In the kitchen, the rice cooker hissed as steam rose in puffs. Lian sat at the table with his notebook open, pretending to study English vocabulary while his mother chopped garlic, her motions sharp and practiced. The only sounds were the rhythmic tap of the knife and the low murmur of Chinese news playing on her cracked phone screen.
He looked up from his notebook. "妈,我可以去 Jamie 的家明天吗?"(Mom, can I go to Jamie's house tomorrow?)
His mother paused, wiping her hands on her apron. "Jamie 是谁?她是中国人吗?"(Who is Jamie? Is she Chinese?)
He shook his head. "不是.她是美国人.我的朋友."(No. She's American. My friend.)
A frown pinched at the corners of her mouth, and for a second, Lian wondered if she'd say no. But then she turned back to the cutting board and said, "要小心."(Be careful.)
It was the closest thing to permission he was going to get.
Lian smiled faintly and wrote another fake vocabulary word in his notebook. He'd been doing that more often—making up words when he didn't know the real ones. He wrote:shifturn — someone who doesn't belong to one place, or one language, or one truth.
That night at dinner, his father came home late. The front door slammed, and his heavy work boots echoed down the hall. Lian's shoulders tensed instinctively.
"Hey," his dad muttered as he passed, not really looking at them. He dropped his bag by the couch and turned on the TV. Lian's mom stirred the soup in silence.
After a few minutes, she asked softly, "他今天累吗?"(Is he tired today?)
Lian paused. He could've told her the truth: that his father barely looked at them anymore, that he never asked about school, that Lian didn't know if the man even noticed when he wasn't in the room.
But instead, he said, "他说他很喜欢你煮的汤."(He said he really likes the soup you made.)
His mother's shoulders relaxed. She smiled, just a little.
Lian picked at his rice.
Sometimes he lied to protect her.Sometimes he lied to protect himself.But mostly, he lied because the truth felt like a language no one in his family really spoke anymore.
At school the next day, he noticed something strange.
Ms. Devon, the strictest teacher in the seventh grade, paused when she passed him in the hallway. Her face was sharp and tired, with eyes like frozen marbles. She always seemed to be glaring, even when she wasn't. Lian had long ago decided she was a spider—cold, hidden, patient, waiting to catch you in a mistake.
But today, when their eyes met, the animal around her seemed different.
Flickering. Shimmering. Changing.
He blinked.
No, there was still something angular and precise about her. But now there was softness underneath it too. Not quite a spider. Maybe… a crane?
The thought unsettled him. Could animals change? Could people?
In English class, he sat beside Jamie. She doodled spirals in the margins of her worksheet and kept nudging his notebook with her elbow like she was bored out of her mind.
He looked down at her page. "You didn't answer any of the questions."
"I answered the important one," she whispered, pointing to where she'd written in huge letters:What does it mean to belong?
He stared at the sentence. "That wasn't the question."
"Maybe not out loud," she said with a grin.
He looked at his own worksheet. Suddenly, the vocabulary exercise felt meaningless.
What did it mean to belong?
In China, he was the American cousin with messy Mandarin.In America, he was the Chinese kid with a funny accent and dyed hair.At home, he was the translator.At school, he was invisible.
He didn't know where he belonged. Or if he ever had.
That afternoon, they walked home together. The clouds above them were thick, and the sidewalks shimmered with puddles. Jamie kicked one and laughed when it splashed her boots.
"I saw something weird this morning," Lian said suddenly. "Ms. Devon… her animal changed."
Jamie tilted her head. "What do you mean?"
"She was always a spider. But today, I saw something different. It was like… she had wings."
Jamie was quiet for a second. Then she said, "Maybe she has both. Maybe we all do."
That thought struck him hard—like a breath he hadn't realized he was holding.
"You think people can be more than one thing?" he asked.
Jamie looked up at the sky. "I think people are always more than they seem."
When he got home, his parents were arguing again.
His father's voice was low and sharp. His mother's voice was higher, faster, desperate. Lian slipped past them, up the stairs, pretending not to understand.
But he did.
They were arguing about money. About missed phone calls. About who had sacrificed more to come here.
He shut his bedroom door and sat on his bed. His head buzzed.
He didn't need to look at his father to know what animal he saw. A boar—stubborn, loud, heavy-footed, pushing forward without ever asking why.
And his mother? She had always been a crane. Graceful, but burdened. Always moving, never at rest.
And what was he?
He went to the mirror and stared.
He saw his dyed hair growing out at the roots. His tired eyes. His small shoulders.
But no animal.
Nothing shimmered.
Nothing shifted.
"Why can't I see it?" he whispered.
Later that night, he sat on the floor with his mother, helping fold laundry. They didn't speak much. They rarely needed to.
But suddenly, she said, "你知道你爸爸不是坏人."(You know your father's not a bad man.)
Lian didn't answer.
She touched his hand gently. "我们都在学习怎么成为家庭."(We're all learning how to be a family.)
Lian folded a shirt in silence. He wanted to scream. To say, "But he doesn't even try. He doesn't see me."Instead, he said nothing.
But the words echoed in his chest.
That night, he dreamed of animals.
They were all gathered in a circle: a panda, a spider, a fox, a crane, and others he didn't recognize. They all turned to him at once, waiting.
But he didn't know what they wanted. He opened his mouth to speak—to ask—but no sound came out.
Then he looked down and saw something strange: he had paws. And wings. And a long flicking tail. His reflection in a pool of water showed a creature he didn't recognize. Something not yet finished. Something still changing.
He woke up gasping.
The only word in his mind was:shifturn.