Her dress smells of rainbows

Pham Thi Anh Sang

Inside of the student dormitory, a young Asian girl no more than four and a half feet tall skipped happily down the hallways as her childishly pastel colored baggage floated after her on a disc of hard white light. Around her feet were a cloud of soft white butterflies, fluttering around in a dance of lights. The girl herself seemed to have not a care in a world as she these things happened about her. In theory, the collective was a remarkable exercise of skill, a testament to many long hours spent in discipline on the road to full mastery. In practice, however, the it was really less than perfect.

The luggage bounced against the ground and Anh Sang looked back at it in annoyance. The disc that held it was only a few inches high and wobbling badly, its edges blurring and sharpening as the light tried to escape its clumsily forged shape. The butterflies in comparison were stable but the white light on them was purely standard fare, pretty to look at but generally useless. If anybody were to swat at them too hard, or if Anh Sang were to step on them, the limb would simply pass through. They were only semi solid, after all.

The girl scrunched up her face in concentration and gestured with her hand, a wild motion that seemed more for drama than any concrete idea of control. The disc heaved up unsteadily, drifting upwards by only an inch before halting. There was some sound as items inside the luggage jostled about. But it held. She continued on blithely, glancing at door numbers as they came.

Soon enough, she reached the room that she thought she was assigned to. Her mommy had given her a backpack full of things that she would immediately need so Anh Sang opened it up. Inside, there was a yellow envelope with all of her documents inside. Passport, copy of her birth certificate, insurance. And then there were all of the papers that the school had sent, with the top sheet showing very clearly her student information.

"Yay!" According to that paper, she was in the right place after all. Excitedly, she took out the key that the nice lady at the Admission's Office had given her and slipped it into the lock. It fit perfectly.

With a hum, Anh Sang pushed the door open and marched inside to her new home away from home, butterflies and all following.

Pham Thi Anh Sang


"Um... Hello!"€

It was a boy. Mommy and Daddy had told her that her roommate might be a boy but Anh Sang had really been hoping for a girl to play princesses with. The Asian girl frowned a little in thought, hands on her hips in an attempt to copy the pose her mommy made when she wanted answers. It made her feel like she was being really tough and serious!

"Uh, hi,," she said in partially slurred English. It was hard to keep up schoolwork with all the moving her family did, so for the most part, Anh Sang had been doing her learning through tutors. Her Japanese tutor said that she was way better at that than English, which made her feel a little better about speaking it funny. She bet that she could speak better English than he did, though.

She glanced over her new roommate in a very youthful way, the type that didn't put her brain working into any deep analyses. No, her primary concern was making sure that the person she was going to be living with wasn't ugly. Her parents were both doctors so she saw lots of people who were ugly but for a reason. If her roommate was an ugly person, then she would have to ask he had a reason, too, and that would be super awkward! In any case, Anh Sang hoped that he'd at least be a nice pretty person or nice ugly person. But she really hoped that he'd be a nice pretty person.

I guess he's kind of pretty, Anh Sang thought doubtfully, eyes jumping from the boy sprawled on the ground to the rest of the surprisingly clean room. He wasn't quite as pretty as she was, of course. But for a boy, he was really pretty. Ohh...! Maybe he would like to play princesses with her? His hair was a little short but some princesses had short hair, too. Not too many of them, though, so maybe he could be a junior princess instead.

Mommy told her to be nice when she met her roommate, so Anh Sang bounced on her heels a little before smiling brightly. It probably wouldn't be so bad, she guessed. "I'm Phạm! Thị! Ánh! Sáng!" she said in singsong Vietnamese, punctuating each syllable proudly. "That's Anh Sang in English! What's your name?"

Pham Thi Anh Sang

Anh Sang beamed as she shook the boy's hand. It was really lucky she gotten a nice pretty person as a roommate! "Okay! Hi, O-li-ver!" She tried to mimic the exact way that he had spoken. The rest of his name, though, was way too hard for her to pronounce. It also had slipped her mind for the most part so the only syllables that she had caught were the beginning and end.

Then Oliver saw her butterflies and Anh Sang knew right then that they were going to be best friends forever and ever. "Yep, this is just a little of what I can do!" she said proudly. Gesturing, she brought the entire swarm into the room, with her luggage hovering unstably after. That was fine, though. She let it drop right next to the doorway, fully intending to unpack later. Maybe.

