Peter Lee's Notes from the Field Read online

  Haji laughed. “No problem. I got her!” L.B. climbed off him and brought his pants down a little in the process. He hitched them up. He liked his pants a little baggier and higher than most people would wear them. Not quite to his armpits, but close.

  Mom came downstairs dressed in a crisp white button-down shirt and black trousers. Her big thick hair gave off the smell of hair spray. She handed Dad a sport coat and then clapped her hands together twice. “L.B.! Peter! Upstairs! Change your clothes right now! We don’t want to be late!”

  9:55 a.m.

  It was taking forever to find the right classroom. “Can I play Asteroid Cataclysm on your phone?” I asked Mom. It was a game where you launched asteroids toward the Earth to try to create conditions that cause a mass dinosaur extinction.

  She sighed. “But we’re almost there, Peter.”

  “Come on. Just a few minutes! I’m so bored. Why am I here anyway?”

  When half her face does this sideways pucker, I know she wants to say no but doesn’t really have a good reason to.

  “I suppose it’s all right, but just for a few minutes and keep the volume down. As soon as we get there, give it back,” she said as she dug around the inside of her purse and passed me the phone. “Try not to crash into anything as we’re walking.”

  Eagerly, I grabbed it out of her hand. A few minutes of game time was better than zero minutes. I was sure I could launch at least two asteroids by the time we found the classroom.

  “Big building!” Haji commented as we walked down the hallway, our footsteps echoing loudly.

  “Easy to get lost in here!” Hammy agreed.

  Ever since L.B.’s kindergarten teacher recommended she go for some tests, my parents made her do stuff like this. They called it her “enrichment” activities.

  “Are you excited to meet your new mentor?” Dad asked her as we approached the classroom. He pushed up his glasses on his nose.

  L.B. shrugged her shoulders. “I’d rather be playing,” she confessed. “It’s such a nice day.” She launched herself into a cartwheel in the middle of the hallway.

  “L.B.! Not here!” Dad scolded, looking around to make sure nobody had seen.

  “Playing is a waste of your potential!” Mom said.

  L.B. frowned and lightly skipped down the hallway instead.

  “This is it.” Mom stopped in front of the last door in the hallway, and before she knocked, she patted her hair into place. “L.B., I wish you’d worn something less…sparkly.”

  L.B. looked down at the shiny rhinestone-studded apple on her shirt and sighed. When Mom tapped L.B.’s arm and motioned for her to straighten her posture, L.B. put out a big smile and straightened her back just in time to greet Dr. Esther Stephanova, director of the Chemical Engineering Lab of Innovation.

  “Good morning!” Dr. Stephanova put out her hand for L.B.

  “Good morning!” L.B. said with a confident handshake.

  “Hi,” Mom said enthusiastically. “We’re the parents.” She pointed. “Grandparents, brother.” She stuck her hand out and I gave her back the phone. I had managed to play only one level, but Earth was well on its way to destruction.

  I stared inside the classroom and felt my face start to feel twitchy. Why did L.B. get to do all the cool stuff? The class was set up like a working laboratory. The large center table was clearly Dr. Stephanova’s work space. The surface of the table was covered with test tubes, petri dishes and a whole assortment of jars containing brightly colored powders. I was struck by the display on the back wall of the room. “How many Erlenmeyer flasks do you have?” I blurted out. My voice was louder than I wanted it to be.

  Every member of my family turned to look at me.

  “How do you know the name of those thingies?” Dad asked, pointing his finger at the wall of flasks.

  “You can actually learn things from YouTube, you know,” I replied, a little miffed.

  Dr. Stephanova looked at me, surprised. “Well, young man. Most people just call them conical flasks and don’t know that they were named after the German chemist—”

  “Emil Erlenmeyer.” I finished her sentence for her.

  She smiled at me. “I collect them. These flasks are my own personal collection. I believe the oldest one here is from approximately 1920. I would love to get a nineteenth-century one…one day! Are you a chemist?”

  “Me?” I asked. “No, paleontology is my real passion, but I read an article—”

  “Anyway…” Mom cleared her throat loudly and looked at her watch.

