The Journal

  “Amala!”

  “Hmmm,” I said, looking up from my beans and rice.

  “I asked you a question,” she said impatiently.

  I looked up at her, “I’m sorry. What?”

  “I asked how you spent your weekend.”

  “Uh, well nothing much. Just kind of hung out the whole time. Went shopping on Saturday—no, I didn’t buy anything—and that was about all.”

  “Chester said you went out for about an hour this afternoon. Where did you go?”

  Mom could just as easily look up where I had been, but I guess she wanted to show that she trusted me instead, which was rare. I was about to lie like normal—it had become my usual defense mechanism against my mother—but I might as well have told her the truth.

  “I went to Sebastian’s.”

  “I asked you to not spend as much time with him.”

  “It was only an hour,” I was about to say that it was the only time I’ve spent with him in weeks, but that would have contradicted other lies, leaving me with more explaining to do. I also didn’t really want to tell her I hadn’t been spending time with Sebastian, allowing her to say “I told you so” when she found out the reason.

  “Okay, but you spent time with him almost every day this week. Pick which days you want to spend time with him—no more than 4, please.”

  That’s going to be a problem as I’m supposed to be working five days a week. But perhaps I can cover up Saturday’s work with shopping, or say I’m spending time with Ryan. Just one more person Mom didn’t know wasn’t in my life.

  And that’s when I realized that I was almost completely alone.

  Shadowing

  As I walked into Ms. Oscar’s classroom Monday, I froze momentarily. Was it better to sit in the front—and risk another explosion from Ryan—or sit in the back in keeping with the keep-your-enemies-closer rule? Unable to come up with a better idea, I had to sit in the front of the class again. It wouldn’t matter if Ryan decided to call me out on not being perfect again—obviously, it was something the whole school knew about by now.

  When it was time for lunch, I was happy that I was able to quickly slip out of the class before Ryan was able to say anything to me. I picked up my lunch of fettuccini alfredo (a little too light on the alfredo) and green beans. As I was contemplating the fact that these green beans were on my plate because my mom was able to stop the riots—and successfully stay away from home for days—a shadow appeared over me.

  “May I sit next to you?” a quiet voice asked.

  Ming Hanley was so quiet she was hard to hear over the chewing of my green beans. The school’s green beans took a lot of chewing. Ming, a soft-spoken girl with clear olive skin and shiny black hair, is a girl I had certainly seen before—it’s hard not to notice the butt of so many cafeteria pranks—but did not know personally. We had locked eyes a few weeks back, but we had never once spoken to one another.

  All I knew of Ming was that she didn’t have any friends. For as long as I can remember, her nickname has been “Peg-leg Ming” because of her obvious limp. When other kids would tease her, I never heard her respond back, but I can imagine all the things she would have wanted to say. I know that I wouldn’t have been able to keep my mouth shut.

  The first few moments as Ming sat beside me were awkwardly silent. I made a show of each bite of my green beans, exaggerating my movements, before I moved on to my noodles. Then she spoke up.

  “How are you doing?”

  “Fine,” I said curtly. What business was it of hers?

  “You know, we’ve got a lot in common,” she responded matter-of-factly. I quickly swallowed my green beans, turned and looked her in the face where I saw earnest concern, which puzzled me. Though I had never noticed before, Ming was surprisingly beautiful. If it weren’t for her leg, perhaps she could be one of the most popular girls in school.

  “How are we alike?” I challenged. “You don’t even know me,” I scowled.

  “Well, we’re both outcasts. I’ve had to deal with it my whole life, but it’s new to you.”

  “Yeah, well, I don’t see how having dirty rumors spread about you and having a limp that you can’t help are the same. Soon the rumors will die down, but your family probably will never be able to afford the surgery you’d need to fix your leg.” I could hear the hurtful sharpness in my words as I said them, but I didn’t care.

  “You’re right. It’s not the same. Still, from all I can tell, you no longer have any friends. I don’t have any friends. So why don’t we be friends so we each have someone? I’m not asking you to tell me all your secrets or anything. But let’s sit together at lunch. Strength in numbers, you know.”

  She had a point. Perhaps I could stop fearing the thought of Ryan coming up and spouting more of my dirty laundry. Or perhaps not—maybe she’d see befriending Ming as another sign of weakness. Would I really want to link myself to this self-confessed outcast?

  “Well, I can’t tell you where to sit. If you want to sit next to me, fine.” I conceded. “But I’m not going to seek you out, okay?”

  For the rest of the week, Ming came and sat next to me like a faithful puppy. She even would have a smile on her face each day that reminded me of a puppy’s tail wag. She would ask me questions every day and I’d be polite, but I thought it would end at that. But just like a puppy, she had no idea the character of the person she was following. She didn’t know I wasn’t a nice person. I had made fun of her all those years along with everyone else.

  Saturday, I was surprised as I was working on organizing some of my favorite books on the 2000s shelf. Ming walked into Millennial Antiques. Immediately upon entering, she started searching for something, and I was hoping that it wasn’t me. No such luck.

  I was tempted to hide in the back of the store, pretending to organize the new inventory, but as I was walking to the back to do just that, Ming spotted me and almost ran to catch up with me.

