by Laurence Yep
I wanted to know more, but Jade waved impatiently. “Come on, you two.” Once again, the group was leaving the gallery—much too soon.
There were so many people on the sidewalk that it was hard not to bump into someone as we tried to keep an eye on Hailey and our other chaperones up ahead. Some people were hurrying into restaurants, and others browsed the vendor tables that lined the streets. I saw tables piled high with everything from old books to scarves, jewelry, and woodcarvings.
Even if I could have stopped to shop along the sidewalk, I didn’t feel like it. I was already thinking of all the door-decorating ideas we could shop for at the art supply store. As we walked with our group, I said to Miki, “The door-decorating contest is about what the summer institute means to us. For me, the institute means dancing. Should we make a ballerina for our door?”
Miki motioned her hand back and forth between us. “Maybe two ballerinas. You and me?”
I grinned. She was actually thinking of us as a pair! “Okay. And I love your arabesques. So let’s have our ballerinas do them.”
She shook her head. “No.”
I was a little hurt that she’d shot down my idea. “Then what should they do?”
She gave a little hop forward. “They should jump—like you.”
I laughed. “Let’s have one do an arabesque and the other can jump. How’s that?”
“Good,” Miki agreed happily. “Very good.”
The art store was narrow but very deep. I stayed near the front where the brushes, sketch pads, and regular art supplies were. I picked out two pads of construction paper, cheap scissors, double-stick tape, and other stuff I thought we would need.
But when I headed for the cashier, I realized that I’d lost Miki. So I hurried down the center aisle, glancing to the right and left. I breathed a sigh of relief when I found her looking at pads of ultraheavy paper.
“I already have construction paper,” I said, showing her what was in my basket. “We can make silhouettes of dancers out of that.”
Miki had opened a pad of watercolor paper. She was fingering the different-colored sheets and studying their surfaces from different angles—the way a sculptor might study a block of marble before trying to carve a statue out of it. Finally, she nodded her head excitedly. “With this, I can make the dancers come out of the door.”
Huh? “I don’t understand,” I said gently.
Miki dipped her hand into her bag. When she took out her video game, I felt myself getting annoyed. “Isn’t this a funny time to play your game?” I asked, trying not to sound hurt.
Her thumbs danced over the buttons, and then she turned the game for me to see. “I am not playing a game,” she said. I saw the word depth on the screen.
“Is that some sort of dictionary?” I asked.
“English to Japanese and Japanese to English,” Miki explained.
My stomach clenched. I felt so stupid for jumping to conclusions. All this time, Miki hadn’t been playing games. She’d been trying to understand me!
After punching some more buttons, Miki held up the dictionary again, and I saw the words three dimensions.
A lightbulb went on in my mind. “Oh,” I said with relief, “you mean the dancers could be three-dimensional. But that paper looks awfully stiff.”
“With water, I can shape it,” Miki explained.
I nodded slowly. She seemed excited about her idea, and I figured that if her water method didn’t work, we could always go back to my plan of cutting dancers from construction paper. “Awesome,” I said with a smile.
When Miki began to punch buttons on her dictionary again, I figured she hadn’t understood me, so I added, “I mean, I’d like that.”
Miki put away her dictionary. “I learned English in school,” she said, “but your language has so many idi … idi …” It took her a moment to find the right word. “Idioms.”
“You mean slang?” I asked.
She spread her hands apologetically. “You use words like awesome and super-cool in ways I don’t know. I have to look them up. I am afraid of misunderstanding you. I might hurt your feelings. Or I might make you mad.”
I shook my head. I remembered how hurt I’d been when I thought Miki didn’t want to talk to me at all. Anything was better than that. “If you don’t understand something or you’re not sure how to say something, just let me know,” I told her. “We’re going to misunderstand each other sometimes. But I promise I won’t get mad or hurt.”
Miki hesitated and then nodded. “Awe-some,” she said sweetly.
I held her gaze for a moment and smiled—until Hailey gave us a five-minute warning and urged us to finish up.
