The Year of the Garden Read online

  Contents

  * * *

  Title Page

  Contents

  Frontispiece

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Pronunciation Guide

  Seeds

  Laura

  Pleasant Hill School

  Clearing the Land

  Last Day of Summer

  The First Day of School

  A Map and a Treasure

  A Note

  Poison Ivy

  A Winter Discovery

  Indiana

  Freedom

  A Storm

  A Story

  A Setback

  A Birthday Celebration

  Read More from the Anna Wang Series

  Middle Grade Mania!

  About the Author

  About the Illustrator

  Connect with HMH on Social Media

  Copyright © 2017 by Andrea Cheng

  Illustrations copyright © 2017 by Patrice Barton

  All rights reserved. For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book, write to [email protected] or to Permissions, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company, 3 Park Avenue, 19th Floor, New York, New York 10016.

  www.hmhco.com

  The Library of Congress has cataloged the print edition as follows:

  Names: Cheng, Andrea, author. | Barton, Patrice, 1955– illustrator.

  Title: The year of the garden / Andrea Cheng with illustrations by Patrice Barton.

  Description: Boston ; New York : Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, [2017] | Series: An Anna Wang novel ; 5 | Summary: “Follows perceptive, astute Anna as she strives to grow a perfect garden—only to realize that the garden she grows with her new friend is more than good enough, weeds and all.” —Provided by publisher.

  Identifiers: LCCN 2016001791 | ISBN 9780544664449

  Subjects: LCSH: Chinese Americans—Juvenile fiction. | CYAC: Chinese Americans—Fiction. | Friendship—Fiction. | Gardening—Fiction. | Moving, Household—Fiction.

  Classification: LCC PZ7.C41943 Yi 2017 | DDC [Fic]—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016001791

  eISBN 978-1-328-69887-2

  v1.0317

  To Lena

  —A.C

  To Natalie and Jeorgia

  —P.B

  Pronunciation Guide

  Happy New Year – Xin nian kuai le (shin nien kwai le)

  Red Envelope – Hong bao (hong bow)

  Dumpling – bao zi (bow dse)

  Thank you – xie xie (shieh shieh)

  You’re welcome – bu xie (boo shieh)

  Chapter One

  Seeds

  Every Saturday morning, Mom cleans the Shepherds’ house. My brother, Ken, and I usually go with her.

  “How do you like your new home?” Mrs. Shepherd asks as soon as Mom opens the door.

  “Very good,” Mom says, taking her bucket to the kitchen sink and turning on the water. “So much space for kids.”

  “Let me know if there’s anything you need. We have lots of things stored in the basement.” Mrs. Shepherd turns to my brother and me. “Just yesterday I was cleaning out the closet, and I set aside a few things for you.”

  We follow Mrs. Shepherd into the bedroom, and I notice that one of her legs is dragging. She holds on to the doorframe to keep her balance, then sits down in the armchair. Next to it is a cardboard box with a big envelope on top. “Whenever you get mail, it has a mark from the place it originated. Mr. Shepherd and I feel like we traveled the world with this postmark collection.”

  “Don’t you want to keep it?” Ken asks.

  “There comes a time when a person gets tired of traveling.” Mrs. Shepherd hands Ken the envelope, then looks up at me. “And, Anna, here are some of the books and magazines I read when I was a girl. I figured, what good are they gathering dust on a shelf?” Mrs. Shepherd stops for a minute to catch her breath. “This one was my favorite.” She hands me a thick book with a red cover called The Secret Garden. “I think this book is the reason I turned into a gardener.” Mrs. Shepherd leans back in her chair. “And it’s probably the reason I turned into a reader, too. Now you kids make yourself at home while I rest a bit.”

  Ken and I spend the afternoon matching the postmarks to a map of the United States that was folded up in the envelope. Then Mr. Shepherd sets out a bowl of pretzels and a pitcher of lemonade.

  “Come join us for a snack, Mary,” he says. But Mom isn’t done dusting the living room. “Your mother is a real treasure,” Mr. Shepherd says. “And you kids, too.”

  Ken stacks a bunch of pretzels on his finger and eats them one at a time, dropping crumbs all over the table. I glare at him, but he keeps on nibbling.

  “Never mind.” Mr. Shepherd sweeps the crumbs into his hand and rolls his wheelchair over to the door so he can throw them into the backyard. “Better than bird seed.” He points to a tree. “See that? A yellow finch just waiting for a snack.”

  When Mom says it’s time to go, Mrs. Shepherd comes out of the bedroom holding a small paper bag. “I have one more thing for you, Anna. I harvested the seeds from our garden, and I thought maybe in your new house you’d have someplace to plant them.”

  “Don’t you want to plant them here?” I ask. “In your garden?”

  Mrs. Shepherd looks out the back window. “You know, Anna, my gardening days are over.” I follow her gaze to the flowerbed. Most of the plants are brown and dry, but there are still some orange blossoms around the border. “The seeds are labeled so you’ll know what’s what.”

  “Thank you,” I say. Ever since I can remember, I wished I lived on a farm with a big vegetable garden and a barn full of hay where Ken and I could play hide-and-seek and jump from one bale of hay to another.

