Kitchen Chaos (2 page)

“You mean the Union Jack?” I ask. I know I shouldn't make him feel dumb, but can I help if he does? No.

“Yeah, I guess,” he says. “I don't really know where anyone else is from. My mom's family and my dad's family don't get along, so we don't see our relatives very much or anything.”

I can't even imagine what that would be like. At my house it's all family, all the time. There are six of us—my mom, my dad, my three brothers, and me—and both of my parents come from big families too.
I have twenty-seven first cousins, no joke. Having so much family around all the time can be seriously annoying, but at least my people aren't in a feud. And there's always some drama somewhere with some member of the family, so it keeps things interesting. I'd almost feel sorry for Dylan if he weren't so boring.

“You're probably going to have to find out more about your ancestors for the project,” I tell him. Mr. McEnroe explained the project in his usual smart, funny way right before he had us pair up to do these interviews. He can make anything appealing—at least to me. I hope I don't let it show. He gave us a handout that said,
American Immigration: Wave upon Wave Arriving at Our Shores
(only Mr. Mac can get away with nerdy assignments like that!) and told us that at different points in American history, people moved to the United States in groups, or “waves,” from all over the world. Sometimes they were welcomed, sometimes not. For our project we have to choose an aspect of immigration to study and present. We can
do anything we want—as long as it includes a written report
and
a hands-on project. Then all of us seventh graders will present our projects in an “Immigration Museum” we create at the end of the unit, the week before Thanksgiving.

Those are the only instructions Mr. McEnroe gave us, which is kind of cool, but also a little stressful. When teachers say things like, “The only rule is that there are no rules” or “There is no right answer,” they're usually not telling you the absolute truth. If you do a really lame job or come up with an answer that's completely out there, they're not just going to say, “Excellent work.” They're going to make you do it again. I like to get things right the first time
and
have someone say, “Excellent work.” So does Liza, which is another reason we make such a great team.

Since Mr. Mac is determined to have us work in groups of three, I start looking around the room for a third partner who's not a slacker. Luckily, the person we're interviewing doesn't have to be part of
our project group. Dim-bulb Davis with his skeevy mustache definitely isn't a candidate. It will have to be someone who's smart and creative but won't try to take over when Liza and I come up with one of our brilliant ideas. None of our good friends are in the class, but I notice Maya Lutz and consider her a possibility. She's a decent student and seems like she'd be easy to work with. But in the next second I remember something and scratch Maya off my mental list. I've heard some kids call her “Lutz the Klutz,” and she must have done something to earn the nickname. Klutziness is not a desirable quality in a project partner. That could be dangerous. I don't want to be mean, but I want to get a good grade, so forget Maya, no matter how nice she is.

I scan the room again and land on Evan Jacoby. Interesting. He's a hard worker—I think he might actually be taking notes on Arianna Martinez's family history—and he's been in love with Liza since sixth grade, so he'd definitely go along with whatever idea
we come up with. He also lives right down the block from school, which would be super convenient for project planning. Liza might not be thrilled about teaming up with a guy who's been crushing on her for a year, but I'm sure I can convince her he's the right choice. I mean, who else is there?

I look over at Liza to let her know our problem is solved—we practically have ESP, so all I have to do is, like, raise my eyebrow and she'll get it—but she's still chatting away with her interview partner. Her name is Lillian, I think, and she's new. She didn't go to Clinton last year, so she must have moved or switched schools or something. To be honest, I'd hardly noticed Lillian until just now, and I can't imagine what they're still talking about. But Liza is always super friendly and asks a lot of questions. I think she learned how to connect well with people in that support group her mom and dad made her go to for kids dealing with divorce.

Dylan Davis and I, on the other hand, are pretty
much interviewed out, since he couldn't exactly answer any of my questions and does not seem inclined to ask me any more. Mr. Boring is apparently really into his cuticles, and I can't get Liza's attention, so I decide to take a good long look at Lillian. She's Asian American, with straight, practically black hair that covers almost half of her face when she doesn't tuck it behind her ears. She wears dark blue glasses, and her clothes are okay, but there's something about them that's a little too neat. Her jeans look sort of stiff, like they've been ironed or sent to the dry cleaner.

Whenever I get my hands on the remote—which, in a house with three brothers, isn't often!—my favorite thing to watch on TV is makeover shows. Right now I wish I were the stylist and Lillian the guest because I can think of at least twelve different things she could do to really improve her look.

She must have sensed someone was looking at her, because all of a sudden, Lillian turns around and
catches me staring. Liza looks over too and smiles. I smile back and nod my head toward Evan Jacoby, but she just scrunches up her forehead. Something in the atmosphere must be interfering with our ESP. I'll have to wait till after class to tell her my perfect project partner solution.

“You know what, Lillian? You'd be the perfect third project partner,” Liza practically squeals. “I can't wait to tell Frankie!”