  Once she reached me, she acted all casual, as if we saw each other at Millennial Antiques every day.

  “Hey, Amala.”

  “Hi, Ming,” I said with a sigh as I kept working. “If you have a question about a book, you’ll have to ask Hasan at the counter. I’m only the stock girl.”

  “Oh, no, I don’t really have any interest in books. I was here to see you.”

  A puzzled look crossed my face. I had never told anyone that I worked here, and as far as I knew, no one I knewhad seen me here since I started working four weeks ago.

  She continued, “Yeah, I didn’t mean to, but the other day after school I saw what address you were entering into the pod. I was curious, so I decided to visit here myself.”

  Now she sounded like a stalker. “Why? Were you concerned that the nasty rumors about me making a living by turning tricks were true? Were you afraid I actually had a real friend and wasn’t on your level after all?”

  For the first time, I could see that Ming was clearly hurt by my stinging words, but she swallowed it and answered, “No, not really. I was hoping to find out more about you so that I’d have something to discuss with you. I was wondering how you spent your free time, and now I know.”

  Ming’s apparent genuine interest in my life was touching. She was trying so hard to be a legitimate friend, and I’ve not tried—even a little—to be one back. I couldn’t help it; I had to soften up a bit.

  “Yeah, I work here a few days a week. But no one knows: not my mom or my brother and certainly not anyone at school. So you can’t tell anyone, okay?”

  “Your secret’s safe with me; don’t worry about it. Besides, who would I tell? That would require people to actually talk to me.”

  I only had a few minutes left of my shift so we chatted while I finished cleaning up the books. I still had some work to do to get these turn of the millennium books in order, but it was partly my fault as I was much more tempted to spend a few minutes inside the books before I would put them where they belonged.

  Ming was righ
t—I really didn’t have a friend any more. Might as well take advantage of the opportunity that was right in front of me to change that. Ming was really easy to talk to and didn’t seem to judge me by the rumors. After saying goodbye to Hasan and leaving the store, I invited Ming to go with me to the caffeine bar. She agreed and appeared grateful that she was no longer the only one working on making this friendship a reality.

  Sitting down with our caffeine—my drink cherry-flavored and hers cocoa-colored—I asked her about her leg. There were all sorts of rumors as to why she had a limp. Regardless of how she got it, we all knew the reason she still had it was that her family simply couldn’t afford the medical treatments it would take to make the limp go away.

  “So how did you get your limp, anyway?”

  “I’ve had it since I was a baby. Birth defect. It would have been a simple fix back then—just some braces and physical therapy—but my parents didn’t even know where to go to get that kind of medical care. They certainly couldn’t afford it if they found it. Instead, at 2 they bought me my first cane—the first of many. I’ve been walking with a limp ever since.”

  “You use a cane? How come I’ve never seen you with one?”

  “Well, I used to use it at school, but the older kids would always steal it from me. To get them to leave me alone, I pretended I didn’t need it anyway. I sometimes would have to go weeks without one, because it would take that long for us to save up the money we would need to buy a new one. Once I had a new one, it would only last a couple of days before it was stolen again. After that happened a few times, I just stopped bringing a cane to school altogether, only using it home. I’ve gotten so used to walking without it now, that I can get by pretty well without it.”

  “What would it take now for you to get rid of your limp? Is it even possible?”

  “Yeah, I think that if I got the right equipment and an experienced therapist, I could lose my limp, mostly. I’m just glad that it doesn’t hurt too much to walk now. When I was younger it was quite painful, but I guess my muscles got used to it. I used to spend hours laying on my bed, trying to stretch my legs out as far as I can. It would be quite painful after a few minutes, but I persisted. Never did any good though. Finally, I just gave up hope. Once a cripple, always a cripple.” I winced at the harsh word.

  “Well, who knows. Maybe you’ll marry a wealthy government man who will get you the therapy you need!” I said with a toss of my hair.

  “Yeah right. Where am I going to rub shoulders with Mr. Fancy-Pants?”

  “Well, with your limp, I’d think it’d be much easier for you to ‘accidently’ rub shoulders with anyone, most especially Mr. Fancy-Pants!”

  And with that, we shared our first laugh.

  Advancing

  I fell into a new normal that next week. After school I still went to work at Hasan’s, followed by an evening spent chipping Ming. She had so many good stories to tell—ones she had bottled up inside her, some of them for years. We still ate lunch together, but our lunches became more characterized by giggles than by silence.

  As each day went by, I was more comfortable at school. Still, Ryan hadn’t talked to me since she blew up at me in the classroom. I could tell that rumors still went around about me sometimes, but they clearly were losing steam as I was catching fewer and fewer glances in the hallways. The gossip had moved on.

  Wednesday at the end of my shift, Hasan kept me back a few moments to speak to me.

  “Amala, I have some good news.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah, I know a lady who can probably hook you up with a Bible.”

  “Oh, cool!”

  “Yeah, I thought you’d like it. The great thing is that you may not even have to pay for it.”

  I hadn’t even thought about how I’d buy it, if I couldn’t earn it from Hasan.

