Stars in Summer Sky
(written in 2011)
Summer in Grandma’s house smelled like a mixture of herbs, from a mosquito repellent that Grandma sprayed everyday in the rooms. At different times of the day, the aroma in the house kept changing.
In the morning, after Grandma sprayed the rooms for the first time of the day, Xiangqin could feel the floating dews in the air that dissipated an aroma of fresh honeysuckle. The smell of honeysuckle was like an alarm clock. As soon as Xiangqin noticed it, she knew that breakfast was ready, with one boiled egg already peeled, a glass of whole milk poured, sweetened and warmed, and another item that changed from day to day. Sometimes Grandma would make animal buns filled with red bean paste or coconut cream, shengjian filled with pork and melted gelatin, or steamed rice cake shaped like plum blossoms or baby porcupines. Later the smell of honeysuckle got lighter and lighter, becoming ground dandelion petals. Xiangqin would spend a lot of time on the bed covered by a bamboo mat, reading books or watching television. If she had been at home, she probably wouldn’t have been able to relax like that.
The day was usually interrupted by a phone call from her parents.
“It’s Mum, honey. Are you behaving well today?”
“Yes,” said Xiangqin.
“Remember to do your summer homework, and don’t play too wildly outside, okay?”
“Okay.”
“Now your dad wants to talk to you.”
After a second, Xiangqin would hear dad’s voice through the receiver: “How are you today, sweetie? Did you behave well?”
“Yes,” said Xiangqin.
“Don’t ask your grandmother to do everything for you, okay? Don’t forget to do your daily character writing, okay?” said Dad.
“Okay. Byebye.” Xiangqin hung up the phone so she would hear no more “do”s and “don’t”s from Mum and Dad.
“I don’t want to go home, Grandma. Can I stay here with you forever?” Xiangqin always said during summer. Even though her parents had required grandma to “keep an eye on her,” Grandma wasn’t too strict about that.
Before the last hint of dandelion went away, Grandma would re-spray the rooms, with a different kind of floral water that smelled more like mugwort. The annoying bugs, especially mosquitoes, would stay very far away from the smell. It was heated by the sunlight coming through the window and through the semi-transparent layer of silky curtain, and the smell strengthened.
“Xiang” in Chinese meant “aromatic,” so one expected that Xiangqin would like all natural smells. However, she didn’t really like mugwort, so usually she would go outside for a while, to meet with Tootsie-roll.
Tootsie-roll was a West Highland Terrier kept by Grandma’s neighbor. Like all of the other Westies, Tootsie-roll had a pair of bright and deep-set eyes, and ears like deep-fried samosas cut in half. The first day he met Xiangqin in the garden, he circled around Xiangqin and rubbed her foot with his nose. From then they started to play together.
One thing they were both very into was mud. Pure MUD. They looked around for muddy places where no grass or flower petals were mixed within. Tootsie-roll liked to lie down on a soft spot and roll back and forth. When the mud was all over his body, Tootsie-roll became a cylindrical brown creature.
Xiangqin enjoyed her muddy paradise in a different way. She would scoop up some soft mud in her palm and mold it into magical animals: a fish with wings, a cow with cubic legs, a piggy with no tail, and an elephant with super long nose. Tootsie-roll and Xiangqin played until they got exhausted, and then she went home, where the smell of mugwort would have already dissipated, only barely lingering in the room.
The last round of bug-repelling spray was performed at night, just before Xiangqin went to sleep. Grandma would carry around a spray bottle, walk carefully to every corner in Xiangqin’s bedroom and push the presser on the bottle. The mist of herbal scent would fill the room quickly with the smell of mild honeysuckle again. She then helped to apply some of it on Xiangqin’s skin — all over her arms, legs, back and neck, everywhere exposed to the air. The floral water would dry and form a safe layer on Xiangqin, to keep mosquitoes and other bugs away from her all night. Grandma would make sure every little square inch was covered. The mild aroma would help her have a night of sound sleep on the chilly bamboo mat.
“Good night, Xiangqin. Have a good dream,” said Grandma.
