We speak the language of melons in our family. It has been something that Mom and Dad spoke to me since I was born. I speak to the melons all the time when we’re buying food. At Costco, I run to a pile of the watermelons. I press my ears against their hard shells and tap my fingers against them. They answer me in soft baritone tones, telling me that they’re either hollow and broken, or ready to be cut and eaten. The cantaloupes at Sprouts are always angry. How dare they put us at the same price as the honeydews? they say in a crescendo, we are worth more than them. And sometimes Dad laughs at my failure to understand winter melons. He grabs them and flicks a finger against their yellow surface. I do the same, tapping until I can make out the words. They speak in a dialect, he tells me, their responses have a higher pitch compared to other melons.
How can you tell the difference? I ask. I can only understand watermelon and cantaloupe.
You need to speak melon more, Dad says. You’re too busy talking to the same fruits.
◆
I make sure to practice speaking melon at home.
Mom gets mad because it’s not helping me with school. Do your homework, she tells me. But homework is hard, and I go to the backyard every time I can’t do it. In the garden, I dig my feet into the soil, let my toes wiggle with the worms, while I listen to the melons chat. I need more water, the New Centuries say, I need more nutrients. Oh, be quiet, answers the Jade Dew, you’re under the shade, you’ll be okay.
I sit with the melons as they sing, chanting together as I try to repeat their mantras in a low voice. And I tell them everything. How I can’t understand the words at school. How kids laugh behind me and whisper. Sometimes the noises scare me. Metal screeching and scratching from the ceiling when I try to do my schoolwork. The melons tell me it will get better.
We promise it will, they all say in tune, don’t worry. Just have fun for now.
I hear Dad’s footsteps behind me.
He roars and picks me up, kissing my cheeks until I tell him to stop. He puts me down and shows me a new plant he bought. Dad pulls out a long green fruit. I gag and step away, shaking my head as he brings it closer. Some melons don’t look like melons and bitter melons are one of them. Bitter and disgusting. Long and shriveled, like my fingers when I soak too long in the bathtub.
That’s not a melon, I say.
Don’t be mean. He holds it close to my ear.
A chime response. I grab the melon, trying to understand its words.
I can only understand “hi,” I say.
I was the same way. Dad takes the bitter melon. You just need to practice.
Promise?
Yes, Dad says, you’ll get better. It’s the same for school. Those things take time.
I plop down to the dirt and frown. No one talks to me in class.
Look, Dad says, it’ll get better. Once school is over, we can go visit my hometown in Vietnam.
◆
At school, no one speaks melon.
Everyone writes and speaks English. I try to do the work, but I don’t understand the words and writing is harder. I repeat words to myself; it doesn’t sound like the song that Mom sings to me before I go to sleep. My voice pops and cracks, like machines hammering into rocks. I place my hands over my ears as I glance at the moaning computers, the drilling pencil sharpeners, the squeaking markers. It hurts, and I don’t like it. So, I grab my pencils, click and clack against the table, forming language with sound, like the melodies that the melons taught me when they sing with the wind. My classmates get angry. They whisper to each other while one gets the teacher. She takes my hand, telling me to stop, but I answer back with thumps and then sing the words in a high pitch, hoping my personal melon in my backpack will respond in song, but my teacher frowns. She tells me to sit at the bench during recess to think about my actions.
I don’t want to think, I say, I want to talk melon.
I eat my Cheetos beside my melon. I hum to the tune of the Crenshaw. What a beautiful sound, the Crenshaw says, keep singing. You’ll master it in no time.
But the more I sing, the more my classmates laugh at me. They come to the bench, pointing and giggling as other kids circle my melon. I tell them to stop and pull them away, but they take the Crenshaw and run off, kicking my friend until its shell cracks.
◆
I don’t bring my personal melons to school anymore. It sounds scary when my classmates hurt them—like an avalanche of metal dumping into a garbage truck. Instead, I bring baby melons. They’re small and fit inside my pockets. Mom tells me not to bring them, but the melons worry about me. The melons cry a soft song every time my classmates make fun of me or hurt me. They hate seeing my bruises, scratches covered with dirt, and my nose bleeds sometimes when I cry.
Don’t be like them, says the Honeydew, they hurt people.
But I want to make friends. I don’t tell this to the melons because they get might angry.
Hey melon-head, my classmates tease me, patting my head. Do you want to play with us?
I push their hands away and eat my cheese sticks.
I’m getting better at speaking English, so I know they’re making fun of me. I want to go back home. Play in the garden with my cousins. Listen to the birds and frogs singing to me instead of cars. I want to move back to the town where my friends speak melon, where we jumped into rivers catching melons that escaped from the fields. I don’t want to be here anymore.
I always tell this to Mom, but she says, no—this is our home now.
I throw my juice box on the ground. My classmates hold their stomachs, laughing. They leave to play dodgeball, and I step on the box as pink water squirts from the straw.
◆
I wrap my arms around my legs and watch a beetle crawl up my skin.