  “Why don’t you come over for dinner at my house tomorrow at the end of your shift to meet her? My daughter is coming over to make me dinner—she takes pity on me. She loves to cook, and wouldn’t mind cooking for a few more. You can invite your friend that came in Saturday as well. What’s her name?”

  “Ming.”

  “Beautiful name. I’m so glad that you brought a friend here. I look forward to getting to know her, too. Does she have any interest in books?”

  “No, not really. But we’ve become friends at school, and she’s pretty cool. I’ll see if she can come by about six tomorrow before we head out.”

  “Sounds good.”

  “And Hasan?”

  “Yes?”

  “Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  That night after yet another dinner of rice and beans, I opened Beth’s journal for the first time in a week.

 

  November 15, 2001

  Today is my 18th birthday. I can’t believe that I’m officially an adult! In so many ways, I don’t feel like an adult. After all, I still have six months of high school left, and will be living under my parents’ roof (okay, I should say “Mom’s roof,” but that just makes me feel sad) until August when I get to move to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Also, I don’t really know what I want to do when I grow up.

  Faith is throwing me a small party at her house. I’m not sure what all we’ll be doing, but I’m looking forward to getting together with all the girls.

  For my birthday, my Mom gave me a really pretty pair of diamond earrings. They look beautiful on me and make me feel like a princess. Dad—in what I assume to be a bit of guilt over having left the house—bought me my own computer! I can’t believe he did that. He said that he knew that I’d need it next year when I go off to college, so he wanted to give me a head start. Plus, he thought that it’d come in handy with homework this year, as well.

  It’s a laptop which is exactly what I wanted. Though it is a bit heavy to carry around, I’m glad it’s portable so that I can use it wherever I want. Mom has said that I can even use her dial-up Internet when she doesn’t need it (and she doesn’t use it as much as I do, anyway).

 

  Wow...I knew they didn’t have computers hooked up to their brains back then, but I forgot how heavy a “portable” computer could be. And not to have instant access to the net and all that’s out there! I’m not sure what you could do with a computer not hooked up to the net. She didn’t receive a computer until the age of 18, and I had a chip installed when I was two-and-a-half. I had heard that there was some controversy when chips were required for all preschoolers, but parents figured out ways to limit their children’s access while still providing the safety of knowing where their child was at all times.

 

  November 18, 2001

  Last night’s party was SO fun! Faith is so good to me—and to think we weren’t even friends three months ago.

  We started the night by making our own pizzas. Sounds childish, I know, but Faith knew that pizza is my favorite meal.

 

  Pizza sounds so good! Of course, Mom never makes it—WAY too much work. I’ve seen a documentary on how important pizza was even as late as 75 years ago, and how people would even pay to have it cooked for them and delivered to them. Seems like it’d be such a luxury now, but I guess they took it for granted then.

 

  We followed that up with ice cream.

 

  Now real ice cream is definitely something I wish that I could try. There just aren’t enough cows to supply the USNA’s dairy supply, so they stopped making ice cream about 25 years ago. At least for any common person. I imagine if you went into some of the wealthy government homes, you may find some ice cream in their freezers as a delicacy.

  Then we sat around and played a hilarious game of charades. Normally that wouldn’t be my type of game, but I’m glad we played. Angela was trying to be a vacuum cleaner, but we thought she was an elephant—we laughed too hard!

 

  I had to look up charades. Sounds like it could have been an i
nteresting game, but would be too hard today. It’d be way too easy to use your visual input to your chip to look up what the person was acting out. Someone would definitely cheat. I knew I would.

 

  After charades, we sat around and talked for a while. Angela and Marie were sharing about how they struggled with gossiping. Faith piped in and said that she too really struggled with honoring God with her words. At that point, Stacy—the only girl that doesn’t go to our church—and I just looked at each other, surprised. Neither of us had ever heard anyone talk like this before. I thought Faith was perfect! When I said so, she said that I just needed to know her a little more and I would see that it was far from being true.

  When I asked her how she expected to go to heaven—we’d talk about it before, so I knew she did—if she wasn’t always perfect. She said she never expected anything she did to get her into heaven. That blew me away. Instead, she said she expects what Jesus did—dying on the cross when he was sinless—to be all she needed. She said that by trusting His work to be enough, she believed that God would let her go to heaven. I have a lot to think about. She also shared this verse:

  “For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works so that no one may boast.” – Ephesians 2:8-9

 

  Now I wanted to read the Bible even more! The good thing was that I may very well have a chance to do so tomorrow.

  Meeting

  That Thursday I went to school with a smile on my face for the first time in a while. I did accidently catch Ryan’s eye as I walked into Ms. Oscar’s classroom, earning me a glare which I quickly avoided. I was concerned that wouldn’t be the end of it, and I was right.

  As we were breaking for lunch, I cringed, imagining what Ryan might say to me. But she stayed away, and I went to lunch in peace, sitting next to Ming. I had my guard down as I was walking back to the classroom after an excited conversation with Ming, when Ryan struck. Ryan might stay away when I was with a friend, but Ming was not in my class.