The Wonder of Wildflowers Read online

  “What about these?” I ask, pointing to a scattering of bright yellow buds that make me think of tiny sunflowers.

  “Stop slouching,” Tata reminds me. Then he examines the flowers and sighs. “These are weeds. Maybe while you do your science project, you’ll find out what they are and tell me.”

  I fight back a groan as I remember that I’m going to have to work with Daniel. “We got our identification guides today,” I say as I sit on the ground next to him.

  “Good,” Tata says, handing me a trowel. Then he launches into one of his favorite lectures. “Having an interest in nature is vital for young people. That’s why I ask you to help me out in the garden. Not only is being in the fresh air good for your immune system, but working with your hands builds character.”

  I swallow, remembering Mrs. Perez’s message. “Tata?” I say softly. “Krysta’s mom was wondering if… Well, the neighbors…”

  “What?” Tata asks. “What about the neighbors?” He glances toward the Horowitzes’ house, and I think I catch a glimpse of someone peering back at us through the kitchen window.

  “The flowers,” I finally manage. “And the grass. The neighbors want them to look better.”

  Tata lets out a dry laugh. “Then they should give us some of their magic.”

  I know he’s joking. People don’t share their Amber. But even kidding about it feels wrong.

  Just then, Mama surprises us by pulling into the driveway.

  “Is everything all right?” Tata asks as she gets out of the car. It’s too early for her to be home from work. Mama usually rushes in as I’m setting the table for dinner.

  “Yes. Fine.” She pushes up her glasses and calls out to me in a sharp voice, “Don’t sit on the bare ground. You’ll catch a cold in your kidneys!” Then she heads into the house.

  Even though Mama is a scientist, some of the things she learned from her mother don’t sound like science at all. But I don’t point that out to her this time because Mama hardly ever raises her voice. Something is obviously wrong.

  “You keep digging up those plants,” Tata tells me. “I’ll be back in a moment.” Then he heads into the house.

  Of course I don’t listen to him. I put down the trowel and creep toward the front door. When I open it, I hear my parents talking in hushed voices in the kitchen. I tiptoe through the living room and press myself against the wall beside the TV. It feels like a crime to wear my shoes inside the house instead of immediately changing into my slippers, but I need to find out what’s going on.

  “The latest experiment failed,” Mama is saying as I hear her furiously stirring the cabbage stew that’s been filling our house with a warm, sweet scent all day. “There’s talk of pulling our funding.” She releases a heavy sigh and lets the wooden spoon drop. “If they cancel my research before our citizenship goes through, I’m afraid we’ll have to leave the country.”

  “Would that be so terrible?” Tata asks. “If we went home, we could have our lives back again.”

  “What lives?” Mama asks. “Both of us working nonstop for almost no pay? Empty shelves at the grocery store? Worrying about having enough money to turn on the heat in the winter? That’s what’s waiting for us if we go back.”

  “At least we wouldn’t have to pretend that we belong.”

  “You haven’t even tried to belong here,” Mama says sharply. “Have you listened to any of the language tapes I gave you, or looked at a single one of the flash cards I made?”

  Tata groans. “I’m only saying that I could be a doctor again, and you could go back to doing research that means something. Not stay here trying to be an alchemist! The government must really be desperate to bring in outsiders to tinker with its most precious natural resource.”

  “The university took the world’s best scientists. It’s an honor to work there. And if making magic will keep our family safe, then I’ll do it,” Mama says. Her voice drops suddenly, and sadness laces each word as she adds, “If we’d found a way to come here sooner, maybe then Henryk would be…”

  The kitchen fills with a familiar silence.

  It’s how all my parents’ whispered fights go. Eventually they come back to Henryk, my baby brother who didn’t live past his first week. I was barely two when he was born, so I only know him from the few pictures we have in the house. But for my parents, it’s as if the memories of him are lurking behind everything they say.

  “We can’t go back, not when we’re so close,” Mama finally says. “Any day now, the papers will come.”

  “And then what?” Tata asks. “Our daughter is already surrounded by those monsters all day long. Do you want her to become one of them?”

  “At least she’ll be alive!” Mama cries. “If Henryk had had even a sip of Amber, maybe he would be too!” I hear her yank open the dishwasher and start pulling out silverware and throwing it into a drawer. Their conversation is over.

  I hurry back out to the garden and start moving dirt around, trying to imagine what life would be like if we suddenly had to go back home. It’s been five years since we moved to Amberland. Five years of feeling different and trying to blend in at school and never quite fitting in. And yet… I can’t imagine not seeing Krysta and the other kids every day, can’t imagine not writing poems about the magic all around me. Would I stick out back home as much as I do here?

  Maybe I don’t belong anywhere now, no matter what I do.

  5

  The next morning, during gym class, Daniel gets smacked in the face by a volleyball. His glasses fly off his nose, and everyone laughs as he stumbles around looking for them.

  As I watch Daniel frantically searching under the bleachers, I remember how upset Mama was when her glasses broke last year. It was impossible to find a doctor to make her new ones. She ended up having to order a pair from overseas.

