The Year of the Fortune Cookie Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Table of Contents

  Frontispiece

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Pronunciation Guide

  News!

  A Lucky Day

  CAT

  I Am From

  Gathering Signatures

  Fortune Cookies

  Baking Day

  Baby Gifts

  Packing

  The Trip

  Sightseeing

  The Waitress

  So Many Fortunes

  A Visit

  Alone

  The Babies

  The Lucky Family Orphanage

  A Fever

  Goodbye to China

  Recipe for Fortune Cookies

  The Year of the Sisters

  Read More from the Anna Wang Series

  About the Author

  About the Illustrator

  Copyright © 2014 by Andrea Cheng

  Illustrations copyright © 2014 by Patrice Barton

  All rights reserved. For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book, write to Permissions, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company, 215 Park Avenue South, New York, New York 10003.

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

  Cheng, Andrea.

  The year of the fortune cookie / by Andrea Cheng ; illustrations by Patrice Barton.

  p. cm.

  Sequel to: Year of the baby.

  Summary: Eleven-year-old Anna takes a trip to China and learns more

  about herself and her Chinese heritage.

  ISBN 978-0-544-10519-5

  1. Chinese Americans—Juvenile fiction. [1. Chinese Americans—Fiction. 2. Identity—Fiction. 3. Intercountry adoption—Fiction. 4. Adoption—Fiction. 5. China—Fiction.] I. Barton, Patrice, 1955– illustrator. II. Title.

  PZ7.C41943Yf 2014

  [Fic]—dc23

  2013024155

  “Where I’m From” © 1999 by George Ella Lyon. Reprinted by permission of author.

  eISBN 978-0-544-28984-0

  v1.0514

  To Xinzhe

  —A.C.

  To Ling

  —P.B.

  Pronunciation Guide

  Happiness – Xing fu (shing fu)

  Hello/How are you? – Ni hao (nee how)

  Fine – Wo hen hao (wo hun how)

  Lucky Family Orphanage – Xing yun jia ting gu er yuan (shing yun jia ting gu are youan)

  Foreigners – Wai guo ren (why gwo ren)

  Grandma (dad’s mom) – Nai nai (nie nie)

  Grandma (mom’s mom) – Wai po (why po)

  Thank you – Xie xie (shay shay)

  Come – Lai (lie)

  No problem – Mei wen ti (may wen tee)

  Little Sister – Mei mei (may may) or Xiao mei (sheow may)

  I’m full – Chi bao le (che bow le )

  Fruit – Shui guo (shway gwo)

  Meat – Rou (row)

  Noodles – Mian tiao (me en tee yiao)

  Friend – Peng you (pung you)

  China – Zhong guo (jung gwo)

  Chinese language – Zhong guo hua (jung gwo hwa)

  Beijing – Bei jing (bay jing)

  Baby, also treasure – Bao bao (bow bow)

  Snow – Xue (shwe)

  Courtyard Houses – Hu tong (who tong)

  Strawberry – Cao mei (tsao may)

  A little – Yi dian dian (yee dien dien)

  Good luck – Hao yun (how yun)

  Child – Xiao hai (sheow hi)

  Be careful – Xiao xin (sheow shin)

  Wait a minute – Deng yi deng (dung yee dung)

  A very good baby – Hen hao de bao bao (hun how de bow bow)

  Goodbye – Zai jian (tsai jian)

  Dad – Ba ba (ba ba)

  Two tigers – Liang zhi lao hu (liang jer lao who)

  Good morning – Zao an (zao an)

  Very pretty – Hen piao liang (hun peow liang)

  Go home – Hui jia (hway jia)

  Five kwai – Wu kuai qian (wu kwai chian)

  Chapter One

  News!

  As soon as Mom walks in the door, the phone rings. “Yes, I see, how wonderful!” Mom holds the phone with her shoulder so she can put Kaylee into her booster seat and pour Ken a glass of milk. “We are very happy. Congratulations!” She sounds distracted and then hands the phone to me.

