Misadventures of a Rogue Hawking
by Gracelyn Musica
Chapter Seven
Nian Kuaile (or 'Happy New Year')
-
"Jim…. I love you."
"What do you want?" the blonde teen asked his sister, not even moving his eyes from the classified section of the latest newspaper. However, he still caught her toothy grin out of the corner of his eye.
"Can you PLEASE please please please please! come to my class tomorrow?"
At that, he put the newsprint down and probed her ice blue eyes. "Kou, tomorrow is New Year's. Gene's actually has a job to work, which means I have to cook with Mel."
"But—"
"Cooking for seven, Kou! Seven!"
"Please! Just for an hour or so—you can spare an hour!"
Jim sighed. He realized that the only way to get any peace was to give her what she wanted, and in all fairness, she only asked for help with work when it was absolutely needed. "What do I have to do?"
Kou clapped her hands. "My babies don't know about Chinese New Year, Jim!"
"My babies" was Kou's first grade class at the local elementary school. Gene and Jim theorized that she was a teacher so she could play all day.
"Most of them don't even know how to use chopsticks, for God's sake. So tomorrow we're having a culture lesson, and we're cooking rice, and making paper lanterns and dragon masks and kites and talk about what we do and..."
"And?" Jim prompted, a sinking feeling gathering at the pit of his stomach at Kou's maniac grin.
"Maybe stir up some trouble."
"I am NOT stealing another ice cream truck for you."
"Spoilsport."
-
"Everyone, this is our guest for the day, Mr. Jim Hawking."
"Hello Mr. Hawking!" nineteen voices chirped in unison.
"Mr. Hawking is going to help with part of our class today, so I want everyone on their best behavior."
"Yes Ms. Hawking."
A small hand waved over the sea of first graders. Kou pointed to the small boy in the second row. "Yes, Nathan?"
"You both have the same last name!" the child pointed out, and a few other students nodded in agreement.
"Yes, we do have the same last name," Kou replied, smiling as she put an arm around Jim's shoulders. "You see, Mr. Hawking is my younger brother."
"Oooooooh."
For some reason, Jim felt his face heat up with a blush. Maybe it was nineteen pairs of eyes on him.
"Now class, let's review what we've learned so far. On what day does Chinese New Year fall?"
A small girl with frizzy red hair raised her hand and spoke when Kou pointed at her. "The second full moon after the first official day of winter."
"Very good. What year is this?"
"The year of the Rat!" a few of the students cried out without raising their hands.
"Excellent! And what does the animal mean?"
"It's part of the Chinese zodiac!" a brunette from the back of the class called out while in the process of raising his hand.
"Yes, very good Nick. Now, how many of you are Horses?"
A good portion of the class raised their hands at that. "Wonderful, and the rest of you are…"
"Goats!" the class chimed, laughing.
Kou turned to Jim and smiled. "Well trained little army, don't ya think?"
"Scary, sis," Jim replied.
"Now class, Mr. Hawking is going to teach everyone how to use chopsticks."
The class cheered collectively, and Jim narrowed sapphire eyes at Kou. "What?"
A sweet smile met him as Kou handed him a bowl of rice and a pair of chopsticks. "Shush and teach."
Jim looked at the class, nineteen eager faces staring back at him. All of them had pulled out a pair of chopsticks, and Kou was passing out bowls of rice. Jim gripped the pointed wooden sticks in his hand and coughed.
"Well, uh… You hold one chopstick like a pencil…"
"Like this?"
Jim looked up. The little frizzy-haired girl had asked him the question, holding up the chopstick in her hand as she did so. "Yes, that's right… er…"
'Candy,' Kou mouthed behind the class to him.
"…Candy. Very good."
Feeling helpless, he held his hand up in demonstration while Kou went around the class, helping children adjust their grasp on the wooden stick.
"Then you take the other one and lay it on top like this, and grab the other one like that…"
'This is friggin' hard, man,' he thought to himself, showing the children how to put both of them together. A few kids' faces were showing the same thing, tongues sticking out as they tried to make it perfect.
"Now kids, it won't be perfect the first time," Kou told them as a few of her students came close to tears. "Mr. Hawking has been using chopsticks his whole life, and even he messes up sometimes."
As if on cue, the sticks practically jumped out of Jim's hand and fell to the tiled floor with a clatter. The class giggled, and Kou winked at her brother.
"Your hand shouldn't hurt when you hold them," Jim told the class, bending to retrieve the fallen chopsticks. He quickly fit them into his hand. "You hold the bottom one still and move the top one." Doing so, he opened and closed them as if it was a mouth, and 'spoke' to the kids through them in a deep voice. "It gets a lot easier with practice."
They giggled and tried, and quite a few of them got the hang of it, gingerly dipping their chopsticks into the bowls to grab gobs of sticky rice.
"Also, it's perfectly fine to pick up
the bowl and shovel bites into your mouth," Kou added, putting a hand
on one boy's head who was trying to use his chopsticks as something
more akin to salad tongs. "As long as you take SMALL BITES and don't
choke," she continued, leaning over to help the boy. "Bernie, like
this, sweetheart."
-
Jim ended up staying until the end of class. He watched in
amazement from Kou's desk as the sister he knew as annoying as all hell
turned into a kind, patient teacher, never raising her voice once and
genuinely smiling though the kids' repeated questioning. The last
fifteen minutes, the kids packed their new toys in their bags—foldable
kites and lanterns made of rice paper and sticks, and crayon-colored
dragon masks with yarn strings—and listened to Kou (albeit with a
little bit of fidgeting).
"When Mr. Hawking and I around were your ages, every New Year's we would have a biiiiiiig dinner, with lots of rice and dumplings and yummy food that our father would spend all day cooking. We also had fish—you see, the fish is a symbol of good luck for the Chinese. All of our aunts and uncles and cousins would come over to our house and we would eat it all up. Then, after dinner, we kids would go out and play with our kites. When it got dark, the adults would come outside with us and we would all shoot fireworks together to celebrate." She reached under her podium and pulled out a shoebox. "And when we were done shooting fireworks, our parents and aunts and uncles would give us these."
A small red envelope, familiar to Jim, appeared in Kou's hand.
"In these they had money—usually in even numbers or sevens, since those are lucky numbers in Chinese culture. We got one from each family, and from our parents."
The bell rang outside in the hall, signaling the end of school.
"And since you are leaving, my little ones, all of you get one from my family."
The children cheered, obediently lining up at the door. Kou handed each one an envelope, hugged the few that threw their arms around her, before finally shutting the door with a groan. "GOD today was long."
"How much did you give them?" Jim asked, taking an envelope and peeking in.
"Two woolongs each."
"That's almost forty woolongs, Kou."
"Oh, Jimmy, I'm so happy you can do math!" Kou fake-sniffled and wiped her hands over her cheeks. "I'll call Mom and Dad, they'll be so happy!"
Jim stared at Kou. "A ha."
The
two Hawking siblings gathered up Kou's things in silence, turned the
lights off and closed the classroom door, locking it behind them.
-
My husband is six months older than me, which makes
him a Rat (or Mouse, as he likes to be called) and me an Ox.
Supposedly, it is a good match, zodiac-wise.