When You Trap a Tiger, page 9
I push the basement door open and switch on the light, which, thankfully, decides to work today. It flickers once, twice, then stays on, buzzing faintly. “Yeah, but a basement is already kind of like a pit.”
Ricky squirms. “But…it’s not, though.”
“I don’t want it to get rained on,” I say. I can’t tell him the real reason—the tiger appeared in the house. She thinks the stolen star stories are somewhere in here. And the basement is the only place where my family won’t notice a giant trap.
The excuse is good enough for Ricky, and we head down the stairs to examine our work space.
“You do realize,” Ricky says, “that, in theory, you’d be luring a tiger into your house and then into your basement. Which seems like not the best idea.”
“It’s hypothetical,” I remind him. I try very hard not to think, Maybe he’s right.
“Right.” He nods. He surveys the room and cracks his knuckles. “We need to make a pit, somehow.”
“Well…,” I say, thinking. “I guess we could maybe use some of those boxes upstairs? And stack them? And then we can use the rope to secure the boxes, so the tiger can’t just knock everything over. The hypothetical tiger, I mean.”
Halmoni said moving the boxes on an unlucky day could be dangerous. But how do I know if today is unlucky?
“Box tower. Yes. Great idea,” Ricky says.
I weigh my options. I can’t really think of another way to make a trap, so either I move the boxes and hope it’s a lucky day, or I don’t and I give up on trapping the tiger.
“Just be careful not to break anything,” I add. Halmoni said breaking something was the worst thing, so at least I can avoid that.
We get to work. We shove the Korean chests aside, scraping them across the wood floor and clearing a path for the lighter boxes.
Then we carry Halmoni’s cardboard boxes down from the top of the stairs and pile them in the basement. Some are light enough that we can carry them individually, but the bigger ones we take together. We walk slowly down the stairs, him holding the front, me carrying the back.
When we’re about halfway through the boxes, and maneuvering a particularly heavy one down the stairs, Ricky says, “My mom likes hats, too.”
I stop, peering over the big box to look at him. “What?”
He shrugs, shifting the weight between us. “I don’t know—you asked about my hat.”
“Yeah, like half an hour ago.”
“Sorry, I don’t like awkward silences.”
“Oh,” I say. He stares at me like he’s waiting for more. “I don’t think it was an awkward silence. It was more of a busy silence.”
He laughs. “Busy silence. I never thought of that before.”
We take a few more steps, and he keeps talking. “My mom and I used to buy hats together. That was kind of our thing. You need a good hat for every occasion, because a special hat can make you feel special. It’s the same reason superheroes wear capes.”
I nod along, but my mind snags on the used to. It’s like what he said at the grocery store: she used to make sticky buns. She likes hats, in the present tense, but they used to buy hats.
There’s a catch in his voice, too, when he mentions his mom. I wonder what that means, if maybe his parents are divorced and he doesn’t see her that often.
But I don’t ask about it. I don’t like when random people ask me about Dad, and I don’t want to make Ricky uncomfortable.
“That’s a good point,” I say instead.
We reach the bottom of the steps and start waddling the heavy box over to the rest of them.
“I have a newsboy cap like from the old days, and a lime-green fedora, and—”
He cuts off abruptly as the cardboard slips from his grasp. I stumble forward, trying to catch it, but it’s too heavy, and for the second time, I fall in front of Ricky.
The camo top hat flies off my head, and a horrible clatter rings through the basement as the box hits the ground, followed by a loud pop when I land on top of it, crumpling the cardboard and smashing the contents inside.
It’s the sound of something breaking.
It’s the sound of bad luck.
I freeze, as if by refusing to move I can undo what just happened. I wait for Sam to come running down the stairs, but she doesn’t, and it’s just me and Ricky and whatever we broke.
