Amidst The Stars

Invisible

 Huang Jia Lin, Year 3, Class 2. Rank: Fourth.

  The report card was all-black, without a red mark in sight. It was nothing new since Vicente had started primary school. His marks were always nearly perfect, nearly the best among his classmates. He accepted the report card with a quiet "thank you", returning to his seat. Yao always gets the best in the class, he thought, staring at the numbers. I wonder why I can't.

  The top three scorers were jumping around the classroom with joyful hoots, classmates crowding around them with words of congratulations. Vicente ignored them and stowed the report card at the very back of his folder.

  He knew the routine well — wait until both his parents were home, pray they wouldn't get into an argument and give them the report card. Watch as they barely scanned it, muttered a halfhearted "nice job" and signed it, probably in the wrong place.

  When he pulled out his report card from its spot of shame, though, it appeared that Leon had beat him to their parents' spot on the sofa.

  As he waited in a chair with a book, Vicente peered at Leon's report card.

  Huang Jia Long, Year 1, Class 3. Rank: Eighteenth. The few scores he could see were among the mid-fifties and sixties, and there were even a few red marks. Leon hadn't even managed to pass every subject.

  He watched as his parents stared at his brother's report card with growing disappointment, frowning at Leon while pointing to his marks. "A failing mark?" Their mother almost shouted. "Leon, we thought you were doing well in math."

  "I was," Leon protested, crossing his arms. "The exam was hard, that's all."

  They signed the report card with scowls, pushing the pen so hard it almost broke the paper. Leon went back into his room without a sound.

  His parents glanced at his marks and his rank without a word, saying nothing except for a quiet "great" upon seeing his exam result in General Studies. They signed it (miraculously in the right place), gave it back to him and went back to bickering.

  The little black "4" stared back at him mockingly.

  His brother looked up at Vicente from his desk when he went into their room, scribbling nonsense in his exercise book. "Bet you got top of the class like Yao."

  Vicente didn't bother speaking, only shaking his head before flopping soundlessly on his bed and staring at his ceiling light. Part of him wanted to grab his report card, write a "1" next to his rank so maybe his parents would at least react more. But again, maybe they'll act the same whether I get a four or a fourteen.

  He could already imagine his older brother's report card — it was practically the same every year. Huang Jing Yao, it'd read, Form 1A, Rank: First. Seven years of report cards and that first-place spot had never been relinquished.

  From Ling and Yao's bedroom, he could hear his sister singing, probably rehearsing the song for her kindergarten graduation performance. With a sigh, he got up from his bed and left his room.

  Yao opened the door for him, one hand still holding a folder. "You did great this year," he said, "in the top five again."

  He shook his head and walked in, glancing at Yao's paper-covered desk. "You're always the first. I'll never be as good as you."

  His brother gestured to his desk, taking care not to accidentally hit Ling. "That's because all I do is study. Ever since I started secondary school, I've never slept before twelve in the morning!" He laughed. "Unlike me, you actually have a life outside of tests and exams. You're in the baking club and have fun at school. I don't, because all I do is study."

  Ling ended her little performance with a curtsy and turned to Vicente. "I heard that Brother got eighteenth."

  "It's Leon's first year in primary school," Vicente defended, "so he's got to have trouble starting out. Next year, you'll have to go to school with us, so you need to work hard too, okay?"

  She nodded in the way that all five-year-olds nod, jokingly and a sure sign that she hadn't been listening. "Can you listen to me sing?"

  How could he say no?

  Vicente sat down on Yao's desk chair as his sister started to sing again, accompanying her show with dance moves and ended with a bow and a face-splitting smile. "My performance is next week!" She proclaimed, soaking in her brothers' polite applause. "So you have to come and watch!"

  "We will, we will." Yao glanced at the clock on the wall, its hands showing the time to be almost nine o'clock. "Now, it's almost time to go to bed, Ling. You won't be able to sing and dance if you're all tired."

  "Aww." Ling pouted, flopping onto her bed.

  "Say 'goodnight' to Jia Lin."

  Ling stuck her tongue out at Yao, blowing a raspberry. "Goodnight."

  Vicente fought the urge to laugh. "Goodnight, Ling."

  After she'd burrowed under the blankets and drifted off to sleep, Yao beckoned for Vicente to follow him out of the room. He was smiling, but he could see the bags under his eyes and how his shoulders slumped as he leaned against the bedroom door. "I doubt that Mother and Father will take us to Ling's performance."

  "You'll find a way to get there anyway," Vicente said, "or we will. We can sneak into Ling's school to watch her. You, me and Leon. As long as we're back before Mother and Father are home, they won't know a thing."

  Yao smiled patronisingly, reaching to ruffle his hair. "Are you sure we can? After all, Ling's school is quite far away."

  "We'll find a way," He insisted.

  Laughing at his brother, Yao smiled even wider. "Of course we will."

...

  Vicente showed up in Yao's bedroom two days later, holding a map. "Yao," he said, "I figured out how to get to Xishan Kindergarten."

  Wide-eyed, Yao let him into his room and lay the map on his desk, pointing at a circled station. "After school, we can walk to this station and take the Zhonghe-Xinlu Line until here," he pointed at another station, "then switch to the Tamsui-Xinyi Line, take the metro for one more station. After that, it's only a five-minute walk to Xishan."

  "Oh," was all Yao could say, while Vicente swelled with pride at having thought of the plan himself. "This is very clever. Did your class teacher help you?"

  "No, she didn't." He tried his best not to smile. "I took the map from my General Studies textbook and looked up the places in a library book. Nobody helped me."

  It felt good seeing Yao stare at the map, looking prouder than he'd ever been. "It's lovely that you managed to think of this," he said slowly, "but I'm afraid we still can't go to Ling's graduation ceremony."

  He stared at him. "But why not?" He gestured at the map again. "We know how to get to Xishan Kindergarten, and it only takes twenty minutes to get there. You, me and Leon can just go after school, and go home with Ling after the performance."

  Yao bent down to look at Vicente, smiling sadly. "I'm sorry, but we just don't have the time. I have to finish my holiday homework, and I'm sure that with his new tutorial lessons, Leon won't be able to go either."

  "Oh." He felt his heart sink. "All right." He folded up his map and picked it up, slowly making his way out of the bedroom.

  On the way back to his room, he almost knocked over Ling. His younger sister stepped back and smiled at him, bouncing on the balls of her feet as she chirped, "my performance is five days after today!"

  "I know." He tried his best not to sound sullen. "You must be practising very hard for it."

  Ling nodded, even though he doubted that she knew what he meant. "You have to come to watch, okay?"

  And she skipped off, humming a tune. Vicente thought of how much Ling had talked about her performance, how she sang and danced in her room every night and had him, Yao and Leon abandon their work to watch her, then of how none of them would see her on stage.

  Except for him.