The Everlasting Story of Nory

27. Nory’s Museum

That was back at the Palo Alto house, while Nory’s parents were out for dinner and Ruth was there babysitting. Later on that night, Nory asked Joe if they had fake food in Africa, fake Japanese food, the beautiful kind that was in the window of Japanese restaurants, and he said they didn’t. Japan wasn’t important in Africa. Nory asked Joe if he liked fake Japanese food. He said he did. Nory told him her idea for a museum of fake food from all different lands. She would take very beautiful china plates, and place the food on them. It would be a small one-room museum, full of glass cupboards. She would go to all the Japanese restaurants, and call all the toy stores. There would be a children’s area and a gift shop. And she would sell fake foods, for good prices, if she had duplicates, because thousands of toy stores would be sending her fake food at the same time. There would mostly be fruits and vegetables, and Japanese food, such as the one of seaweed shaped in a cornucopia, with rice tucked into it and crabmeat sprinkled over the rice. The children’s area would have plastic plates, but beautifully painted also. ‘Does that sound like a good idea for a museum?’ Nory asked.

‘Sure, yeah,’ said Joe. He said a lady came into his school to do a nutrition demonstration, and she had tons of fake food. The chocolate chip cookie looked so real, Joe thought it was real at first. The meat was cool also, he said. It was red, but you could see light coming through it.

‘Ah, the meat was translucent,’ said Nory. ‘Transparent is when you can see clearly through it, but translucent is when you can only see the glow of light but nothing in particular.’ Joe nodded. It was amazing how much English he knew. You couldn’t even tell he had ever not known English. Joe knew a huge amount more English than Nory knew Chinese, and she’d been studying it for four years. But they both had the same trouble with the multiplication table. Nory’s parents gave their little red car to Ruth when they moved to England, and Ruth wrote a letter telling them that the car was running very well except for the fact that it needed a new engine.