Ricky’s eyes are wide. “Are you okay? I’m so sorry! I thought I had it, but—”
“I’m fine,” I say, scrambling to stand. “I just need to see if we broke something.” I turn the box right side up and try to peel off the tape to check inside, but my fingers keep shaking, so it’s hard to get a grip. Ricky probably thinks I’m being way overdramatic. He probably thinks I’m the weirdest of weird.
He pushes the hair out of his eyes. “Would you get in trouble for breaking something?”
“Oh, no,” I say quickly. But would Halmoni be mad? She seemed really upset when Mom tried to move things.
“Here, let me help.” Ricky leans over to open the box, and I check inside.
Beneath a layer of Bubble Wrap is a pile of pots and pans.
Everything looks intact.
The clatter must have been the pans banging against each other. And the pop was me crushing the layer of Bubble Wrap.
I let out a hot breath. “Everything’s fine,” I say, more to myself than to Ricky.
I rearrange the cookware inside the box—but inside the biggest pot, something catches my eye.
I reach in and pull out three wads of Bubble Wrap. The objects inside glint beneath the plastic, flashing in the light.
“Whoa.” Ricky sucks in a breath as he leans over my shoulder. “We. Found. Treasure.”
Only it isn’t treasure. It’s…jars.
“Star jars,” I breathe.
I peel the Bubble Wrap off one of them, and the jar inside is small and round, made of dark blue glass, with a silver cork stuffed in its mouth.
Quickly I unwrap the others, checking for cracks, but they’re okay, too. One of them is tall and thin, made of clear glass with a black cork. The other is dark green and square shaped.
Ricky takes a step closer. “What’s a star jar?”
“Um, nothing.” Except they aren’t nothing. In fact, these might be everything.
Halmoni said she took the star stories and stuffed them into jars. The tiger thought those jars were hidden somewhere in the house. And Halmoni was super intense about being careful with the boxes.
This is it. These are the precious jars. The dangerous stories. They have to be.
This is what the tiger wants.
I squint at them, and it might be a trick of the light, but I can almost see something moving inside them—something like smoke, or like magic.
For one overwhelming moment, I want to uncork the jars and hold them to my ear like seashells, so I can hear magic inside, roaring like the ocean.
I want so badly to hear these stories.
“These are my halmoni’s.” I try to keep my voice steady. “We can just put these on the side, and I’ll give them to her later.”
Ricky shrugs like it’s not a big deal, which I guess, to him, it isn’t. They’re just jars. Regular, normal jars. Totally. I chew my thumbnail and stare at them.
Ricky breaks the silence. “So, what would you do after you trapped the tiger?” And then, like he’s afraid I won’t answer, he adds, “In Superman: Doom Trap!, Lex Luthor wants to torture him to reveal the secrets of Krypton and also the universe—”
“It’s not like that,” I interrupt, because that kind of makes me sound like the bad guy. “This is real life. This isn’t like your comic books, okay?”
Instantly, I feel guilty for snapping. Ricky has been nice enough to help. It’s not his fault he doesn’t know the bigger picture, and if he wants to talk about comics or hats or anything, I should just let him. Quieter, I say, “This is just different.”
He pauses and gets really focused on readjusting his camo pants. “I’m not getting tutored because I’m stupid. I mean, I’m not stupid.”
I fiddle with my braids. “Yeah, I know. You already said that, in the library, and I don’t think you are. Lots of people get tutored.”
“I’m just saying, in case you think stuff. Or hear stuff about me.” He lifts a shoulder like he doesn’t care, even though he clearly does.
I sit on one of the boxes. “Hear stuff from who?” I don’t think I need to point out the obvious: I don’t have any friends.
“Yeah, that’s true,” he says, sitting on the box next to me. “I failed language arts last year.”
“Oh,” I say.
At my school in California, it was superhard to fail a class. Even if you did badly on all the assignments, as long as you put in the bare minimum effort, the teacher would take pity on you and at least let you pass.