  “Great news!” Ms. Sylvester’s voice is loud. “We’ve finally been approved!”

  “Finally” is right. Last February, Ms. Sylvester and her husband came to our house to talk about adopting a baby from China. Everyone was so excited, and Mom said that maybe she and I could go with them to help. The Sylvesters even offered to pay for my ticket. But the process took forever.

  Ms. Sylvester is talking fast. “The baby’s name is Jing and we are hoping that you and your mom can go to China with us to pick her up over winter break.”

  “I hope so,” I tell her. Silently, I think that Jing Sylvester sounds funny, but then I realize that it’s no different from Anna with Wang.

  “How do you like middle school so far?” Ms. Sylvester asks.

  I’m not sure what to say. The cafeteria is really crowded, and now that Laura is going to Our Lady of Angels, Camille is my only friend. But I can’t explain all that on the phone. “Fine,” I mumble.

  “Okay, Anna, I’m sure I’ll see you soon.”

  I hang up the phone. February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September. I’ve been waiting to hear this news for eight months, but now that it’s real, my stomach feels tight. What will it be like to visit a place where almost everyone is Chinese? And what if I hate the food? Mom says Chinese food in America is completely different from Chinese food in China.

  Ken takes his glass to the sink and runs out the door. Kaylee is eating Cheerios by the handful. “Can we go with the Sylvesters to get their baby?” I ask.

  “The tickets are very expensive now,” Mom says. She pours milk into a sippy cup for Kaylee. “I know that the Sylvesters said they will pay for you, but we still have to buy my ticket.”

  “Maybe I can earn some money by babysitting,” I say.

  Mom looks out the window above the kitchen sink. “First we can go to Beijing to help the Sylvesters and see Kaylee’s orphanage, and from there we can go to Shanghai to visit my family.” Mom’s eyes have a far-away look. “But that would take much longer than two weeks. Even one month would be too short.”

  I really want my mother to come with me to China. That’s been our plan all along. “How about three weeks?” I suggest.

  Mom wipes Kaylee’s face with a washcloth. “Just today two of the nurses on my floor asked for time off before the holidays. I am new. I cannot ask for so much vacation.” Mom closes her eyes. “Maybe in a couple of years, we can plan a longer trip.”

  “So we can’t go?”

  Mom takes a deep breath. “This is not a good time for me, Anna.”

  I can’t believe that the Sylvesters finally got approved and now Mom says we can’t go! Who knows what could happen in a couple of years? By then I’ll be in high school. “Can I go to China without you?”

  As soon as the words are out of my mouth, I feel unsure. How would it feel to go so far away without anyone in my family? I know Ms. Sylvester because she was my teacher for two years, but she’s not like an aunt or someone I’ve known forever. And I’ve only met her husband once.

  Mom fingers the buttons on her sweater. “You never stayed away from home before.”

  Mom is right. I only spent the night at Camille’s once, and in the middle of the night I missed home so much that Camille’s mo
ther called Dad to come and pick me up. “This is different from a sleepover,” I say.

  Mom bends down to clean up the Cheerios that landed on the floor. “I don’t know, Anna. You are only eleven years old. And two weeks is a long time.” She takes Kaylee out of her seat and sets her on the floor. “But the decision is for you.”

  Kaylee runs over and hugs me around my legs. “Play with me,” she says.

  Two weeks would be a long time without Kaylee and Mom and Dad and Ken and our cat Maow Maow. But a couple of years is too long to wait.

  “I want to go,” I whisper.

  Chapter Two

  A Lucky Day

  Dad drops me off at school on his way to work. I stand outside my homeroom and wait for Camille. Kids are coming in the front door, closing their umbrellas, and going to their lockers. There are lots of white kids and some African American kids, but I think Camille and I are the only two Asians in the whole sixth grade, maybe even in all of Fenwick Middle School.

