Episode 2: The Turtle Girl with a Crooked Haircut

Ke Xuyen Market was already winding down by the time I arrived, but the food stalls lining both sides of the street remained lively, crowded with customers coming and going.

The moment I stopped in front of a small eatery, Thuc jumped off the bicycle.

"Wait here. I'll go in!"

From the doorway, I watched him dart eagerly among the tables, weaving between chair legs. Every now and then he crouched down, rummaging beneath a table before popping up again somewhere else.

For a moment, I found myself staring at a younger version of me.

There was a girl about Thuc's age collecting bottle caps too.

From time to time, the two of them fought over the same prize. At one point they stood there shouting at each other, mouths wide open. Thuc reached out and yanked her hair, causing her to let out a piercing scream.

The owner, annoyed by the commotion, marched over and chased them both out.

While the girl stood sadly outside the entrance, Thuc stormed back toward me with a dark expression.

"What happened?" I asked.

"Turtle!" he huffed. "She kept stealing my bottle caps!"

I blinked.

"Her name is Turtle?"

"We gave her that name," he explained, still fuming. "She's already grown up but still can't ride a bicycle. Everywhere she goes, she walks. So we call her Turtle. Now the whole village calls her Turtle. Even Grandma calls her that."

"She lives in our village?"

"Yes. Across the river."

I stared at him.

"You mean she walked ten kilometers just to collect bottle caps?"

"Yes."

I slipped my hands into the bulging pockets of Thuc's shorts and pulled out a handful of treasure: beer caps, soda caps, orange-drink caps.

I clicked my tongue.

"You've already collected this many. Why fight with her over a few more?"

As I spoke, I glanced back toward the restaurant entrance.

But Turtle had already disappeared.

I probably would have forgotten about her entirely if, the next morning, while reading inside the house, I hadn't felt the strange sensation that someone was watching me.

When I looked up, however, there was no one there.

Outside the window lay an empty yard flooded with sunlight and wind. Two magpie robins chattered in the tamarind tree near the gate. Farther away, on a grassy field at the foot of the hill, a group of children about Thuc's age were dividing into teams for a game of tag.

Who's watching me?

I lowered my eyes back to the book.

A few lines later, the feeling returned.

This time I looked around more carefully.

After scanning the yard, I finally noticed a pair of dark eyes peeking through a narrow gap between two bamboo panels.

The instant those eyes met mine, they vanished.

A moment later I heard hurried footsteps racing away on the other side of the wall.

I left my desk and went to the window.

The strange haircut gave her away immediately.

I had seen it the night before at Ke Xuyen Market—a lopsided crop of hair cut unevenly short, resembling a shrub that had been trimmed by an amateur gardener.

I almost called out to her.

At the last second, though, I decided not to.

She was already too far away to hear me. Besides, I didn't want to frighten her.

At noon, I nudged Thuc.

"Hey, Thuc."

"What is it?"

"Whose child is Turtle?"

"She's Teacher Dien's granddaughter."

I knew Teacher Dien.

I had once been his student.

Among all the subjects he taught, he was most famous for handicrafts.

Whenever an anniversary ceremony was approaching at his house, the handicrafts assignment would inevitably be the same:

Carve chopsticks.

Each student had to submit ten pairs of bamboo chopsticks bundled neatly together.

Teacher Dien would happily carry the "assignments" home and place them on the family altar table, saving himself the trouble of borrowing chopsticks from neighbors or buying new ones at the market.

It became an unwritten rule.

The moment Teacher Dien assigned chopstick-carving, every student knew another family memorial feast was coming.

His family seemed to have an endless number of anniversaries—probably because he was the eldest son.

Thanks to him, the village children eventually developed chopstick-carving skills worthy of professional craftsmen.

Teacher Dien's son was Huong, Turtle's father.

Huong died after being swept away by the river.

According to village gossip, he had chased a group of thieves alone in the middle of the night, carrying nothing but a stick. While crossing the suspension bridge, he slipped and fell into the Kiep Bac River. The current pulled him away, and he disappeared.

A month after his death, Turtle's mother packed her belongings and left.

