A/N: Because this amused me so much, I figured I’d post it here.  I wrote this quite a long time ago.  Although when I found it again and reread it, I made a few alterations and finished the chapter.  Enjoy it!  Or throw me a tomato.  Lol.  I promise I’m a little saner in real life.

~

Chapter 1

I stood staring at myself in the mirror, admiring my handiwork.  A paisley scarf covered my unruly curls, and with an exaggerated flourish, I slipped on a pair of dark sunglasses.  In my opinion, I looked like a woman from an old American film, about to alight in a convertible with the debonair man of my affections at the wheel as we take off on a refreshing drive through the countryside.  I liked to think I resembled a short Katherine Hepburn at this very moment.  We did share a birthday at the very least.

But, this wasn’t going to be romantic.  This was different, for I did not come to Taiwan to meet someone and fall in love.  Rather, I came to kidnap the object of my sisterly affections with the help of my other sister, who like me was bent on having Ella Chen as our sister.  We didn’t care about the consequences; we just knew that she was meant to be our sister.  In our self-esteemed opinions, nature had committed a serious crime against us, and we needed to correct that.

Some might call us crazy and maybe we were, but we didn’t care. Ella was the only thing that mattered to us anymore.  Anything that did not pertain to her might as well have been Greek to us.  We lived, breathed, and slept Ella.  She was our obsession, our goal, our world.

She mattered enough for Nat to throw all caution to the wind and quit her job at the laboratory.  Nat had had it with assays and noxious chemical fumes.  She only wanted the sweet fragrance of Ella’s shampoo.  That was all the chemistry she needed.

Our decision of leaving everything behind—all for Ella’s sake—had developed over a period of time.  Somehow, Ella had worked her magic on us despite the Pacific Ocean’s attempt to separate us.  But we couldn’t handle this unjust distance; we couldn’t just be another face in the crowd to her.  We had to mean something to her.  She had to remember us.  And we knew that she’d find us just as irresistible as we did her.  We were certain that with time she’d yield to our charms.

And so, through a series of MSN conversations over the past year, Nat and I had concocted and perfected a plan.  I was to stay on course and go to Taiwan on the pretence of being an exchange student.  After all, someone had to speak enough Chinese to communicate with our new sister and make her feel comfortable, as she grew accustomed to her new circumstances.

Nat was to find an apartment and work under the pretense of being a remedial English tutor for struggling students.  Her apartment was to be our planning headquarters, and she’d made sure to find one close to Chengchi University so that the commute wouldn’t be too hard on me.

We’d began gathering information of Ella’s schedule online, and only when we were absolutely certain that she was out of town, dared we approach the H.I.M. building to start scouting out Ella’s favorite haunts.  Already thanks to my 妹妹, Wen, I’d learned that Ella loved the bentos at the 7-11 next door.

And so we began with 7-11, which to us had become holy ground.  Here, we felt so close to our beloved 姊姊, even though we knew she wouldn’t show up.  We even worked up the courage to each buy a bento in attempt to achieve a state of nirvana, and I willingly sacrificed for this divine experience my vegetarian diet and bought a meal of chicken in honor of Ella and her omnivorous ways.  Once we’d bought them and taken a seat on the curb outside, we treated our bentos as a pious Christian would treat communion, bowing our heads reverently over the meal and thinking of Ella.

But on this very day, I had the sole opportunity to step into 7-11 with the hope of catching a glimpse my new sister-to-be, for Ella was in Taipei and Nat and I had decided we needed to start taking a few risks.  Nat had really wanted to join me, but at the last minute she’d had to hold an emergency cram session for a student that just couldn’t wrap his poor mind around the English language and still had to pass a major English exam on the morrow.  Despite Nat’s sudden change of plans, she’d urged me to go ahead and risk it, saying that maybe we ought to start running solo scouting operations so as to avoid any serious suspicions—and most especially Ella’s.  If Ella balked from us in fear, it’d dash all our plans to pieces.