  The teacher hurries over to help Daniel. She wipes the lenses of the glasses with the edge of her shirt until they’re clean, and hands them back to him. Daniel slips them on and then stares at the scuffed gym floor.

  “Look! Four-Eyes is gonna cry!” Krysta says with a snicker, quietly enough that the teacher can’t hear her. For a moment I can’t believe that she’s my best friend.

  “What’s ‘Four-Eyes’ mean?” Anton asks.

  “My dad said it’s an old word for someone with glasses,” Krysta explains, “back when people still wore them.”

  Everyone nods silently, and I can tell what they’re thinking. That Mayor Perez must know what he’s talking about.

  “Now no one wears them,” Krysta adds.

  “No one,” Eileen echoes.

  I swallow, wondering if they remember that Mama has glasses too, but they’re all still looking at Daniel, so I guess they only mean him.

  When he appeared in our class halfway through third grade, Daniel was too skinny and talked a little funny, and his socks were longer than everyone else’s. It was obvious he’d never had a sip of Amber in his life. Now his elbows don’t poke out as much as they used to, and he barely talks anymore—plus he has his ration card like everyone else—but the kids still won’t leave him alone.

  By the time Daniel comes back over to the volleyball court, everyone’s using his new nickname when the teacher isn’t paying attention.

  “You’re up, Four-Eyes,” Krysta calls when it’s time to rotate servers. She tosses Daniel the ball and then turns to me. “What do you think, Mira? Think Four-Eyes can serve it over the net this time?”

  I realize this is what she meant about protecting me from Daniel. She’s giving me a chance to show the other kids that even though Daniel and I have to do our project together, even though we’re both too scrawny and too average, we’re nothing alike. I have no choice but to take it.

  “Four-Eyes? No way,” I say. Even though I’ve been told I don’t have an accent, suddenly my voice doesn’t sound right in my ears. “He couldn’t serve himself a sandwich.”

  I don’t know where the words come from. But the kids nearby l
augh, and Krysta cackles more loudly than anyone else.

  “Can’t serve himself a sandwich,” Eileen repeats. “Good one, Mira!”

  I suck in a breath and focus on adjusting my socks so that they don’t creep up past my ankles like Daniel’s do. So that they’re the same length as everyone else’s. Anything to avoid seeing the look on Daniel’s face. Because I’m sure he hates me as much as I hate myself right now.

  * * *

  During snack time, I crunch on my apple slices while the other kids eat chips and cookies and other “edible chemicals” that Tata is always complaining about. A few kids take out little bottles of Amber and swig them down with their juice.

  I’m not allowed to be in the room during Miss Patel’s lessons on the uses of Amber, so I always go to the library while the other kids learn about the rules of magic. According to Krysta, though, most kids take their Amber doses in the morning at home, but it’s okay to have your dose in school as long as you don’t share it with anyone. Apparently, taking anything but the exact dose for your age and weight can be dangerous.

  Back home, people talked about Amberland as though it were a fairy-tale kingdom where wizards cast magical spells. At first, I was disappointed that the magic came from what looked like cough syrup and that you couldn’t conjure things or make yourself disappear, no matter how hard you tried. But Amber makes you stronger and healthier and smarter. It makes you a better version of yourself. Maybe that’s all the magic you need.

  What will it be like to take Amber every day? Not to mention the extra rations that my family will get to use for whatever we want? I imagine myself braiding my newly thick, glossy hair and swinging it over my shoulder the way Krysta does. I imagine everyone in school knowing that Yuli is the best at dancing, Eileen is the best at math, and I’m the best at writing. I imagine mixing some of the Amber in with the soil in Tata’s garden and making the flowers grow so big that he’ll have to smile when he sees them. Then maybe he won’t mind that I’ll have to stay in Amberland surrounded by “monsters.”

  After snack is over, it’s time for our history lesson again.

  “Since the Amber Centennial is coming up next month,” Miss Patel says, “we’re going to be talking about the history of Amber.” She goes to the board and writes Centennial = 100-Year Celebration in tall, loopy letters. “A century ago, people all over the country were digging for oil and hoping to strike it rich. Can anyone tell me how the search for oil led to the discovery of Amber?” When no one answers, Miss Patel clicks her tongue. “Didn’t anyone do the reading?”

  I did, of course. I pored over every word, as if the magic described in our textbook could somehow trickle off the page and soak into my skin. I guess because the other kids all have Amber pumping through their bodies, they don’t care as much about the history of it.

  Usually I only raise my hand after Krysta does. Once she gets an answer right, then the rest of us can have a turn. But today Krysta is doodling something in her notebook, clearly bored by the topic, so the silence drags on and on.

  Finally I raise my hand and say, “An oil drilling company struck a vein of Amber and discovered that it flowed under the entire country.”

  “Exactly,” Miss Patel says. “It was like a deep underground river. All people had to do was drill down far enough, and they could tap into it. That’s when what we now call the Amber Rush started, and this country changed practically overnight.”

  She goes on to tell us things that the textbook glossed over. How people from other parts of the world came in droves to get their bit of magic. Everyone scrambled to find more veins of the Amber, named for its deep orange color.