Someone later claimed to have seen her in a southern town. According to the story, she had remarried and now ran a small drink stall with her new husband. The storyteller had added with a dismissive shrug that the new husband spent most of his time drunk and was probably no good.

After losing their son and being abandoned by their daughter-in-law, Teacher Dien and his wife were left to raise Turtle themselves.

Teacher Dien moved from Soi Slope to a house near Aunt Ut Hue's place, beside Tinh Do Pagoda.

He eventually quit teaching.

Nowadays, he spent his days facing the temple's flowering pergola, softly chanting sutras and tapping a wooden prayer drum.

Thuc had probably never studied under him, but like everyone else in the village, he still called him Teacher Dien.

"So Turtle's basically an orphan?" I asked without thinking.

"Her mother is still alive."

"Alive, yes. But living far away and married to someone else. That's almost the same as not having a mother."

"Yes."

"Poor kid."

"Yes."

"Then why were you fighting her over bottle caps yesterday?"

That question was apparently too difficult.

Thuc pretended not to hear it.

Instead, he grabbed my arm and changed the subject.

"Let's go to Hoi's house!"

"What's there?"

"To buy peanut candy!"

I patted my shirt pocket and sighed.

"I've run out of money."

Thuc slapped his bulging pockets proudly.

"Don't worry! I've got plenty!"

His money was a collection of bottle caps.

A week earlier, the village children's money had been colored candy wrappers.

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Hoi's house was also the village general store.

To children, a general store was nothing less than a treasure vault.

Inside, it held everything imaginable: fish sauce, soy sauce, rice wine, eggs, bracelets, hair clips—and countless things capable of making any child drool with desire. Peanut candy, chewy caramel sweets, pig-ear pastries, pressed cakes, sesame cakes, orange soda, sarsaparilla, rock sugar, glass marbles, uninflated balloons, rubber bands, and boxes of colored pencils decorated with Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.

After school, Hoi usually sat on a small red plastic stool and helped his mother run the shop.

When his mother was around, Hoi conducted business properly and accepted only real money.

But whenever she disappeared into the kitchen to chop meat, pick vegetables, or wash rice, leaving the store in his care, Hoi operated under a completely different financial system.

Depending on the season, he accepted colored wrappers, bottle caps, coconut ribs, or whatever happened to be the village children's currency at the time.

Thuc dragged me across the road to Hoi's store, which stood opposite the school.

We didn't go in right away.

Instead, we wandered past the entrance four or five times, pretending to be casually passing by until Hoi's mother finally retreated into the back of the house.

The moment she disappeared, Thuc sprang into action.

He dashed up to the counter, emptied a pile of bottle caps into his palm, and declared,

"Two pieces of peanut candy."

Hoi stared at the outstretched hand.

"How many bottle caps do you have?"

"Ten."

Hoi shrugged.

"Ten only buys one piece."

Thuc nearly choked.

"That's robbery!"

He kicked the leg of Hoi's stool and snorted.

"Last year I remember—"

"Last year was last year."

Hoi waved dismissively.

"This year is this year. Buy it or don't."

Faced with the brutal realities of inflation, Thuc reluctantly surrendered ten more bottle caps.

The expression on his face suggested he had just sacrificed ten fingers—or perhaps ten toes.

He accepted the two pieces of candy, then added a parting insult for good measure.

"Greedy pig."

On the way home, he remained deeply offended.

"Tomorrow, when we play marbles, I'm going to win every single bottle cap Hoi owns."

The "marbles" used by the children in my village were not the expensive glass marbles sold in Hoi's mother's store.

Each child selected the most perfect bottle cap they could find, filled it with melted candle wax, packed it down tightly, and waited for it to harden.

The finished creation became a marble.

This season, bottle caps were the official currency, and marble games were played for stakes.

According to Thuc, he was one of the greatest players the village had ever seen.

Naturally, I didn't believe a word of it.

Because if he were truly as skilled as he claimed, there would be no reason for him to spend entire afternoons crawling around restaurants in Ke Xuyen Market collecting bottle caps from beneath tables.

Still, I chose not to tease him.

I simply nodded and said,

"Sure. Do your best."

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To be continued

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