Maybe the school here is way harder, because Ricky doesn’t seem like someone who wouldn’t try. He’s the type of kid who wears head-to-toe camo for a hypothetical tiger hunt. That type of kid tries.
Drumming his fingers against the cardboard, he says, “It’s not my fault, though. The teacher was against me. She hated me.”
“Okay,” I say. “I guess that makes sense.”
He looks up at me, surprised. “Really? You believe me?”
I nod. He looks so hopeful, but it’s not like I have any reason not to believe him. And to be totally honest, I don’t really care if he’s good at language arts. Grades don’t really translate to friendship.
He sighs in relief. “That’s good. I didn’t want you to think badly of me. Because it’s really not my fault. But anyway, that’s why I’m getting tutored this summer. If I don’t pass a test in a couple of weeks, I’ll have to repeat sixth grade.”
I try to hide my surprise. Because that’s a pretty big deal. And here’s what I don’t say: From what I’ve seen, he slacks off a lot during his tutoring sessions. It almost seems like he’s trying not to learn anything.
It’s really none of my business. For some reason, though, he cares about my approval. “I’m sure you’ll pass,” I say.
He nods. “Yeah. Me too. It’ll be fine.”
There’s an awkward silence, and then he says, “Why are you really doing this? I mean, I’m as excited as the next kid to build a fake tiger trap, but there must be a reason.”
I shrug, avoiding his eyes. “We should get back to work.”
“Seriously, though?”
I hesitate, trying to think of a decent lie. I’ve been keeping so many secrets. And secrets are exhausting.
The truth is, I want to tell the truth. “My halmoni is sick,” I tell him. When he looks confused, I clarify: “My grandma.”
He blows air from his lips. “I’m sorry. That’s awful.”
“She’s afraid of tigers, so I wanted to make her feel better.” It’s not quite the truth—but it’s close enough. My shoulders loosen, and my lungs fill with relief.
It’s nice to talk to somebody.
“That must be scary,” he says. “Even if it is just in her head.”
I swallow up the words You have no idea. And I nod. “It is.”
“That’s really cool of you to do,” he says. “You’re the coolest girl I’ve ever been friends with.”
“Oh.” I didn’t know he considered us friends, but it’s kind of nice to hear.
It feels like, maybe, he could be a real friend—one who sticks.
“So.” He stands, brushing off his pants. “Do you have any raw meat?”
“Wait, what?”
“According to the internet, the most important part of the tiger trap is the bait. Most tiger hunters used raw meat, like beef or—”
“Well, it’s hypothetical, so…we won’t do that,” I say.
He nods. “Right, yeah. That makes sense.”
“Let’s just finish the trap.”
He leans over, picks up the top hat, and hands it back to me. “Let’s do this.”
I smile as we get back to work. We pay more attention now—taking each box step by step, careful and slow—leaving only the heaviest ones and the big Korean chests upstairs. Once we’ve got enough boxes downstairs, we start arranging them in a ring, stacking the lighter boxes on the heavier ones.
It’s like a giant puzzle, and even though it’s important, even though this really, really matters…it’s also fun.
Once we’re done, we wrap the rope around the boxes, though we’re not really sure quite what to do. I tie five knots, just to be safe.
Finally, we step back to admire our handiwork.
“Nicely done, Tiger Trapmaster,” I say.
Ricky’s smile fills his whole face. “Likewise, Super Tiger Girl.”
“I’m not a superhero,” I say automatically. Except Super Tiger Girl does sound cooler than Invisible Girl, and it feels kind of nice to be super.
Before he leaves, I lift his top hat off my head and hand it to him. I’m pretty sure I have hat hair, with some strands sweat-stuck to my forehead and others standing straight up. “Don’t forget this,” I say.
He shrugs. “Keep it for now. Just in case you find a hypothetical tiger. I’ll get it back when we hang out again.”
“Hang out? To do what?” I’m not sure what he thinks comes next, but this is pretty much it. The trap is finished.
