When You Trap a Tiger Read online

  Also by Tae Keller

  The Science of Breakable Things

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Text copyright © 2020 by Tae Keller

  Cover art copyright © 2020 by Jedit

  All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Random House Children’s Books, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York.

  Random House and the colophon are registered trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC.

  Visit us on the Web! rhcbooks.com

  Educators and librarians, for a variety of teaching tools, visit us at RHTeachersLibrarians.com

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Name: Keller, Tae, author.

  Title: When you trap a tiger / Tae Keller.

  Description: New York: Random House, [2020]

  Summary: When Lily, her sister, Sam, and their mother move in with her sick grandmother, Lily traps a tiger and makes a deal with her to heal Halmoni.

  Identifiers: LCCN 2018060246 | ISBN 978-1-5247-1570-0 (trade) | ISBN 978-1-5247-1571-7 (lib. bdg.) | ISBN 978-0-593-17534-7 (int’l) | ISBN 978-1-5247-1572-4 (ebook)

  Subjects: | CYAC: Sisters—Fiction. | Grandmothers—Fiction. | Storytelling—Fiction. | Sick—Fiction. | Tigers—Fiction. | Korean Americans—Fiction.

  Classification: LCC PZ7.1.K418 Whe 2020 | DDC [Fic]—dc23

  Ebook ISBN 9781524715724

  Random House Children’s Books supports the First Amendment and celebrates the right to read.

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  Contents

  Cover

  Also by Tae Keller

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Author’s Note

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  For Halmoni—

  I wish you a pendant.

  I can turn invisible.

  It’s a superpower, or at least a secret power. But it’s not like in the movies, and I’m not a superhero, so don’t start thinking that. Heroes are the stars who save the day. I just—disappear.

  See, I didn’t know, at first, that I had this magic. I just knew that teachers forgot my name, and kids didn’t ask me to play, and one time, at the end of fourth grade, a boy in my class frowned at me and said, Where did you come from? I don’t think I’ve ever seen you before.

  I used to hate being invisible. But now I understand: it’s because I’m magic.

  My older sister, Sam, says it’s not a real supersecret power—it’s just called being shy. But Sam can be rude.

  And the truth is, my power can come in handy. Like when Mom and Sam fight. Like right now.

  I wrap myself in invisibility and rest my forehead against the back-seat window, watching raindrops slide down the side of our old station wagon.

  “You should stop the car,” Sam says to Mom.

  Except Sam actually says this to her phone, because she doesn’t look up. She’s sitting in the passenger seat with her feet slammed against the glove compartment, knees smashed into her chest, her whole body curled around her glowing screen.

  Mom sighs. “Oh, please, we don’t need to stop. It’s just a little rain.” But she ticks the windshield wipers up a notch and taps the brakes until we’re going slug-slow.

  The rain started as soon as we entered Washington State, and it only gets worse as our car inches past the hand-painted WELCOME TO SUNBEAM! sign.

  Welcome to Halmoni’s town, a town of nonstop rain, its name like an inside joke.

  Sam smacks her black-painted lips. “K.”

  That’s all. Just one letter.

  She tap-taps her screen, sending bubbles of words and emojis to all her friends back home.

  I wonder what she’s saying in those messages. Sometimes, when I let myself, I imagine she’s writing to me.

  “Sam, can you at least try to have a good attitude about this?” Mom shoves her glasses up on her nose with too much force, like her glasses just insulted her and it’s personal.

  “How can you even ask me that?” Sam looks up from her phone—finally—so she can glare at Mom.

  This is how it always starts. Their fights are loud and explosive. They burn each other up.

  It’s safer to keep quiet. I press my fingertip against the rain-splattered window and draw a line between the drops, like I’m connecting the dots. My eyelids go heavy. I’m so used to the fighting that it’s practically a lullaby.

  “But, like, you realize that you’re basically the worst, right? Like, this is actually not okay—”

  “Sam.” Mom is all edges—shoulders stiff, every muscle tensed.

  I hold my breath and think invisibleinvisibleinvisible.

  “No, seriously,” Sam continues. “Just because you randomly decided that you want to see Halmoni more, that doesn’t mean we want to uproot our entire lives. I had plans this summer—not that you care. You didn’t even give us fair warning.”

  Sam’s not wrong. Mom told us only two weeks ago that we were leaving California for good. And I’ll miss it, too. I’m going to miss my school, and the sunshine, and the sandy beach—so different from the rocky coast at Sunbeam.

