After our lesson we go out to the store to wait for Ma. We are supposed to be nice to Mimi Sung, who is our age, but I can never think of a thing to say to that round, beaming face behind the cash register.

"Ah, how's it going?"

"Just fine, thank you," she replies in her prissy way. She's a whiz at making change, can practically figure out what Ma is going to give her before she opens her purse. I watch her plump little hands riffle confidently through the stacks of bills, scoop the coins out of the cash drawer without her having to look down.

"Such a pleasant girl," Ma says in the car. "So helpful to her parents."

But the Oriental kid we really hate is Xiao Lu, who is the reason we get into trouble and can't play with the Katzes for an entire year.

Xiao Lu's father is a math professor, his mother stays at home and does nothing. "Very old world," Ma says. When he was little that strange mother let his hair grow long and put him in dresses to fool the gods into thinking he was a girl so they wouldn't steal him. He's skinny and yellow-colored because he's rarely allowed to play outdoors.

Marty and I call him Pointy Head and Flat Face.

"He looks like he was run over by a truck."

"How can he even see out of those eyes?"

When he really gets on our nerves we call him Girl.

"Get the ball, Girl."

"Bring us some lemonade, Girl."

At the dinner table Aunty Winnie says something to him in Chinese, like "Go do your homework," and he obeys instantly, ducking his head and clambering down from his chair.

Our parents can't tame us. Once a month we drive into New York City to have dinner in Chinatown, where the narrow, winding streets are jammed with short people and funny smells and whose stores I try not to look into when we pass, for fear of seeing pressed duck like hanged men in the window. "Shanghai much worse," Ma assures us. In the restaurant Daddy speaks in Mandarin, stroking characters on his napkin with his Parker fountain pen when the waiter doesn't understand. But the language on the street is Cantonese, where people sound like they're fighting, even when they're not. In the car on the way home my sister and I imitate it, breaking ourselves up. "LO LEE LO GOO," I shout, exaggerating the up and down tones. "GUM GO JEE WOK NA NA NA," Marty gasps back.

"They don't study in Chinese class, so what is this?" Ma asks Daddy.

But we never get scolded: my parents are in too good a mood after going to Chinatown. Daddy has a pile of Chinese newspapers to read in his armchair after dinner, and Ma has stocked up on her movie-star magazines.

It's Chinese New Year and we are going to be on TV. The kidsa"Mimi, Xiao Lu, Marty, and Ia"plus the crew, are crammed into the tiny living room behind the Sung Trading Company where we have Chinese lessons. Our parents are outside in the shopa"I can hear them gabbing to each other in Chinese.

We are going to perform the Dragon Dance. The dragon looks like the one we saw in the Chinese New Year parade in Chinatowna"an enormous wooden head painted mostly green and red and bulging golden eyes without pupils. It has a mane I like a lion's, although it doesn't look like a lion because the head is square. The body is made of cloth, long, with multicolored scales. One kid will get to put on the head and wag it I around ferociously; two more will prance behind, draped in the body. One will be the teaser, who stands in front of the dragon and beckons it to chase them.

"I want to be the teaser," Marty announces. Because we are going to be on TV my sister is wearing her red pullover sweater and red-and-blue-plaid pedal pushers.

The man in charge frowns at her.

The other TV person, a woman, says to the man, "She really is a beautiful child."

"Too short," he says. "We need her for the tail."

Mimi's just smiling in her silly way, like the big-headed wooden dolls they have in the window of the store, and of course Xiao Lu doesn't say a word. I know his mother is standing right outside; from time to time I hear the curtain of wooden beads clicking as Aunty Winnie peeks in.

The way it ends up is this: I am the teaser, Xiao Lu the head, Mimi the front of the body, my sister the back.

The TV man yells, "Ready!" and Uncle Frank, Mimi's father, comes in with his giant tape recorder. He switches it on: bong! bong! bong! Chinese cymbals and some other kind of high-pitched boingy instruments. It sounds as bad as the Cantonese ladies arguing in Chinatown.

"Okay, tease the dragon, honey," the woman tells me, and I hear the camera start to whir.

I begin to walk backward, staring into the glaring golden eyes, reminding myself that it's only old Flat Face behind them. I insert my thumbs into my ears and wiggle my fingers.

"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 firsta"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.

"Your mother tell you about the park sign in Shanghai?"

I shake my head.

"No Chinese and no dogs. You hear that? No Chinese and no dogs. You know what that means?"

I say nothing, kick at a pile of maple helicopters on the sidewalk.

"DISCRIMINATION!" He thunders out the word as if he has just invented it. "In China, in our own country! Your mother and I try for one month to find apartment in California. Look all over town. No room, everyone says. No Orientals allowed. This is what Americans think of us. This is why you have to be twice as good as anybody else."

We walk the rest of the way in silence. Marty and I have been told we cannot watch TV for a month. I wonder what David's punishment will be. His parents must be running out of things to do to him.

In the pharmacy I hand Mr. Kramer the candy we stole in the Baggie that Ma has insisted on so "it still looks new." I have exact change from our allowances to pay for what we ate, and I stack the coins carefully on the counter.

"I'm sorry," I say to Mr. Kramer. That is an American thing, something I learned from TV. No one in our family ever says they are sorry.

My father makes a speech: "I have no explanation for my daughters' behavior. We are not a wealthy family, but there are no thieves." Mr. Kramer peers at me through his bifocals, and I know that I am never going to set foot in that store again.

When we are outside, Daddy says, "If we were in China, maybe your mother and I would not talk to you for a year."

I look at my father, who although he is much younger, walks with his shoulders hunched over like old man Kramer. I picture sticking a leg out and tripping him so he'd crash face-first onto the sidewalk and break his nose. I know it's possiblea"I once saw David do it to one of the younger bad boys.

"We're not in China," I say.

"But you are a Chinese daughter."

We are passing the Cuddys by then, and I imagine the kids with their faces pressed to the porch screen, listening to everything we're saying. Good. They just might learn something.

"You are a Chinese daughter," Daddy repeats. His eyes are as dark as snake holes. "You have shamed me and all my ancestors."

"I wish you would have a stroke and die," I say. I expect my father to turn purple again, I almost want him to, but in the dusk his face tightens and grows very white and he stops walking. I stop too.

He is staring straight ahead, at our little green house, as if he can see through the walls, to Ma washing the dinner dishes and humming along to the radio, to my sister upstairs in bed, her hair spiked on the pillow as she jerks her head from side to side in a half sleep. My father finally turns to me.