Chapter 4

I tied the bag shut again and put it in the gap between the front seats.

“I can’t take it.”

They answered together.

“Yes, you can!”

Blondie glared at me in the rearview mirror.

“It’s not a gift. It’s an investment!”

Dreads agreed.

“Exactly! We’re trying our hand at venture capital. Investing in someone with potential.

“When you graduate from Peking, you pay us back with interest.

“Double… no, triple!

“We’ll definitely come out ahead.”

I looked at them.

They looked at me.

Fiercely.

As though, if I didn’t take the money, they would beat me up right there in the van.

Only then did I gather it up again and carefully count it twice.

Six thousand, one hundred and thirty-four yuan and fifty fen.

I took the black ballpoint pen and little notebook I always carried from my pocket.

“I’ll take it on one condition. I write you an IOU.”

Dreads draped herself over the seat back, leaning halfway into the rear to watch me write.

“Wow. Good students really are different.”

She clicked her tongue in admiration.

“Van’s shaking like this, and your writing still looks printed. Pretty, isn’t it?”

She had barely finished speaking

when Blondie hit the accelerator and drove straight through a huge pothole.

Clunk.

My wrist jolted.

The ballpoint gouged a long, crooked black line across the paper.

Dreads wisely shut up.

Blondie swore.

“Bleeping road! Eight hundred years fixing it and it’s still a wreck!”

I stared at the black line and drew a deep breath.

Ever since I’d put down the first word, I’d been working up my courage.

By the time I finished, I finally managed to ask.

“What… are your names?”

They glanced at each other, then told me.

Blondie’s name was Tang Ruoping.

Dreads was Fan Xiaocao.

I asked exactly which characters they used and solemnly wrote their names in the space for the creditors.

At the bottom, I added—

Borrower: Dou Shiyu.

I looked at the page I’d torn out.

Our three names, which should have had nothing to do with one another, had landed on the same sheet of paper that sweltering summer.

For a moment, I stared.

Then a thought came to me.

Thank you, Dad. Thank you, Mom.

If you hadn’t refused to pay my tuition, called the police, rejected every chance to settle, and insisted I spend a few days in detention,

how could a bookworm who knew nothing but exam questions have met two big sisters like these?