You are never alone, the Muskmelons say.
They sing with the wind and the leaves rustle, reminding me of rainstorms in the hot summer. And the melons are right. I’m not alone. I have them. I lie on the dirt, flapping my arms and legs back and forth, hoping to make a dirt angel. Above me, Dad smiles and sits next to me. I know why he’s here. I didn’t do my homework or listen to Mom. I just cried and threw my books and pencils on the floor. But homework is hard, and everyone else learns faster than me. Tonight, after dinner, I won’t have any desserts—ice cream with fruit from the gardens—until I finish everything. I sit up and tell him I don’t want to do it.
Let me help you, Dad says.
We go back to the kitchen, and I take out my workbook. I point to the list of words, then to the directions. Dad frowns as he grabs the dictionary and looks up the words, tracing his finger down on one page and to the next.
Do you get it? I ask.
I do, he says, pointing to the directions. I think the assignment wants you to spell out the words five times.
I throw the pencil. No! That’s so hard.
Be patient. Dad points to my workbook. It’s hard for me to learn this too.
Really?
Yes. Let’s learn this together.
We do this for hours. I finish one problem while Dad looks up the words. He tells me what it means in English and then makes me shut my eyes, spelling the words out loud. I don’t like hearing my voice. It sounds like an animal in trouble. But Dad tells me to write down the words five-times, spell them out loud five times, and then another five times with my eyes closed. And I do what he tells me. After a couple of hours, Dad grabs my spelling list to test me. I cover my eyes, trying to remember the sounds of each word.
It doesn’t sound like melons, I say.
I know, but you’ll get used to it. He points to the words on the page. See? You’re getting better.
◆
Dad is right. I am getting better. Sometimes when Mom needs help reading words, I read them to her and explain what they mean. Mom even lets me speak to strangers on the phone: she tells me in melon, and I say it back in English. She gives me a hug, telling me to work harder, so I can do good at school. But I don’t want to.
I know some of the words that the teacher is saying in class now, but my classmates still make fun of me. I go to my desk, and my pencils are missing. My workbook is ripped apart, and I show this to the teacher. She glares at the class, asking how did this happen? No one answers. They just stare. The bell rings, and I grab my lunchbox. I sit on the benches as I place the Baby Honeydew beside me.
It’s so hot in your pocket, Baby Honeydew complains, please put me under your desk. I don’t listen because my classmates circle me, kicking my food to the ground and then stepping on it. They steal my melon and start to kick it.
Stop, I say, my friend will get hurt.
They don’t listen and try to pull it away from me. My fingernails claw into their skin.
It hurts, says the honeydew, tell them to stop!
They don’t stop, and they hold the Baby Honeydew above their heads. They smash it down to the floor.
My friend breaks, and I cover my ears.
Just like when glass is thrown on the road. Broken. Can’t fix.
They laugh, pointing at my dead friend. I jump on them and bite their arms.
◆
I wait for my parents after school.
I sit at my desk, rolling the pencils back and forth as I try to do my homework. But I’m too scared when Mom and Dad come to take me home. They’ll say I can’t hang out with the melons any more or eat fruit salad filled with tiny pieces of orange honeydew and green cantaloupes. Then the teacher points at the door and my parents walk in with a person who can also speak melon like them. She tells them what happened today at school. How I was taken to the principal’s office and to the nurse to clean my bruises. I hurt the other girls and will have to help the lunch ladies during break. I lay my head on the table, looking from the calendars of birthdays to the buzzing ceiling. It’s not my fault. They hurt the melon first. I try to say this to them, but Dad slouches as he listens to the translator.
Mom asks the translator what they can do to help me more.
Speak English more and it will be easier for her to communicate, the teacher says to the translator.
Dad says they don’t want me to forget how to speak melon—it’s our family language.
She still can, my teacher says, but English will help her be successful. It is what everyone uses. We can put her in an ESL class, maybe have her practice in the summer too.
Mom nods, but Dad shakes his head. She doesn’t know anything, Dad whispers to Mom. She will learn and it takes time. Let’s wait and see what happens.
We came here to give her opportunities, Mom says, let’s not take that away. Mom squeezes Dad’s hand. Don’t worry, the melons will still be here.
◆
Mom and Dad don’t speak in melon at home any more. They try not to at least. When I wake up, they say good morning in English. When I want something, they ask in English. When they’re angry at me, they speak in English, but switch back to melon because it is easier. I try to answer them back, and when I go to the garden—all the melons are gone. The only thing left is dirt and patches of grass where they lay.
Sometimes I sit on the dirt, wondering when they will come back and talk to me. I wait and wait, and sometimes I sing the ballad of Canary Melons, hoping they will answer me back. Mom comes to the garden and tells me I’ll see them someday.
I will? I ask, grabbing her hands. They’ll come back?
Only if you improve at school, Mom says.
And will I get to visit their home?
We’ll see. She pushes me to the table and points to my homework. Work hard first.
