now.
“Of course, Grandpa. Of course I’d tell you.”
In fact, between the lies he was telling Wolf and the lies he was telling his family, the only time Sacha really felt like himself was at his kung fu lessons with Shen.
To Lily’s disappointment, they didn’t take the magical route to Shen’s practice hall for their first lesson. Instead, Payton escorted them downtown, grumbling under his breath all the while about wasting his time playing nursemaid. He didn’t even walk them through the door once they got there; he just stalked away, leaving them wavering in the tree-lined courtyard wondering whether to go inside or not.
There was a class already in session in the stone-floored practice hall. They could hear the sounds of feet slapping on the scrubbed stones and bodies slamming into woven rush mats.
“What do you think we should do?” Lily whispered.
“I don’t know,” Sacha whispered back. “Wait, maybe.”
Finally curiosity won out over politeness. They slipped through the door and hid in the shadow of the balcony to watch.
They spotted Shen immediately; you couldn’t mistake the spotless white cotton pajamas or the shining black braid that flowed down her back like a waterfall. But it was the orphans who really caught their attention. Most of them looked Chinese, at least to Sacha. But he did see a few heads of brown or red hair scattered among the black. And some of the orphans would have looked right at home with Paddy Doyle and his Hexers.
The class was scattered through the great hall, boxing at punching bags stuffed with rice and cotton wadding, tumbling and throwing each other on padded practice mats, stretching like ballet dancers. And half the students were lined up in an almost military formation on the central practice floor, going through the most remarkable set of movements Sacha had ever seen.
They moved in unison, their coordination so perfect that they seemed to be a single body, with a single mind and spirit. Each member of the group remained precisely the same distance from his neighbors throughout every turn and leap and backflip. And they ended the routine with a single thundering
Now Sacha realized what had worn the divots into the flagstones: the stamping of thousands of bare feet moving in perfect formation hour after hour, day after day, year after year — and for all he knew of this strange and magical building, for century upon century, since long before the rest of New York even existed.
It was unbelievable. Look at that kid doing splits over there! Or the other one in the corner turning backward handsprings as easily as normal people walked down the sidewalk! Not to mention the kids who were sparring with one another on the practice mats — he couldn’t even figure out what their lightning-fast feet and hands were doing, much less imagine imitating them. Maybe he should just sneak back out before Shen noticed him, he told himself. After all, it was pretty obvious what the outcome of staying would be: total, absolute humiliation.
He glanced at Lily, who looked like she was having the same second thoughts he was. But before he could open his mouth to suggest that they sneak away, Shen saw them.
“Are you ready?” she asked, sauntering over to them.
“Not to do that!”
“Don’t let my orphans intimidate you. They’ve studied for years, and they enjoy showing off for visitors. Besides, no one expects
“What’s a
“It’s a rude word for Westerners. It means ‘big nose.’”
Sacha blinked. He hadn’t thought of Chinese people as having particularly small noses. Lily’s nose, for example, was hardly any bigger than Shen’s. Or was it? he tried to check out Shen’s nose without staring too obviously.
“Yes, I know,” she said. “But I’m half
“What?” Lily exclaimed. “But you look so — so—”
“So Chinese?” Shen’s face took on an ironical cast that made her look unnervingly like Inquisitor Wolf. “Not to the Chinese, I assure you.”
Sacha stared at Shen in frank amazement. He remembered hearing that no Chinese women were allowed into America, and since there were always plenty of children playing in the streets of Chinatown, he guessed he ought to have wondered who their mothers were. But he was still astounded by Shen’s revelation. He had grown up in a New York where every aspect of life — from what you wore to where you worked to which streets you could walk down safely — depended on which ethnic group you belonged to. And he had seen enough of the world to know that being half Chinese and half Irish didn’t mean you belonged to both groups. It meant you belonged nowhere. He wondered what Shen’s life was like and how she managed to protect her orphanage in a city that had no place for people like her.
He was still wondering about it when Shen took them over to one of the woven practice mats and introduced them to a whip-thin boy whom Sacha guessed was about ten years old.
“Joe will get you started,” Shen said. “I’ll be back in … shall we say ten minutes?”
Joe bowed, straightened up, and shook both their hands. Sacha peered curiously at him, trying to decide whether he was half Irish too. But he couldn’t tell.
“So,” Joe asked them, “are you guys ready to work, or did you just come here to stare?”
Then he stretched, flexing his wiry legs and arms like rubber bands, took a deep breath … and demonstrated a move that looked so simple Sacha wasn’t even sure it ought to be called kung fu. It began with a smooth flourish of both hands that looked impressively exotic. But it ended in a kind of knees-bent, low-to-the-ground, straddling position that didn’t look any different from the squat of a catcher waiting for a pitch behind the plate.
“That’s the advanced version, of course,” Joe pointed out. “You don’t wanna bend your knees that much, trust me.” He straightened up and dusted off his hands — though as far as Sacha could see, he hadn’t done anything that could get dust on them in the first place. “It’s not a contest. Just do as much as you can, all right? and I’ll coach your form.”
Sacha could have laughed out loud. Ten minutes of doing squats? To a boy who’d grown up on Hester Street pushing foot-powered sewing machines and dragging slopping buckets of water up tenement house stairs, ten minutes of deep knee bends didn’t even qualify as effort. His father was right, after all, he decided; Jews were the only people on the planet who knew what real work was.
He shrugged and settled in to practice. But as he straightened his legs to begin his second squat, Joe stopped him. “You call that ten minutes? that’s more like ten seconds!”
Several other orphans had drifted over to watch, and now they were laughing and elbowing one another in the ribs.
“The
That was when Sacha realized that they weren’t supposed to be practicing the move over and over again for ten minutes. They were supposed to crouch down once — and stay there.
At first it didn’t seem so hard. But after about a minute, it began to seem somewhat uncomfortable. In another minute, Sacha’s legs started to burn. Then his knees started to shake. Then his whole leg started to spasm with the sheer effort of staying there.
Then he looked at the clock and realized that he still had seven minutes to go.
His only consolation was that Lily looked at least as bad as he felt. Good thing too, he told himself. At least he could avoid total humiliation as long as he held out longer than she did. The alternative — being beaten by a girl — was unthinkable.
The other students had also realized it was a contest, and they seemed determined to make the most of it. Their laughter began to be sprinkled with bets on who would collapse first. Most wagered on Sacha to win, but Lily had her fans — especially among the girls in the crowd.
As the minutes dragged on, Sacha felt his face redden with exertion. Lily, on the other hand, had turned white as fish bellies. With every breath, Sacha told himself he only had to hold out a second longer because Lily was about to crack. But then the next breath would come and go, and Lily would still be there.
She was in deadly earnest, he realized. She might be a girl, but she wanted to beat him just as badly as any boy would have. He would have shaken his head in admiration of her
