Key Player by Kelly Yang

Author:Kelly Yang
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Scholastic Inc.

The edges of the taped brown manila envelope were tattered and wrinkled. It had obviously been there for decades. Without wasting another minute, Jason poured its contents out. Pages and pages of handwritten notes from Michael Yao spilled onto the table, along with magazine articles and sheet music.

We whooped with excitement.

“This must have been his secret hiding place!” Jason cried.

I took one of the handwritten notes and read it aloud.

Dear diary,

I keep telling Dad to go to the doctor-he fell at the wok yesterday-but as usual, he refuses. Dad has a deep suspicion of doctors in the US. He thinks they’re all out to scam him. They’ll make him do expensive tests and painful procedures even when he’s running okay. And he’ll come out like a lobotomized scarecrow, with his big toe on top of his head.

I tried to tell him that’s not going to happen. But he won’t listen. A few times, I caught him at the stove, wheezing a little. Like he was trying to catch his breath.

But he just drinks his cupful of oolong tea and tells me, “Bei guan wo, zuo ni di shi.” Don’t care about me, do your work.

How do I tell him I do care about him? White people, they’re always saying they love each other. Like every two seconds on TV. “Love you!” “Love you too!”

It’s gotta be massively embarrassing, confessing your love all the time. But sometimes I wish we had a system like that too. Instead, we just shove food at each other. And I don’t know how to get Dad to a doctor, short of telling him there’s a shiitake mushroom sale at the doctor’s office.

Sometimes I wish my parents were like everyone else’s.

Michael Yao

I chuckled at the shiitake mushroom bit. Michael was pretty funny. And I knew exactly how he felt. My parents were the same way. For years, they were scared to go to the doctor. Whenever I got sick, Mom would pull out the big gingery-smelling suitcase under her bed—the one that was filled with Chinese medicine—and brew me some soup that for all I knew was made out of light bulbs.

Another reason I was so deathly afraid of the soccer ball for so long.

“Listen to this one!” Lupe said, and started reading to us.

Dear diary,

Dad finally agreed to go see the doctor.

Mom asked me to make an appointment for him. So I got on the phone. I’m always the one making the call whenever there’s anything official. One time the telephone company overcharged my mom, I had to pretend I was her. Now that my voice is changing, it’s NOT that easy.

Anyway, I sat on hold for forty-five minutes trying to make Dad an appointment. When I got through, they asked me for my name. I told them Dad’s name. I thought it would be quick and simple, but the guy spent five whole minutes making me repeat it. “Bu Fu Yao? You joking, right? Bu Fu?? That’s your name??!”

I wanted to throw the phone across the room.

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