Tilted sky, p.1
Tilted Sky, page 1
This is an Em Querido book
Published by Levine Querido
www.levinequerido.com • info@levinequerido.com
Levine Querido is distributed by Chronicle Books, LLC
Text copyright © 2010 by Yao Emei
Translation copyright © 2024 by Kelly Zhang
Originally published as 倾斜的天空 by China Children’s Press & Publication Group (CCPPG)
All rights reserved
Library of Congress Control Number: 2023940115
ISBN 978-1-64614-383-2
Published in May 2024
CONTENTS
Chapter 1. Sunlight Splashed in Through the Window
Chapter 2. It was an Exhausting Morning
Chapter 3. It was a Wet and Gloomy Day
Chapter 4. It was Grey and Overcast on Fall Family Sports Day
Chapter 5. The First Snowfall Landed on a Wednesday
Chapter 6. I Wished for a White Christmas
Chapter 7. The Fall Semester Ended in a Whiteout Snowstorm
Chapter 8. New Year’s Eve was Going to be Nice and Sunny
Chapter 9. The Weather Turned Crappy on the Sixth Day of New Year
Chapter 10. My First Day Back to School was Foggy and Dreary
Chapter 11. It Rained for an Entire Week
Chapter 12. Spring Brought along Annoying Plane Tree Catkins
Chapter 13. The Consequences of Global Warming
Chapter 14. The Wedding Motorcade Paraded through Rain-Soaked Streets
Chapter 15. I Thought I Would Feel Melancholic with Wind and Rain
Chapter 16. The City was Quiet and Peaceful at the Break of Dawn
Epilogue
About the Author
Some Notes on This Book’s Production
Chapter 1
Sunlight Splashed in Through the Window
Sunlight splashed in through the window. I woke up with a start and jumped out of bed. Today was my first day going back to school, and I didn’t want to be late.
Actually, the fall semester officially kicked off a week ago. I was supposed to be in the sixth grade. But from the time I filled in my registration forms until now, I’d been stranded at home. To the outside world, I pretended like I didn’t care, but deep down, I was becoming more restless.
Hei Jian didn’t save up enough money to pay my school fees, again. It wasn’t entirely his fault. I mean, nobody wants to be poor if they have a choice, right? The problem was, Hei Jian would never willingly admit that he was utterly broke.
According to Hei Jian, the world tries to divide people into two camps: the “poor” and the “rich,” when they’re actually two sides of the same coin. He says it’s like a game of heads or tails. When you toss a coin, you might land on the poor side first. Toss it again, you might land on the rich side. Or here’s another way to see it: “rich” and “poor” are like a pair of guards that change posts every few hours. But that’s just Hei Jian’s belief. I’m not so sure that’s how things really work—that everyone’s got the exact same chances.
Sometimes I couldn’t resist ruffling Hei Jian’s feathers. I would say, “You’ve been waiting on the poor side for so long. Why hasn’t anyone rich come to change posts with you?”
To my surprise, the last time I challenged him on it, instead of getting upset like he usually would, Hei Jian just chuckled.
“My boy, it’s too early to tell whether I’m poor or rich. One thing I’ve learned is that fortune is fickle—it will not allow people to stay rich or poor forever. So be patient, my boy. You’ll see, my fortune is about to turn.”
I told Hei Jian that in my mind, things were quite straightforward: if a person never has enough money to pay for important stuff like food and school … he’s definitely poor.
“Who knows, let’s hope that one day a bag of cash will drop from the sky and land right in my lap!” Hei Jian laughed loudly. “But just remember what I’ve always told you: don’t give up, and never lose hope. Because anything can happen tomorrow.” Hei Jian was so convinced of his brilliant, promising future that even I believed him sometimes.
Whenever Hei Jian spoke to me up close, I couldn’t help turning my head away. His stomach was almost always empty, and, if a person hasn’t eaten in a while, his breath starts to smell gross. I knew this from personal experience.
