Red Thread Sisters (9781101591857) Read Online Free PDF Page B

hesitated. Was that enough to count as a bath?
    Cautiously, she took off her clothes, stepped into the foam, and sat. Perfumed bubbles burst around her. Wen stretched her legs along the tub’s smooth bottom and let herself slip deeper, until fragrant foam reached her chin.
    At the orphanage, Wen and Shu Ling had taken weekly showers along with the other girls in the tiny shower stall. Sometimes girls gawked at Shu Ling’s foot and snickered. One day, two new girls had taunted,
Cripple,
cripple
. Wen strode through the pelting water and told them to shut up.
    The next shower day, while the others slept, Wen led Shu Ling to the kitchen, filled a basin, and brought out a bar of yellow laundry soap. Standing, Shu Ling scrubbed herself until she couldn’t reach beyond the top of her bad leg. As Wen stooped to wash the shrunken and twisted part of Shu Ling’s leg, they heard footsteps coming down the hall.
    â€œQuick.” Wen helped Shu Ling to the floor and they hid behind the sink. From behind the pipes, Wen saw strict Auntie Mu Hong in the doorway. Shaking her head, Auntie Mu Hong clucked disapprovingly, then disappeared.
    Oh, no!
Auntie Mu Hong would tell Director Feng, and he’d mark down in their files that they’d been caught disobeying. Everyone knew that when Director Feng sent names of kids to be adopted in America, he never chose the ones who broke rules. Wen and Shu Ling clung together behind the sink, their eyes joined in fear.
    Then Auntie Mu Hong came back, her finger to her lips, and slipped a bottle into Wen’s hands. “The lotion will make Shu Ling’s leg feel good,” Auntie Mu Hong whispered. Then she turned away and closed the kitchen door, so nobody would see.
    That evening at dinner, Auntie Mu Hong announced that for medical reasons, Shu Ling would bathe separately from then on.
    Wen sat upright in the scented bubbles. Who would wash Shu Ling now? Instantly, the bubbles smelled too strong and the foam made her eyes sting.
    Wen stepped out of the water and wrapped herself in a big towel. Back in her bedroom, as she dried herself and put on her old clothes, Wen banged her heel on the trundle bed under her own bed.
    Bed number two,
she thought.
I have an extra bed.
    That was it. She’d ask her own family to adopt Shu Ling! Shu Ling could sleep on the extra bed.
    Wen envisioned waking up every morning and rousing Shu Ling.
“Ni zao,”
she’d say. “Good morning.”
    And every single day, Shu Ling would open her eyes, yawn, and say,
“Ni zao, mei mei.”
    Wen started to work out her plan. She would be very good, the best daughter ever. She would do extra chores. She wouldn’t eat so much food. She’d be very nice to Emily. Her parents would think about what a wonderful daughter they’d picked. And when she was sure that they wouldn’t send her back, she’d ask them to adopt Shu Ling, too.
    Wen knew she wouldn’t even need much English, when the time came. She’d point everything out, to be sure her mother and father understood. She’d bring them to the extra bed and hold up two fingers. Enough beds. Next she’d pull out a drawer of new clothes and show them. Enough clothes. Then she’d lead her parents to the kitchen and open the refrigerator. Enough food.
    Her mother and father would see that they had plenty of room and plenty of clothes and plenty of food—plenty of everything. They would say yes.
    Then Wen recalled the story of An Fei.
    When An Fei was seven, a family from America had come for her. An Fei’s mother and father gave her a teddy bear and hung a silver locket with a photo of their family around her neck. They clasped her tight and said, “We are your forever family.” Then An Fei drove away with her new parents.
    A week later, a jeep stopped in front of the orphanage and An Fei stepped out. Director Feng called for Auntie Lan Lan to show An Fei back to her old bed. That