Even though this was an art store, we found little treats and snacks near the cash register. Miki bought a box of skyscraper cookies as an omiyage, a gift for her parents. I made a mental note to get something for my mom and dad, too.
The trimming store was three buildings farther on, and when we stepped inside, I just stood and stared. It was like a playground for designers.
One section displayed all sorts of lace trims to sew onto clothes, as well as every kind of braid and cord—from silk to gold wire, fringes to tassels. Another section was crammed with bins of buttons. Plastic heart-shaped buttons were stored next to buttons made of brass, leather, wood, shell, and even expensive crystal.
Another section of the store sold ribbon—from gold to silver to hand-dyed silks whose delicate colors blended into one another. There were spools of silk, satin, and organza ribbons of every color and pattern.
I expected to find supplies to make the ballerinas for our door, but I knew I could find a gift for my mom here, too. But where to start? And how could I see it all in the twenty minutes Hailey had given us?
As the others fanned out through the store, I started to panic.
Then I heard Jade’s voice. “Isabelle, come look at this,” she said, motioning for me to join her in front of a corner rack.
I had started toward her when Miki called, “Isabelle!”
She poked her head out from behind a bookcase. Based on the look on her face, I could tell she had discovered something wonderful and wanted me to come join her.
I shook my head at Jade and pointed toward Miki, gesturing that I had to go see what she was so excited about. I figured Jade would be happy to see that Miki and I were finally hitting it off. But instead of smiling or giving me the thumbs-up, Jade frowned. What’s wrong with her? I wondered.
As soon as I saw what Miki had found, worries about my sister flew from my mind. Miki had discovered a bargain table hidden by the shelves. There were fabric remnants on the table—not enough for a full-sized outfit, but plenty to make clothes for our little ballerinas, and sold at really low prices.
There was a big box of buttons, too. I plunged my hand into the bin, the buttons feeling as cool and smooth as river pebbles. Miki joined me, churning up the buttons so that the bottom ones would rise to the top.
Miki pulled out a few pink flower-shaped buttons. “I think these would look good on a dancer,” she said.
I nodded in agreement and kept digging.
Within each new layer of buttons, we found something else to add to our ballerinas. I found a rhinestone button the size of one of my dad’s old half dollar coins. Miki found a dozen smaller rhinestone buttons. I think we both felt like miners who had just discovered diamonds.
I found short lengths of gold mesh ribbon, some of them wide and some narrow. Next I spotted a piece of black satin with sequins sewn onto it. I felt as if I’d picked up a piece of shimmering midnight. There was a section of misty white bridal veil fabric that I could use for a tutu, and I also found a small box of gold sequins that I could use to make a pattern on the tutu.
Instead of cookies for my mom, I bought her several boxes of shiny sequins and rolls of patterned ribbon. They would look great in her artwork.
Suddenly I heard Hailey yelling from the front of the store. “Attention, KBCers! It’s time to go.”
But we couldn’t go just yet. I was sure there were more prizes waiting for us on the table.
A few minutes later, Jade called, “Isabelle! Where are you?”
“I’ll be there in a sec!” I hollered.
“NOW!” Jade yelled back.
I sighed. As I quickly gathered up my stuff, I whispered to Miki, “I love Jade, but sometimes she can be so bossy.”
Miki laughed and said in a low voice. “She cannot be more bossy than my big sister.”
I saw the rest of our group standing by the door with Hailey. Jade was tapping her foot impatiently. “You’ve kept everyone waiting.”
Hailey put her hand on my sister’s arm. “Easy, Jade,” she said. “It’s my job to lecture them.”
Jade closed her mouth, but she glared at me.
“I’m sorry,” I said to Hailey. “It’s my fault.”
Miki dipped her head apologetically. “It was my fault, too.”
“Okay, just don’t let it happen again,” Hailey said. “Now hurry up and pay for your stuff. We’ll be outside.”