Yesterday morning, after Hei Jian had gotten up, he stood in front of the bathroom mirror and slicked down his long, messy hair. Then he bent over to put on his trusty old army boots. Hei Jian considered himself a “man’s man.” Even when he hadn’t eaten all day, he still walked around with energy and stride. On those impossibly hot and humid summer afternoons, when one could barely breathe, Hei Jian still wore his bulky boots. People called him “cool” or “hip.” But only I knew the truth: besides his boots, the only other shoes he owned were a pair of flip-flops.
Hei Jian is my dad, but he doesn’t want me to call him “Dad.” He prefers to be called “Hei Jian,” which means “black keys,” like the keys on a piano. Hei Jian is not his real name though. His real name is … never mind. It’s super boring anyway—just forget it.
Anyhow, like I was saying, after Hei Jian had smoothed out his hair and laced up his boots, he ordered me to pack my schoolbag. “We’re going to walk to your school together, first thing tomorrow morning.”
Actually, I had already packed my schoolbag the week before. But since he’d issued a command, I had to obey. I repacked my bag. That was yesterday morning.
Last night, Hei Jian came home late as usual. Stomping across the bottom of the stairs, he’d hollered, “Bai Jian! Bai Jian!!!”
Oh right: “Bai Jian” is my name. It means “white keys,” like on a piano. I don’t know why he had chosen such an odd name for me. It made everyone think that my family name is “Bai” and his family name is “Hei.”
As soon as I opened the door for him, the smell of booze instantly ambushed me. Hei Jian wrapped me inside a giant hug and kissed me on the face. He really only gave me hugs or kisses when he was drunk. Then he mumbled something about how I was the only family he’s got in the world.
He was in good spirits.
“Ah, Bai Jian! My boy, my dear lad. Just you wait! We’ll go visit your school tomorrow. I’ve got the money now. And right in the nick of time! Let me tell you—we’re not poor! I can always make more money when we need it. Look! See this?” He pulled out a thick, tan-brown envelope from his coat pocket and slammed it on the table. A wad of pink one hundred yuan bills spilled from its throat.
To be clear, I’m not some kind of money-hungry kid. Most of the time, I couldn’t care less about money. But in this case, having access to some funds meant I could go back to school, so I wasn’t about to say no.
Hei Jian went on to tell me the whole story. Apparently, earlier in the day, he’d been sitting in his office, glaring at the old dial phone on his desk while racking his brain over how to get me my school money. (By the way, he was working now as an art director for a small advertising agency.) Maybe the phone didn’t like being stared at like that, because it began to ring. He grabbed the handset and shoved it against his ear. It was a client who wanted him to design a commercial to promote their company’s products. He immediately asked for a down payment.
When he got to that part of the story, my heart began to hop giddily inside my chest, but I kept my face calm and cool. “Nice,” I replied nonchalantly. “Maybe from now on I should go stare at a phone too if I have nothing to do? Who knows, money may start to rain down on me!”
Hei Jian cuffed me on the back of the head. “Hey buddy, don’t you play smart ass with me!”
Hei Jian likes to drink when he’s happy. So, although he couldn’t even walk straight anymore, he made me go fetch him another bottle of beer. He likes to drink while watching soccer on TV too. When his favorite team or player scores, he either pulls me out of bed and tosses me into the air, or cheerfully pinches my bum. If someone makes a bad pass or misses a goal, he gets so upset, he starts to hurl beer bottles at the wall. The first time he did that, I got so scared I almost peed my pants.
I knew it was going to be a long, sleepless night. But the thought of heading back to school the following morning lightened my mood.
After he drank the night away, Hei Jian passed out on the couch.
When I woke up this morning, I crouched down next to the couch but dared not disturb him. Hei Jian hates getting woken up from his rest, and right now, with his head laid across a pillow, he was sleeping like a log. Tufts of his long hair had knotted into a tangled nest, making him look like that haggard beggar always hanging out on Liberation Street.