  “Oh yes, we should get to it, shouldn’t we?” Dr. Stephanova said. “Will you all be staying?” She looked directly at me. Her white lab coat was buttoned up neatly. I stared at her name, embroidered onto the pocket, which was full of pens. Even if she hadn’t been wearing a lab coat, she just looked like a scientist—medium-brown hair pulled off her face, wire- framed glasses. She seemed serious and professional.

  “No, not him. Let’s focus on L.B. We’re here because this is her Girls in Science scholarship, after all!” Mom said quickly.

  “Some boys like science too,” I grumbled to myself.

  “Dad and I are going to stay, just for the first session. If that’s okay, Dr. Stephanova?”

  “Of course!”

  “We brought work to do, so we won’t be in the way.” Mom pulled out a few files from her bag. “I can hardly keep up with all these mortgage applications!” She chuckled to herself and laid the papers on a table in the corner, away from Dr. Stephanova’s main work area.

  Mom stared at Dad in a way that made it pretty clear that he was supposed to talk now.

  “Oh yes, I brought…some work to do too,” he mumbled. Dad worked at the Burnaby School District in the International Education Office and, unlike Mom, carried no papers. He felt his pockets, retrieved his phone and stared at it intently.

  “Right. I have something for you, L.B.” Dr. Stephanova reached into a built-in closet behind the main table in her lab.

  She pulled out a little lab coat and held it up for L.B. And just like her jacket, L.B.’s was personalized. The letters L and B were embroidered in a fancy script font in black thread. L.B. perked up and turned her back to Dr. Stephanova, held out her arms to get help putting the jacket on and then smoothed the lapels down. Her small hands lingered over her embroidered name.

  “What a treat!” L.B. said. “Thank you so much.”

  “You are very welcome,” Dr. Stephanova said kindly.

  Looking around at the lab and then seeing L.B. in that monogrammed lab coat made my brain shake. My breathing became ragged and I tapped my right pant pocket.

  Mom turned to Hammy and Haji, opened her eyes extra wide and stuck her neck out like a chicken. When that didn’t work, she tried talking in a loud voice.

  “Mom! You said you had something you wanted to take Peter to see?”

  “Oh, oh, right!” Hammy said, startled.

  “Okay. Good. We’ll be done at…?” Mom stared at Dr. Stephanova.

  “Let’s start with one hour today. But the following weeks may be a bit longer. Depends on what fun projects L.B. and I get started on.”

  “Okay, meet us back here then,” Mom said as L.B. raised her hand to wave goodbye. Hammy and Haji did the same. I couldn’t even force myself to say anything as simple as “bye.” It just wouldn’t come out. Mom ushered us out of the room and closed the door.

  I was trying hard to pretend I was okay. It wasn’t L.B.’s fault, but sometimes things were just so unfair. I listened to my footsteps echoing in the empty halls to relax and tried to use sheer will to push down all the stomach acids rising through my esophagus. Hammy reached for my hand and held it firmly as we silently exited the building.

  We strolled down East Mall, a pedestrian boulevard on the campus of the University of British Columbia, where all the science build
ings were located. Modern glass buildings stood right next to buildings made of stone blocks and covered in ivy that had been carefully clipped. Looking at all the building names made me feel better. I could feel myself calming down.

  My favorite building name had to be the Advanced Materials and Process Engineering Lab. What on Earth did they study in there? Whatever it was, it had to be amazing. It felt pretty cool to be surrounded by all this knowledge, old discoveries and new revelations happening inside these very buildings. I imagined one day I’d have an office in a building like one of these.

  Hammy stopped and pulled out a newspaper from her large brown leather handbag. She read it carefully. Haji peered over her shoulder. “I know where that is.” He patted her shoulder.

  “Where are we going?” I asked Hammy.

  She showed me the newspaper. “There’s a free art show at the Student Union Building.”

  I stared at her blankly.

  “Free student art show?” I mean, art was okay, but not exactly how I wanted to spend my morning.

  She glared at me. “What’s wrong with that?”