  We head down the street to the bus stop. The wind feels hot and humid, as if it might rain. When we get to the orange bus stop sign, I turn back. Mr. Shepherd has wheeled himself out to the front porch. Mrs. Shepherd is standing beside him, leaning on his chair. I wave and they wave back. When the bus comes, they are still waving.

  Now that we moved into our new house, the bus ride home takes longer. I wish we were going back to our old apartment at Manor Court. Then when we got home, I would go next door to see if Suzanne could come out. At our new house, I don’t know anyone and I don’t have anything to do.

  I put my hand into my pocket and feel the paper bag with the seeds inside. Maybe I really can find a place at our new house for a garden, like behind the back porch. Since our house is on the corner, we do have lots of space. Dad said he wouldn’t have time to tackle the yard until next year, but I can clear the land myself, just like Pa and Ma in Little House in the Big Woods. I can cut down the bushes and dig out the roots. Ken can help me take out the rocks. Then, in the spring, I can plant Mrs. Shepherd’s seeds.

  Chapter Two

  Laura

  On Sunday after lunch, Dad heads to work. He’s trying to pick up extra shifts to pay for repairs to our house. He wants to redo the wiring first, and then we need to buy paint for the walls.

  After she washes the dishes, Mom sits at the small card table to study her English vocabulary words. She writes each word on the front of a file card, and on the back she writes the meaning in Chinese characters. She goes through the stack of cards, closing her eyes to remember. Sometimes she asks me how to pronounce the words, like affordable and economy. But no matter how many times she repeats the words, they never sound exactly right.

  I look outside. The house across the street has the curtains drawn against the sun. Nobody is out. I get The Secret Garden, open the door, and step outside.

  One of the honeysuckle bushes in our side yard has overhanging branches that form a cool space
underneath. I crawl inside and sit down on a flat stone that seems to be waiting for me. I run my hand over the cover of the book. The material used to be rough, but now it is worn smooth and the corners of the cover are rounded. The book even smells old. I try to imagine Mrs. Shepherd when she was my age, opening this same book cover, but I cannot picture her face without deep wrinkles around her grayish eyes.

  I turn to the first page. Mary Lennox lives in India and she has servants who take care of her. She orders them around as if she is in charge. She is spoiled and selfish, but it’s not her fault. Nobody really pays much attention to her, and she is alone most of the time. Even though she’s not very nice, I feel sorry for Mary and I want to keep reading.

  Suddenly a girl about my age crawls into the space underneath the bush. “I was walking my dog up to the corner, and I thought I saw someone back here. My name’s Laura.”

  It takes me a second to realize that I am not in my book world with Mary. “My name’s Anna.”

  “I’m eight,” Laura says.

  “Me too.”

  “When’s your birthday?”

  “March nineteenth.”

  Laura smiles. “Mine’s March twentieth. What school are you going to?”

  “We just moved in . . . I think the school’s called Pleasant Hill.”

  “Me too!” Laura sits down right next to me on the flat rock. “I can’t believe that we have almost the same birthday and we both just moved in. And my middle name is Ann, which is close to Anna. What’s your middle name?”

  I have to think fast because my middle name is Chinese and I can’t pronounce it. “I don’t have one.”

  “What are you reading?” Laura asks.

  I show her the cover.

  “That book looks antique.” She scratches a mosquito bite on her ankle. “My mom and I really like old stuff.”

  “Where did you used to live?” I ask.

  “Indiana,” she says. “With my aunt. It’s country there.”

  “Really? With a farmhouse and a barn?”

  Laura nods. “They have a horse, three dogs, four cats, and lots of chickens.” She makes a little mound of dirt with her fingers. “I love animals.” She looks up. “Do you have any pets?”

  I shake my head. “My mom says I’m not old enough to take care of them.”

  Laura pulls her eyebrows together. “We’ve had pets since before I was born. Our first dog died, but now we have a German shepherd named Lily and a cat named Liliana. Where’d you live before?”

  “Here in Cincinnati. At Manor Court.”

  “What’s that?”

  “An apartment complex.”

  Laura wrinkles her nose. “Was it a slum?”

  “What’s that?” I ask.

  “I mean, really poor?”

  “No,” I say quickly. “Just a regular apartment.”

  Laura stands, reaches for the branch above her, and hangs for a minute. “This honeysuckle is as big as a tree,” she says, wrapping her legs around the branch and pulling herself up. I grab the same branch, hook my legs around, and hang upside down. Something falls out of my pocket and lands on the dirt.

  “What’s that?” Laura asks.

  “Seeds,” I say, I flipping around and jumping to the ground at the same time as Laura.

  She picks up the bag and reads marigolds, mixed lettuce, chocolate cherry tomatoes, green beans, pickling cucumbers. “I don’t really like vegetables,” Laura says. “But chocolate cherry tomatoes sound good.”

  “Do you think they really taste like chocolate?”

  “I don’t know,” I say.

  Laura pushes her hair away from her face. “We could plant the seeds at my aunt’s farm. She has a really big garden.”

