Page 5 of If You Could See the Sun
Mr. Murphy makes a signal with his hand and the projector comes on, filling the screen behind him with familiar names and numbers and easily recognizable school logos. Acceptance rates.
According to the PowerPoint, over 50 percent of last year’s graduating class were accepted into Ivy Leagues or Oxbridge.
A few students in the audience murmur in amazement—most likely this year’s newcomers. Everyone else is used to this already, impressed enough but not in awe. Besides, the graduating class from the year before had an even higher rate.
Mr. Murphy drones on and on aboutsuccess in all areasanda commitment to excellencefor what feels like years. Then he announces our performers for the day, and everyone’s alert at once when Rainie Lam’s name comes up. Somebody even cheers.
Rainie sashays her way up to the stage to deafening applause, and I can’t help the slight tug in my chest, half admiration and half envy. It’s like kindergarten all over again, when a kid shows up at school with the shiny new toy you’ve secretly been eyeing for weeks.
As Rainie sits down at the piano, the spotlight spilling over her in a bright golden halo, she looks just like her mother, Krystal Lam. Like a legitimate Hong Kong star who’s toured all around the world. She must know it, too, because she flips her glossy mahogany hair as if she’s in a Pantene commercial and winks at the crowd. Technically, we’re not even allowed to dye our hair, but Rainie’s been strategic about it. Over the past year, she’s been dying her hair a subtle shade lighter every two weeks to stop teachers from noticing the change. It’s almost impressive, her dedication. Then again, I guess it’s easy to be strategic when you have the time and money.
Once all the cheers finally die down, Rainie opens her mouth and starts singing, and of course it’s one of JJ Lin’s newest singles. A shameless nod to the fact that he was a guest at her mum’s concert last November.
After her, Peter Oh comes up and performs one of his original raps. If it were anyone else, people would probably be cringing and giggling in their seats, but Peter’s good.Reallygood. There are rumors he’s already got a deal lined up with some Asian hip-hop company, though it’s just as likely he’ll inherit his dad’s position at Longfeng Oil.
More people take their turn on the stage: a violin prodigy from the year level below, a professionally trained Asian-Australian opera singer who’s performed at the Sydney Opera House before, and a guzheng player dressed in traditional Chinese robes.
Then at last, at long last, it’s my turn.
The piano is wheeled away to some dark corner behind the curtains and the presentation slides change. The wordsTop Achiever Awardflash across the screen in bold. My heart sings a little.
There’s really not much suspense when it comes to these award ceremonies. We’re all notified through email if we’re up for an award months in advance, and aside from Year Eight, when I underperformed in my Chinese exam because I came down with a severe case of food poisoning, Henry and I have tied for Top Achiever every single year since he got here. You’d think I would’ve grown used to it by now, maybe started to care a bit less, but the opposite is true. Now that I have an established streak of success, a reputation to uphold, the stakes are even higher, and the thrill of winning greater than ever before.
It’s sort of like what they say about kissing the person you love (not that I would really know): each time is like the very first.
“Alice Sun,” Mr. Murphy booms into the microphone.
All eyes swivel to me as I rise slowly from my seat. There aren’t any wild cheers, not like with Rainie, but at least they’re looking. At least they can see me.
I smooth out my uniform and head toward the stage, careful not to trip along the way. Then Mr. Murphy is in front of me, shaking my hand, guiding me into the spotlight, and people start clapping.
See, I could shrivel up and die on the spot if I ever thought people were judging me or talking shit behind my back, but this, this kind of positive attention, with my full name on display as applause pounds through the room like a drumbeat—I wouldn’t mind bathing in this moment forever.
But the moment barely lasts a few seconds, because then Mr. Murphy calls out Henry Li’s name, and just like that, everyone’s attention shifts. Refocuses. The applause grows noticeably, painfully louder.
I follow their gazes, and my stomach clenches when I spot him standing up in the front row.
It’s truly one of life’s greatest injustices—aside from youth unemployment and taxes and all that, of course—that Henry Li gets to look the way he does. Unlike the rest of us, he seems to have skipped that awkward midpuberty stage altogether, shedding his cute, Kumon-poster-boy image almost overnight near the end of last year. Now, with his sharp profile, lean build and thick, black waves of hair that somehow always fall perfectly over his dark brows, he could just as easily pass for an idol trainee as the heir to China’s second biggest tech start-up.
His movements are smooth and purposeful as he steps onto the stage in a single stride, that look of mild interest I hate so much carefully arranged on his beautiful, terrible face.
As if he can hear my thoughts, his eyes cut to mine. The twisting, burning sensation in my stomach sharpens to a knife.
Mr. Murphy steps out in front of me. “Congratulations, Henry,” he says, then releases a loud chuckle. “Must be getting tired of all these awards by now, eh?”
Henry merely offers him a small, polite smile in response.
I force myself to smile too, even as I clench my teeth so hard my jaw hurts. Even as Henry takes his place beside me, leaving only two terrible, maddening inches of space between us. Even as my muscles tense as they always do in his presence, as he leans over, crossing the unspoken boundary, and whispers so only I can hear—
“Congratulations, Alice. I was afraid you wouldn’t make it this year.”
Most international schoolkids end up with some watered-down version of an American accent, but Henry’s accent has a distinct British lilt to it. At first I thought he was just following a step-by-step tutorial on how to become the most pretentious person alive, but after some stalking—no,researching—I found out he’d actually spent a couple years of primary school in England. And not just any primary school, but the same school as the prime minister’s son. There’s even a photo of the two of them together by the school stables, all wide smiles and ruddy cheeks, while someone’s cleaning out horse manure in the background.
Henry’s accent is so distracting it takes me a full minute to register his insult.
I know he’s talking about our most recent chemistry finals. He’d gotten full marks as usual, and I’d lost a mark just because I rushed through a particularly difficult redox equation. If not for the two extra-credit questions I aced at the end, my whole rank would’ve slipped.
For a moment, I can’t decide which I hate more—redox equations, or him.