  “Ah, it’s free. What else we gonna do now, eh, Peter?” Haji said with a soft chuckle. He adjusted the fit of his baseball hat. It was the one he usually wore, with the Canadian and Korean flags intertwined.

  “Maybe we see the work of the next great Canadian artist!” Hammy said. “Come on. We only have one hour.”

  Hammy tightened the knot of her scarf and then wrapped her arm through mine so we were walking with our elbows locked. She started humming a song I didn’t recognize, and as she walked, she looked up at the trees and I could tell she was happy to feel the warm sun on her face and to just be here walking down the boulevard. It was hard to stay upset with Hammy, or anything, when she looked like that.

  Chapter 3

  FACT: SISTERS ARE ANNOYING

  Friday, May 31, after school

  Conditions: Clear with fresh offshore breezes

  When the bell rang, I grabbed my backpack and raced to the Big Rock. It was an igneous rock, possibly granite. I guesstimated that this rock was at least 140 million years old. I mean, that was just a guess. I’m not a geologist. The most important thing about the Big Rock was that you couldn’t miss it. Located right near the front doors of the school, it made a very handy meeting spot.

  When I started kindergarten, Mom took me to and from school the first day, but she couldn’t do it after that because she had to work. So when Hammy and Haji took over picking me up at the end of the day, she told all three of us, “Go to the Big Rock! Don’t forget!” All these years later, it’s still where we meet every day.

  Hammy and Haji waved when they saw me coming from around the side of the building. I wasn’t sprinting, but jogging at a good clip. Suddenly I got jumped from behind and crashed to the ground. My backpack went flying off my shoulder and landed three feet away. Now I knew what it felt like to be on the receiving end of a headbutt from a Pachycephalosaurus.

  As I lay awkwardly on my side, the wind knocked out of me, I stared up at my sister’s face, smiling right at me. I pushed her off.

  “Sorry! I thought you knew I was coming!” She looked like she was ready to burst out into loud giggles, the laugh that sounded like a series of exploding firecrackers.

  I sat up, hugged my knees and tried to catch my breath. My inhaler and my coil notebook had fallen out of my pockets, so I picked them up quickly and went to retrieve my backpack, still partially doubled over.

  Hammy and Haji had hurried over to me.

  “Peter! You okay?” Hammy asked as she tilted her head to try to look at me.

  “Yeah, yeah, Hammy. I’m okay.” I brushed my knees off and glared at L.B. “You have got to stop doing that!”

  As Ryan walked by, I heard him say to Liam, “Looks like Peter can’t even walk without tripping over his own giant flipper feet!”

  I took a slow breath and tried to ignore him.

  “L.B., remember, you need to warn people,” Haji scolded.

  “Sorry,” she said sheepishly. She then held out her backpack for Haji to take and ran toward the Big Rock. She liked to launch herself over it in different ways—feet together, right foot first, left foot first, hands together, right hand first, left hand first. One day she was going to try headfirst and then she’d be sorry.

  “That girl has too much energy!” Haji laughed as he tossed L.B.’s tiny purple backpack over his shoulder.

  “You’re telling me.” I swiped at the dirt on my pants.

  We started to walk home. Hammy grabbed L.B.’s hand and they swung their arms back and forth in big, exaggerated swings. Haji and I walked behind them like regular dudes, just walking. At the first intersection, Hammy stopped suddenly, even though it was clear of cars. Her eyes scanned left and right.

  “What’s wrong, Hammy?” L.B. asked.

  Hammy let go of L.B.’s hand and brought her right hand to her face. “Which way?” Hammy asked, her eyebrows scrunched.

  “Hammy, the usual way.” L.B. pointed straight ahead.

  “Oh.” Hammy laughed at herself. “I just forgot.”

  “Silly Hammy!” L.B. grabbed her arm and hugged it. “We have been walking this way for years! We could all probably make our way home blindfolded!” She paused. “In fact, I think I might try that next time.”

  3:30 p.m.

  We walked into their house, put down our things, slid off our shoes and I gave the picture its usual adjustment.

  “You going to say it again, Peter?” Haji’s eyes twinkled as he dropped his keys on the front table.

