Chapter 7: Even Elementary School Has Rivalries

Before I knew it, another week had begun.

I climbed off the back of Dad’s electric scooter and trudged listlessly to the classroom. Although the bell for morning study had already rung, Class One, Grade Three was still as noisy as a steamer with its lid just lifted.

Old Wang, our homeroom teacher, had gone to the administration building for his weekly meeting. Without that king of hell presiding over the room, the little demons were running wild.

No matter how fearsome class monitor Chu Hanya was, this was morning study. In an elementary schooler’s mind, that didn’t count as class.

In the left corner, boys gestured excitedly, arguing over whether Greymon could beat MetalGarurumon in Digimon. At several desks in the middle, a group animatedly discussed how to get thirty lives in Contra on the Subor console.

At the back, a few girls huddled mysteriously over scented plastic sticker sheets that cost five mao each, quietly sharing their girlish secrets.

Unable to join in, I propped my chin on one hand in boredom, my melancholy heartthrob aura returning.

Don’t ask. If you must know, think of a rainy night in Paris.

With nothing else on my mind, I glanced across the aisle toward the window in the next group.

Wen Shuyao sat in the next group, in the same row as me. She was quiet today too, her long black hair loosely tied back with a pale-yellow ribbon as she sat in the morning light. Xia Minghan Primary School’s uniform was blue and white, rather like the kind worn in Shenzhen, with a red Young Pioneer scarf, though they usually checked for it only on Mondays.

Her morning-reading textbook stood upright on her desk as cover for the thick extracurricular literature book hidden underneath.

She gave off a scholarly air completely at odds with the noise around her.

“Shuyao, what are you reading?”

A girl with a bow in her hair turned from the seat ahead and leaned closer, curious. “You’ve been reading it for days… Oh, who’s your favorite author?”

Before Wen Shuyao could answer, a boy with straight bangs and a disheveled uniform collar suddenly popped up.

His name was Li Bo, and he was the biggest attention seeker among the boys. Whatever anyone was talking about, he had to insert himself to make sure people noticed him.

Li Bo thumped his chest. “Isn’t it obvious? My favorite author is ‘Tie Ming’! I see that name all the time in the magazines my dad buys. His stories are awesome!”

“Bullshit!”

Hou Jian, a boy nicknamed Monkey at the next desk, immediately objected. Never one to back down from an argument, he slapped his desk and jeered, “Li Bo, you can hardly read. Stop embarrassing yourself. Those characters are pronounced ‘Xia Ming’! Xia, like a wandering swordsman! I read several of his stories in *Story Club* last week. He must be some kind of martial-arts hermit!”

“It’s Tie Ming!”

“It’s Xia Ming, idiot!”

The two third-graders argued until their faces turned red, looking ready to come to blows in the aisle over a name.

Wen Shuyao, who’d been reading quietly, finally couldn’t take it anymore.

She put down her book, rubbed between her brows, and interrupted in her gentle voice. “All right, all right. You’re both reading it wrong. That character isn’t pronounced tie or xia. It’s yì. The name is ‘Yi Ming.’”

The argument stopped abruptly.

Li Bo and Hou Jian stared at each other, red-faced. Several children who’d been listening nearby looked enlightened and turned to her in admiration.

“Wow… So that amazing author’s name is Yi Ming!”

Sitting nearby, I did everything I could to keep a straight face.

Could I manage it?

No. I was completely overwhelmed. I sighed and looked away.

Help.

These kids were something else. Tie Ming and Xia Ming were bad enough, but even after Wen Shuyao corrected the pronunciation, the whole class really thought there was an author named “Yi Ming”?

The Chinese word yìmíng meant “anonymous.” It was used when an author didn’t want to reveal their name, or when so much time had passed that the real name couldn’t be established.

It was like those cover-song compilations on music players where unknown singers were all credited to “Various Artists.”

I shook my head inwardly. The distance between me and these kids felt wider than ever.

Back to being melancholy.

As I sat there with nothing to do, a soft, proud, disdainful snort reached my ear.

“Hmph. A bunch of idiots.”

Was Chu Hanya listening in on the next group’s conversation too? Or had the boys simply argued so loudly that she’d heard them?

Either way, I looked over curiously.

My deskmate, class monitor Chu Hanya, sat perfectly straight with her Chinese reader in hand, but her eyes swept over the next group with the contempt one might show Peppa Pig.

She turned slightly and muttered under her breath like a miniature adult. “They don’t even know the character yì can mean lost or hidden.

“Yìmíng isn’t a person’s name. It means an unknown author. Ignorance is frightening, and they call him a great writer.”

I gave her a surprised look. Not bad, deskmate. As expected of the top student in the whole grade—she even knew where the word came from.

Still, seeing how lofty and self-satisfied she looked, I felt a little sorry for her.

In the two-plus weeks since school began, I’d more or less worked out her situation.

Chu Hanya didn’t really have friends she could laugh with and chat to about everyday things. Nobody came to her desk to borrow an eraser or discuss last night’s cartoon as they did with Wen Shuyao, and no one invited her to play elastic jump rope or other girls’ games after school.

She’d been class monitor since first grade, spending her days like a miniature adult, policing discipline, reporting people, and following the rules.

