Love, Love
STERLING CHILDREN’S BOOKS and the distinctive Sterling Children’s Books logo are registered trademarks of Sterling Publishing Co., Inc.
Text © 2020 Victora Chang
Illustrations © 2020 Lorraine Nam
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means (including electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without prior written permission from the publisher.
ISBN 978-1-4549-3833-0
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Cover design by Heather Kelly
Interior design by Heather Kelly and Julie Robine
Table of contents
1. missing
See
The Disappearing Wig
The Chins
Winters
Books
The Secret in The Secret of the Old Clock
No One
Wig Shop
Pin by Pin
The Missing Wig
Stories
My Mom’s Car
Talk
Neighbors
The Birds
Sally Levin
Tennis
Jogging
A Good Plan
Bathroom Break
The Wig
No Wig
2: the beginning of something
Annie
Tennis
Mystery
A Stranger
The Hill
Focus
Hair Dream #1
Clue Collecting
Bushes
Wet Wig
School
Double
Dance
Searching
Maybe
Happy
Nothing
Hair Dream #2
Chinese School
From
Dragon Inn
The Apartments
New Idea
Deadline
Light
Money
Deflated
3: maybe
New Plan
Fix It
Hair Dream #3
Haircuts
Hair Dream #4
A Conversation
My Family
Hair Dream #5
The Doctors
Hair Dream #6
Doctors’ Offices
Hair Dream #7
Bare
Fingers
Hair Dream #8
Brown Packages
Maybe
4: face
Bubble
Watching
Three Theories
Experiments
Library
Research
Illnesses
Laughing
Something
Sleuth
The Diary
Open It
Open
5: I am here
The Wig Store
The Car
Hair Dream #9
The Missing Wig
Josh and Steve
Egg Rolls
Tennis Tournament
The New Wig
The Tournament
Here
The Win
Letters
Hands
Hair Dream #10
Never Again
Secrets
Author’s Note
To all the bullied kids in the world: I see you.
To all the kids who suffer: I see you.
And
To my human children: Penny and Winnie
To my wiener dog children: Mustard and Ketchup
1:
missing
See
I see my sister Clara on
the ground in the back
of the school
I see a few kids around her
at least I think it’s her
I see a dirty window
dirty kids
dirty yard
everything dirty
especially near the end of winter
when the snow picks up all the mud on
the ground and
mixes it all up
I love snow but only snow
snow always sucks up
the earth in
this cold dirty city
West Bloomfield Michigan
there must be blooming fields west of here
all the flowers keep
sprouting in my head
when they pop out of my head
the city pulls them out like weeds
after school I ask Clara
were you at
the back of the school today
she snaps
no that wasn’t me
on the ground
The Disappearing Wig
Clara’s new wig is gone
that’s all I know
that’s all anyone knows
I didn’t know anyone knew
about the new wig
Clara’s first wig
Clara’s only wig
but maybe it fell off
by accident
maybe that’s when someone took
it or maybe someone
knew about the wig and pulled
it off her head no one
tells me what happened no one
is crying I just hear my
mom’s angry Chinese to
my dad downstairs
the next day
Clara is wearing
a navy blue beret like the French
do or at least I think
they do because
I think the word is French I think
she should put on a striped shirt
walk a white poodle
and paint a moustache above her lip
people don’t make fun of the French
like they make fun of the Chinese
when the French speak
flowers come out
of their mouths
when the Chinese speak
it sounds like arrows
sometimes people pull
their eyes to the
corner to make them small and beady
what would it be like to see
the world through two
small slits
I should know
but I don’t
The Chins
Clara is my older sister
I’m Frances
we’re the Chins
the same as the one on a face
I know little about Clara
beyond the basics
I’m 11 and she’s 12 almost 13
we’re only 14 months apart
born in Detroit Michigan
I know my lips pout and go
out and down
hers stay in
I know I never
listen to my parents
she always does
I know that in
pictures her hands
are always together in the front
and she never smiles
sometimes
I can’t keep my laughter
tucked under my clothes
sometimes questions swirl
in my brain like a tornado
I know I’m supposed to be
a bug that tiptoes on my
hand that
I can see
but can’t
hear or feel
but I know
I’m not
Winters
We live where my parents’ jobs are
my mom is a high school
math teacher in Detroit