As the others went out onto the sidewalk, Miki and I got in line for the cashier. While we waited, I asked her about her sister. She told me that Natsumi was eighteen and already dancing with the Royal Swedish Ballet. Miki came from a real international family.
“She must be amazing,” I said.
“Yes, she is,” Miki agreed with a nod. “I want to be good like her, too.”
“You’re already one of the best in our classes,” I assured her. I wondered if she had grown up in her big sister’s shadow just as I had.
“So are you,” she said.
That was nice of her to say, even if I didn’t believe it.
Once we stepped outside with our bags of loot, Hailey signaled for the group to follow the other chaperones back toward FIT. “Let’s go.”
As the group started to move, though, Hailey put her hand on my shoulder to wait. When she was sure Miki couldn’t hear us, she said in a low voice, “I’m glad to see you’re making friends with Miki. It isn’t easy for her outside of the dance studio.”
“I know. I saw her dictionary,” I said quickly. I felt guilty that I hadn’t realized what it was earlier.
“She’s taken several years of English in school, so she can read the language pretty well,” Hailey explained. “But she has a hard time when it’s spoken to her—I’m afraid her teachers weren’t very good at actually pronouncing English. It can take her a while to work out what we’re saying to her.”
“I’ll help her practice,” I promised.
“Thanks, Isabelle,” said Hailey, squeezing my shoulder. “Now, let’s hurry and catch up to the group.”
Carrying my bags of goodies, I jogged along the sidewalk and eventually fell into step beside Jade. “What was it you wanted to show me back in the shop?” I asked, hoping she was less grumpy now.
Jade glanced at me and was quiet for a moment, but then she said, “I found a book on Victorian dresses I thought Mom would like, but I didn’t buy it because I wanted to ask you about it first.”
“Oh,” I said, feeling a little guilty. Then I remembered the purchases I’d made. “It’s okay. I took care of Mom,” I held up one of my bags. “I got her all kinds of ribbons and sequins.”
Jade pressed her lips together. “She’ll love them,” she admitted. “But it would’ve been nice if you’d asked me first.”
“I didn’t have much time, remember?” I said, a little annoyed now.
Jade gave me an odd look. “You made time for Miki, though,” she said in a small voice.
“Well … yeah,” I said, confused. “Isn’t that what you’ve been telling me to do?”
Jade stared straight ahead, and then she gave a little shake of her head. “You’re right. It’s all good, Isabelle. Come on. We’re starting to fall behind.”
She began to stride forward, but her legs were longer than mine, so I didn’t have time to talk anymore. I was too busy trying to keep up with her. She’d said things were “all good,” but they didn’t feel that way between us. What had I done wrong now?
That evening, as we left the cafeteria after dinner, Jade asked, “Hey, I hear they’re showing a movie in the rec room. Do you want to watch it with me?”
“Sorry,” I said slowly, not wanting to disappoint Jade again, “but Miki and I are going to work on our door design. Anyway, shouldn’t you be starting on your door with Abby?”
Jade shrugged. “I guess” was all she said.
She stayed in the elevator to go up to her room, but Miki and I got off at the floor with the dorm kitchenette, a place for students to microwave popcorn and little snacks like that. Miki filled a bowl with water.
“What’s the water for?” I asked.
“I will use wet-folding to make our ballerinas,” Miki explained. “Yoshizawa sensei—a Japanese origamist—created the method.”
“This I have to see,” I said.
My job was to make a tutu for one of the dancers, and to do that I would need to stiffen the material I had bought. In a cupboard, I found a really old bag of flour. I added a little of it to a second bowl of water and stirred the mixture. Then we carefully carried both bowls up to our room.
From the city below came the rumble of buses and trucks. Traffic was heavy this Saturday night. But I forgot about the distant noise as I dipped the remnants of the bridal veil fabric into my bowl and shaped the wet cloth into a semicircle of folds. Miki showed me about how big her dancer might be—a little over a foot tall—and I sized the costume to match.
