Steam rose from the soy milk of breakfast carts. The first street vendors were rolling out their tarps, setting up displays of plastic trinkets, fake handbags, crate after crate of bootleg movies. Alva nodded to the DVD man, who raised a cigarette in silent salute. With My Chemical Romance blaring from her earbuds, Alva could almost forget she was walking to school at 7 a.m. on a Monday morning, away from the apartment she now shared with the strange man.<\/p>\n
Pirated CDs and DVDs were her lifeline to adolescence across the Pacific. Over the years Alva had amassed a wealth of them, tenyuan discs she and Sloan purchased in bundles from street vendors, iridescent soundtracks and tales of blond cheerleaders and Upper East Side parties, loners and stoners and prom. She coiled her earpods and hid them in her pocket before she reached the gates of Mincai Experimental School, where no electronics were allowed. She straightened her Communist Young Pioneers red kerchief and joined the swarm of kids in the same hideous yellow-and-green polka-dot tracksuits. Alva silently cursed the sadistic uniform designer for the Shanghai public school system, this expert on neutering hormonal yearnings. For the same reason, hair could not hang loose on girls, lest the boys be distracted. A row of Discipline Delegates lined the school entrance, ready to write up any student who exhibited the slightest deviation from the appearance rulebook.<\/p>\n
Alva slunk dejectedly toward her classroom, Nine (1). She\u2019d been nominated as a Homework Delegate this semester: a shit job. It meant turning a blind eye to the frenzied copying sweeping through the classroom at 7:43 a.m., collecting the booklets at 7:45 a.m., reporting any homework stragglers by 8:00 a.m. Alva\u2019s best friend in the class, Li Xinwei, was one of the few who enjoyed such duties. Li Xinwei wore a badge with three red stripes, meaning she was a school-level captain of the Communist Young Pioneers. Every morning she helped Alva file through the rows and collect the booklets.<\/p>\n
Li Xinwei was already at her desk.\u201cWas it that bad?\u201d she asked after one look at Alva.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s moved in.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cTo your mother\u2019s bedroom?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYeah. And there\u2019s pee on the toilet seat now.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cPlease don\u2019t tell me that.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd he wears long underwear around. Instead of turning up the heat. He says that\u2019s what they do in northern winters.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cMaybe he\u2019s trying to save money.\u201d<\/p>\n
They started filing through the rows. \u201cBut he\u2019s rich,\u201d Alva said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThird strike this month, Zhang Shao,\u201d Li Xinwei announced to a cowering girl. Then she shrugged at Alva. \u201cWell, he does own the place.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHe does.\u201d Alva sighed as she put an X over Zhang Shao\u2019s name.<\/p>\n
They had come to the desk of Gao Xiaofan, a boy who was asleep every morning until one of them poked him with a pencil. Gao Xiaofan was the tallest boy in class and played basketball during lunch break. He returned with sweat-matted hair and visible veins on his forearms. That made him the closest thing Mincai had to a jock, albeit a renegade one. Gao Xiaofan was always summoned to the teachers\u2019 office. He hung out with rich boys who snuck Game Boys into school and were rumored to drink and get into fights.<\/p>\n
Alva knocked on Gao\u2019s desk, right next to his head. His eyes opened, filmy.<\/p>\n
\u201cHomework,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Gao Xiaofan closed his eyes. \u201cAnother strike,\u201d Li Xinwei said. \u201cYou\u2019re hanging by next to nothing, Gao Xiaofan.\u201d He stayed slumped, ignoring them. His shoulders filled out the yellow-and-green uniform. When Li Xinwei wasn\u2019t looking, Alva quickly erased the X next to Gao\u2019s name.<\/p>\n
*<\/p>\n
Only three subjects mattered for the Big Test\u2014Chinese, math, and English. This was ninth grade, the last grade in the Chinese middle school system, which served little purpose besides yearlong prep for zhongkao, the high school entrance exam.<\/p>\n
The teachers made deals so that the day\u2019s art class turned into math practice, PE into English cram sessions, and geography into double Chinese. Today they were reading Ba Jin\u2019s \u201cStarry Night,\u201d about the author\u2019s journey at sea, the night silent and soft as he stared at the sky above. As they read aloud in unison, Alva closed her eyes and imagined being on the dark ocean, floating toward the greater world, away from the overcrowded classroom.<\/p>\n
