New From Here

I run up the stairs and lock myself in Mom’s closet. As I
sit there, squished between her soft sweaters and sum-
mer dresses, the questions swirl in my mind. What if I
can’t stop Mom? What if I don’t like my new American
school? What if the teachers put me in a corner and
scream at me all day long to “sit still!!! ”?
On the other hand, I wonder if my new American
school will have a therapist like Lily at my old school. I
do miss talking to her.
Mom knocks on her closet door.
“You okay, bao bao?” Mom asks as she opens the
door.
I nod from under the igloo of sweaters. Mom starts
peeling her clothes off me. “Tell me what’s wrong,” she
asks. With each sweater she peels off, I mutter a fear.
“What if the other kids at the new school don’t like
me?” I ask.
“Of course they’ll like you,” Mom assures me.
“You’ve got a wonderful sense of humor and you’re
smart. You always make such interesting observations.”
I give Mom a funny look. I do?
“And you’re unstoppable on the field. Any school’s
soccer team would be lucky to have you.”
That’s true. I do miss playing on a soccer team.
“Will they have after-school sports?” I ask.
“I’m sure they will…,” she says. “I’ll see if I can sign
you up.”
“But if I go to school here, it’ll mean I’m here permanently. And I don’t want to be away from Dad permanently,” I confess to Mom, the tears collecting in
my eyes.
Mom pulls me into her arms when she hears that.
“Oh, sweetheart,” she says, kissing my head. “Me
neither. But it doesn’t mean that. All it means is you’re
going to give things here a chance… like school. And
it’ll be amazing, I promise you.”
That’s easy for her to say—she was top of her class
at Berkeley. She has the glass downstairs to prove it.
Mom reaches for my hand. “Hey, I only suggested it
because you said online school isn’t working for you.
But if you don’t want to do it…”
Her voice trails off. And I sink back into the fort of
sweaters, thinking back to my haiku. It would be nice
learning from a human again, instead of a box.
“No…,” I say, mustering up the courage.
Mom smiles. “I know you’re scared, but we can’t
refuse to do things just because we’re scared.”
“Says the woman who won’t let us outside,” I mut-
ter.
Mom laughs and throws a fuzzy scarf around my
neck. I lean against the soft scarf and smile.

The blond woman in the office greets Mom as she
walks in. Mom tells her they’ve been emailing, and the
woman’s face brightens with recognition. “You’re the
family that’s just moved back from Asia!” she says.
“Welcome!”
As Mom and the administrator talk, I gaze out the
window, staring at the other kids. There are white kids,
Black kids, and Latinx kids, but no one who looks like
me.
Mom calls us hun xuer, mixed blood. Dad says we’re
more like boba milk tea—the best of both cultures.
Unique in our own way. I start thinking about boba, get-
ting a little distracted. Before I know it, I’m listing all
twenty-eight flavors from Cha Long, my favorite boba
place in Hong Kong, in my head. Dad and I used to go
after he picked me up from soccer. Even though Mom
always says no sugary drinks before dinner, Dad and I
would sneak trips.
I look around, wishing Dad were here in the office
with us. If he were, he’d tell me not to worry. I’ll like my
new school. And the other kids will like me. But I worry anyway.
Lea, on the other hand, doesn’t seem worried at all.
She’s too busy signing her name to every flyer and peti-
tion on the office bulletin board. I’ll bet she’ll make five
hundred friends by the end of the first week.
“Do you guys have after-school sports?” I ask the
secretary. Maybe that’s a way I can make some new
friends.
“Unfortunately, we don’t…,” she says. “You can
check with the local clubs, though. They might have a
team you can join. What’s your sport, sweetie?”
“Soccer,” I tell her.
Mom cuts in. “And I know we were talking a little bit
about learning support on email.… Does the school
have any occupational therapists?”
I squeeze my eyes shut. Oh, please, please let there
be a Lily at my new school!
“I’m sorry, but we currently don’t have that, either,”
the school secretary tells her, making copies of our
passports and immunization records. “Budget con-
straints.”
“Oh.” My face falls.
Mom tries again. “It’s just that my son has
ADHD.…”
I look up. I do ? I thought I had a blurting-things-out
problem. ADHD is what Amir’s little brother has, and
that’s way worse. He once threw a shoe at me and
banged his head on the floor when he tried to fly off the
kitchen counter. I have it too??
