Free The Trouble Begins by Linda Himelblau Page A

he is. He's made a table with some old boards. He has the lawn mower parts up on the table with a bunch of rags and oil and wrenches. He's kind of whistling, putting the lawn mower back together. He's sharpening the blades. I wish I could watch up close.
    I go outside. I pretend I'm washing my feet at the outside faucet. I don't look at him but I look around for my cat. I see her on the roof of the shed. “Hey, Cat, come here,” I say in Vietnamese. She's fat now because I feed her every day. I hope she doesn't get so fat she can't run from the old man.
    “You better leave that cat alone,” the old man calls. “She could have rabies.” I shrug. I don't know what that is but I won't ask him.
    “You left the water on,” he says when I walk away, like he's telling me what to do. He can't tell me what to do.
    “Your mower broke?” I ask as if I didn't know.
    “I'm just doing some maintenance,” he says. “You'd need a scythe to cut that yard of yours.” I don't know what
maintenance
is and I don't know what
scythe
is. I go inside. I slam the door. Later I ask Thuy about
rabies
and
maintenance
and
scythe.
I know my cat doesn't have rabies. I hope he's not trying to catch her so they can kill her. She's too smart for him to catch her anyway. It would be fun to have a scythe and go swinging it all over the yard.
    I swing a pretend scythe a few times but Thuy and Lin and Vuong keep reading. I swing it over near the window, where all of Lin's science experiment plants are lined up in their little pots. Lin keeps her head down in her book. This is odd. I make a whooshing sound and take a few more swings at the plants. I come as close as I can but I don't have a real scythe so I don't hurt them. Lin jumps up. Her eyes are red. Tears stream down her face.
    “Knock them over! Throw them out! It doesn't matter,” she cries. She runs out of the room.
    “What'd I do?” I protest before Thuy and Vuong can yell at me too.
    “You're teasing her and she's already heartbroken,” Thuy answers.
    “Why?” This is interesting. The plants looks fine. All exactly alike and about five inches tall in their little matching pots. I didn't hurt them.
    “As if you care!”
    “I care,” I argue. I would care if something bad happened to Lin but why would she cry about little plants?
    “Lin cares about school. Unlike one of us,” Thuy answers scornfully. She means me, of course. “She's in a special Young American Scientist program and the plants are for her science project. She's supposed to find mutant speed-seed plants and then she grows more and more until they're all mutants.”
    I don't know about speed-seed plants but I know about mutants from TV. They're usually giant blobs with crooked teeth and noses and their hands growing out of their foreheads. I shrug. I can see from the cute little plants that she doesn't have any mutants. “So?” I say.
    “So?” Vuong mimics me. “So she doesn't have any mutants and the first part of the experiment is due tomorrow. She did all that work and wrote the report and now she won't have time to start growing them again and finish on time.”
    “How about finish late?” I suggest. How much difference can it make?
    Thuy stands up with her hands on her hips to argue. “She can't be in the science project class if she doesn't keep to the schedule and have a project to turn in. And Lin cares. She wants that more than anything.”
    They're both acting like somehow it's my fault just because I wouldn't cry, boohoo, about her school project. I go to Lin's room to see if she wants to go to the market with me but she won't open the door.

    I like to be out in the yard in the morning when it's just getting light. The weeds are wet on my feet and the bottom of my pants but I don't care. I watch for Cat. I leave her some noodles and tofu mixed up on a piece of newspaper. Later when I check, the food's always gone because she's such a hungry cat. I decide to check the alley for any goodwood or