Toyo

by Lily Chan

  Kayoko showed her brother a school photo of Toyo dressed like a little doll, her hair cut in a shiny bowl identical to her classmates’. Rows of solemn-faced girls stared out from the photo. There was nothing to distinguish Toyo from any of the other girls except, perhaps, a certain wariness in her eyes. Then again, perhaps it was only the way the sunlight fell on her face, the angle at which the photo had been taken.

  acknowledgements

  There are many times I would have stopped.

  To my family

  friends and mentors

  Clare Forster, agent

  Tim Herbert, Clive and Penny Blazey, patrons of the Peter Blazey Fellowship

  Chris Feik, Kate Goldsworthy, Denise O’Dea, Peter Long and all at Black Inc. Thank you; Arigatou – in any language, my gratitude is inexpressible.