  “Some people were forced off their land to make way for Amber drilling,” Miss Patel continues in a somber voice. “Meanwhile, the country’s borders were suddenly bursting. Immigrants were arriving at a rate no one had seen before. Soon people were worried. What if the Amber rivers ran dry?”

  “So what happened?” Anton asks.

  “Changing the laws was a slow process, but eventually it became easier to strike oil than to be granted entry into what came to be known as Amberland,” Miss Patel answers.

  “But people still make it into the country now, don’t they?” Krysta asks, glancing over at me.

  “Yes, some,” Miss Patel says. “The government is extremely selective.”

  Eileen raises her hand. “My dad says that we should close all the borders. Why should other people get our Amber?”

  I grip my pencil hard. I’ve heard Eileen say things like this before, and I know she doesn’t mean me. But it still hurts to hear it.

  “There are others who think like your father,” Miss Patel says. “But the reality is, sometimes we need people with specific skills that we don’t have.”

  “Like scientists,” I find myself saying, even though I should know better than to speak twice during one class.

  Blend in. Don’t get noticed.

  “Yes, Mira,” Miss Patel says with a smile. “Like your mother. In other countries, scientific study is at a different level than it is here.”

  “You mean our science is worse?” Anton asks.

  “Not exactly,” Miss Patel says, clearly choosing her words carefully. “We’ve put a lot of money into Amber research, while other countries have focused on different fields. If we weren’t able to use Amber, our science and our medicine and even our technology would be… less advanced than in some other countries.”

  “But why wouldn’t we be able to use Amber?” Eileen asks. “I mean, it’s, like, our right to use it.”

  “Yes, of course,” Miss Patel says. “That’s why rationing has become so important in the past decade, so that everyone has access to Amber. Westbrook has some of the strictest rationing rules in the country, thanks to our mayor.”

  All eyes turn to Krysta, who smiles proudly, as if she’s somehow responsible for her father’s work. “He wants to make sure there’s enough for everyone,” she says.

  I can’t help noticing Eileen rolling her eyes. She might be a Krysta wannabe, but that doesn’t mean she always agrees with her.

  Suddenly I think of the signs at the protest. SAVE OUR AMBER. Is it already happening? Is the magic drying up like people during the Amber Rush feared? What if the Amber runs out before I even get to taste it?

  6

  At the end of our language arts lesson the next day, Miss Patel asks me to stay behind while the other kids go to lunch. I can see the looks they flash my way as they pack up their things. They’re wondering if I’m in trouble. I’m wondering the same thing.

  Krysta gives me a little finger wave from across the room before she goes out into the hallway, our secret Good luck sign, but it makes me feel better only for a second.

  I’ve worked so hard not to be noticed, but I must have failed somehow.

  My legs quake as I go up to Miss Patel’s desk. On the way, I pass Mister Whiskers, who’s just had his eleventh birthday. Even though it’s illegal to give Amber to animals, Krysta claims that kids have been sneaking some to Mister Whiskers. That’s why he’s lived twice as long as a regular guinea pig. As I glance into his cage now, it makes me sad to think that he’s been locked up in there for longer than I’ve been alive.

  “Mira, have a seat,” Miss Patel says, pointing at the small chair she always keeps at the end of her desk. Then she shuffles through some papers, and I realize they’re the creative writing exercises about spring that we did last week. “Ah, here it is.”

  She plucks mine out of the stack. There’s green writing at the top, but I can’t make out what it says.

  “Let me ask you something, Mira,” she says. “Do you enjoy writing?”

  I swallow. “Y-yes.”

  “I can tell. The entries in your writing journal are always so imaginative.”

  “Thank you,” I say softly, since I think she means it as a compliment.

  She scans through my story, as if looking for something. “There were some interesting phrases here.
And the bit about lace curtains was…” She shakes her head, as if she can’t find the words.

  My memories of our apartment back home are more feelings than anything else, but I remember that our upstairs neighbor had pink lace curtains in her windows to keep out the flies. In the spring, the lace would dance in the breeze like rose-colored waves. Now I wonder if I shouldn’t have included that detail in my story.

  “I know it wasn’t as good as everyone else’s, but the words were all mine,” I finally blurt out.

  Miss Patel laughs, and her long earrings jingle like tiny bells. “Of course they were yours! Why would I ever doubt that?” Then she looks at me curiously. “Have other people accused you of doing that?”

  She doesn’t say “cheating,” but I know it’s what she means.

  I nod, looking down at my hands, the shame burning along with the memory. “Last year, Mr. Meadows said my book report was too good not to be copied.”

  Miss Patel closes her eyes for a moment, as if my words have stung her. Then she opens them again and looks at me. “I’m sorry that happened to you, Mira. You are a talented writer. With or without Amber. Don’t let anyone make you doubt that.”

  Me. Talented? It seems impossible. But if Miss Patel is saying it, maybe it’s true.

  “A local children’s magazine is having a writing contest. They are going to publish the winner’s entry in the next issue,” she says. “I think you should submit your story.

  “A contest? But I won’t win.”

  “You never know,” she says. “Either way, I think it would be eye-opening for people to read your work and discover that you’ve only been in this country for a few years.”