Shirley Marr - A Glasshouse of Stars

A Glasshouse of Stars

Shirley Marr

YOUNG ADULT

Fury

Preloved

MIDDLE GRADE

Little Jiang

SIMON & SCHUSTER BOOKS FOR YOUNG READERS

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This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the authors imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Text 2021 by Shirley Marr

Jacket illustration 2021 by Cornelia Li

Jacket design by Laurent Linn 2021 by Simon & Schuster, Inc.

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Interior design by Hilary Zarycky

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Marr, Shirley, author.

Title: A glasshouse of stars / Shirley Marr.

Description: First edition. | New York : Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers, [2021] | Based on the authors childhood experiences. | Audience: Ages 812. | Audience: Grades 46. | Summary: Inheriting First Uncles home after he dies tragically and unexpectedly, eleven-year-old Meixing and her family immigrate to the New Land, where it will take all of Meixings resilience and bravery to finally find her place of belonging in this new world.

Identifiers: LCCN 2020050888 (print) | LCCN 2020050889 (ebook) | ISBN 9781534488830 (hardcover) | ISBN 9781534488854 (ebook)

Subjects: CYAC: Emigration and immigrationFiction. | ImmigrantsFiction. | Resilience (Personality trait)Fiction. | Belonging (Social psychology)Fiction. | Culture shockFiction.

Classification: LCC PZ7.1.M37265 Gl 2021 (print) | LCC PZ7.1.M37265 (ebook) | DDC [Fic]dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020050888

LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020050889

Y ou have arrived for a better life at the New House in the New Land. It has been a long journey, the first time youve ever been on an airplane. It was nerve-racking when they checked the suitcases at the airport, even though your family has next to no possessions, let alone anything to hide. You didnt know what big meant until you saw the city with the glass towers that touched the sky, the suburbs with houses so close together. You tell yourself everything is going to be fine. The hardest part is over. You made it.

Youre all too scared to go inside. First Uncle could be in there. He insisted on a funeral as per the local customs of this landone that possibly didnt include the ritual of telling him he was now dead, so he might have come home unaware.

Ma Mas knuckles are white from grasping the yellow protective talisman with both hands. Ba Ba pretends superstitions are for ignorant people. He inserts the key into the door. He doesnt turn the handle.

The rag doll that Ma Ma made out of an old rice sack is clasped tightly in your armsyou are much too old for her anymore, but shes all you have. You stare up at the huge white columns propping up the crumbly tofu triangle of a roof. The long drop down to earth from the winding stone staircase you have climbed creates the same scary feeling in your stomach.

You turn instinctively toward Ma Mas side as you used to do, to bury your face inside the folds of her dress. But now that she is huge with child, she has taken to gently nudging you away, so you pull away before she does.

I didnt expect it to be a mansion, says Ma Ma.

Houses in the New Land are all supposed to be big. I have been warned, replies Ba Ba.

You stare up, disorientated. You dont know if the house is truly too big or if its only big because youre used to living in a cramped space.

Long fingers of cactus reach all the way up to the second floor, covering the walls like hands on a face. Balanced on the roof at the very top is a third story, a single room with a semicircular window like an open eye.

A light inside the window flickers on and then off again. A wink. No, it is just your imagination. But what a strange thing to imagine. You look over at your parents, but they dont seem to have noticed.

The cold winter wind blows, an icy chill that none of you have ever felt before. The amber pane in the middle of the front door is frosted and blind. Ba Ba rattles at the handle, which appears to be stuck. Suddenly, it gives way and you all tumble into a musty darkness.

It takes your eyes a while to adjust. Soon you realize you are staring at a world made completely out of dark brown wood and motes of dust that float past your nose like magic.

Ba Ba turns the hallway light on, and everything is a yellow glow. He takes the talisman off Ma Ma and sticks it outside, above the front doorframe, where the wind flaps it all about. You think the protection spell written on it is for babies, because magic is childish, but you are relieved all the same.

Inside the house, on the brown brick wall facing the entrance, Ba Ba places an octagon with a piece of mirror in the middle called a bagua. To reflect bad luck away. Later he will go outside, light incense sticks, and thank First Uncle for your new home.

Ma Ma is told to go straight to the bedroom and have a lie-down, even though she protests. She says she will have time enough to rest after the baby is born, because for a whole month Ma Ma will not be allowed to do anything. Not even have a shower, even if she complains her hair is oily or her armpits are stinky, not one.

The only thing she will be allowed to do after the birth is rest. Your Aunties told you that there is nothing more important than looking after the babyand why would Ma Ma want to be doing anything else, anyway? That, and the fact that Ma Ma has to eat lots of stewed pork knuckle. Ginger and sweet black vinegar, too, but mostly pork knuckle.

This is how things are. Like the bagua on the wall. Like the fact your parents seem much more relieved now that the bagua is up. Like the fact you have come to this New Land to start a new and better life. You dont question it.

You have to be a good girl.

Free to explore by yourself, you find the kitchen is completely orange. The bathroom is lime green. The rest of the house, though, is that dark wooden brown. You dont think these are the prettiest colors in the world, but theyre the colors New House is, and you are determined to get along. Because when you look down at your skin, you know it is darker than the people in this New Land, and when you see the plait of hair over your shoulder, you know nobody here has coarse black hair like yours. Maybe you look frightening and different.