Family

THIS IS A TRUE STORY Guang’s stomach grumbled. He sighed, took his bread out of his backpack, and looked at it, trying to control his appetite. “Remember, don’t start eating it as soon as you get off our doorstep!” his mother had said as she placed the bread in a small paper bag with her flour-covered hands. But his stomach growled again and he took a very small bite. It was 1960, and ever since the Communists had taken his parents’ land and business, Guang had been given only a small loaf of bread to eat for lunch at school. His once handsome features were now pale and almost fleshless. There were six children in the family: three boys and three girls. As the fifth child in his family, and the second boy, Guang was not given enough to eat, as Chinese in those times thought that the oldest and youngest children were most important. Being a boy didn’t help (Chinese considered boys superior to girls); he had one older brother and one younger one. The three-year famine between 1958 and 1961 had been caused by Chairman Mao’s Great Leap Forward policy. Chairman Mao had stated that China could catch up with Europe and the U.S. in industry if more steel could be manufactured. The whole population was forced to make steel. Anyone who didn’t comply was considered an enemy of the state and punished. Farmers stopped farming and melted their farm tools for material to use to make steel and cut down scores of trees to make fires. People in the cities melted pots and pans—Guang remembered how his family had only been allowed to keep one pot and one pan. Over the fires they placed a huge stove and threw all their metal in there. But steel-making is a very exact procedure. Metal must be burnt at just the right temperature, and the exact procedure has to be followed. The ordinary people didn’t know the procedure, and a small wood bonfire is definitely not the right temperature. The metal they produced was not steel; it was useless scrap metal molded into shapes. Meanwhile, no one was farming, and even if they were allowed to, all the farm tools had been melted. Food was scarce. There was only bread to eat, and very little of that, too. In the countryside, some people were forced to eat things like tree bark and flowers. Before the Communists took over, Guang’s family was wealthy and well-to-do. It had owned two factories: a soy sauce factory and a biscuit factory. Then the Communists came to power and took away all their land and property because the Communist theory was that money, property, and other possessions should be distributed evenly amongst all citizens. His parents had often muttered about the Communists, and Guang had heard them sometimes. Guang still longed to gorge himself on a bag of biscuits and a plate of well-cooked meat. He missed the life he had once had. Now, standing on the cracked, broken sidewalk, he couldn’t resist his hunger. Even though he knew that by the time he got home after school, ten hours later, he would be starving, the temptation won. He took another bite, savoring the sweet taste of the bread. As he ate he thought of the biscuit factory his family had owned. He remembered the bags of biscuits, with buttery crusts and soft, delicious insides that he had feasted on so often. He remembered how privileged he had felt every time one of the factory’s delivery trucks trundled by, how glad he had been that his family was so well-to-do. But now, whenever he noticed one of those delivery trucks, he remembered the Communists, and now he tried not to walk past the factory, now owned by the country. The loaf was only the size of his fist, so he tried to make it last as long as possible, holding each piece in his mouth until it softened. Taking care not to drop a single crumb, he broke the bread in half, then took one half and broke it again. The aroma of fresh-baked corn bread tantalized him, and he pulled off another piece. He started ripping off large chunks and stuffing them in his mouth, but instead of subsiding, his hunger elevated. Albert’s grandfather, Guang Wu Zhao, as a teenager When Guang arrived at school, he was just finishing the last piece of bread. Though he had devoured the equivalent of a small meal, he was just as ravenous as he was when he had taken that tiny first bite. Digging into the bag, Guang pulled out a few crumbs and swallowed them as well. The bag was crumpled into a small round brown ball and tossed into a nearby wastebasket. Guang pretended to be a basketball player, flicking his wrist and muttering, “Two points! Score!” in Chinese. He gazed out at his school, a long three-story brick building with long windows that looked out on the grassless field where some children played with a ball. His friend greeted him with a halfhearted “Hello!” as he walked through the gate and into the schoolyard. The bell rang and he trudged up the stairs and along the hall to his classroom, slung his backpack down on the floor, and pulled out his textbook. Another long day, he thought. Guang is my grandfather, and this is his true story. Albert Shu, 10Milpitas, California