  “Every time I’m here!”

  “When are you going to take this thing down, Haji?” We both said it at the same time in a robotic tone of voice. It was our in-joke.

  The “thing” was a Time magazine cover from 1987 with a headline that read “Those Asian-American Whiz Kids” in a bright yellow font, framed and hanging limply on the wall directly across from the front door. Haji told me that he and Hammy had immigrated to Canada in 1981, when Mom was very young. It was the first time he had seen an Asian face on the cover of a magazine, showing regular Asian kids, so he thought it was a really important picture. Before that, he didn’t even know faces like ours could be on a magazine cover. To him, this picture was so important that he framed it. But now, I mean, I know it’s sentimental to him, but really, the picture just looks kind of cringey and so dated. I wished it could go inside a nice dark box deep in his crawl space, so he could keep the memory but not put it on display.

  “You say what you like about Haji’s picture, but don’t talk about taking down my favorite picture!” Hammy laughed as she took the photo of my family off the piano and hugged it. “I never get rid of this!”

  “But, Hammy,” I said, raising my finger to give everybody a cue. In unison, all four of us said, “It’s the world’s ugliest family photo.”

  It was a picture of my parents, L.B. and me. It’s hard to believe, but it is even more cringey than the Time picture. Last year, we got a coupon in the mail from a new photography studio that opened up down the street. “Special Introductory Offer!” it said. Dad scheduled an appointment. When we got there, we discovered it was actually a Vietnamese sandwich shop with a white photography screen in the back.

  The owner, Minh, made us sandwiches and took our picture—not exactly at the same time, but almost.

  We probably should have eaten the banh mi sandwiches after the picture, because my mom, who usually looks awkward in photos anyway, had cilantro in her teeth. It wasn’t a huge piece, but it’s definitely there. And Dad had little white dandruff flakes on his glasses, even though he swears they’re bread crumbs from the crusty French baguettes. I was going through my big growth spurt, so I’m all limbs. Also, I’m blinking. I blink in approximately 57 percent of all photos. This one included. About every other year, I blink in the school
class photo too. It’s uncanny. L.B., on the other hand, is smiling perfectly for the camera, her hair braided and pinned neatly with a bow. With her hand resting on her left hip, she looks adorable. It’s disgusting.

  Hammy stared lovingly at the picture before she put it back on the lace embroidery that covered the top of her piano. “L.B.’s so cute here.” She tapped the photo as if she was giving L.B.’s cheek an affectionate swipe. One day, I was going to sneak that picture into the backyard and bury it in my excavation pit. I’d leave it as an artifact for future generations to unearth. Also, that way, I wouldn’t ever have to look at it again.

  “Haji, I have online homework from my math tutor. Can I borrow your computer?” L.B. asked.

  “Of course!” He stood up to turn it on. The computer was so old it would take about ten minutes to boot up.

  I looked out the window. “It’s nice outside. I think I’ll do some digging,” I said.

  “Need help?” L.B. asked.

  “Sure.” I shrugged reluctantly. “Not so hard this time! It took me almost thirty minutes to find the femur last time.”

  She smiled mischievously. “Do you think dinosaurs left flags in mud pits to announce the location of their bodies for paleontologists to find them easily millions of years later?”

  I rolled my eyes and pointed to the back door. “Just go.”

  L.B. dashed through the kitchen, slid open the door and ran to the backyard. She did a somersault, leaped up, grabbed the lowest branch of the Japanese maple tree and swung off of it. She snatched the mesh bag full of bones hanging off the hook nailed into the side of the garage. They weren’t real fossils; they weren’t even real bones, just plastic replicas. It didn’t matter because this was purely for practice. She started digging with one of the shovels Haji always left outside for us.

  My excavation pit wasn’t much to look at—it was basically a large hole in the ground that Haji had filled with sand. But this pit was where I was learning to become a paleontologist. I had to cover it up with a piece of fitted plywood when I wasn’t using it. I learned that the hard way. The neighborhood raccoons didn’t know it was the field study area of a burgeoning scientist; they thought it was their local latrine.