Free Ashes by Haunted Computer Books Page A

showcase. Did you look yet? There's a silver
tray that's got some writing on it under a picture of a sailboat.
Up above that is an old book that's got cardboard poking through
the corners and a little red ribbon tucked inside as a bookmark.
There's some other things, too. Daddy's old bowling trophy, some
dollars from where they don't know how to spell good, and that
knife from Mexico that's made out of volcano stuff. But Sung Li is
the main thing. All the rest is kind of placed around her like an
afterthought.
    Mom taught me the word "afterthought." She
sometimes even calls me that. Her Little Afterthought. She smiles
when she says that, but it's one of those crooked smiles where one
side of your face gets wrinkly.
    Except to put something inside, Mom only
opens that showcase about once a month, when she takes one of those
dusters that looks like the back end of a chicken. She runs that
duster over the shelves and all that stuff in the showcase. I don't
see why she bothers, because that old stuff in there just keeps
making more dust. When the light's just right, when you hide behind
the door and the sun is sneaking through that little crack between
the hall and my bedroom, you can watch her. After she leaves, you
can sit there and watch the little silver hairs spin and twirl and
then settle down all over again.
    But mostly I watch Sung Li. You ought to go
up and see her. Maybe you will, after I finish telling her
story.
    She wears this little robe with flowers on it
and she's got a cloth belt tied around her waist. The sleeves where
her hands come out are really wide. She has tiny black shoes and
pants that are the color of raw rice. But her frosty white face is
what I really like to look at.
    Her cheeks go way up high under her eyes, and
they're sharp like a naked bone. Her eyebrows are real skinny and
rounded. She has a nose that's almost invisible, just a little nip
of whatever it is they make plates out of. Her lips are bright red
and shiny, almost like they're wet. I know it's all paint, but I
like to pretend about things like that.
    She doesn't look much like me. Except for the
eyes. Sometimes I'll look into those black glass eyes of hers, the
eyes that seem to soak up whatever light hits them. Then I'll run
into the bathroom down the hall, quick before I forget, and look in
the mirror at my own eyes. And for just a second, or however long I
can go without blinking, I can pretend that I'm pretty like Sung
Li.
    You really think I'm pretty? Well, it's nice
of you to say that, anyway. But I'm not pretty like Sung Li.
    At night in bed I wrap the blankets around me
and think about Sung Li. I take off my pillowcases and put them on
my arms and pretend they're big sleeves. I stick my lips out a
little, like I'm waiting for a secret kiss. I pretend I'm sitting
on the middle shelf and people look at me and like me because I am
pretty and have good value.
    Maybe I wouldn't ever have learned Sung Li's
story. But one day Daddy opened the case with his little key
because he bought a carved gnome and wanted to put it in there. Mom
was watching him, to make sure he didn't break anything. Daddy used
to break things sometimes.
    No, I don't need a tissue. Everybody keeps
telling me that it's okay to cry, and they give me candy bars. But
why should I cry? Sung Li is going to be okay.
    Usually Mom sent me away whenever the case
was opened. I think she was afraid I would pick up something and
make its value go down. So I hid behind the door and looked through
that crack near the hinges. I heard Daddy tell Mom that the gnome
was a collector's item. It was an ugly old thing, with a thick
beard and a sharp nose and a face that's all wrinkly like somebody
who stayed in the bathtub too long. You can see it when you go up
to look at Sung Li, if you want to.
    Daddy took Sung Li out of the center space on
the main shelf and put that knotty old gnome in her place. He put
Sung Li on the bottom shelf and leaned her against my baby shoes.
They're bronze