The Trouble Begins by Linda Himelblau Page A

part and on the roof. From the two windows in the side of the boat you can see there are more inside. The people are all staring at whoever is taking the picture, probably on another boat a little way across the water. None of the people are smiling the way Americans do for a picture. They are all skinny and there is a woman with her face hidden under a big hat holding a little boy to keep him from falling off the roof.
    I can't believe it. “Is that my boat?” I whisper.
    “Nah,” answers Vuong. “The newspaper is from 1980 and you went around 1978. But under the picture it says it's a boatload of Vietnamese refugees in the South China Sea. I got it from Nahn up in Orange. He said it's like the one you and Grandma went to the Philippines on. She and Auntie sold their gold bracelets to get a ride. A lot of people drowned or got robbed or killed by pirates but your boat made it.”
    Vuong knows some other stuff too and he calls Nahn in Orange to find out some more. Thuy and Lin help me write.I won't let them change what I say too much even though they want to make everything better. Lin wants it perfect but I laugh and say then Mrs. Dorfman will know it's not
my
story. By dinnertime I have a personal narrative with plenty of pages so I draw some little pictures along the edges and a cover because Lin says I should. It's ready to turn in.
    My Family Trip
by Du
    My family trip was with my grandma and my aunt from Vietnam to the Philippines. Part of my family, which was my dad and mom and my sisters and brother, came to America right away from Vietnam but I was little and had TB and so did my grandma so we went to the Philippines to get better. We stayed there a long time. Then we came to America last summer. We decided to go to the Philippines because there was a war in Vietnam and even after the war there was nothing to eat and no good place to live. My aunt went with us for a while but then she left. My grandma and aunt sold gold jewelry to get a ride on a boat. The boat was very old and tippy and sneaked out at night from the shore so no one would stop us. I don't remember this because I was too little but my uncle told my brother. Everybody got sick because the boat was little and bobbed around so much in the waves. We didn't get attacked by pirates and the boat didn't tip over so we made it. It took a long time. I don't remember where westayed when we first got to the Philippines but they had special camps for people from Vietnam.
    Our camp wasn't like a camp in America. I got older there because we were there about eight years while we waited. We lived in different houses. The houses there were not in rows with streets and sidewalks like houses here. Some had concrete floors but most were very little and parts of them were made out of thatch from the kind of trees they have there. Sometimes we lived with other people my grandma knew and sometimes just us. Sometimes the wind blew very hard and long and there was dust in the air and sometimes it rained a long time and got muddy. There was a well near the houses and in some places faucets not far away. A lot of airplanes flew over the camp.
    We waited in lines for long hours in the hot sun to get bags of rice and beans and sometimes sugar. When I was older I figured out how to squeeze into the lines when people looked the other way. If they yelled at me I just ducked away further up the line. I learned where to get mangoes and bananas too because we liked them. I got the food so my grandma didn't have to stand and wait in line. When my grandma felt good we sold food she made. Our store was a blanket near the road. Her food sold fast. She made spring rolls and little golden round buns. She burned pieces of thatch and wood I collected for her in our little black stove so she could cook. I collectedthe money. Other people sold noodles and jewelry and other stuff. If we made enough money I went to school. There we all sat squished up on benches to learn English and math and