my dad is an engineer at
Ford Motor Company in Dearborn
they also own a Chinese restaurant
of course it’s called Dragon Inn
our state is shaped like a hand
people always hold their right hand up and
point to a spot to
show where they live
people sometimes lift their left hand first
then have to switch
Michigan is freckled with lakes but
we don’t ski we don’t ice-skate
we don’t go boating
my parents don’t
know how to do these
things we probably don’t have
money to do these things
for lao mei says my mom
for Americans
she says
too dangerous
about everything
she lets us eat at McDonald’s sometimes
and eat pizza because
my dad loves hamburgers
and she loves bread
in the wintertime
nothing moves
if you look closely
the smoke from all
the chimneys rises
one inch at a time
in the winter the snow
covers everything
eventually mutes us with its
beauty and
whiteness
Books
My parents won’t buy us
anything but books
books books books
everywhere in all shapes
everywhere all the time
Clara reads mostly Nancy Drew
she reads them over and
over and over again
whenever I try and touch
them or read them she grabs
them back or yells at me
mine, don’t touch
she always says
my mom won’t buy any
Nancy Drew for me because
no doubles, waste of money
and because Clara is older
she gets everything first
once in a while when Clara isn’t
looking I take one I know she’s
just finished and read it with
a flashlight under my
covers at night
my favorite Nancy Drew book
is The Clue of the Leaning Chimney
because there are
Chinese people in it
I try and read as fast as I can
so I can put the book back
the next day
those days at school I’m so
tired I feel like I’m walking
in a gray cloud
The Secret in
The Secret of the Old Clock
Up in the corner
on page 3 of Clara’s
Nancy Drew book
The Secret of the Old Clock is
a small piece of
hair stuck to the paper by
the tiny bulb of a tiny root
the hair is only around
one centimeter long as if
someone has lightly drawn a
little line on the page with a pencil
and put a little dot on the end
I don’t want to
touch it but it stares back
at me daring me to ask questions
the words on the page
blurred all I can see is
the little
black line
another on page 6 another
slightly longer on page 8
another on page 11
two on page 14 stare
back at me
calling me in
calling
me
in
No One
No one can figure out why
Clara’s hair keeps falling out
I find more and more pieces all
around the house mostly in
books but also on
the bathroom counter
on the floor
in the car
Clara’s bald patch isn’t
all bare but takes up the
top of her head
a big oval littered with
bits of hair all tiny
short one-centimeter pieces that
stick straight up
wanting to grow long trying
to grow long but
unable to grow long
no one can figure out
why no one else can figure out why
her hair is falling out
everyone else thinks someone
else should know
maybe the
full moon made her hair fall out
maybe she is an alien
maybe the snow makes
her hair fall out
why does
Clara’s hair insist on
leaving
its country
Wig Shop
Just two weeks ago
we had gone to the wig shop
bodiless white Styrofoam heads
everywhere
brown wigs
blond wigs
the sign said some
were made of real hair
I shivered
thinking some of these might
be from dead people
the black wigs are
in the back
said the woman after
she looked at us
Clara and I wandered
the store on our own
she on the other side I on
my own side
I put on the blue wig
ran to Clara and posed like
a dancer
you look stupid
she said
you’re gonna get lice
she was in one of her moods again
maybe because this was
our first time
in a wig store
maybe because this would be her
first wig
I never know what mood
Clara will be in
it’s not like
walking on eggshells
more like
walking on a field of grenades with
snowshoes on
the woman came back
with a bobbed wig all black
as black as a black hole
Clara tried the wig on
my mom’s nose covered with
sweat beads
her face flushed
the sales lady’s eyes two holes
voices from a TV somewhere
the lady explained how to
care for the wig
how to put it on
I moved towards the front of
the store waited for
the cash register to
open then close
that’s expensive
I heard my mom say