He stares at me like it’s obvious. “We’re friends now. Friends hang out.”
I blink. “Oh, okay. Yeah.”
And then I start to smile. Because I really would like to hang out again. Somehow, he made trapping a tiger fun.
I say goodbye to Ricky, and as soon as he’s gone, I take the star jars up to the attic room and hide them under my bed. Sam’s in the shower, thankfully, so she doesn’t bother me, and I lie on my stomach, on the floor, staring at the jars.
They seem like regular jars, almost. But even under the bed, they seem to glow.
Raw meat won’t work, because magical tigers play by different rules. But looking at these jars, I realize: I’ve found my bait.
“What are you doing?” The floorboards creak behind me, and I turn to see Sam in her pajamas.
“Nothing,” I say, jumping to my feet.
I’m full of jittery energy. Beneath the bed, the star jars wait.
But I glance at the clock. It’s only evening. I still have hours before everyone’s asleep—before I can sneak a jar downstairs and bait the tiger.
Sam narrows her eyes. She takes a breath, like there’s something she wants to ask, but then shakes her head.
It’s not like Sam to hold her questions in, and I don’t know if I’m grateful, or sad.
When she opens her mouth again, she seems to change her mind, asking a different question instead. “What’s the deal with that boy?”
“He’s helping me…do something.” I can’t help but smile a little when I add, “He’s my friend.”
She raises an eyebrow, and her lips lift into that I know something you don’t smirk. “Your friend?”
My cheeks get hot when I realize what she means. “It’s not like that.”
Her voice is teasing. “Not like what?”
“Not like how you’re acting.”
Sam laughs. Apparently my embarrassment puts her in a good mood.
Then her eyes soften a little, and she points to the floor in front of the mirror. “Sit down. If you have a crush, you should learn how to do your hair.”
“I’m fine the way I am,” I say. “And it’s not a crush.” I don’t know how to deal with Sam. One minute she hates me, the next she wants to have a Sister Moment.
More importantly, I don’t have time for hair. I have an actual lifesaving mission to go on.
But she keeps pointing, refusing to take no for an answer. And I guess I have to wait a few hours anyway.
When I give up and sit in front of the mirror, Sam kneels behind me. She unravels my braids, twisting the strands, weaving them together in a new way.
As she works, my jitteriness fades, replaced by this quieter, deeper wanting. I want to tell her about the tiger and the star jars and the trap.
But I’m afraid her teeth will go sharp and she’ll call me crazy, so I hold my breath until the wanting goes away.
After a few minutes, Sam asks, “When did you meet Jensen?”
It’s a random question, and not really what I want to talk about, but it’s way better than talking about Ricky.
“At the library, when we first got here,” I tell her. “She’s really nice. She gave me a cupcake. And the library doesn’t look like a haunted gingerbread house anymore.” I clamp my lips shut. Too much—the gingerbread thing was a weird comment. I change the subject. “Do you remember her from elementary school?”
Sam shrugs, tugging on my hair just a little. “I mean, yeah, the school was pretty small. But she was a year older, so I didn’t think she noticed me at all.” She pauses, then adds, “Not that I’m saying she noticed me. Just, yeah.”
“Yeah,” I say, feeling awkward without really knowing why. I feel like she wants me to say something, but I have no idea what.
Sam finishes my braids, pulling bobby pins from her own hair and sticking them against my skull, until she leans back, looking at me in the mirror.
Instead of two braids framing my face, my hair is twisted into a braided crown, with wispy strands hanging around my ears.
With my new hair and Halmoni’s pendant around my neck, I look like a princess. Or more—a warrior-princess.
I’m not used to seeing myself like this. “I don’t look like the girl in the tiger story anymore,” I whisper, more to myself than to Sam.
Sam hasn’t looked like the girl in that story for years, ever since she cut her hair to her shoulders and got that white streak. But I’ve always worn my braids. I’ve always been Little Eggi.
