“Let’s go swimming. C’mon are you ready or not?” I stomp on the wings with both feet jumping up and down. They don’t answer. They’re shhing each other quiet beneath me. I think of my uncle who my mom said betrayed the family by staying in underground tunnels with the Viet Cong all those years. I yell, “Last one out’s a Commie. See ya, wouldn’t wanna be ya.” I hear the scuttle of footsteps on tin. They sound like a herd of stallions galloping into the light. This works each time. In our family there is nothing worse than being considered a VC.

At the Charlie Sava Swimming Pool, we wait in line behind a busload of kids. They all have matching blue t-shirts that says San Francisco Chinese Baptist Church on them. The boys wear gold crosses and are eating bologna sandwiches. They drink grape sodas and have purple moustaches above their lips. The girls wear gold crosses and Hello Kitty barrettes and tell the boys they’re not supposed to eat before they swim. They say, “I heard you’ll sink if you eat too much.” I feel so weak, I think I’ll sink because I’ve eaten too little.

My mom says that unless we turn into Chinese Baptists, the church sponsors will kick us out of our house with our dark halls, loose door knobs, wobbly chandeliers, and bathroom lines. My mom says she doesn’t want to be Baptist and neither do my uncles and aunts, but we have to pretend that we do for as long as we can. I just hope if it happens, I don’t have to wear a gold cross. Jewelry gives me a rash.

The line moves as slow as a granny. My little sister is biting the inside of her cheek. Marcel is staring out at the traffic, glassy-eyed. Frank isn’t even looking at the Chinese girls anymore. The smell of chlorine and wet towels is making me sick. My stomach feels like there is somebody kicking it from the inside out. I hold it like a watermelon and try to pat it down. When the lady inside the ticket booth says, “You’re up, honey,” I don’t know what to do.

I reach to pay. We can’t turn around now. But then five-year- old Sammie whispers something into Frank’s ear and starts crying. Sophia sees this and begins to bawl. Frank puts his hand up like a crosswalk guard. He comes to me and says, “The cry babies say they’re too hungry to swim.” Even though Frank wants to act hard, his stomach rumbles loud as a fog horn, louder than the crying kids. He says, “I guess we should spend the money on food?”

At the bus stop, Dean says, “What a waste!”

Michelle my copycat sister says, “What a shame!”

They don’t want to take the bus because if we walk we can save the money for food. It’d be fine except the little ones are holding their bellies and saying they can’t walk any further.