Read Online Red Thread Sisters (9781101591857) by Carol Antoinette Peacock - Free Book Online Page B

Americans took us there and we got a prize with our Happy Meals? I remember how we both got sparkly rings with great big plastic diamonds and how we put those huge rings on our fingers and flicked our hands in the sunlight and made little rainbows all over the McDonald’s!
    â€œHey, have small question for you,” Wen called down the hall to her mother. “How send letter to China?”
    â€œYou’re writing to Shu Ling?” As her mother came into her bedroom, Wen was just sealing the envelope. She glanced at the portrait Wen had tacked over her desk. “This must be you and Shu Ling, right?” she asked.
    Pushing her chair back a little, Wen let her mother see.
    â€œShe seems like a nice girl. Such kind eyes! And you two look like very good friends.”
    Wen felt tears coming. Quickly, she pulled her chair closer to the desk, to block her mother’s view. She’d seen Shu Ling enough.
    Maybe now was the time to ask. “Such a nice girl,” her mother had said. It would be so easy to say, “So nice, would you adopt her?”
    But there had been no hint that her parents would keep her forever. When would she see the sign Auntie Lan Lan had told her about?
    â€œMaybe you could send her a package, too. Package . . .” Her mother etched a box on a piece of paper. Wen noticed that her mother had stopped using the ring of cards and was acting things out or drawing the words instead. Sometimes Wen secretly smiled at her mother’s clumsy sketches. Still, the pictures were more fun than cards.
    â€œMaybe new clothes.” Wen’s mother sketched a T-shirt.
    â€œOh, Shu Ling like new clothes!” Wen exclaimed.
    That afternoon, Wen’s mother drove Wen and Emily to the mall to shop for Shu Ling.
    â€œWhat mall is?” Wen stood between her mother and Emily as a door to the building opened all by itself.
    â€œYou’ll see.” Emily grabbed Wen’s hand.
    They entered a magic place covered with a curved glass ceiling. Wen gazed all around her and gasped. Were these leafy trees growing beside the splashing fountain real? How could the water shoot upward so high, making little droplets that sparkled in the sun?
    And the stores! Wen had never seen so many stores, all with huge windows where pretend people with no faces posed in beautiful new clothes.
    â€œLet’s go to the toy store first,” Emily begged.
    In the first aisle, Wen saw rows of Barbie dolls, some dressed as princesses, brides, or doctors. At the orphanage, Auntie Mu Hong distributed the Barbie, the hula hoop, and the plastic dump truck so that everybody had a turn with a real toy. The others played tag among the shrubs or tossed pebbles in the courtyard.
    Whenever Wen and Shu Ling got the Barbie, they headed for their dusty space to play the choosing game. Walking the Barbie through the air, Shu Ling would say, “Which kid should I pick?” She’d stop right by Wen. “I choose you!” the Barbie would say, her little plastic hand tapping Wen on the head. Next, Wen got to grasp the Barbie and finally decide on Shu Ling.
    Now Wen felt a tug on her arm. “
Wen-nie,
what’s the matter?” she heard Emily’s little voice ask. “Do you want Mommy to buy you a Barbie?”
    Wen envisioned Shu Ling, eyes wide in delight, as she lifted her own Princess Barbie from the plastic wrapping. She’d take the Barbie by her skinny waist and stroke her glittery princess dress, billowing to her delicately curved feet. Then she’d comb Barbie’s long blonde hair with her fingers and caress Barbie’s jeweled crown.
    But whom would she play with? How could Shu Ling play the choosing game if there was nobody to pick her?
    â€œWennie, what is it? You want Mommy to buy your
friend
a Barbie?” Emily tugged at Wen’s shirt.
    â€œShu Ling not need Barbie,” said Wen.
    Wen followed her mother and Emily up the moving stairs to a big