The waiting room was so quiet you could have heard a pin drop His breathing deepened as he drifted off to sleep. His chest rose and fell in a rhythm that comforted his sister sitting next to him. Ellie Harrison wrapped her arms around herself in a hug and closed her eyes. She tried to sleep like her brother, but it was impossible to get comfortable in the hard wooden chairs of the hospital waiting room. After a few minutes, Sleep found her and took her away from the hospital and all the pain of everyone in the waiting room with her. But Sleep had no extra time to spare and was impatient to be rid of this new customer. So Sleep went away, leaving her huddled in the cold chair of the hospital waiting room. She opened her eyes, rubbing them gently to make the grogginess go away. The fluorescent light shone brightly, but there was something oddly fake about it; about the whole room. Everything was a sterile white, and too clean for her liking. She glanced around at the other people in the chairs all around her. Some had stains of recent tears on their cheeks; others sat staring straight ahead of them. A few were asleep like her older brother, Luke, curled up in chairs and even on the floor. One man sat with his head in his hands, sobbing silently into his sleeve. A woman close to the white door spoke softly into her cell phone, reading something off a form in her hand. Some children looked at magazines, and some played video games on iPads or cell phones. There was a big TV mounted on the wall near the door, playing a children’s program on mute. A few people stared blankly at the TV. But no one in the room was really focusing on what they were doing. The waiting room was so quiet you could have heard a pin drop. Or even a cotton ball. The silence was not broken for several minutes, until the door opened and a doctor with smeared lipstick and messy hair that had been tied back in a loose ponytail walked in. Her eyes quickly scanned the room, and she called out a name. “Flora O’Connor?” The woman who had been speaking on her cell phone jumped up and dumped her phone and the forms on her lap into a huge purse. She walked over to the doctor uncertainly, tucking her red hair behind her ear and slinging the monstrous purse over her shoulder like it weighed a thousand pounds. The doctor whispered something that made the woman dissolve into tears. She bit her lip and nodded. Slowly she followed the doctor back through the door, still sobbing quietly. The doctor wore a look of almost sympathy as she closed the door, enveloping the waiting room in silence again. Ellie thought that the doctor should try a little harder to comfort the woman. Ellie quite disliked doctors. She hated the blue pajamas they wore. The white hygiene masks and the fake smiles plastered on their faces. And especially the way they pretended to understand your pain, the way they shook their heads; implying that their patient had not made it through the night or that their treatments hadn’t been successful. Now Ellie sighed and sank back into the wooden chair, tapping her foot impatiently. A moment later, the white door swung open again, and this time no doctor walked in, but Ellie’s dad slumped to where Ellie and Luke sat. His eyes were red and puffy, as if he had not slept in many weeks. He was unshaven and his hair stuck up in every which way. He held a cup of coffee from the cafeteria downstairs, on which his name was printed sloppily. Bradley Harrison. “Daddy!” whispered Ellie, “Are you OK? How is Marcella doing? When can I visit?” Ellie’s father sighed. His youngest daughter, Marcella, who was only five, was in the hospital, unconscious. One week ago, Ellie’s mom had been driving Marcella to her school. It was raining. They were stopped at a red light when a big truck came skidding out of nowhere. It collided with their car, and Ellie’s mother had not survived. Marcella was alive, but very hurt. The doctors were still trying to figure out what was wrong with her. She had scans and tests every day. Their father rarely left her bedside, except for nighttime, when they stayed in a hotel across the street from the hospital. Ellie and Luke spent much of their time in the waiting room, because only one visitor was allowed with Marcella at a time. But sometimes Ellie was permitted in with her sister, and she knelt by the bed. It was full of Marcella’s favorite stuffed animals and blankets, and the table beside the bed was overloaded with sweets and cards from friends. Ellie was distraught at losing her mother, but since Marcella was so hurt, she couldn’t think about her mom. She had to focus on Marcella, because she could not lose two members of her family. After Marcella got better, they could properly mourn Mrs. Harrison. Ellie’s dad looked at his shoes, blinking back tears. “Marcella is the same. She’s still unconscious. The doctors hoped to see some improvement after the treatment they gave her yesterday, but there’s been no sign. But there’s still hope. She will pull out of this! No extra visitors are allowed right now. But I was wondering if you were hungry. It’s six thirty, and if you get too tired we can head back to the hotel soon. But I think we should eat first. Come on, wake up your brother and we’ll head to the cafeteria. OK?” Ellie nodded and shook Luke awake. He rubbed his neck, which must have been full of cricks from the uncomfortable chairs. They stood up solemnly and followed their father out a new door, this one also white, and down