During the last period, Ms. Song, who was also Nine (1)\u2019s homeroom teacher, walked in with a stack of graded history exams. She returned them by reading each score aloud, from highest to lowest. Alva got a 92. Four points had been deducted from a multiple-choice question she\u2019d been sure she\u2019d gotten right. It read:<\/p>\n
Why<\/strong> did<\/strong> the<\/strong> Japanese<\/strong> capitulate<\/strong> during<\/strong> WWII?<\/strong><\/p>\n a) The American atomic bombs Alva had, diplomatically, circled d<\/em>. But Ms. Song was now explaining the correct answer was c<\/em>, and c<\/em> only. Alva seethed through the rest of class, snapping into alertness when the bell rang, and Ms. Song held them for additional announcements.<\/p>\n \u201cSchool authorities are urging anyone with information on the circulator of corrupt materials to come forward.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cHentaiLord,\u201d someone whispered, and the class broke into murmurs.<\/p>\n \u201cThere will be consequences for all who are found to have kept silent,\u201d Ms. Song said somberly.\u201cAnd don\u2019t pack up yet,\u201d she added before nodding to the math teacher, who\u2019d come in with another round of practice exams.<\/p>\n *<\/p>\n It was already dark by the time they left school. Li Xinwei\u2019s compound was called the Age of Romance, while Alva lived in the Garden of Heavenly Peace. All around were towering residential buildings with names like Prosperous and Beautiful Family and Lavish Years of United Oceans. A banner outside the compounds read \u201cSocialism with Chinese Characteristics,\u201d but in this neighborhood there was little discernible socialism and lots of capitalist imports\u2014an outdoor mall, a Carrefour supermarket, Nike stores, private gyms.<\/p>\n \u201cThey\u2019re serious about hunting down HentaiLord,\u201d Alva said to Li Xinwei as they walked by a breast-beauty spa promising massages and ointments for \u201cfuller, softer chests.\u201d As always, her friend looked away from the foreign model\u2019s d\u00e9colletage on the storefront poster.\u201cYou think they know?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThey think it\u2019s a boy,\u201d Li Xinwei said.<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s so sexist. As always, they underestimate us.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt wasn\u2019t us, it was you<\/em>.\u201d Li Xinwei\u2019s eyes were narrow.<\/p>\n Li Xinwei was the only person who knew Alva was HentaiLord. Earlier in the semester, Alva had gone down an internet rabbit hole of Naruto<\/em> fan fiction and found a trove of pornographic links. The panels were full of wet, slobbery breasts and massive veined penises. Alva had made a fake username, HentaiLord, and posted all the porn links on their class Baidu forum. The next day every boy in class was freaking out, asking who HentaiLord was with feverish reverence. At first it was hilarious. Then some Goody-Two-shoes girls told the teachers, and school authorities began a panicked hunt for the \u201ccorrupter.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhy did you do it?\u201d Li Xinwei had wailed when Alva told her. She took pride in her three-striped badge, the symbol of the captain of the Communist Young Pioneers, and the captain was supposed to report all wrongdoing to the school discipline officer, Supervisor Liu.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s only a little crack in the routine,\u201d Alva had said, shrugging. \u201cWe deserve a diversion.\u201d<\/p>\n What she didn\u2019t say was how alien and violent those sex scenes had seemed to her, and posting the links felt like an assertion of power, turning her unease into the thrill of disseminating the forbidden. She had no idea how close those nasty hentai comics were to the real thing and hoped they weren\u2019t. Sex education didn\u2019t exist at their school, for that would imply sex existed, and that was the last thing Mincai wanted their students thinking about.<\/p>\n \u201cLet\u2019s go to the Starbucks,\u201d Alva said. They\u2019d all opened on the square in recent years\u2014a Starbucks, a McDonald\u2019s, a KFC, and a Subway. But Li Xinwei said,\u201cIt\u2019s too expensive. And my dad won\u2019t let me drink coffee. Let\u2019s go to FamilyMart.\u201d<\/p>\n The FamilyMart was overrun by kids in uniforms and smelled like fish ball stew.\u201cIf I were you, I\u2019d surf the web less and focus on the zhongkao,\u201d Li Xinwei said, examining a box of matcha chocolate sticks.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m dying from all the practice tests. Aren\u2019t you?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cNo,\u201d Li Xinwei said. \u201cThat\u2019s the difference between the strong and the weak. I can\u2019t allow myself to think like that.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cRight.