Pin by Pin
The new wig had
worked well
it almost
looked like my sister’s hair
just a little thicker and blacker
each morning
she put it on her head like a
motorcycle helmet
she pinned the lining of the wig
into her real hair
what was left of it at least
it was a slow process
pin by
pin
sometimes I glanced at her as I walked
by the bathroom careful not to
turn my head
pins in her mouth
hand stabbing black little
sticks into her head
no more swimming
no more roller coasters
no more convertibles
no more
hanging upside down
no more
sky
diving
The Missing Wig
Clara goes shopping for
more berets I wonder if
she’ll get another wig or if
she likes being French
I wonder if
she will take French class
I wonder
why she doesn’t get a blond
wig instead
she can pretend she’s
an American
a real American
a white American
I begin to wonder
where her wig went
everyone else seems to
have forgotten
about it I want to know where
it is I begin to wonder who
took it
I miss the wig
its smells
its thick blob dripping in
the wind while drying
I want the wig back
it covers
up everything
so well
Stories
I don’t get wigs or hats or
berets
instead my mom gives me
a new diary
it’s silver and says
Perfume on the cover
each page smells like
what I imagine
a pretty French
woman’s
neck might smell like
I can almost see
my reflection on the cover
sometimes I play with Barbies
make up stories and write
them down in my new diary
I can’t believe
you still play with Barbies
Clara says
I tell her there’s no one
else to play with
she just
looks at me
shrugs
goes back to her room
when I play with my Barbies
someone
always loves
someone who
doesn’t love them back
My Mom’s Car
I see my mom’s car outside when
I’m walking back to
class from the bathroom
why is she here
is it about Clara on the
ground at school
am I in trouble what
did I do I’m sure
I’m in trouble
my face gets warm like
a light turned on in my
head by
someone else
I can’t find
the off switch
I take my
time because I’m
scared of my sixth-grade teacher Mr. Heart
he yells at our class a lot
his voice bellows and pricks me
like needles
I can hear it
in other
parts of the school too
but when I’m in his room it feels different
the difference between watching
the snow fall and being in
the snow
if you are in the snow you
are cold and wet
but watching the snow from
the inside is beautiful
you’re supposed to do it with
a mug of hot chocolate around
a crackling fire hugging your family
laughing and sharing stories
at least that’s
what the books say
no one calls me into
the office
no one tells me why
my mom is here
nothing
silence
Talk
I speak perfect English but
try not to speak at school
when someone speaks to me
I just answer and
look down
sometimes kids laugh and say
AH SO you no speak Engrish
people talking is like music
I listen
to the music from the
outside and it always sounds pretty
but I can’t play any instruments
maybe I can
learn by listening by seeing
other people’s lips go up and down
side to side
speak up more my dad says
talk more like the Americans
he tells us how
he’s learned to speak up at work
but I don’t know how
to be like him
everywhere I turn I am
different everything
we do is
different my mom tells me
don’t be like the Americans
they brag too much
talk too much
I don’t know who I’m
supposed to
believe
Neighbors
Our neighbors are
mostly American mostly Jewish
so I think Jewish and
American are the same
the Rubins live
diagonal to us
Josh is the younger boy
his mouth is slightly crooked
he has an endless
tan on his face
he has curly
brown longish hair
something
mean about the way he rolls up
his snowballs and looks
in my eyes before
he throws them
the snowballs little
white fists of
ice and
cold
The Birds
At school I’m especially
scared of
Josh Rubin and
Steve Zucker
they follow me
say chink and
hi ya as they slice the air
with their hands and squat
they call me fried rice
and egg roll
in PE we run
around the field every Friday
my heavy body feels
like a wheelbarrow
Steve follows me
runs by my side
turns around and runs
backwards
his arms swing hard
he’s facing me
laughing
his blond curls
bounce in
the air
his mouth covers
a lot of
his face so that