots of kids get rejected from Harrison.”

Her voice had risen and I saw Mr. Bogart, who was standing at the next table, glance over at us. I tried to shrug and looked away.

“So?” she said. “Do you think you passed?”

I wanted to tell her the truth, that I’d been accepted but we couldn’t afford to go, but I was too ashamed to say it out loud. I made myself shake my head.

A

“It is okay,” I said, although my disappointment grew hotter behind my eyelids until I was afraid it would spill over into tears. It was much too late to apply to another private school. “I will go to public school, like I should before.”

“I don’t care how you did on that test, you are so smart. You have to talk to someone and get a second chance.”

“No, I do not want this.”

She thought about it for a moment. “Okay, then I’ll stay in public school too.”

I blinked. Generous, loyal A

The end of the school year approached.

A craze of autograph books swept through the sixth grade. A few kids had them and started asking their friends to sign and within a few weeks, many children were circulating their autograph books around the room. I begged Ma to buy me one and she did, for 59 skirts from the Dime Shop. It had a red fake-leather cover. I learned from watching everyone else that after someone signed a page, I was supposed to fold the edges down or up to make alternating patterns of folded triangles in my book.

A

“Wow,” he said. “What does it say?”

“Good luck,” I said.

He stared at the page. “That’s a lot of words for ‘good luck.’ ”

“It take long time to say something in Chinese.”

In my book, he wrote, “Wish I had known you better.”

The sixth-graders had a graduation ceremony, and our class spent weeks practicing parading on and off the auditorium stage.

Ma had been deeply disappointed we couldn’t afford Harrison. At first, she’d said we would somehow find a way to pay, and wanted to take on an extra job, although she was already working as hard as she could. I explained what the campus looked like, however, and how much the tuition actually was, and finally, she’d reluctantly given up. Then she hugged me and said, “I am still so proud of you. You have been here less than a year and you already found this opportunity. You just need a little more time.”

I was now worried about how she would react to my report card. I would be forced to show it to her this time because she hadn’t seen anything yet this whole year, and even though I was now passing everything, I knew it would be far from the perfect grades she’d seen from me back home. I slept badly in the weeks leading up to the graduation ceremony.

Ma bought a pretty brown flowered dress on sale for me. There was lace trim at the neck and sleeves and the hem flared when I turned. It cost a fortune for us, 1,500 skirts, but Ma bought it a size larger so I could wear it for longer. It was loose but it still looked all right, and I had a pair of new brown Chinese slippers to go with it.

On the day of my graduation, I got dressed.

“Ma,” I said, “do I look pretty?” I knew it was not what a decent girl did, asking for compliments, but I wanted so much to look nice.

Ma tilted her head to the side. I think that because Ma had been known as something of a beauty herself in Hong Kong, she never commented on how I looked. She’d always taught me that other qualities were more important. “You look fine.”

“But am I pretty?”

Ma hugged me. “You are my wonderful, beautiful girl.”

All of the kids looked different in their formal clothes. The girls were wearing dresses and some of the boys had ties. Even Luke was wearing a new white shirt, although he had the same gray pants on. Now that I’d seen Harrison and how different things could be, I realized how much more at home I felt here, where many of the other students were poor too. When we went into the auditorium, I searched the faces for Ma’s and I found her sitting near the back in the center. Aunt Paula had made a “very unusual, one-time exception” to allow Ma to be here this morning and we’d have to catch up on all the work tonight. I wished with sudden intensity that I could make Ma proud of me as I once had. Back home, I’d always gone up to the stage to receive awards and I’d won Best Student every year. Ma had been so delighted at those ceremonies.

When the sixth grade sang onstage, I looked for Ma and tried to sing extra loudly. Then, after all of the singing and speeches, the awards were given out and my name was not called once, not even for Science or Math. Tyrone went up many times and A

Mrs. LaGuardia was now saying something about laying foundations, good citizenship and bright futures. She seemed to be finishing up. “Sometimes, here at P.S. 44, we have students who go on to achieve spectacuur results despite what may seem to be overwoman odds. In particular, I would like to congratulate Tyrone Marshall on getting into Hunter College High School, a public school for gifted children.”

Tyrone stood up to a round of applause. Although he sat down again quickly, he looked happy, and a black woman in the audience was cheering so enthusiastically that she knocked her feathered hat askew.

“And Kimberly Chang for being granted a full scholarship to Harrison Prep, an un-president-ed honor for a student from our school.”

Everyone clapped again but I thought that I couldn’t have heard her correctly. I didn’t move.

Mrs. LaGuardia was looking at me and continued to talk. “Kimberly came to our school barely speaking English and we are very proud of what she has ah-cheed here.”