The light that had been molded in the disc flew into her hands and shaped itself into a hard light baton. Without the burden of actually having to support a solid object, it had stopped flickering into a soft light state. The top was a little lumpy but it was also super shiny, with little rainbows sparking inside of the light.

She tapped Oliver gently on the head with it, sending off a thin shower of light. "We are going to be bestest friends," Anh Sang declared solemnly before breaking out into a grin. "Or I will throw rainbows at you until we are! That's the other part of what I can do! It's really super pretty!"

And maybe it would take a while to convince the boy, but Anh Sang really thought that he would make a pretty princess. He had the right cuteness and manners and everything!

Pham Thi Anh Sang

Anh Sang giggled happily as Oliver continued unknowingly cement himself into her category of friends. There was just no faking the excitement and awe on his face -unless he was a really, really good actor. In that case, Anh Sang wouldn't know what to think. It would be great a talent for games, though. Only, he might be way too good for her and that would be awkward.

And the way that he reacted so self consciously was just adorable! Okay! I'm keeping him! the girl thought to herself gleefully. She refrained from doing that kind of creepy, kind of cool hand rubbing thing that people in movies sometimes did when they were plotting. But plotting she definitely was. Green would probably really nice on him...

"No, no, it's fine! I don't mind it at all!" the girl said. "I was born in Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam. We don't always live there, though. Sometimes we go to Osaka in Japan. That's where my mommy's family lives."

"As for what I like," she paused dramatically before a large grin came over her face. "I like making rainbows, looking for shiny things, painting, drawing -anything artsy, really!- and playing princesses!" Suddenly, she gave him a solemn look, saying, "You can be my junior princess, if you'd like," before brightening up again and giggling.

She waved her baton, smiling at the sparkles that it gave off before turning her attention back to Oliver. "So, anyways what about you?" Oh, maybe if he liked art, too, then they could draw picture stories together!

Pham Thi Anh Sang

Okay, Anh Sang like Oliver. She really liked Oliver. If she were any older, this might have been called a crush but she just couldn't help it! He was cute, didn't laugh at her for wanting to play princesses, and actually wanted to play with her, too! So suddenly, Oliver was caught right on the line between cute and cool in Anh Sang's mind. And he seemed to be interested in her home countries so that was a plus for him, too! If he really wanted her to -well, that was to say, if she could convince him of it- she would gladly teach him how to speak in that Osakan accent her mommy sometimes used by accident. Because no matter what anybody said to her about proper and all, Anh Sang thought that it sounded really neat!

When it came Oliver's turn to say what he liked, the girl couldn't help but feel just a little disappointed. She didn't really like math all that much and science was okay but sometimes she got words confused in her mind. Labs and things like that were fun, though. And rainbows! Rainbows were science, too!

So happily perceiving that they had an interest in common, Anh Sang took note of her roommate's other likes. Music was nice. Mommy and Daddy were always trying to get her to play some kind of traditional instrument but she hadn't really gotten into it. Though she did think that they sounded pretty, she wasn't sure that she could sit down for so long and practice. Maybe she would actually try it out some time? When she was older. There wasn't any need for a rush. The new ideas part sounded like it could be pretty fun, and then-

Wait, did he just say he could turn into dinosaurs?

"Eh?" Anh Sang squeaked in surprise since it came so out of the blue. "Really?" At first, she wasn't sure whether Oliver was being serious or not but then in the middle of talking about it, he seemed to pause in surprise. Maybe he thinks I'd be afraid? she thought, despite the fact that it really was kind of scary to her. She thought some dinosaurs were okay but others were just flat out terrifying. The boy finished with some reassurance that he would never hurt anybody and that was when Anh Sang could determine that firstly, he was being totally serious -probably- and secondly, she was absolutely not going to be stupidly afraid.

Because, well. Being afraid was for really little kids, right? And she really wanted to like Oliver, too, and already did even, so she wasn't going to be afraid anyways.

"Well. Well that's cool!" Anh Sang said bravely, nodding. Yep, no way was she going to lose a perfectly good friend because she thought some dinosaurs were kind of scary. And he probably wasn't going to be a dinosaur often anyways, and she could probably get used to it, so everything was definitely going to be fine!