After watching for a while and seeing zero sign of him stirring, I decided to go brush my teeth. On the way to the bathroom, I deliberately made a series of loud noises. My idea was that even if I “accidentally” woke him up, I would be safely out of reach.
Sure enough, Hei Jian started rustling on the couch and, finally, woke up. Then he began to yell angrily. “Bai Jian! What the hell are you doing?! Be quiet!!!”
“Today’s my first day back to school,” I replied from inside the bathroom.
After a long pause, he groaned and got up. “Okay, so why are you still bumming around? Hurry up and get ready. Let’s go!”
When we had finally gotten out of the door, Hei Jian led me down an unfamiliar path, in the complete opposite direction of my school. Confused, I stopped in my tracks and refused to cross the street. Hei Jian wrapped his arm around my shoulders and announced, “We’re not going back to that old school of
I couldn’t understand why he would do this to me, without even asking. I’d thought I was heading back to my old school—to my friends. I didn’t want to go to a new school and meet a bunch of strangers! But I was too chicken to protest to his face then and there, so I kept my mouth shut. I tried to convince myself that it was better to have a school to go to rather than no school at all. Right?
Hei Jian shoved me along. I felt his slim, bony fingers poke the back of my neck like the cold barrel of a pistol. Things seemed to be happening so quickly and totally out of the blue. Everything was a command, to be obeyed and not questioned. I glared at him and fumed in my head. How would you like it if I treat you this way when you’re old and frail?
“Hey boy,” he said, “don’t look at me like that. I’ve got my reasons. I can’t keep myself chained to you forever.” My slow walking speed must have really irritated him. He swooped up from behind me, then dragged me along as if pulling a puppet by its strings, forcing me to keep pace.
“Don’t you see? If I don’t go hang out with the right people, I won’t succeed. And if I don’t succeed, you won’t have a comfortable life. And when I’m away, who’s going to take care of you? Cook for you? Wash your dirty laundry? That’s one of the perks of being in a boarding school—there’s always someone around to help you out. You’re going to be pampered like royalty. Just think about it: a poor kid, living like a prince! I couldn’t even have dreamed of that when I was a kid.”
Not for the first time, I answered, “Then why don’t you just get me a mom? A mother can do all those things you mentioned. Besides, every kid I know has one. Why can’t I have one too?”
“Foolish!” Hei Jian snorted. “I should be tied down to a woman just because you want a mom? Why do I have to sacrifice so much for you? We all deserve to live our own lives. And since we are friends—heck, best buddies—let’s not act selfish and drag each other down, okay?”
I hesitated for a moment, then decided to speak up a little more. “But I did have a mom once, before you lost her. You took her away from me, Hei Jian. YOU are the truly selfish one here.”
“Nonsense!” he snapped. “I didn’t lose her. She left by herself!”
I liked to mess with his head sometimes. I found it kind of fun, like playing with math puzzles. One good thing about having a dad like Hei Jian is that you can speak your mind. You can talk to him about almost any subject under the sun and not worry about him getting offended—at least not for a while.
But I was still unsure about the whole boarding school thing. After all, my situation was probably very different from those of the other students. My mom was not around; I only had Hei Jian. And he was constantly trying to get rid of me.
When I was younger, Hei Jian would often lock me inside our place and go out for an entire day. After he had returned late at night, just when I thought he was finally ready for bed, someone would invite him out for a midnight snack.
So one night, I snuck out and followed him. I shut the front door behind me and whistled breezily, trotting down the street right behind him. Not long after, he bumped into a woman he knew, probably the one who asked him out. Thank goodness he slowed down as they walked together side by side, otherwise I wouldn’t have been able to catch up. They got on a bus. Just as the bus door was about to close, I hopped on too. The bus driver plus nearly an entire busload of passengers stared at me, looking surprised and confused. When Hei Jian spotted me, he glared at me without saying a word. His face was dark and gloomy, his jaw tightly clenched. He looked pissed.