\u201d Alva filled a paper cup with brown broth and shrimp ball brochettes. \u201cHuadong No. 2 High School, overseas high-school exchange, then Oxbridge.\u201d<\/p>\n Li Xinwei had been obsessed with Oxbridge ever since receiving the purple Oxford English textbooks in first grade. She still loved repeating after the British-accented tapes, echoing the children with foreign names: Alice, Kitty, Ben. Emigration was an all-consuming, silent fever in Shanghai. Many of their richer classmates planned to apply abroad for college, too, though few said it out loud.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd you\u2019ll end up in America,\u201d Li Xinwei said defensively.<\/p>\n \u201cMy mom wouldn\u2019t move back, even before she was married. Now, with Lu Fang . . . it\u2019s hopeless.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYou always see the bad side of things.\u201d \u201cWhat\u2019s the good side?\u201d<\/p>\n The bell jingled as they exited FamilyMart. Li Xinwei shrugged.\u201cMy dad spends half his paycheck on New Oriental supplemental classes, Alva. I share a bedroom with my grandma. Is it that bad to have a rich stepdad?\u201d<\/p>\n *<\/p>\n When she came home to Lu Fang\u2019s empty apartment, Alva turned on all the lights, then dialed up the heat to maximum. Burn, burn, burn. It was Lu Fang\u2019s money, and no one else was home to care.<\/p>\n She dropped her backpack on the floor and surveyed the space she used to think was hers. The apartment wasn\u2019t only cold in temperature. It was also the decor\u2014nude white walls, spindly redwood furniture, a scratchy navy couch that belonged to an office lobby. Nothing looked cheap, but nothing felt like home. Yet two years ago, when they\u2019d first moved in, Alva had been grateful for all the space, for a bed with legs, for her own private room, for a nonsquatting toilet. It didn\u2019t matter that they didn\u2019t have enough belongings to fill the rooms, to decorate. We<\/em> get to live here? <\/em>She hadn\u2019t believed their luck.<\/p>\n Alva was sprawled on the couch doing homework, the canned laughter of Friends<\/em> blaring on the flat-screen TV, when the key turned in the lock. It was Lu Fang, coming home from work. \u201cYou\u2019re here,\u201d Lu Fang mumbled, as if she could be anywhere else.<\/p>\n \u201cWhere\u2019s my mom?\u201d \u201cA hair appointment.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cOh.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhat are you watching?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cNothing.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s a little loud,\u201d he said. He turned down the thermostat. \u201cIs in front of the TV the best place for homework?\u201d<\/p>\n Alva turned off the TV. After that, they sat without speaking until Sloan returned, her long blond hair blown out like a mermaid\u2019s. \u201cDinner!\u201d she announced too loudly and cheerfully. She\u2019d brought takeout from a nearby restaurant, mu\u2019er mushrooms swimming in oil with tenderized meat of unknown provenance. \u201cWant to set the table, Alva?\u201d Sloan asked.<\/p>\n \u201cI have homework,\u201d Alva said and took the white polyester container to her room.<\/p>\n She could hear the ceramic bowls clinking on the dining table. She opened her laptop, an old Lenovo ThinkPad Lu Fang had given her after the engagement, and logged on to QQ messenger. Gao Xiaofan was on there as \u7b11\u50b2\u6c5f\u6e56, Smiling and Proud Wanderer, after the Jin Yong novel. His little dot shone green. She clicked on his name.<\/p>\n HentaiLord: are you going to the class trip<\/p>\n \u7b11\u50b2\u6c5f\u6e56: depends. What is it?<\/p>\n HentaiLord: ice-skating<\/p>\n \u7b11\u50b2\u6c5f\u6e56: there\u2019s no ice in shanghai HentaiLord: it\u2019s at the mall, stupid<\/p>\n She\u2019d started talking to Gao on QQ about a month ago, after HentaiLord had become a household name at Mincai. Not once had Gao Xiao-fan talked to Alva in real life, but she\u2019d known he would respond to a fellow rebel. And he did.<\/p>\n \u7b11\u50b2\u6c5f\u6e56: will you be there?<\/p>\n HentaiLord: Maybe, maybe not<\/p>\n \u7b11\u50b2\u6c5f\u6e56: who are you? I promise I won\u2019t tell<\/p>\n There was a rap at the door and Alva slammed the ThinkPad shut. It was only her mother, poking her head in.\u201cWe\u2019re gonna watch a movie,\u201d Sloan said. \u201cI<\/em> Am<\/em> Legend.<\/em> It comes out next month in America. Wanna join?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cNo, thank you,\u201d Alva said. \u201cI\u2019ve already seen it.\u201d She didn\u2019t turn around and the door closed behind her with a soft, disappointed clink.<\/p>\n __________________________________<\/p>\n
\nb) The threat of a Soviet land invasion
\nc) The relentless courage of the Chinese Communist Party
\nd) All of the above<\/p>\n