  As soon as Camille comes through the door, she waves. We sit together underneath the window and she takes a list out of her backpack. “My mom says I can’t join more than three clubs at the very most.” Camille has circled the ones she’s interested in. “What about you?”

  The hallway is getting really hot and noisy, and I can’t imagine staying in the school building any longer than I have to. “I don’t think I’ll join anything for now.” I tell Camille that the Sylvesters finally got approved to adopt their baby, but now my mom can’t get off work, so I might go without her. “If I do end up going to China, I’ll have to miss a couple of weeks of school.”

  “My parents would never let me do that,” Camille says. “They won’t let me miss a single tutoring session.”

  The bell rings and we head to class. The social studies teacher, Ms. Remick, has the schedule on the board. “We will have a shortened period this morning,” she explains, “to leave time for club shopping.”

  Our new unit is called “Who Am I?” Ms. Remick asks us to reflect for a minute on what makes us who we are.

  Allison raises her hand. “Our parents and grandparents.”

  “I was born in China,” Camille says. “And that makes me who I am.”

  I’m always surprised at the way Camille tells everyone she’s Chinese. I usually wait, hoping nobody will ask if I’m Chinese or Japanese, or if I eat with chopsticks.

  “My grandpa makes me who I am,” Lamar says. “Next summer he’s taking me on a fishing trip to Canada.”

  “My grandparents took us to Disney World,” Amber says.

  I never met either of my grandfathers because they died before I was born. When we went to China, I met my mom’s mom and some of my aunts and uncles, but I was too little to remember very much. The only grandparent I know is my dad’s mom, who lives in California.

  Ms. Remick nods. “Who we are depends on many factors,” she continues. “One of the things that influences each of us is the community we live in. So our first unit will be an oral history project.”

  Camille pokes me. “What’s that?” She always panics when she’s not completely sure what’s going on, and then she misses the rest of the explanation.

  “We will interview people in our communities,” Ms. Remick says as she passes out a packet that describes our assignment. The project is due at the end of the semester.

  Everybody starts talking at once. Lucy wants to interview her great-grandpa, and Camille says she might pick Teacher Zhao, from Chinese School. I could interview Ray, the crossing guard at North Fairmont Elementary, because he tells good stories, but I’d rather choose someone I don’t know yet, like Kaylee’s birth mother. But it would be impossible to interview someone that you don’t know anything about and who you couldn’t find no matter how hard you searched.

  It’s time to pack up and head over to the gym. “Hurry,” Camille says, pulling me toward the door.

  A sign on the wall of the gym reads FENWICK MIDDLE SCHOOL: ACTIVE. ENGAGED. SUCCESSFUL. Tables are set up in rows with the names of the clubs on cards. Students walk around in clumps of three or four, laughing and talking. Three girls dressed in identical skinny jeans and pink sweatshirts are huddled together. I hurry past, hoping they don’t notice my baggy jeans.

  Camille heads over to the track team, and I make my way toward a table with only two kids—a girl with curly hair and a short boy with glasses. The sign says COMMUNITY ACTION TEAM: MAKE A DIFFERENCE. I step closer. A laptop shows pictures of kids collecting trash in an empty lot.

  “Want to join CAT?” the girl asks. “I’m Andee with two e’s, and this is Sam.” Her face is wide and open, and her eyes look kind of Asian. She is wearing long earrings that move as she talks. I think they’re cut out of Coke cans and I wonder if she made them herself. “We meet on Wednesdays.”

  “I don’t know,” I say. “I might be going to China.” I wonder if the other members of CAT are seventh- and eighth-graders who already know each other.

  “You can always miss a few meetings.” Andee stops the computer slide show at a picture of a chubby girl with dark skin and small braids. “That’s Sierra. I mentor her every Monday.”

  “What do you do together?”

  “Sometimes I help her with her homework, but usually we just walk to Dairy Queen.” Andee pushes one of her curls behind her ear. “I’m trying to get her to open up to me.”

