Minn and Jake's Almost Terrible Summer Read online

  to climb it like a pro.

  Sitting in the oak tree,

  she watches squirrels chase each other

  and chitter-chatter around her.

  Minn pulls her notebook out of her pocket

  and draws three squirrels.

  She writes:

  Thursday, July 17, 3:10 p.m.:

  Weather:

  too hot

  Description of squirrels:

  Big Bushy Light Gray one (BB)

  with part of her very bushy tail bitten off,

  likes to pause a lot,

  chases Medium-sized Dark Gray one (MD),

  then almost falls off a branch and gives up

  seems BB wants MD for a boyfriend

  (but probably just wants to play)

  MD runs away

  MD does not want BB for a girlfriend

  MD then starts chasing

  Tiny Shiny Brownish Gray one (TS)

  TS likes being chased

  (what a tease!)

  Minn pauses. She watches the hawks. She finishes:

  Poor lonely clumsy big BB.

  5 / Wake Up, Jake!

  Every morning

  Jake wakes up at six o’clock

  from Soup bouncing on his bed,

  on his pillows,

  on his head,

  and the smells of

  Halmoni’s huge breakfast buffet

  greet him.

  Halmoni doesn’t seem to understand

  that fried fish is not good breakfast food.

  Kimchi cabbage is even worse.

  But there’s plenty to choose from:

  watermelon and pineapple,

  boiled eggs and bacon,

  rice and fried noodles,

  kalbi beef and fish—

  enough food for ten people!

  After breakfast,

  Halmoni, Soup, and Jake’s mother

  go to visit Halmoni’s doctors.

  And Jake goes back to sleep.

  The diabetes doctor says

  Halmoni’s diabetes is so serious,

  sooner or later, if she doesn’t change,

  they will need to cut off her foot.

  The vein doctor says

  they can try Roto-Rooter surgery

  on the veins in Halmoni’s leg

  to fix her problem.

  If the Roto-Rooter works,

  they won’t have to cut her foot off.

  Jake likes the vein doctor

  better than the diabetes doctor.

  Jake does not like thinking

  about Halmoni

  clomping around with one foot.

  ∼

  This morning

  Jake cannot fall back asleep.

  He is staring at the ceiling,

  looking at the floaters

  in his eyes,

  following the gray amoebas

  up, down, and across.

  Back and forth,

  the amoeba-floaters hypnotize Jake.

  He starts to dream.

  The dream seems like a movie scene:

  Jake is at a restaurant,

  but this restaurant doesn’t serve food.

  It serves electronics.

  JAKE: I’ll have a cell phone, please.

  The waiters are robots,

  thin, elegant, flying machines,

  the most beautiful robots Jake has seen.

  Jake’s robot opens her front panel

  to reveal phones, arranged like ribs.

  She asks which one he’d like.

  She delivers the question silently,

  telepathically, on brain waves.

  Jake answers back

  by scratching his head.

  A new cell phone, lighter than air,

  appears in his hand.

  It auto-dials Haylee’s number.

  JAKE: Hello, is Haylee there?

  Minn answers. Minn?!

  MINN: Jake, is that you?

  Who are you calling?

  This is Minn!

  This Haylee-Haylee stuff

  is really bugging me.

  If I hear Haylee’s name one more time,

  I’m going to scream!

  I thought I was your best friend!

  Don’t you care about me anymore?

  Why don’t you write?

  Don’t you want to hear my news?

  Jake wakes up.

  He checks his cell phone

  to make sure that he didn’t call Haylee.

  He checks again

  to make sure that he didn’t call Minn.

  What a nightmare!

  Jake runs to the pantry

  and grabs a bag of potato chips

  and a handful of cookies

  for his mid-morning snack.

  Even though Halmoni feeds him constantly,

  she never gives him what he wants to eat.

  Jake is starving for potato chips and cookies.

  One bite, and the key turns in the lock.

  Jake stuffs three cookies in his mouth at once,

  stuffs another three in his pockets,

  and hides the potato chips

  under the pillow on the couch.

  Soup bounds in

  and jumps on the pillow. Crunch!

  What’s that noise?

  Jake, let’s go ask Misha to play!

  Jake agrees to walk Soup

  to Misha’s house.

  When they get there,

  Jake sits on the front lawn.

  You play. I’ll stay here and take a nap.

  Misha answers the door.

  He squeals

  when he sees Soup.

  We can play with water guns

  or build a new Lego garage or—

  anything you want, Soup!

  Anything you want—

  Jake wishes he were five years old again,

  back when friendship was easy.

  Jake sits on the front lawn

  and pulls his cell phone

  out of his pocket.

  One bar of signal.

  No messages.

  He remembers his dream about Minn.

  He also remembers something about news.

  Was that in his dream,

  or in his conversation?

  Did Minn say something about news?

  Jake puts his phone back in his pocket

  and settles flat on the grass,

  his eyes closed.