  I’m just trying not to think about that.

  “I thought you should spend more time with your grandmother. I thought you enjoyed that.” Mom’s tone is clipped. The rain has gotten heavier, and it sucks up her focus. Her fingers white-knuckle the steering wheel. None of us like the idea of driving in this weather, not after Dad died.

  I concentrate on the steering wheel and squint a little, sending safety vibes with my mind, like Halmoni taught me.

  “Way to deflect,” Sam says, tugging at the single streak of white in her black hair. She’s still angry, but deflated a little. “I do enjoy spending time with Halmoni. Just not here. I don’t want to be here.”

  Halmoni’s always visited us in California. We haven’t been in Sunbeam since I was seven.

  I gaze out the windshield. The landscape that slips by is peaceful. Gray stone houses, green grass, gray restaurants, green forest. The colors of Sunbeam blur together: gray, green, gray, green—and then orange, black.

  I sit up, trying to make sense of the new colors.

  There’s a creature lying on the road ahead.

  It’s a giant cat, with its head resting on its paws.

  No. Not just a giant cat. A tiger.

  The tiger lifts its head as we approach. It must have escaped from a circus or a zoo or something. And it must be hurt. Why else would it be lying out here in the rain?

  An instinctive kind of fear twists in my stomach, making me carsick. But it doesn’t matter. If an animal’s hurt, we have to do something.

  “Mom.” I interrupt their fight, scooting forward. “I think…um…there’s…”

  Now, a little closer, the tiger doesn’t look hurt. It yawns, revealing sharp, too-white teeth. And then it stands, one claw, one paw, one leg at a time.

  “Girls,” Mom says, voice tense, tired. Her annoyance with Sam rarely bleeds onto me, but after driving for eight hours, Mom can’t contain it. “Both of you. Please. I need to focus on driving for a moment.”

  I bite the inside of my cheek. This doesn’t make sense. Mom must notice the giant cat. But maybe she’s too distracted by Sam.

  “Mom,” I murmur, waiting for her to hit the brakes. She doesn’t.

  Sometimes the problem with my invisibility is that it takes a little while to wear off. It takes a little while for people to see me and hear me and listen.

  Listen: This isn’t like any tiger I’ve seen in a zoo. It’s huge, as big as our car. The orange in its coat glows, and the black is as dark as moonless night.

  This tiger belongs in one of Halmoni’s stories.

  I lean forward until the seat belt slices into my skin. Somehow, Sam and Mom continue to bicker. But their words become a low hum because I’m only focused on—

  The tiger lifts its enormous head—and it looks at me. It sees me.

  The big cat raises an eyebrow, like it’s daring me to do something.

  My voice catches in my throat, and I stumble over my words. They come out choked. “Mom—stop.”

  Mom’s busy talking to Sam, so I shout louder: “STOP.”

  Finally, Mom acknowledges me. Eyebrows pinched, she glances at me in the rearview mirror. “Lily? What’s wrong?”

  She doesn’t stop the car. We keep going.

  Closer—

  closer—

  And I can’t breathe because we’re too close.

  I hear a thud and I squeeze my eyes shut. The inside of my head pounds. My ears ring. We must have hit it.

  But we keep going.

  When I open my eyes, I see Sam, arms folded across her chest, phone resting by her feet. “It died,” she announces.

  My pulse is a wild beast as I scan the road, searching for horrors I don’t want to see.

  Nothing’s there.

  Mom’s jaw tightens. “Sam, please don’t throw your expensive phone around.”

  I stare at them, confused. If the thud was just her phone hitting the floor—

  I twist to look for the tiger, but all I see is rain and road. The tiger disappeared.

  “Lily?” Mom says, slowing the car even more. “Are you feeling sick? Do you need me to pull over?”

  I flick-flick my eyes across the road one more time, but nothing. “No, never mind,” I say.

  She smiles, relieved. I am never difficult. I make things easy. “Hang in there. We’ll be at Halmoni’s soon.”

  I nod, trying to act normal. Casual. Even though my heart is jump-dancing. I can’t tell Mom about this. She’d ask if I’m dehydrated, if I have a fever.

  And maybe I do. I press my palm to my forehead, but I can’t tell. I guess it’s possible that I’m getting sick. Or maybe I just fell asleep for a moment.

  Really, there’s no way I saw a giant tiger appear—and disappear—in the middle of the road.

  I shake my head. Regardless of whether the tiger was real or I dreamed it or I’m losing my mind, I need to tell Halmoni. She will listen. She will help.