  For a minute I wish Andee were mentoring me. Maybe then Fenwick would seem more friendly. I pick up the pen on the table and write my name, ANNA WANG , on the sign-up sheet.

  Andee smiles and I see that her teeth are covered with braces. “We have the same initials. Anna Wang and Andee Wu,” she says.

  Our eyes meet. “Are you Chinese?”

  “Half,” she says.

  I wonder if people will ask us if we’re cousins like they did when Camille first joined North Fairmount. Or will Andee’s tight curls make us seem too different? I want to ask Andee if she speaks Chinese, but the gym is so noisy that it’s impossible to have a conversation. “See you Wednesday,” I say, moving toward the door.

  On the way home on the bus, Camille is quiet.

  “Did you sign up for track tryouts?” I ask.

  She nods. “But I don’t see how I can do anything at this school except study. Do you believe that packet Ms. Remick gave us? It’s about twenty pages.”

  “Most of it is definitions and instructions.”

  Camille plays with the strap of her backpack, rolling and unrolling it. “Maybe I should have repeated fifth grade.”

  “I bet it’ll get easier,” I say. But I’m not sure if it really will for Camille. Sometimes when I explain directions to her, she has trouble following the steps. We’re close to my stop, so I stand up and move toward the door. “I’ll call you later.”

  Camille forces a smile. “My tutor leaves at five.”

  I get off the bus alone. Last year I walked home with Laura. We kicked sweet gum balls and caught leaves and talked the whole way down the hill. And if Laura was going to her dad’s, I walked with Ken. But Ken is still at North Fairmount and Laura doesn’t get home until four thirty, and then we both have homework. When she does come over, she talks about new friends I don’t know.

  Acorns crunch under my shoes. The air is warm and windy, as if fall is about to start but summer is still hanging on. I’m lucky that Camille goes to Fenwick with me. But lately it seems we’re so different. The other day I told her that sometimes I lie in bed at night wishing I wasn’t Chinese. Really? she said, pulling her eyebrows together. Her face looked hurt and I wished I could take back my words. I can’t imagine not being Chinese, she said.

  When I get to my house, I take the key out of my backpack and open the door. Mom and Dad are at work, Ken comes home half an hour later than me, and Kaylee stays at daycare until Mom or Dad can pick her up. I pour myself a glass of milk and add two big spoons of Nestlé Quik. Then I get a fortune cookie out of the big bag Grandma sent from San Francisco, crack it in half,
and read the small, typed words: Today is your lucky day. After the sentence is the Chinese character that I think means “happiness.”

  Mom doesn’t like fortune cookies. She says they don’t even exist in China, and that it’s impossible to predict the future. She cringes when we get fortunes like You will be a millionaire. Hard work is important for happiness, she says, not money or luck. If you work hard, you can reach your goal, she always says.

  I know Mom is mostly right. If you don’t study Spanish vocabulary, you won’t pass the test no matter how much you wish for good luck. But then some people learn things faster than others, and that’s luck. And some babies are born into families where their parents can take care of them and other babies are left on the steps of an office building like my sister. Isn’t that luck too?

  I fold the slip of paper with the fortune written on it and put it into my jeans pocket.

  Chapter Three

  CAT

  Quizzes make the day go by fast. Pre-algebra is easy. The English test has picky multiple-choice grammar questions, but I can get most of them just by what sounds right. I glance at the clock. Two forty-five. Why did I ever sign up for CAT?

  When the bell rings, I stop in front of room 203 and look inside. A teacher is at the desk, grading papers. Sam and Andee and one other girl are sitting on the floor.

  Andee sees me. “Hi, Anna. This is Simone.”

  Simone scoots over to make a space for me. She has dark skin and her hair is braided in a spiral around her head. She has a pencil sticking out from behind her ear.

  “Saturday we’re doing a cleanup in Over-the-Rhine,” Sam says. “Can you come?”