Free Outrun the Moon by Stacey Lee Page B

legs and try not to mind that crusty old biscuit Headmistress Crouch.
    After the shrimp peeler found the gold nugget, Ba took me to pan for gold on the American River. An hour passed, and we still hadn’t found a flake, so I threw my pan. Ba patiently retrieved it and put it back in my hands. “Sometimes you have to throw out lots of sand to find your nugget. But you’ll never find it if you stop shaking.”
    Headmistress Crouch is simply another pan of sand, and I must keep shaking.
    More disconcerting than a crotchety headmistress is the news that St. Clare’s isn’t on par with the Men’s Wilkes College, as the brochure had promised. Surely they learn more than how to tie their cravats and how not to make a buffoon of themselves while putting fork to mouth. I remind myself that even if I don’t learn much of substance, a diploma from St. Clare’s is still currency in the business world. I’ve sacrificed much to come here.
    Tom slips into my head, and Ling-Ling materializes beside him. What if they are together right now in her bakery, where she is encouraging him to admire her fluffy buns? My scrawny self is a small-witch-meets-sorceress. Whereas her hair pours down her back like liquid onyx, mine barely grazes my cheek. Unlike my bossy bumps, her cheeks are moon-cake round. Her feet are lotus blossoms, and mine are lotus boats.
    I am reminded of the proverb about the man with a single teacup to fetch water for his plants. In order to keep some alive, he had to let others die or run himself ragged. I have chosen to water this particular plant despite all its thorns, and I must simply hope my relationship with Tom can survive my absence.
    On the bright side, I will be learning how to be a lady of good breeding, and if it’s a lady Tom wants, then a lady he shall get.
    Someone knocks sharply. “Who’s in there?” says a girl with a deep and raspy voice. I pop up, for a minute thinking it might be a boy, and water splashes over the tub’s edge.
    The doorknob jiggles insistently, and my heart sprints.Thank goodness I locked it. Awkward as a penguin climbing out of a laundry basket, I abandon ship, but in my haste, my feet slip from under me. In the split second before I land, an image of me lying dead, dressed in my most honest layer, flashes through my head. On my headstone:
Mercy Wong, sunk by her own bath.
    My bottom smacks the hard floor.
    The doorknob jiggles again. “What’s happening in there?”
    I clench my teeth. A building this size must have another washroom. “Only the usual. Give me a minute, please.” I find the towels in a basket.
    â€œOnly sophomores are allowed in this bathroom, you know,” says the voice.
    Well, no one told me that rule.
    Then I remember:
I
am a sophomore. I manage to get half of me dry and to Buddha’s foot with the rest. My dress sticks to me as I yank it over my head. In the mirror, I can see that my hair is as tangled as strained noodles. To Buddha’s foot with the hair, too, as I don’t see a brush.
    Another knock feels like it’s banging directly on my rattled head.
    â€œHurry!” says a higher voice. “I have to make water!”
    When I swing open the door, four faces peer at me: a petite redhead, a bespectacled brunette, and two girls with the same coloring who must be sisters. They have the same large ears peeking out from their wheat-colored hair like field mice. The smaller one shoulders past me, an enormous yellow hair ribbon flying like a kite tail behind her, and slams the door shut.
    The petite redhead, who couldn’t be more than thirteen,exclaims in that raspy boy’s voice, “Harry, it’s the new girl.” Her eyes fall to my damp feet. “Look, her feet are normal.”
    â€œMy feet?”
    The brunette, presumably Harry, adjusts her spectacles for a better look. Now everyone’s studying my anchors.
    â€œMr. Waterstone told us girls in