two baths, and a tiny kitchen. One of the bedrooms had been turned into Mother Lia’s workroom. She was sitting down and leaning over a humming sewing machine. Stacks of colorful fabric were layered on modular metal shelves around her.
“Here are some story cloths that Mom has finished,” said Mai and placed her hand on a stack of rectangular cloths that had red, yellow, and green animal figures stitched onto a blue cloth. At the sound of her daughter’s voice, Lia got up and spoke to Mai in a strange voice that made Alice think of a cat meowing.
“Our mother wants to give you something to eat.”
Lia was already leading the way to the kitchen. A huge rice cooker sat on the kitchen counter with its little red light glowing. The kitchen didn’t smell at all like the farm kitchen, which, more often than not, smelled like mushroom soup or bacon. This kitchen smelled like a spice rack with the caps off. At the kitchen table sat Nickson with the Dutch Center telephone directory. He looked up, and for the first time Alice really looked at his eyes. Dark, bright eyes alert to everything. There was more of his sister Mai in him than she first realized.
“This telephone book is kind of weird,” he said. “It’s really small but it’s got all these V-names. How much Dutch is enough?”
He had Mai’s humor too. Alice let out a little laugh but not as loud as Mai’s. Mai took the directory from him and paged through it. “Hey, it really is full of V-names! Look, there must be hundreds of them. Vuh vuh vuh vuh vuh,” she said in a stuttering voice.
They were right about the Dutch Center directory. It had more than its fair share of names starting with V. All those Vans and Vandes and Vanders and Vandens. You had to know if you were looking for a Vande Griend or a Vanden Griend. Was it Vander Heide or Vande Heide? And did the family use the handle Vanden, one word, or did they use two capitalized words—Van Den?
“Let’s see where our name will go,” said Mai.
She found the exact spot—Vang would come between Van Essen and Van Gaalen. With all the Van-somethings, it would be among the shortest names on the page, along with Vos and Vonk.
“Van Essen Vang Van Gaalen!” said Mia. “Shouldn’t it be Vang, Vang Essen, Vang Gaalen?”
“We better cut the g off,” said Nickson. “Fit right in.”
They were both laughing now. “What a hoot!” said Alice and joined in.
“Don’t you have any Smiths or Joneses in Dutch Center?” asked Mai.
“Not unless one slipped through the dyke while we weren’t watching,” said Alice.
“Here’s a Rodriguez,” said Nickson.
“Oh, yes,” said Alice, “you’ll find some Martinezes and Gonzalezes. Lots of Mexicans have moved in.”
“What about this name? Moeldema?”
“That’s Frisian,” said Alice. “The only thing that makes Frieslanders different is their names—their names all end in ‘a.’ There are the Miedemas, the Osingas, the Hamstras, the Siebesmas, the Fritzmas, the Fiekemas, the Wiersmas, the Tammingas, the Plantingas, the Turbstras, the Boumas, the Bonnemas—on and on like that.”
“Oh, here’s an Aardema in the A’s. And Rev. Prunesma, would he be Frisian?”
“Yes, and if you go to the E’s you’ll find some Ennemas.”
“You’re kidding.”
“Just look.”
“Oh, but it’s spelled with two n’s—E-n-n-e-m-a.”
“Right,” said Alice, “but when you say it, it sounds like ‘enema.’ Most of the Ennemas changed their names to Brennema so people would stop making fun of them—like putting enema syringes in their mailboxes. Or telling jokes like the time this girl introduces herself as Emily Ennema and the other person says, ‘Tell me about your family,’ and Emily Ennema says ‘Oh, we’re pretty regular.’”
“Too much!” said Nickson and slapped the table.
“You people are really funny,” said Mai.
Mother Lia had been standing near the rice cooker, listening but not reacting.
“Now let my mom give you something to eat.”
“That’s awfully nice of her,” said Alice, “but I really have to get home to the farm to do my chores. My parents are expecting me.”
Alice didn’t want to be rude, but she saw a click in the expression on Mai’s face at the mention of parents.
“I understand,” said Mai. “ We’ll feed you some Hmong food another time.” She spoke to her mother, who nodded and smiled at Alice.
“Thanks again for that ride,” said Nickson as Mai led Alice out.
“Before you go,” Mai said, “let me show you what Mom planted out back. It really took off. A farm person will appreciate this.”
“Took off already? You’ve hardly been here for a month.”
“Mom’s amazing,” said Mai. “Wait until you see her sewing. Plants and needles, that’s Mom.”
A parking spot behind the house was simply two strips of concrete spaced the width of a car’s tires. Most people would have been using this spot to park their car, but not the Vangs. Mai pointed at the area between the concrete strips. Small points of green plants sparked from the sandy soil.
“What are those?”
“Those are some of her herbs.”
“Amazing.” But then Alice saw a metal cage with metal flaps on each end. “What on earth is that?”
“That’s a squirrel trap,” said Mai. “Put peanut butter on that little tray inside and when a squirrel goes in the trap, pop, the doors on each side flip shut and you’ve caught your squirrel.”
“Who’s trapping them?”
“My mom,” she said.
“To keep them away from her herbs?”
“Squirrels don’t like her herbs,” said Mai. “We eat the squirrels. Great soup. And Mom cuts up the hide into tiny pieces. If you mix the pieces of squirrel hide with lemon juice, you can get rid of gallstones. My mom thought she was getting gallstones. Not any more.”