“I assure you, we have lots of students with all sorts
of different learning habits,” the school secretary says.
“And we can handle them all.”
I yank on Mom’s shirt. “What do you mean,
ADHD??” I ask. But Mom ignores me.
“All right, you’re all set. I’m going to pass everything
on to our principal, and hopefully, you and your sister
can both start tomorrow! First grade and fifth grade!”
the secretary says.
I walk out of my new school that day with the knowl-
edge that my parents have been keeping a secret about
me my whole life. If we hadn’t come to America be-
cause of the virus, would I ever have known?
Yay! We did it!” Mom says, high-fiving Lea, as we walk
back to the car. “That was easy!”
Too easy. I can’t believe they didn’t want us to take
any tests or anything. In Hong Kong, I had to do so
many screenings and interviews for school. There was
even a test on how outgoing you are. Thinking back, I
wonder if there might have been a secret test for ADHD
that my parents snuck in. How do they know I have it??
“What does that tell you about America?” Mom asks,
opening the door to the car.
“That they have no standards?” I ask, still sour over
her keeping a secret from me.
“No, that they’re inclusive! And welcoming of
everyone!” Mom says.
We get back in the car, and Bowen immediately
grabs Mom.
“I searched the middle school on that website Auntie
Jackie said. It’s rated three out of ten!” he shrieks. “I
can’t go there for seventh grade!”
“You haven’t even seen it,” Mom says, starting the
car. “Let’s just take a look.”
As Mom and Bowen bicker over Bowen’s middle
school, it takes every ounce of patience for me not to
ask Mom more about my ADHD. But I know I can’t say
it in front of Bowen. He’ll never stop teasing me if he
knows. I’m sure he thinks ADHD is A Dangerous
Horrible Disease. Which it isn’t… right?

In between bites of juicy burgers and fresh-cut fries,
Mom tells us our favorite hamburger story—the story
of how she learned English.
“When I first came to the US, I didn’t know a single
word of English, not even the word ‘girl.’ Which made it
pretty hard to find the bathroom,” she says.
Lea giggles. Mom always pauses at the same place
in the story, and my siblings and I always ask the same
question.
“So what did the teacher do?”
“The teacher didn’t do anything. She thought I would
never speak. And I thought that too. But I worked really
hard, and by the end of the first year, guess what?”
“What?” we ask.
“I spoke!”
“Hooray!!!” Lea cheers, throwing a couple of her
fries up in the air.
“The teacher was so thrilled, she got me a ham-
burger from McDonald’s,” Mom says, her eyes shining
with nostalgia.
“Did the other kids make fun of you because you
couldn’t speak English?” Lea asks.
Mom nods. “Some,” she says, adding quickly, “But
it’ll be different for you three. You already know the lan-
guage, unlike me. You all have mouths!”
I open my mouth wide. Especially me.
Afterward, I’m still sipping my chocolate milkshake
when Mom turns into Target.
“Let’s get you guys some school supplies,” she says, parking the car.
All right! I love Target. In Hong Kong, we don’t have
anything like Target. Instead we have little shops for
everything—curtains, headphones, plates. I especially
loved the stationery store. It was run by a husband and
wife, and their cat, Tofu—who sat on the warm printer
all day long.
I wonder how Tofu is doing as we get a cart. Dad
said all the stores are closed. Did Tofu lose his warm
printer bed too? Lea heads straight for the stationery
section and loads up on every color of highlighter.
Bowen puts a bunch of rulers and protractors and other
fancy math stuff on top of Lea’s stash. I stare at my sib-
lings shopping like Mom hasn’t lost her job. I wonder if
I should say something. But I don’t want to be the party
pooper. And Mom doesn’t seem too worried—she’s
reaching for more Post-its herself—so I tell myself
maybe it’s okay.
Money is so weird. It’s there, like a balloon, but no
one talks about it until it pops.
After we stock up on supplies, we head over to the
snack section. Talk about a selection! They have Ched-
dar Jalapeño and Flamin’ Hot Cheetos as well as eigh-
teen different varieties of Goldfish, including purple
Goldfish. Lea immediately reaches for them.
“I’m so serving this at my birthday party!” she says,
hugging the package to her chest. She starts filling the
cart up with purple Goldfish.
“That’s not for two months!” I remind her. Hope-
fully, by then Mom will have a new job. Or the virus will
be over and we can go back!