We both look over at Liza's BFF, Frankie, who—weirdly—is staring right at us. Liza smiles and waves at her, so I do too, even though we don't really know each other. Frankie doesn't seem to even notice me as she waves at Liza. It isn't really surprising. I'm in two classes with Frankie, and she's never spoken a word
to me. I have the same two classes with Liza—social studies and math—and she always says “hi” when we pass in the hall, but this is the first time we've ever talked. She's really nice, and I hope she means it about being project partners with them.

“Okay,” announces Liza with purpose, bringing my attention back to her. “Now it's your turn to talk about your ancestors.”

Liza just finished telling me her family's story. Her mom grew up in Atlanta, but she says her relatives got lucky and found some really good records, so they can trace her ancestors back to Africa, before they were brought to America as slaves. She said her dad's relatives fled eastern Europe along with a lot of other Jewish families who were treated unfairly or forced to leave around the beginning of the last century. I guess on both sides, Liza's ancestors had a lot to overcome. My family history in the United States is a lot less interesting—and shorter—than hers.

Mr. McEnroe mentioned something about a first wave of immigrants from China to America during the nineteenth century, but that was long before my parents came. They're actually not even citizens—which is perfectly fine with them—but since my sister, Katie, and I were born here, we're officially Americans.

“Um, so, both of my parents were born in China and grew up there,” I say. “They even got married there. Then, about twenty years ago, they moved to Berkeley to go to graduate school. They had a lot of relatives in San Francisco, and when they got jobs, they decided to stay. A few years later, my sister was born, and then me. That's pretty much the whole story, unless you count moving here this summer.”

“Wow,” Liza says. “That's a pretty short story.” She smiles. “So does your family miss China? Do they talk about it?”

“Yeah,” I say. “A lot, actually. I mean, back home in San Francisco, China seemed really close. With
all of my aunts, uncles, and cousins and my grandmother around, somebody was always going back to visit, bringing us stuff, talking about what's going on. I've been to China only a few times, but my parents go almost every year. Even though they've lived in the U.S. for so long, they don't really like American music or TV or anything. They think Chinese things are better.”

“Your family sounds a lot like Frankie's,” says Liza. “My mom has only one sister and my dad's an only child, so I just have my grandparents and the one aunt. I don't even have any cousins. You and Frankie are lucky to have so many people around all the time.”

“I guess,” I say, looking down at my hands. “Only they're all back in San Francisco.”

“Oh yeah,” says Liza, sounding sorry. “That must be hard.” She pauses, but I don't feel like explaining how many hours a day I spend thinking about my cousin Chloe and my best friend, Sierra, so I don't say anything.

Liza changes the subject. “So, what do you think of Brooklyn?”

I shrug. “I'm still sort of getting used to it.”

“I've never been to San Francisco,” Liza says. “But I've heard it's really cool. Lots of hills, right? And the Golden Gate Bridge or something?”

I nod.

“Brooklyn's cool too,” she assures me. “You'll see.”

Just then the classroom lights flick on and off, which means Mr. McEnroe wants us to wrap things up. My fifth-grade teacher used to do that. It's funny how right now, thousands of miles away from each other, two teachers might be signaling their class to finish their work in exactly the same way. I think about Sierra and Chloe and wonder whether they're in social studies too.

“Okay, everyone, I'm going to need your attention for a minute,” Mr. McEnroe says. “I hope you found this interview exercise enlightening. I went around the room listening to your conversations, and
if my notes are correct, as a class we emigrated from twenty-six different countries—including Scotland and Ireland, where my own ancestors hail from. Pretty exciting, huh?”

I'm not sure whether we're supposed to answer him or not, because I still haven't totally figured Mr. McEnroe out. He seems like a really cool teacher, but I wonder what everyone else thinks. I look around to see what the other kids are doing. Just nodding. I can do that too.

“Now it's time to partner up in groups of three for the project I introduced earlier. Do you think you can handle dividing up with a minimum of drama, or do I need to do it for you?”

“We can handle it!” everyone seems to say at the same time—except for me, since I've been dreading this moment since the beginning of class. Did Liza mean what she said earlier, or was she just being nice?

“All right.” Mr. McEnroe rubs his hands together,
smiling. “You have five minutes. And remember: Best friends don't necessarily make the best collaborators.”

I'm starting to get a feeling in my stomach like I might throw up when I feel a tug on my sweater.

It's Liza. “Hey,” she says. “Come on. Let's go tell Frankie you're going to be our third group member.”

Suddenly, the awful feeling disappears. I smile at Liza and follow her over to Frankie, who's talking to a boy named Evan.

I have to give it to Frankie, she doesn't mess around. As my nana would say, she “doesn't let the grass grow under her feet” (whatever that means). She's already practically interrogating this kid Evan, who just looks dazed and keeps nervously nodding.

“So you don't have that much going on after school, right? We can work on this as much as we want?” I hear her say, and when he mutters something about sax lessons, she waves that idea away. “We'll
have to focus, Evan, so you might have to make some hard choices.” She looks over and notices us standing next to them. “You want to do a good job for the, um, team, right?” she says, giving Evan a not-at-all-subtle head nod toward me.
OMG, Frankie, do you really have no shame?