  She will know what to do.

  Halmoni’s stories all start the same way, with the Korean version of “once upon a time”:

  Long, long ago, when tiger walked like man…

  Back in California, in the weeks leading up to Halmoni’s visits, Sam and I would whisper those words to one another. Every time I heard them, they’d give me shivers.

  We’d count the days until our halmoni’s arrival, until that first night, when we’d run into the guest room and curl up in bed with her, one of us on each side, like bookends.

  “Halmoni,” I’d whisper, “will you tell us a story?”

  She would smile, pulling us into her arms and her imagination. “Which story?”

  Our answer was always the same. Our favorite story.

  “The one about Unya,” Sam would say. Big sister.

  “And Eggi,” I would add. Baby sister. “The tiger story.”

  That story always felt special, like there was a secret shimmering beneath the words.

  “Catch it for me,” she’d tell us, and Sam and I would reach our hands into the air, clenching our fists like we were grabbing the stars.

  That’s a Halmoni thing, pretending there are stories hidden in the stars.

  She would wait a few moments, letting the seconds swell, and we’d listen to our hearts beating, crying out for the story. Then she’d take a breath and tell us about the tiger.

  The problem is, the tiger in her stories is a scary, tricky predator. But the tiger in the road didn’t seem that way. I don’t think it wanted to eat me, though I do think it wanted…something.

  I don’t get a chance to figure out what, because there are no more tiger sightings as we crawl through Sunbeam. Finally, we reach Halmoni’s house. It’s a small cottage, at the edge of town, at the top of a hill, across the street from the library and surrounded by woods.

  Mom turns onto the long driveway, and we crunch-crunch up the gravel, until we reach the top.

  After she parks, she rests her head against the steering wheel and sighs, looking like she might fall right asleep. Then she takes a breath and sits up.

  “All right,” she says, hooking her arm around her headrest, twisting so she can see both of us at once. She plasters a grin on her face, trying to be cheerful, to erase all the bickering and stress of the car ride.

  “Bad news: I left the umbrellas back in California.” She grins, like Ha-ha, whoops, funny. “So we’ve just gotta make a break for it.”

  I stare at Halmoni’s home. This is the kind of place that just looks magic, perched up high, with almost-black ivy creeping along the faded brick walls, windows that wink in the light, and, of course, a million stairs to get to the front door, give or take a few.

  It’s nothing like our vanilla-white apartment in California—in a brand-new building. With an elevator.

  “You want us to run up all those stairs in the rain?” Sam asks, with so much horror that you’d think Mom asked her to bathe in a pit of snail slime.

  Mom forces another smile. “What’s a little rain? Right, Lily?”

  My answer is simple: Yes, right. I want to go inside and ask Halmoni about the tiger. But there’s no such thing as a simple question in our family. This is a trap. She’s asking me to pick sides.

  I shrug.

  Mom doesn’t let me off the hook so easily. “Right, Lily?” Her smile falters, like she might fall to pieces. There are bags under her eyes and a deep crease between her brows.

  This is not the way Mom u sually looks. She’s usually so polished, everything in the right place, everything in order.

  “Right,” I say.

  Sam flinches as if I kicked her.

  “Well, that settles it,” Mom says with relief, placing her hand on the door handle. “Ready. Set—”

  Then she flings her door open and flies out, throwing it shut as she starts running. She’s drenched immediately, and she’s not moving fast, but she’s working hard—fists pumping, shoulders hunched, head tilted forward, as if she’s a bull charging her mother’s home.

  “She looks ridiculous,” Sam says.

  And Sam’s not just being mean. It’s true.

  Mom pinwheels her arms for no apparent reason, and I laugh. Then Sam laughs, and we look at each other. For a moment we’re sisters, making fun of our embarrassing mom.

  I want to take this moment and stretch it to infinity.

  But Sam turns away, picking up her phone and its charger and tucking them into her bra, protecting them. “Might as well go,” she says.

  I want to say, Stay, but I nod instead, and then we burst out of the car.

  I have never, ever felt rain like this. It is insistent and cold—too cold for July—and we don’t even make it out of the driveway before my shoes squish-squelch and my jeans get heavy.

  Sam yelps as she runs, and I yelp, too. Because it’s kind of funny and kind of awful. My eyes sting with water and I can hardly see, but the ice-cold shock of rain lights up my insides.

  By the time Sam and I get to the top of the stairs—panting, dripping—I’ve wrung all the air out of my lungs, and my heart is bursting.