not get another opportunity for weeks. Ba expects me at the laundry at eight, and Tom’s father rarely gives him a day off from the herb shop.
No response. I promised I wouldn’t touch anything, but surely he’d understand.
I finger the key used to regulate hot air flow into the balloon. It’s warm. I slowly twist, and within seconds, the silk becomes plump again. Ha! Easy as catching rain.
The basket suddenly lifts. Too much heat! I try to return the key to its original position, but I’m thrown off-balance as one of only four remaining stakes pops out of the ground. Four.
“Oh!” I grab onto the side of the basket, watching in horror as another stake begins to uproot, then another. In desperation, I grab again at the key but somehow pull it straight out of the socket. Heart thundering, I jam it back in, twisting and twisting, but nothing catches. The last stake unplugs like a rotting tooth, and the Island breaks free.
I start to rise, up, up, and away.
I clutch the side of the basket, hanging on for dear life. For a moment, I consider jumping off, but the balloon rises too fast, and soon I’m high enough to see Tom and his father’s draft horse, Winter, over the trees. “Tom!”
Tom tears at his hair when he sees me. He hurries back, cupping his hands to his mouth and yelling something, but the wind blows his words away. He shakes his fist. Is he angry? There’s a panicked jerkiness to his movements that I’ve never seen before.
My stomach drops as the balloon tips to one side. I glance down at the shrinking scenery, a hundred feet below me now. Ropes hang from the ring that secures the netting, but I don’t dare tamper with them, as any mistakes this high up could be catastrophic.
Ancestors! I’m not ready to join you in the afterlife.
Good-bye, solid Earth. I hope you remember how I always tried to sweep up after myself, and how I did not dig a single unnecessary hole upon your surface. Good-bye, dear Tom. There are few girls in Chinatown, but with your quick mind and warm heart, you will have your choice of any of them—just please do not choose the dainty Ling-Ling, who has held a candle for you since the fifth grade.
A flock of seagulls squawks insults beside the basket, and a cold streak runs through me. They’ll puncture the silk. “Shoo, you flying rats!”
The Island rocks and bobs, and I can barely hang on to the contents of my stomach as the seagulls swoop around me.
I’ve never thought too hard about my convictions and wonder if it’s too late now. Ba is Catholic, but Ma prefers the traditionals—Buddhism and Taoism, sprinkled with a good dose of Confucianism, which is more of a philosophy, anyway. With Eastern religion, no one cares if you pick and choose the ingredients for your particular moral soup, as long as you have some soup, preferably one with lots of ginger and—
I remember the candied ginger in my pocket. As I unwrap the waxy package, I drop most of the candies but manage to hang onto one, and I hurl it as best I can at the seagulls. In a flurry of wings and beaks, they fly off after it.
I nearly sob in relief. That’s one bridge crossed. Now what? My eyes catch on the grappling hook that Tom called the drag rope. Maybe it’s like an anchor? I drop it over the side.
The basket jerks as the hook reaches the end of the line.
Nothing happens at first, but after a good minute, the Island finally stops swinging about. I am not descending, but neither am I ascending. The basket has leveled out about a hundred and fifty feet above the ground and is slowly drifting west. I can make out the blond blocks of St. Clare’s School for Girls in the distance. The irony that I will finally glimpse its inner courtyard just when I’m about to expire leaves a bitter note on my tongue.
A new sun has rinsed the sky pink and yellow. Ma will be stirring the juk, rice porridge, right about now, believing me to be gathering mushrooms with Tom. My brother, Jack, will be wiping condensation from the windows before leaving for the Oriental Public School.
I must get out of this alive. That chuen pooi bulb was going to be our ticket to a good life.
“I could’ve bought us out of Chinatown! I had a plan!”