Red Thread Sisters (9781101591857) Read Online Free

same words when they first met at the orphanage.
    Then Wen’s mother said it again. “My daughter.” Her raised voice sounded mad, like Auntie Lan Lan’s when a kid spilled food at dinner or the boys started punching one another at bedtime.
    Gently, Wen’s mother reached for Wen’s hands. Wen uncovered her face and stepped closer to her mother. As the line moved, Wen peeked at the mean man. He was stamping their papers quickly, his hands flying, his eyes directed straight down, as if he was scared her mother would yell again.
    Wen wanted to thank her mother for making the man stop staring at her. But her mother didn’t know much Chinese and Wen was so nervous, she couldn’t remember any of the English she had thought she knew so well.
    After the McGuires filed into the second plane, Wen slept through the whole flight. Once they landed, Wen’s father led the family to a big wheel where they got their suitcases, then wove through the crowded airport to the street. Wen’s mother herded them to a line that said T-A-X-I. Finally, Wen’s father opened a door to a yellow car with wide leather seats.
    â€œJia,”
her mother said as she helped Wen buckle her seat belt. “Home.”

four
    All Wen could see was darkness. She squinted out the window as big cars on the wide, lighted road streamed past them. Then their driver slowed down onto a curving ramp leading to smaller streets with leafy trees outlined against the black sky. Wen could make out rows of houses set behind neat squares of grass. The car stopped at a brick house with wide windows. Emily clambered out of the backseat, took Wen’s hand, and led her up the walk.
    â€œ
Huan ying
, Wen. Welcome!” Wen’s mother said as her father unlocked the front door.
    Still holding Wen’s hand, Emily brought her into the house. Wen gasped. The hallway was as big as a room! The ceiling hung high above her, as if it were a sky.
    Emily led her to a room down the hall. She waved her arm from Wen to the room and back to Wen, making a big sweep through the air. “Wen’s!” she exclaimed.
    What was she talking about?
    Emily pulled Wen into the room. “Wen’s!” she repeated, planting both feet on the floor. Without warning, Emily flung herself down on the rug, her face toward the ceiling, her arms and legs spread toward the four walls. “Wen’s!” she shouted, from the floor.
    This whole room, for me?
Wen thought she should reenter the room on her knees, as if she were visiting the sleeping place of an empress. The walls were painted deep purple and the bed was covered with a lavender quilt. Stuffed animals sat heaped along the pillow. All those stuffed animals—enough for almost every baby and little kid in the whole orphanage! And the books! So many books, lined up neatly in a bookcase, ready to be read. In the corner, Wen saw a small white desk and a chair. How could one room belong just to her?
    Emily sat on the fluffy, purple bed. Then, crouching, she pulled out a second bed, nestled under the first. Emily raised two fingers. “Wen’s . . .
trun-dle
.”
    Wen’s mother came into the room and said something to Emily, who nodded and replied. Wen tilted her head, trying to understand. Where had all her English gone? She felt as if some giant lock inside her brain had mysteriously clamped shut over all the English she’d ever known.
    Wen had studied English even before she went to school. A month after she’d arrived at the orphanage, five-year-old Wen was helping in the small-children’s activity room, where she discovered some English picture books. After dinner, she had pored over the tattered books, connecting the words to the illustrations. Her favorite story was about a lady who went to a dance but lost a glass shoe, which a prince used to find her so they could live happily ever after.
    When she was eight, Teacher Jun began real English