At the next stop, Hei Jian dragged me off the bus. That lady friend of his looked quite bummed. She waved bye to him through the window as the bus pulled away, and he waved back. Then he turned around and gave me a giant kick in the ass with his boot, sending me flying through the air like a frog. But to me, the pain of physical punishment was nothing compared to the stress I’d endured staying home alone.
Sometimes I would overhear our neighbors murmuring that if Hei Jian ditched me, I would be out on the streets mingling with a horde of beggars soon enough. We would swarm around pedestrians and cling to their trousers so tightly and desperately, they’d be forced to cough up some change.
I’ve always had this uneasy feeling that sooner or later, Hei Jian would indeed abandon me. I just hadn’t expected that day to arrive so quickly. He used to tell me that instead of hanging around him, I should just go and pretend to be an orphan. Because an orphaned boy as handsome and charming as me would have no problem getting scooped up by some nice and well-to-do adoptive parents, ushered into a fancy new house, and set upon the path to a bright future. With this whole boarding school thing, he had finally found the perfect plan.
According to Hei Jian, the people at the boarding school would take care of all my needs. They would do everything he did for me, plus other things he didn’t always do—like giving me nutritious meals and a nice bed to sleep on every night. The school was to become my new home basically. Hei Jian wouldn’t have to worry about me starving or looking too scruffy or freezing to death anymore. In fact, he’d probably never need to think about me again. I would be gently and quietly erased from his life, like a teacher erasing words from a blackboard.
I started to feel very worried about my future. A future without Hei Jian.
Maybe I should have died as a baby eleven years ago. They told me that back when I was just eight months old, my mom had asked Hei Jian, “When are you going to marry me?”
To which he replied, “I’m not ready to get married yet.”
Hei Jian was still in college back then. When his girlfriend at the time got pregnant and gave birth to their baby, he was forced to drop out from this prestigious film academy—his dream school. It was as if a thick, dark cloud had suddenly appeared out of nowhere and pulled his bright, sunny future into its clutches.
After dropping out of college, Hei Jian didn’t go to find work right away. He didn’t want to become a welder or some other kind of lowly laborer slogging away in a rundown, state-owned factory. At least, that’s what he told my mom as the reason why he couldn’t marry her.
So, that night—when I was barely eight months old—she left with her little suitcase in hand and never returned.
Maybe God didn’t want me to have a mom. Since Hei Jian never owned a single picture of my mom, I didn’t even know what she looked like.
Isn’t it awful? To think that one day my mom might be standing at the corner of a street, glancing over at me, and I wouldn’t even know it. Whenever I thought about that scenario happening in real life, I would get super upset. It just felt so frustrating and unfair!
More than once, I played out this scene in my head: a fashionably-dressed young woman strolls down the street, looking this way and that. I follow her quietly and stealthily for a while. Then, I edge up to her and gently tap her on the shoulder. She spins around and stares at me, seemingly surprised. Finally, I can see her face up close—a face that radiates natural beauty. Since I’m extremely handsome and Hei Jian looks merely passable, according to the laws of genetics, she would be the nicer-looking parent. But she’s also rather rude. She tries to shove me away with her arm as she mutters, “Who are you? Why did you bump into me?”
I keep staring at her, until a spark of recognition enters her eyes.
My nainai used to tell me that people who are related by blood will always find each other at the end of the road. Because there is a secret thread binding them together that’s invisible to everyone else in the world.
It’s now her turn to stare at me. Slowly, she draws closer to me and reaches out with trembling hands. “Can I touch your face?” she asks.
“No.” I glare at her. “No way!”
Then I turn and walk away with my head held high.
My mom simply stands there, her feet frozen in place. Or else she slowly collapses to the ground, like in one of those slo-mo movie scenes. She stares at my back intensely and longingly, then bursts into tears on the curb as a curious crowd of passersby gather around her …
I don’t feel bad for her at all. She deserves it, just and fair. Because on countless nights since I was a baby, I have lain awake alone in bed, staring up at the moon. I would think about my friends and how all their moms would come to school to pick them up. I would keep thinking until tears welled into my eyes and spilled down my face.