“Well, all my future friends have already RSVPed,” she informs me matter-of-factly, grabbing more snacks
for her party.
Mom comes back from the mask section as Lea’s
stocking up on Goldfish. “They don’t have any face
masks here, either…,” she says, disappointed.
She looks down at our cart. “You guys need all those
snacks?” she asks us, picking up a giant package of
Ring Pops and putting it back.
Lea makes puppy-dog eyes at Mom. “Please,
Mommy, I really need them.… I gotta eat my way
through my I-miss-Daddy blues!”
Mom sighs.
“Fine, then we’ll need to get another cart,” she says.
“I still need to get toner and paper to print stuff for my
interviews.”
“On it!” I volunteer, running toward the front of the
store. I know just the cart to grab.
I get to the front and hop on one of the shopping
carts you can drive. I know I’m not supposed to drive
them, but they’re the best thing about America and
they’re the fastest option by far! So I get on.
Bowen sees me as I’m driving and waves his hands
at me to stop.
“Knox, what are you doing?? You’re not supposed to
be on that thing!” he calls out.
He chases me, but even his track legs can’t keep up
with my Batmobile! I slam on the accelerator, giggling.
“Knox! No!” Mom says.
“Stop!” the store manager calls.
Uh-oh. Now the store employees are after me too. It
makes me so nervous, having all these people chase
me, that I don’t look where I’m going and crash into a towering display of Mountain Dew. As the soda cans come tumbling down, sticky soda squirts in every
direction!
I jump off the cart, covered in soda.
“I’m sorry…,” I start to say. But the store clerks are
too livid to even look at me.
Mom bites her lip. “How much for all this?”
I look around. There are like fifty cases of Mountain
Dew! It’s going to cost a fortune. I can feel Bowen’s
eyes burrowing into me—This is all your fault!
As Mom swallows hard and reaches for her purse,
Bowen charges at me. I make a break for it. Bowen
chases me throughout the store, and I scramble
through the aisles, trying not to break more things. I
finally slip into the women’s pajamas section and hide
under a bathrobe.
It feels safe and cozy in the terry cloth bathrobe.… I
snuggle up to it, wishing Mom weren’t mad at me.
Wishing I hadn’t wreaked such havoc. Wishing I could
come out and everyone would laugh and think it was
funny. But most of all, wishing a stop sign had gone up
in my head. But it didn’t. Lea finds me twenty minutes
later.
“We’re going now,” she says.
I poke my head out from under the bathrobe. “Is
Mom still mad?” I ask.
Lea chews her lip. I’m guessing yes.
With a sigh, I get up and follow her to the entrance,
not wanting to make Mom any madder.
The staff and manager shake their heads at me as I
walk out of the store, their disappointment as loud as if
they had screamed, What’s gotten into that kid? I look
down. The pain is almost unbearable. It’s a question
I’ve been asking myself my whole life.
Mom and Bowen are sitting in the car when I get in. I
glance at the back and see only one small paper bag of
school supplies and a single package of purple Gold-
fish. “Where’s all our stuff?” I ask.
“We had to put everything else back because the
Mountain Dew you spilled cost a hundred dollars!”
Bowen hisses at me.
I put my hands to my mouth. A hundred dollars?
I gaze at the pens and Post-its and one small pack-
age of Goldfish—all we could afford after my stunt.
“I call dibs on the Goldfish!” Lea says. She’s the one
person in my family not fuming mad… or maybe she
just doesn’t understand.
I look up slowly at Mom in the rearview mirror.
“I’m sorry, Mom,” I say gently. “It won’t happen
again.”
“Of course it will,” Bowen says, and leans back,
muttering, “Knot.”
I keep my eyes straight ahead on Mom. She doesn’t
say anything to me as she starts the car. The silence is
so hard. I stare at my feet, feeling the heat of her and
Bowen’s disappointment. It feels like a Double-Double
burger of I-screwed-up.
Ever so quietly, Lea takes a couple of Goldfish out
and hands them to me. I look down at them, trying not
to think, but thinking anyway, that I’m the purple Gold-
fish of the family.
I crush the snack in my hand.
My sister looks over. “Don’t crush them. They’re
cool!” She takes one and holds it up to the window. The
bright sun illuminates the colorful Goldfish. “I like it
because it’s different from the pack!”
I smile at my sister, grateful for her words. She’s the
only person who doesn’t make me feel bad about being
me.