I smiled at myself once more in the mirror of a small restaurant’s bathroom several blocks away from Ella’s 7-11.  There was no possible way for anyone to clearly recognize me as that strange foreign girl that passed by every so often.  I’d successfully hidden my hair, my most distinguishing feature, along with my eyes.  Add some pantyhose and I could rob banks, I thought grimly.  No way would Ella pick me out as a fan, considering my ridiculous foreign appearance—that is, so long as I kept my excitement well concealed.

The sound of someone knocking at the door drew my attention away from the mirror and I sighed reluctantly.  I might as well relinquish the bathroom to whoever was knocking and start out on my pursuit of Ella.  There was nothing else left to do since I’d already finished and paid for the small meal I’d ordered for myself, and I had practically taken a photograph of my appearance given how long I’d stared at myself.

My nerves began to sing in a mix of anxiety and excitement as I left the restaurant and headed towards the holy convenience store.  Ella was within my reach!

“Relax,” I chided myself as I glanced into a dark tinted window to reassure myself that nothing about my appearance had altered.  “She’ll be impervious to my charms once we’ve taken the final step and truly made her ours, and today, there is no way she can recognize you as her fan.  Your foreignness is on your side this time.   All you need to do is ask for her to help you pick out some toothpaste.  Don’t let her think you’re any more than a silly foreigner that’s just moved to Taiwan.  You must ‘jia you’ as Lu Reixi would put it.”

I tore my gaze away from the window and forced myself forward.  I’d come this far; I couldn’t back out now.  Besides, Nat and I weren’t only thinking of our own welfare; we were considering Ella’s too.  She needed us just as much as we needed her.  She just didn’t know it yet.

Faces blurred by me, my usually observant eyes incapable of registering anything, too intent was I on reaching my point of destination.  The world had gone mute.  Even the familiar voice so forthright in criticizing me, thus incurring my own self-doubt as to whether Ella would really like me, had silenced itself.  I felt as if a hand were pushing me directly to the convenience store, and until I’d reached the 7-11, shining like a bright beacon welcoming me home after so long, it refused to release it’s relentless grip on me.

A dopey grin plastered my face once my mind had registered that I now stood before the door to the holy temple of Ella.  I skirted the storefront, peering in vain through the glass.  A sigh of exasperation escaped my lips, for I knew that I had to enter.  I hoped that the storekeeper wouldn’t get suspicious should Ella not be inside, forcing me to leave and return upon her entrance.  He’d grown used to my frequent appearance, recognizing me by sight and greeting me jovially, when I came to scout it out under the guise of purchasing small necessities.

Maybe, if Ella were not there, I could attempt to buy some toothpaste and when it came time to pay exclaim that I couldn’t find my money and must’ve lost it along the way.  I could leave, muttering to myself about my carelessness.  Then, I’d lay in wait near the H.I.M building until Ella came out.  Once she was far enough along, I could stealthily stalk her to her point of destination.  My story could change—a necessity in this business.  Besides, I could always play the helpless-foreigner card, the only real perk to being foreign.

Taking a deep breath, I pushed through the door and made a mad dash for the closest aisle, smiling to myself when I heard the storekeeper’s startled grunt.  He must’ve been half-asleep from the sweltering heat.  Poor man, I hadn’t made it any better by disorienting him.

I waited, trying to slow my erratic breathing before daring to creep through the store, on the prowl for the goddess-like Ella Chen.  Once my breath no longer came out in short shallow gasps, I cautiously skirted the shelf, hoping that he wouldn’t notice me in the large mirrors meant to keep an eye on customers.

But to my disappointment, as I went through the little aisles of shampoo and snacks, I did not catch sight nor hair of Ella.  Only the fact that the clerk remained unaware of my presence consoled me.  I’d have to go out again.

