STATIC; JR [2]

5.7

Felix was soft when we approached the kitchen, somehow so suddenly desperate for help it changed his personality. Andy's grandmother had been working swiftly in the restaurant and when we all bustled in through the back door, she grew impatient and difficult to talk to. 

Felix tried to reason with her and he spoke about Andy, trying to use that as an emotional connection between them, but it had the opposite effect and it drove her away. She had told him to leave and barely even offered me a glance; she was convinced I had something to do with Andy's disappearance and refused to acknowledge me. 

I felt defeated; there was nothing I could say to make it better. I was overcome with guilt and it nearly ruined my composure. I held my breath as Felix began to gently argue with her, make promises I wasn't so sure he would be able to keep. 

She waved her hands around, pointed towards Jake and winced at his sickly appearance. Felix and Sam had set him down on an empty chair against the wall, allowing him to rest his head against it; Sam had stayed with him and Saskia lingered beside him while Felix and I decided it would be best for us to approach the woman. 

She asked questions and made statements about the boys and shooed away our request for her help. I kept looking back at Jake, checking he was still alive while Nai Nai droned on. She mentioned something about respect and then made distressed comments about Andy. She finally met my eyes; anger and loss and guilt clouding the bare misery in her gaze. 

It made me snap - made me snap so hard I started speaking Chinese. 

It caught her off guard but I had her attention and she stalled because of it, ghost of a grimace on her face when she looked away. I had her. 

She sighed at me, forgiving. "Okay, show me." She said, placing the knife on the bench and wiping her hands on a dishcloth before ushering for Jake to come over to the other side of the kitchen. Sam and Felix rushed to get him on the bench she had motioned to and when they set him down he groaned out long and guttural. He didn't want to show her and it was obvious on his face, but Sam grabbed his arm and lifted the sleeve to reveal the cracked dirt that his skin had molded into. 

Andy's grandmother mumbled something under her breath, closely examining the limb before tenderly raising his eyelids, one at a time and with each came a degrading sound she made with a single click of her tongue. 

"Do you know what's wrong with him?" Felix asked, his face flushed and his lips raw from all the anxious biting. Her deep concentration stirred Felix; he wasn't sure whether or not it was a good thing. 

She clicked her tongue again, but this time it was at him. "Silly boy, it's obvious." Felix didn't respond, waiting in silence for her to elaborate; the reason she gave brought us even more confusion. She turned to me and held Jake's hand in the air, grave tone to her Chinese words. I tried to make sense of what she was saying but I didn't know how to interpret it. I wondered whether I was taking it too literal. 

Maybe I hadn't heard her correctly. "Too much Earth?" I echoed, eyebrows raised in question. She assured me with a firm nod, touching his cheek and whispering to herself while the others looked to me for direction. "She said this is bad, we have to fix it."  

Sam, exasperated, threw his hands in the air. "How are we supposed to do that?" I barely registered he'd spoken as Nai Nai continued to spew words at me. I did my best to translate, but she'd never spoken to me this fast before. 

My eyes were squinted and I held my arm out toward Felix, fingers flat in his direction as I spoke to him while listening to her. "Lots of earth, very bad... difficult to mend his heath." In my peripheral vision I saw Felix waving urgently, like he didn't quite understand and needed to know more. I cancelled his movements with a hard jut of my wrist and he stopped instantly. Nai Nai pointed to the ground and shook her head, then stretched her finger up toward the ceiling with a hopeful nod, all while still spitting Chinese at me. 

Then finally, she stopped. It took a few seconds for me to fully understand her seemingly ancient concept but when I did, I trusted she was right. 

"She's telling me that earth is balanced by water and that Jake is unbalanced." I spoke quickly with little emotion to my words; it was hard to focus. "We have to get him to water." 

Sam and Felix hoisted Jake into their arms and then shuffled to the door on Nai Nai's command, but before I could follow them out of the kitchen, she stopped me. 

"Who is that girl?" She questioned me, eyes narrowed suspiciously as she watched Saskia hold the heavy door open for the three boys. There was this strange and unsettling tension to her stare, it put me off. I didn't say much, just told her that she was new to the school and we didn't know a lot about her. The way Nai Nai shook her head sent a wave of worry rolling through my stomach. She looked at me, dead in the eyes, only to speak low and thoughtful. "Trouble. You all stay away from her; too much earth."