  The sun on his face feels good,

  the soft grass on his legs.

  He wakes up a half hour later.

  The grass is tickling his legs.

  Crawling on his legs.

  Biting.

  Grass, crawling and biting?

  Suddenly, Jake sees:

  hundreds of ants are swarming

  up his legs

  and disappearing in his pants,

  invading his pockets.

  The cookies!

  Jake jumps up. He scratches

  and swats at himself.

  He turns his pockets inside out.

  No good: the ants are in his underwear.

  He is dancing a crazy dance

  with both his hands

  inside his pants

  just when a blue Mercedes

  pulls in front of the driveway to drop off

  Haylee’s little brother Jeremy.

  Haylee is sitting in the front seat.

  Haylee, Haylee, Haylee!

  Jake pulls his hands out of his pants.

  Now the ants are traveling up his shirt.

  Jake reaches for his armpits.

  Hose him down! Grab the hose!

  Take your shirt off!

  Misha’s mom shouts.

  Jake takes off his shirt.

  Misha grabs the hose.

  Jeremy turns the water on, full-blast.

  Soup grabs Jake

  by the top of his boxer shorts.

  Misha sprays him in the face.

  Haylee’s car pauses
in the street.

  Haylee puts the window down

  and calls Jeremy over.

  She says something to Jeremy,

  and he makes high-pitched whale noises

  while Haylee laughs

  so loudly

  she cackles like a chicken,

  then snorts—

  yes, snorts like a pig!

  Beautiful, graceful—

  yes, dainty, even—

  Haylee Hirata:

  Cackling like a chicken?

  Snorting like a pig?

  Jake stares in disbelief

  as the car speeds off,

  Haylee’s barnyard laughter

  fouling the air

  around him.

  6 / Instant Brown

  When they get home from Misha’s,

  Soup asks,

  Jake, what’s a beluga whale?

  A funny-looking oddball white whale,

  Jake answers.

  Soup starts laughing so hard

  he cannot breathe,

  and Jake needs to tickle the why

  out of Soup,

  who almost chokes

  on a chunk of watermelon

  when he says,

  Haylee told Jeremy

  your chest is whiter

  than a beluga whale!

  Jake rushes into the bathroom.

  He lifts his shirt up.

  Haylee’s right: he’s whiter

  than a beluga whale.

  When Jake gets tanned,

  he doesn’t look good and brown.

  He looks kind of pink and raw.

  Jake wishes he had more Korean in him.

  Just then, he remembers

  the “Instant Brown” tanning lotion

  he tipped over yesterday

  while reaching for the toilet paper

  under the sink.

  Instant Brown:

  Jake hopes it works.

  He tries a little patch.

  Funny, it has no color.

  Jake puts more on, a handful.

  He slaps it all over.

  Instant brown? Still white.

  He slathers it on his chest.

  He runs fingers full of it

  up his legs and across his feet.

  Jake prays.

  Dear God, if You exist:

  please-please-please do not let

  Haylee Hirata

  see my white chest and legs again,

  and please make this Instant Brown stuff

  turn me really, really, brown.

  Thank you. Amen.

  ∼

  Sitting on the toilet,

  Jake reads the label

  on the bottle of Instant Brown:

  Goes on white, but reacts

  with your own body oils

  to give you a deep, dark tan

  overnight!

  Suddenly Jake remembers: MINN!

  Why does he keep forgetting

  to call her?

  Jake takes his cell phone out

  and calls her then and there.

  You’re coming to town—

  tonight?!

  Minn and Jake decide

  they should all meet at Uncle Joon’s.

  Jake’s uncle has a new restaurant

  in Santa Monica:

  Old Village Barbecue, on Ocean Park.

  Tonight is the Grand Opening.

  Minn says she loves barbecue.

  Jake knows she’s thinking

  of Texas barbecue

  or Memphis barbecue,

  finger-licking sticky sauce on ribs.

  Korean barbecue is totally different.

  What will Minn think

  of smelly kimchi

  and little dried fishes,

  and garlic, garlic in everything?

  ∼

  Minn! Minn! Soup says.

  He runs to Minn and gives her a python-hug.

  Minn, did you bring me a lizard?

  No, no lizards, Minn says.

  No lizards? That’s OK.

  Because …

  I have lizards for you!

  Soup reaches into his backpack

  and pulls out a jar of tiny gray lizards

  that he caught with Misha

  that afternoon.

  Minn peers into the jar.

  Poor things, you look sick.

  Soup, how long have they been in there?

  What have you been feeding them?

  Soup describes their lunch

  of candy bar bits

  and soda.

  Minn protests.

  No, no! Oh, no!

  You need to let them go!

  Soup starts to unscrew the lid

  of the peanut butter jar.

  Not now. Not here! Jake hisses.

  We’ll say when.

  You’ll say when, Soup says.