Children were sensitive. With someone so capable and powerful, who would want to confide in a monitor who might pull out a little notebook and write down their name at any moment?

She also seemed proud. She looked down on the boys, thinking them noisy, dirty, fond of playing with snot, and incapable of studying. She didn’t much like girls she considered stupid either, as her muttering just now showed.

But it wasn’t as though Chu Hanya had no friends at all. A few high-achieving girls in class did talk to her, and Wen Shuyao asked her for help with math. The two girls were close; they just didn’t discuss very private or everyday things.

Perhaps sensing my unusual stare, Chu Hanya turned, fixing me with her clear eyes. “…Why do you keep looking at me? Is there something written on my face?”

Caught staring.

But it wasn’t as though I was looking at a pretty young woman. She was a third-grade class monitor. What did I have to be afraid of?

Without a flicker of embarrassment, I gave her an approving look, looked away, and lied casually. “Nothing. I just thought your hair looks nice today. Makes you look energetic.”

“Wh-what?”

Chu Hanya visibly froze for a second.

She’d probably never heard that sort of comment from an elementary school boy. Her usually stern little round face went through a series of odd expressions: shock, confusion, bewilderment, then a trace of awkward uncertainty.

“F-Fang Luo… even if you flatter me, I won’t erase your name.” Her voice was a little awkward.

“?”

Wait, when had my name gotten into her notebook again?

Startled, I turned and noticed what she was doing. She reached up in a fluster to touch her ponytail. Her lips moved as though she wanted to scold me for being a smooth talker, but she swallowed the words, turned stiffly away, and gripped her textbook without saying anything else.

“Don’t interrupt my reading.”

“…”

The desk border was back in force.

Then hurried footsteps suddenly came from the back door.

“Fang Luo! Fang Luo!”

Su Xiaoqing swept up to my desk like a little whirlwind, with our other neighbor, chubby Zhang Wei, beside her.

“Fang Luo, come play marbles in the playground sandpit with us during the long break!”

Zhang Wei excitedly opened his palm to show me several transparent marbles in bright colors. “I just got these cat’s-eyes. Pretty, aren’t they? Oh, and did you see that new mini racing-car cartoon last night? The one with the Cyclone? So cool! Su Xiaoqing and I are going to pool our money for a chassis and modify the motor!”

Su Xiaoqing braced both hands on the edge of my desk and leaned forward, eyes shining. “Yeah! Fang Luo, are you any good at marbles? Zhang Wei says he’s going to win every marble those guys in Class Two have today!”

I looked at the muddy glass marbles in Zhang Wei’s palm and felt no interest whatsoever.

Marbles… mini racing cars…

If I hadn’t played big-budget console games or held a real steering wheel, I’d have been happy to crouch in a sandpit, backside in the air, shooting glass balls. But I had.

So, no thanks.

I had just opened my mouth to refuse politely when Chu Hanya, silent until now, cleared her throat and turned around.

“This is morning study!”

Her deliberately stern voice instantly interrupted the excitement of Su Xiaoqing and Xiang Wenjie.

The red armband on her chest stood out in the sunlight, and her little face was full of righteousness. “Su Xiaoqing, Zhang Wei, don’t you know loud talking is forbidden in the classroom during morning study?

“Not only are you two not reading, you came over to another group to talk about toys and make plans to play marbles. That’s a serious breach of discipline!”

Impatience flashed across Su Xiaoqing’s fearless face. She hated the way Chu Hanya always used rules to push people around. Folding her arms, she immediately shot back, “Monitor Chu, Old Wang isn’t even here. The whole class is talking. Why do you have to pick on us? What’s wrong with me saying a couple of words to Fang Luo?”

“Just because everyone is talking doesn’t mean you can break the rules!”

Chu Hanya refused to give ground. She sat up straight and pulled her dreaded black soft-cover notebook from her drawer.

“I’m the class monitor. I have the right to enforce discipline! Fang Luo is my deskmate, and he’s reading. You’re not allowed to disturb him!”

“Hmph. As if I care about bothering him. Fang Luo wants to play with us!”

Hot-tempered herself, Su Xiaoqing grabbed my arm and shook it, looking challengingly at Chu Hanya. “Fang Luo, you tell her! Are you coming to play marbles with us, or staying here to chant with this stuffy old lady?”

Two pairs of very different eyes fixed on me at once.

Su Xiaoqing was an enthusiastic tomboy, her eyes full of loyalty to her friends. She’d grabbed my wrist, her dark hair still damp with sweat, and was almost pulling me into her arms.

“Hurry up!”

Chu Hanya, the top student in the grade, wore her black ponytail at shoulder length, with a butterfly clip in it. She surely didn’t understand the appeal of marbles. In fact, neither did I. But the earnest look she fixed on me now was like an organization putting one of its officers to the test, and she wouldn’t let go.

“This is morning study!”

Ah. Ahhh… What was going on?

Why were little girls holding both my hands? The two of them were pulling me back and forth.

What was this?

A third-grade… showdown?

No, that wasn’t even close!

The noise in the classroom seemed to fade. Quite a few people glanced secretly toward the front row, watching the commotion.

“Fang Luo, whose side are you on?!”