“More,” says the man.

I stick out my tongue. I know I look ugly.

“That’s good,” says the man, “but you, the head, let’s see some more action. Jump up and down. All of you.”

The gaudy head inclines toward me slightly, and the floor quivers from the thumping of three pairs of sneakered feet.

At six o’clock that night our family crowds around the television set in the living room. They do all the other news first—national, local, until it’s nearly six-thirty. Finally: “And tonight marks a special celebration for some members of our community. This is the beginning of the year of the horse according to the Chinese calendar.” And there we all are, in black and white. All you can see of me is my back, braids flopping up and down. The camera pans onto the dragon’s head, which is wagging ponderously with Xiao Lu’s corduroys baggy beneath, and then down the length of the body. It lingers a moment on the tail, which gives a mischievous little wiggle. Through the Chinese music, we can hear people laughing. And that’s it, it’s the end of the newscast.

“I was great,” says Marty. “Ma, wasn’t I great?”

“Very realistic. Just like dragon.”

Daddy doesn’t say anything at all, although I can tell he is pleased we have done something Chinese.

One Saturday afternoon a month Xiao Lu comes over to our house while his mother goes to her mah-jongg club. Our mother doesn’t play mah-jongg. “Gambling’s waste of time,” she says. “Just look at your aunt and uncle.”

“What about them?” I ask.

“They don’t even own their own house. Track, sports, you name it. Your uncle has no control.”

Daddy quizzes Xiao Lu in Chinese. Xiao Lu answers with his head hanging.

“Hah,” our father says, pleased. He says to us: “You treat him like an elder brother. With respect.”

This one afternoon, the afternoon we get into trouble, the three of us are out in the backyard performing a play. It’s our own version of Captain Hook, where I’m the evil captain and Marty the princess, and Xiao Lu the good captain who’s supposed to come and save her. Xiao Lu is just standing there looking miserable, not saying his lines.

“Whatcha doin’?”

I look up to see David Katz lounging up against the outside of our fence. I’m surprised to see him, he usually ignores us when Xiao Lu is around. He says: “Hey, I got some cherry bombs. Let’s set them off on Witch Dugan’s front porch. It’ll scare her something wicked.”

“Why don’t you just do it yourself?” I ask.

“Stupid. There has to be a lookout.”

My sister, lashed with clothesline to the dogwood tree, rolls her eyes. “You’re the one who’s stupid. All she’s gonna do is call your parents anyway. She’ll know it’s you.”

“It’s him, isn’t it?” David glares at Xiao Lu. Then he presses his palms together like he’s praying and gives a little bow. “Ah so.” He walks backward down his driveway and around the corner of the garage till he’s out of sight, bowing with every step. The fact that it’s David doing it makes me queasy in a way it never has before.

Xiao Lu gazes after David, cowering to the ends of his hair, which stands up softly on his long head. Then he puts his plastic silver sword down on the picnic table and hunches his shoulders. I feel like strangling him.

“Now what’s the matter?”

“I don’t feel like playing anymore.”

“You want to watch TV?”

“Okay,” he whispers into the collar of his oxford shirt. It’s the kind everybody at school makes fun of, with a strip sewn to the back. Fruit loops, the kids say, and pull till it rips.

“Go inside,” I tell him. “My mother will give you tea and plum candy.”

I untie Marty and we go to find David, who is pitching pebbles into the goldfish pond. “Let’s go to Kramer’s,” he says, a little too casually. I know right away what he means. Kramer’s Pharmacy on Whitney Avenue is David’s favorite shoplifting target.

The three of us saunter down Coram Drive and make a left onto Whitney Avenue, past St. Cecilia’s, which has open doors for Saturday mass. The bad boys are all Catholic. I wonder if making Chinese eyes at someone is a sin, and if they have to confess it to the priest in his screened box.

In the drugstore we wander around, waiting for old man Kramer to get busy with someone’s prescription in the back of the store. David is a pro. Once he even stole a steak from the supermarket. He goes first, a Mars bar in his sock, and then watches Marty and me from a nearby aisle. I grab blindly, but my sister’s brow wrinkles, choosing. Afterward, I go to loiter in front of the birthday cards until Marty comes up and pinches the skin under my arm. Mr. Kramer is back in his regular place, by the front cash register. As we come up, he asks us what we would like.

“Just these Neccos, please,” I say in my politest voice.

“Remember to count your money,” Mr. Kramer quavers, as he always does.

My knees are shaking, I hope he can’t see. I tell myself that people think that Oriental kids, especially girls, never do anything bad.

“Piece a cake,” David says, his mouth full of caramel goo, as we walk home.

I’m still worried. “Do you think he saw us?”

“Nah. Kramer’s blind as a bat.” Marty offers me half a Nestle’s Crunch bar. I eat it, along with some Neccos, although I’m not hungry.

When we get past the L-bend, the Lus’ old beige Rambler is pulling away from the curb in front of our house. Daddy is standing on the front porch.

“YOU BOTH COME HERE.”

“Oh-oh,” David says cheerfully, his mouth still full. “See you later.”

In the living room Daddy begins to pace, hands clasped behind his back. I’m trying, unsuccessfully, to think of convincing reasons we would have left Xiao Lu by himself.

“So what you have in your pockets?”

“Candy.” I am not a good liar, and worse when surprised into it.

“Let’s see!” Daddy’s eyes have stretched into menacing slits like the Peking opera masks he gave me for my birthday. I reach into my pocket and put everything on the coffee table: the half-eaten roll of Necco wafers, the three packs of Juicy Fruit I stole.

Our father turns to Marty. “Now you.”

My sister gives me a pained look and then jerks her T-shirt out of her jeans and two Hershey’s almond bars and one strawberry Bonomo Turkish taffy come flying out to skid over the carpet.

“You pick it up and put on table!”

My sister sighs and as slowly as possible does what she has been told.

Daddy’s face has turned purple. He points at me. “How did you get this candy?”

I’m unable to speak.

He looks at Marty. “How did you get?”

My sister articulates each word: “It’s none of your beeswax.”

Daddy is stumped, I can see that, but he knows one thing: she’s being disrespectful. “You don’t talk to your elders like that. You never, never talk to your elders like that.” He reaches up and strikes my sister across the face with the flat of his hand. Marty topples backward and lands on the floor.

That she falls surprises me; I want to tell her to get up, he’s a weakling, he’s nothing. But my sister keeps lying there and begins to shriek. Ma comes flying out of the kitchen, sprinkling water drops, and bends down over Marty, who has suddenly quit screaming and is beginning to gag. All the candy she has eaten comes up onto the carpet in a yellowish brown puddle. I think I might vomit too.

“Mau-mau, it’s all right.” Ma holds my sister’s hair away from her face and glares up at my father. “I tell you not to hit!”

Daddy has already turned away, heading toward the stairs, stiff-legged, as if he has no knees.

Later we learn that it was old man Kramer himself who witnessed our crime in the convex security mirror hanging in the corner behind the pharmacy counter. After we left, boldly jangling the chimes, he phoned both our houses.

My sister is put to bed and after dinner I have to go alone with Daddy back to Kramer’s. My father is quiet all through the meal, but as soon as the front door closes behind us he begins to talk. Daddy talk.