  Mrs. Shepherd thought we might have space for a garden at my new house. I don’t want to take her seeds so far away. And if the garden is in Indiana, I won’t be able to work on it as soon as I wake up every morning. “We could make a garden here,” I say.

  Laura looks around. “I think a garden has to be flat and it can’t have bushes everywhere.”

  I point toward the middle of the backyard. “That part is pretty flat. We could dig out the weeds and then turn over the soil. You know, like pioneers.”

  Laura stands up so fast, she hits her head on the honeysuckle branch. “First we have to decide exactly where,” she says, rubbing the top of her head.

  All afternoon we work. We decide to use the bigger stones to mark the border of our garden. Some of them are really heavy so we carry them together. When we run out of stones, we find more in the gully behind our house.

  Laura holds a worm in her hand. “Earthworms are good for a garden,” she says, setting it gently on the soil. “Plus, they attract birds, and I love birds. Woodpeckers are my favorite. What about you?”

  “I don’t know much about birds,” I say.

  We drag the stones into place, matching the ends like the pieces of a puzzle. The only breaks we take are to get drinks and go to the bathroom. By the time Mom calls me for dinner, we have three sides of the border done. I don’t think I’ve ever had so much fun in my whole life.

  Laura wipes her hands on her jeans. “I never made a garden before.”

  “Me either.”

  “It’s harder than I thought.” She looks at the stones we’ve put into place. “My aunt’s garden has all these sections, for flowers and lettuce and corn.” Laura scratches her stomach. “And each section has a little fence around it. I think it’d be easier just to use her garden.”

  “I want to plant the seeds here,” I say. My voice sounds louder than I expected.

  Laura looks away. “In Indiana, it’s really country—​you know, with big fields and cows.”

  “There’s lots of space here,” I say. “We just need to pull out the weeds and dig up the bushes.”

  Laura shrugs, then heads up to the sidewalk. She turns back. “My house is on the other side of the street, about halfway down. The one with a cat painted on the mailbox.”

  She runs down the hill with her blond hair flying.

  Chapter Three

  Pleasant Hill School

  As soon as I wake up, I remember that today is our appointment at Pleasant Hill School. We have to make sure everything is in order before the first day. My stomach feels tight. In less than a week, I will be a third-grader.

  It’s not even nine o’clock, but already the sun is hot. Mom and Ken and I walk down the hill. “That’s Laura’s house,” I say, spotting the cat painted on the mailbox.

  Mom isn’t listening. She wants us to hurry even though our appointment isn’t until nine thirty. Ken’s light blue button-down shirt is dark where the sweat soaked in. Mom wanted me to wear a summer dress, but I insisted on wearing my new jeans, which are scratchy, and a red long-sleeved shirt. We turn down Pleasant Street. The school is at the end of the block.

  When we open the door of the building, the cold air rushes out. At least Pleasant Hill has air conditioning, I think, following Mom into the main office. Sutton School had only fans, which blew our papers around. Once it got so hot that Mrs. Mallory let us eat popsicles in our classroom.

  The secretary asks us to sign in.

  “I am Mrs. Wang,” Mom says, trying to pronounce our last name the way Americans do so it rhymes with bang instead of the way it’s supposed to sound, which rhymes with song.

  The secretary looks us up on the computer. “You must be Anna,” she says to me. “And this is Ken. Welcome to Pleasant Hill.” She gives us two envelopes that have our names on the outside. Then she asks us to wait until the vice principal comes to give us a tour of the school.

  Mrs. Kyle is very tall with a heap of blond hair on top of her head. “Good morning,” she says, holding her hand out to Mom.

  Mom shakes her hand. “Nice to meet you.”

  “Let’s start with the library,” Mrs. Kyle says. Her high-heeled shoes make a loud clicking sound in the hallway. This school is much bigger than our old school, and everythin
g is new. “I’m guessing you like to read.” She looks at me and I wonder how she knows.

  Mom nods. “Yes, Anna reads big books.”

  I wish she wouldn’t say that.

  The library is bright and has beanbag chairs in back. I want to lie down in one and keep reading The Secret Garden instead of following Mrs. Kyle all over the building.

  Finally she takes us to our classrooms. Ken will be downstairs with the first- and second-graders in room 107. Mrs. Kyle opens the room with a key and we peek inside. There are round tables with small chairs and a climbing structure in back.

  “Do you want to go in?” Mrs. Kyle asks Ken.

  He shakes his head and I can tell from his eyes that he’s scared.

  Next we head upstairs to the third and fourth grade classrooms, and Mrs. Kyle opens 207. “This is Mr. Ellis’s room,” she says. “He will be your new teacher.”

  The desks are arranged in groups of four. There are posters on the wall with pictures of plants and animals, and an empty aquarium on the back shelf. “What’s in there?” Ken asks in a voice so soft we can hardly hear.

  “Last year they had a turtle,” Mrs. Kyle says. “I’m not sure what Mr. Ellis has in mind this year.”

  Mr. Ellis. I say the name in my head a few times, trying to imagine who Mr. Ellis could be. I never had a teacher who was a man before. If I were still at Sutton, I would know where everything was. I could say hi to Mrs. Mallory on the first day of school. She would have a book waiting for me. And I would be in a class with Suzanne.