I do work hard, but the melons don’t come back. Construction workers come and bring blankets of plastic grass and metal flowers. I can’t roll in the dirt or plant melon seeds. Sometimes Mom and Dad fight about it. Dad wants melons, but Mom says to plant different fruit, like strawberries since they can be in pots. And sometimes when I’m with my Mom, people stare or turn around and giggle. Mom tries to talk to people at the cash register in English. They don’t respond. Instead, they narrow their eyes and try not to laugh in front of her. I don’t like this, but Mom pushes me behind her. Her face reddens as she tries to make sure the person in front of her understands her words. I tug on her sleeve and say that I can speak to the cashier.
She wants this in quarters, I say.
The person nods and takes the bill as Mom thanks her. Mom grabs my hand and pulls me to her side.
This is why you need to learn, Mom says. You’ll help Mommy more that way.
◆
I like helping Mom and Dad.
Sometimes when Dad comes home and doesn’t understand a word, I explain it to him. When Mom needs help reading directions, I explain them to her. I only speak the language of melons with them and sometimes at the supermarkets when I visit the melons. I always tell them the good news that’s been happening to me. I tell this to the Golden Melons as Mom tries to decide which apples are the ripest. I have friends now. Before I never talked to my classmates. We just stared at one another—they went to their friends while I sat on the grass by myself, plucking leaves or making flower crowns for my Mom and Dad. I tried to listen to the sounds around me. Screams from the playgrounds, cars zooming, dodge balls plopping up and down, the ground scraping people’s skin.
It’s fun now, I say to the Golden Melons.
And they don’t say anything, but one of them rolls towards me as I say more about school.
But one day, one of my classmates forgot her lunch. She only had a juice box and a tiny bag of carrots the cafeteria lady gave her. I gave her some of my eggrolls. I had too many anyway. I didn’t want to give her food, but Mom says I should always help a person even if I don’t like them. Sorry, she said, and I said sorry too.
Now I’m invited to everything. I play tetherball, swinging the chain around the pole as the metal clicks against steel. I go swimming with them, kicking my legs, listening to the splash as I dive into the water. The murmuring from the fridge when I go buy ice cream. I go to the birthday parties now. The clapping, the singing, the popping of firecrackers, the ripping of the presents as my friends giggle.
The sounds don’t hurt any more.
◆
School is fun now, I tell Dad. I’m not alone anymore.
But Dad just keeps driving. He’s driving really fast because family from his hometown is coming to visit today, and I’m excited. I haven’t seen them for a while. I want to show them my bedroom, my toys, my one hundred percent spelling test. Dad turns around, and I hear loud sirens. I stand on my seat. Red and blue lights shine behind us. Dad grips the steering wheel and tells me to be quiet. The policeman says Dad needs to lower his window, and Dad gives him a shiny card. He looks at it as I breathe on the glass, creating mist. I press my finger to it, drawing pictures. Stick-figure friends. Melons beside them.
Need home, Dad says in English.
The policeman frowns and says, You’re driving too fast.
He’s sorry, I say, standing up on my car seat. My cousins are coming, so he’s excited.
How old are you? the policeman asks.
I’m six. I show him my fingers. Dad won’t do it again. I’ll make sure that he listens.
The policeman laughs. Okay, I’ll let you go for now but drive at the speed limit.
Dad nods and drives off while I sing the chorus of the cantaloupes, tapping my knees as I try to feel the rhythm.
You’re doing it wrong, Dad says.
No, I’m doing it right.
He glances at me. No, It sounds different. The vibration is off.
I sing the tune again, listening to every pitch. It’s not off, I say. It sounds fine to me.
No, listen, Dad says, and he sings.
I close my eyes, humming right after him. That’s what I did, I say as I open my eyes.
It isn’t.
It is. I kick his seat behind him. It is!
Stop that, Dad says, are you trying to get me in trouble? What if the police came again? Dad shakes his head. Enough, I don’t want to deal with this anymore.
But I know them still, I say.
I said enough. Dad glares at me in the rearview mirror. Your cousins are coming. Let’s not ruin the mood.
When we get home, I jump out of the car and run to the house. My Mom, aunts and uncles sit in the backyard. They sit in chairs, talking and eating sliced apples. I run to Mom and wrap my arms around her stomach.
What’s wrong, she asks, and I glance at her and point to Dad.
Nothing, he says, pushing me to my cousin sitting on the fake grass. Go and play with them.
I join my cousins as they talk with their personal watermelons, tapping their skin and pressing their ears close. They tell me to come over and listen to them speak.
They’re singing to us, my cousins say. It sounds like rain.
I sit on the ground and grab one the size of my head. I thump on the skin, closing my eyes while I listen. But I’m distracted by all the noise: car engines grumbling, lawn mowers cutting, even the airplanes zooming across the sky. I press my ears against the watermelon’s skin, concentrating real hard, but I only hear a hollow hum, hum, hum.