Ruby Lost and Found by Christina Li

Author:Christina Li
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2023-03-02T00:00:00+00:00

Last August, Scavenger Hunt Stop 5

Among the sea of colorful threads, find the one that fits your Nai-Nai best.

“Colorful threads,” I said to Ye-Ye. “It has to be some kind of clothing thing, right?”

He peered at the paper and then smiled at me and shrugged.

“It has to be.” But what did a sea of it mean? Was Ye-Ye talking about a clothing store? “Or sewing?” Nai-Nai loved to sew. She made my Halloween costume every year. She made Viv a flowery stitched sweater for her birthday, and sometimes I snuck into her room to try it on because it was so soft. I stared at the clue, and then I glanced up.

“Oh. It’s the fabric store she loves.” She’d taken me there before. I squeezed my eyes shut, trying to remember it. I thought of the bright red sign out front and the big letters that hung down three stories. My eyes flew open. “Britex! That’s the name.”

“Good thinking, Ruby,” Ye-Ye said, grinning. “That was an easy one. But that’s only the first part.”

We walked up the streets. It was the middle of August, but sometimes in the mornings, the wind rolled in and it would get cold all of a sudden. I took my jacket out of my small backpack and put it on. I sort of remembered the path to the place. There was a narrow street that took us there, where the buildings rose up and were so close together that sometimes I wondered what it would be like if there were a zip line between all the roofs.

The bright red store sign was as large as I remembered it and impossible to miss. I opened the door, and suddenly it was a different world.

“Wow,” I said.

I’d been here several times and it never got old. Colorful fabrics stacked to the ceiling, all around us, in bolts and swaths and patches, from deep purple to light yellow to sheer pearly blue. I reached my hand out, and my fingers brushed thick wool and thin mesh cloth that was decorated with almost-lifelike stitched butterflies.

“You used to spend hours in here with Nai-Nai,” Ye-Ye said. He pointed to the corner. “Remember the velvet wall?”

I walked over and observed the small boxes of velvet stacked on top of each other. A box of sequined velvet seemed to shimmer in the light.

“Okay, now we just have to find Nai-Nai something,” I said.

“Exactly. I was trying to pick up some surprise gifts for our anniversary and I thought you could give some expert opinions,” Ye-Ye said.

I glanced around. What would Nai-Nai want?

Was it the deep green satin?

Or was it the dark red velvet?

Or was it the light blue fabric with clouds sewn on it?

I wandered down the aisles, imagining the cloths for different things. A prom dress for Viv. A sweater for Mom with the soft chenille. A bag from the cloth with the funky mushroom prints. I glanced at Ye-Ye. “Is this really her favorite place?”

Ye-Ye nodded. “One of them. This is one of the first places she found in San Francisco, and she kept coming back ever since.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.