  Jake says,

  Put the lizards back in your backpack.

  Minn, come and meet everyone.

  Jake walks to the back of the restaurant,

  near the kitchen door. Minn follows,

  with Soup holding her hand.

  These are our cousins Colin and Shiree.

  Halmoni comes through the kitchen door,

  holding a tray full of small panchan dishes.

  And that’s our grandmother, our halmoni.

  That’s your grandmother? Minn whispers.

  Your grandmother is Asian?

  That’s our Korean grandmother, Jake says.

  We also had a German grandmother,

  but she died before I was born.

  Mogo-mogo-MAANI-mogo! Halmoni says.

  Uncle Joon introduces himself

  but excuses himself just as quickly,

  rushing back to the kitchen.

  Minn looks bewildered

  by the dozen little dishes of food.

  She picks up the little plate of kimchi

  and empties it on her plate.

  Soup laughs.

  You don’t eat the whole thing by yourself!

  Everybody shares everything on the table.

  Here comes the kalbi beef!

  The waitress puts a plate of meat

  in front of Minn—

  raw meat swimming in a shallow puddle of blood.

  This is for me? Minn asks.

  She hopes the answer is no.

  No, but you can cook it,

  Soup says, pointing at the grill in front of Minn.

  The waitress turns the gas on.

  She puts the slabs of meat on the grill,

  with tongs placed in front of Minn.

  I cook it? Minn asks.

  Girls always cook it, Soup says.

  Mom or Shiree or Halmoni.

  Never dads or boys.

  Shiree quickly grabs the tongs

  and switches places with Minn.

  Minn is now sitting at the end of the table

  across from Jake,

  away from the sizzling kalbi.

  She whispers,

  You didn’t tell me you were Asian!

  Jake whispers back,

  Did you ever tell me that you’re white?

  Jake explains his hapa heritage.

  Hapa = slang for half-white, half-Asian.

  His mother is half-Korean, half-Norwegian.

  His father is half-German, half-French.

  Minn points out that Jake is not hapa, then,

  but three-quarters white,

  and only one-quarter Asian.

  OK, then, Jake says. Quarpa. I’m quarpa.

  Jake likes the sound of quarpa.

  It sounds like something with superpowers.

  Wish you’d told me before

  that you were Korean, Minn says.

  You didn’t need to surprise me with it.

  And why should I have told you?

  Because it’s who you are, Jake.

  Jake cannot believe his ears.

  How can his friend Minn,

  who is so smart in sc
hool,

  seem so stupid now?

  But you don’t care

  that I never told you

  I’m part Norwegian

  and part French and part German!

  And did I ever tell you

  that I like taking bubble baths

  and playing Halo 2 until midnight?

  Did I?

  Minn cannot believe her ears.

  You like taking bubble baths?

  What kind of a boy takes bubble baths?

  Jake lashes back.

  Have you ever taken a bubble bath

  in your whole life?

  What kind of a girl

  doesn’t like bubble baths?!

  They spend the rest of the meal in silence,

  eating kimchi, gulping water,

  and fanning their flaming tongues.

  7 / Venice Beach

  The next morning Jake is awakened

  by Soup shrieking,

  Oh, no! You have a disease!

  You have a skin disease!

  Mommy, hurry!

  Is he contagious?

  Jake’s arms and legs are orange-brown—

  and striped like a tiger.

  Soup pushes Jake’s T-shirt up.

  Jake’s chest is mottled,

  dappled with brown spots

  and large splotches—

  all on a creamy white background.

  He looks like a springer spaniel,

  or an Appaloosa—

  or a boy who doesn’t know how to use

  Instant Brown.

  Jake’s mother laughs.

  You found my old bottle

  of Instant Brown tanning lotion, did you?

  Don’t worry. If you scrub hard, it’ll come off—

  in about a week.

  But Jake and Soup are taking Minn

  to Venice Beach today!

  When Minn arrives, one look at his skin

  sends her howling.

  How can you stay mad

  at a friend who looks like a spotted hyena—

  even when he does say

  obnoxious things all the time?

  You might know

  how to find your way around in the wild,

  Jake brags, but I know my way around here.

  Don’t laugh. You need to watch out.

  It can be kind of wild,

  especially with the crowds at Venice Beach.

  Watch out for pickpockets.

  You need street smarts, Minn,

  and no offense, but—

  Watching out for pickpockets isn’t hard.

  When you walk up and down Venice Beach,

  watching is the whole point: people-watching.

  You walk up and down the boardwalk,

  and you look at the oily bodybuilders

  and their bulging muscles,

  girls with spiky green hair

  and earrings in their lips

  and noses

  and eyebrows,

  Rollerblading guitar players,

  the Golden Man who stands like a statue

  until you put money in his box,

  chainsaw jugglers,

  fire-eaters, tattoo artists,

  fortune tellers, magicians.