As I worked, I glanced every now and then at Miki. She cut out squares and rectangles from a sheet of white watercolor paper and then began to brush a damp cloth against one of them.
“I didn’t see you do that when you made origami animals,” I said.
“I can shape the paper better this way,” Miki said.
Miki’s approach to folding the first piece was a lot different from the way she had made animals. Instead of making creases by pressing the paper against a desk or table, she held the paper up in the air, using the pads of her fingers to coax it into bending.
Miki’s fingers seemed to know just what they were doing. She had told me once that she made origami animals for exercise. Maybe she’d been keeping her fingers flexible and nimble for this art—for wet-folding.
Setting aside my little tutu to dry, I watched as Miki made folds for the dancer’s nose, and dimples for where her eyes would be. Tiny curving folds formed her eyebrows.
“Wow, so this is paper art,” I said, unable to look away from what Miki was creating in front of me.
“Do you like it?” she asked shyly.
“I really do,” I said.
“Good. Now keep smiling, Isabelle,” Miki said.
I figured she wanted some more reassurance, so I grinned. “Really, Miki—I love what you’re making.”
“Thank you. But keep smiling,” Miki said again, and she began to make more adjustments to the dancer’s face.
I was trying hard not to move, but I managed to ask through gritted teeth, “What are you doing?”
She didn’t answer but kept working, glancing at me every now and then. Finally, she sat back. “I want the dancer to have a happy smile—your smile.” She showed me the pale, friendly face staring up at me from her desk.
“That’s amazing,” I said.
“Thank you,” she said. Then she craned her neck to see what I had done with the tutu.
I carefully touched my creation. The paste solution had dried, so I had half of a “saucer” tutu. I picked up a short length of wide gold mesh ribbon and said, “This will be the belt.” I held up the rhinestone button. “This will look like a jeweled buckle. And I’ll sew on the sequins last.”
“Very magnetic,” Miki said.
That seemed like an odd thing to say, but I reminded myself that I had to help Miki with her language sometimes. “Um … do you mean attractive?”
Miki’s sh
oulders sagged a little. “Are they not the same?”
I smothered a smile. “Close enough,” I said reassuringly.
It took all of Sunday to make our dancers, and when Miki saw that I didn’t laugh at her mistakes when she spoke, she grew more comfortable talking about herself and her family.
She came from Kyoto, which was the capital of Japan before it was moved to Tokyo. Her parents ran a paper store that had been in their family for six generations, and both of them were into paper art and had taught it to Miki.
Miki was just as curious about my family, so I told her about my dad, who is an administrator at a hospital but has his own jazz band. My mom preserves and restores clothes at the Smithsonian Institution and is a textile artist in her spare time. “She takes apart anything made out of cloth and puts the pieces together in new ways,” I explained.
Miki pointed to the paper tutu I had made. “So you learned from her. You see new ways to use things.”
I nodded and smiled, feeling a little proud.
The more I watched Miki and her paper art, the more I admired her skill. From a sheet of pale tan paper, she made the face of the second dancer. And then Miki shaped the remaining pieces of white and tan paper into two pairs of arms with hands, as well as two pairs of legs and feet.
Miki formed the leaping dancer’s bodice out of red paper, and I used the narrow gold mesh ribbon to make a V-neckline for the bodice. Then we added the belt and tutu I had made. Miki made pointe shoes from more red paper. When we laid out the pieces on our room floor, the dancer had three dimensions, just as Miki had promised.
I loved watching Miki’s hands as they bent and folded blue paper into a gown for the other dancer. For a belt, Miki twisted more blue paper tightly into a rope and attached her pink flower buttons. The second dancer’s pointe shoes were pink.
“You’re a real fairy godmother, Miki,” I said, which made her grin.
For the finishing touch, I added a collar made of beaded lace, and I formed a V of black ribbon that ran down to the waist of the dancer’s gown.
“You’re a fairy godmother too,” Miki said happily. “Now our dancers can both go to the ball.”