Crouching low, behind a colorful display of potato chips near the door, I watched the heavyset clerk as his eyes drooped, his hand lethargically swatting at a lazy fly.  Now seemed to be as good a time as any to make a dash for it, out onto the safety of the sidewalk.  Using my hand to propel myself forward, I pushed against the floor, ignoring the grime beneath my palm and set off at a sprint, escaping onto the street before the clerk had a chance to register the door chime.  I refused to break my sprint until I’d retraced my steps and backtracked through the alley to reach the backside of the H.I.M. building.

The building itself was rather mundane, but it didn’t matter because I was more interested in concealing myself from plain view behind an expensive blue Mercedes.  Crouching low to the ground, I panted as I caught my breath and contemplated how best to ambush my darling sister.  Although I didn’t have to think too hard, for Ella walked unawares into my reach before I’d even concocted a new scheme of approach—and all thanks to Humphrey, my hiccough.

Peeved at my failure in the convenience store, I muttered to myself in French, contemplating aloud my ideas when Humphrey suddenly seized me.  As Humphrey echoed loudly throughout the alley, I panicked.  Humphrey had betrayed my hiding spot.  No one could hear Humphrey and not grow curious.  It was like a universal law, and I always pitied the strangers subjected to the disturbance of my startling hiccoughs.

“What was that?” inquired a voice so familiar it sounded like music to my ears.  And before I even had a chance to reveal myself, her face poked itself around the side of the car, shining radiantly before me.

My eyes grew wide, and my heart raced wildly.  There she was right in front of me—so close I could reach out and touch her.  And yet I hadn’t even had a chance to pop in a piece of cinnamon gum so as to assuage any worries of my potential, yet always nonexistent, halitosis.  Overwhelmed with a mixture of excitement and anxiety at being graced by the magnificent Ella Chen’s presence, I blabbered incoherently in what could only be 莎拉語.  I noticed her growing nervous as she took in the scene before her: a foreign girl attired in bright clothing and squat behind a car in a back alley was indeed a strange sight to behold.

“What are you doing?” she asked in stilted English, her accent suspiciously similar to those of Southeast Asia.  “This is my car.”

Shocked, I fell flat on my butt and gulped nervously.  I had to speak, or she’d guess of my secret affections for her.  “Umm, sorry for startling you Ma’am,” I replied in awkward Chinese, determined to practice my language skills.  “I sometimes hiccup really loudly, and there’s no predicting it.  Actually I have two kinds of hiccups—the normal kind and that one just now.”

Ella stared at me, her eyes narrowing in suspicion.  I could only imagine just how weird I must’ve looked to her.  “What are you doing to my car?” she asked, switching to Chinese on me.

I grew excited at her change in language and grinned.  Just maybe she would accept me as her sister after all.  But I had to contain my excitement and feign nonchalance.  It was practically impossible, though, when my new sister stood before her in all her magnificent glory and all I wanted was to wrap her in a big hug.  “I dropped something, but I can’t find it.  It’s okay, though.  It wasn’t that important.”

Ella hesitated before offering to help me with my search.  I shook my head, reluctant to make her search in vain for something that didn’t exist.  It would be sibling abuse, and I couldn’t stand for that.

I pulled myself to my feet, careful not to touch the holy vehicle and thereby sully it.  “I’m sorry for interrupting you Ma’am,” I replied as I dusted off my backside and backed up against the wall along which her car was parked.  “I’d best be going now.”  Nervously, I began to twirl an escaped curl around my index finger and continued to back away from my poor sister.  It all happened too quickly, and I barely had time to bask in the glory of Ella when I had to abandon her so as not to arouse her suspicions.  Fate played a cruel, cruel game on me.

“All right,” Ella replied with a nod of the head.  “Good bye then.”

I caught a glimpse of confusion in her eyes just before I reluctantly turned away and left behind my beloved 姊姊.  If one thing was certain though, it was obvious just how much she suffered without us.  But we’d make it up to her once we adopted her and righted the course of nature.