Every night after Grandma closed the curtains, turned off the lights, and sneaked away, everything would dim into invisibility in an ordered silence, except for the green stars on the ceiling. The plastic stars were covered with a layer of luminous paint. They absorbed lights during the day, so when the darkness of the night came, they would give off a creamy green glimmer. Depending on the weather of the day, sometimes the stars were brighter while other times their lights seemed faint. They kept Xiangqin accompanied at night. Grandma bought these plastic stars at a Sunday flea market and had arranged a bunch of them on the ceiling and told Xiangqin:
“Each star is someone in our family.”
Xiangqin had never given too much serious thought to it until one night — after Grandma turned off the lights in the bedroom, Xiangqin opened her eyes. As a daily routine, she stared at the ceiling and saw the stars of different sizes, trying to identify each one of them. She pointed her finger at the ceiling and murmured:
“One, two, three, four… nine, ten, eleven.”
Xiangqin counted and found out there were only eleven glowing stars. As she began to give it more thought, she realized that it was not as easy a task as it sounded. First, there were more than eleven people that she knew in the family that shared the same last name with her, not to mention some others that had different last names. She had several uncles and aunts, and cousins, some of which she saw a lot, while the others she didn’t. Therefore not everyone in the family could be assigned to a star — a choice had to be made here. Second, the stars were of different sizes. There should be some connection within. Third, some stars were in clusters of several instead of standing by themselves. What does it mean? It became a challenging task that accompanied Xiangqin at night.
“This is really hard,” Xiangqin said to herself, wrapping curls of hair around her fingers and slowly closed her eyelids.
At this daily tempo, days and weeks passed swiftly like sand in hand. Once in a while, Mum and Dad would visit on weekend to drop off some snacks or to check up with her. During their visit, Grandma always asked them to stay for dinner. But nine out of ten times they had plans already made and left after spending an hour or two. Xiang knew that Grandma had more success to get uncle Shuming’s family of four or uncle Shuguang and his son to stop for dinner.
One day in the middle of the summer Xiangqin’s brought a dress to Grandma’s home, right before Grandma sprayed the mugwort-scented water in the room.
“Come on, Qinqin,” Dad said, “We bought this for you. Try it to see if it fits.” Dad bent down a little bit and looked at Xiangqin.
Xiangqin looked the thing up and down. It was a creamy green dress with kitty patterns all over, with a V-shape collar and yellow floral laces at the bottom.
“Come on, Qinqin,” Mum said, “Try it to see if it fits.” She grabbed the dress from Dad and walked toward Xiangqin. She started to take off Xiangqin’s clothes and to put the new dress on.
“No,” Xiangqin grumbled, “I don’t want it.”
Mum kept stretching the dress on Xiangqin. First she made Xiangqin’s head through it, and then she pulled Xiangqin’s two arms into the holes on the green dress. At that moment, Xiangqin started crying.
When Grandma heard the crying, she came to the room and said, “Don’t you guys want to switch it for something else? She doesn’t seem to like it.”
“It’s okay, Mum. We know her. She’s always like this, unhappy about the new clothes we bought for her and then got used to it, and finally loved it. Kids don’t know what’s good for them at the beginning,” Dad said.
“Sorry Mum, our Qinqin is slightly spoiled. What kind of a girl would resist a beautiful new dress like that?” Mum added and kept helping Xiangqin with the new dress.
However it was hard to fit Xiangqin with something that really didn’t fit her. Mum finally gave up. She put the dress aside, patting Xiangqin’s head where hair was all messed-up and laughed, “See how much you have grown this summer. Your grandma must have cooked so much yummy food for you.”
“Honey, will you go to Hualian Department store tomorrow and switch the dress for a bigger size?” Mum turned to talk to Dad.
That night before going to sleep, Xiangqin counted the stars as usual. And she made her final decision about the eleven glowing stars on the ceiling.
She gave the star in the upper right corner to Grandma. That one was the biggest and always glowing happily no matter how the weather was that day. Closest to the biggest one was a tiny star, a little different from the others, but not too different. She gave it to herself. The four stars in the lower right corner were named after uncle Shuming, aunt Huili, and Xiangqin’s two older cousins. The two stars in the upper left corner were allocated to uncle Shuguang and cousin Xiangyu. Then there were only two left in the center of the family constellation.
She decided that Mum and Dad could share one star. They were always together and said exactly the same things to her, like one mouth on one body.
And the last star
was for sure
reserved for Tootsie-roll.