When she turned back to Hiroshi, his eyes told her that he’d figured out who everyone was really laughing at. He slipped the elastic from each ear, folded the mask, and slid it into his desk.
Skye sighed. She’d been trying all morning to make him understand, and now he did.
Understanding isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.
12
Hiroshi
Hiroshi stepped off the school bus and headed up the sidewalk. Angry tears burned his eyes, but he refused to let them fall. Everything was all wrong—this school, this stupid language that he didn’t understand and never would. He just wanted to go home. Back to Japan.
“Hey!” Skye’s voice came from behind him.
Hiroshi kept walking. Maybe she’d think he hadn’t heard her and just leave him alone.
“You dropped your book!”
Hiroshi was surprised to hear her yell in Japanese. It was probably because they were alone at the bus stop, and no one else was around to hear. He turned to see Skye flipping through his copy of Tim Gets Dressed.
“Give that back!” Hiroshi snatched the book from Skye’s hands. He shoved it into his backpack and yanked the zipper closed.
“Listen, I’m sorry about the mask.”
Right. Hiroshi turned and started up the street. Her words were empty—except for the word stupid. That word weighed a ton. Fine. He’d go his way, and she could go hers. Just because they were cousins didn’t mean he needed her. He’d figure things out on his own.
“Those words aren’t the important ones, you know.”
He slowed. “What?”
Skye caught up and fell into step beside him. “Your book.”
Why did that book have to fall out of his backpack? And why did she have to see it? “I’m not stupid, you know. That book is stupid, but I am not.” He kept walking.
Skye followed. “I know you’re smart.” She shook her head. “You don’t need those books. They leave out all the important stuff. Most schoolbooks do.”
“Like what?” Hiroshi stopped.
“There’s the English you learn in school, and then there’s real English.”
Hiroshi’s curiosity snuffed out some of his anger. But not all of it. “So how do I learn real English?”
Skye stepped off the curb. “Leave that to me,” she said over her shoulder. Then she crossed the street and headed home.
What is she talking about? Hiroshi shrugged and shifted his backpack from one shoulder to the other. Girls. They didn’t make sense in any language.
When he reached his house, Hiroshi opened the front door, slipped inside, then closed the door without a sound. He heard Mother and Grandfather talking in the kitchen. Slouching against the wall, he closed his eyes and listened to Mother talk about her trip to the supermarket. A month ago Hiroshi would never have stopped to listen to such everyday conversation. A month ago this conversation would have been boring. But after a day of wrestling with English, he let the rise and fall of their Japanese words wash over him. It felt like a small miracle to actually understand what people were saying.
When he entered the kitchen, Mother and Grandfather were sitting at the table with cups of green tea. He dropped his backpack onto the floor and sank into a chair.
“How was your day?” Mother asked.
“I don’t want to go back.”
“Is your cold worse?” She put her hand on his forehead. “No fever. Here, have some tea.” She lifted the china teapot by its bamboo handle. Hiroshi watched the steam rise as she poured his tea.
“I still don’t understand anything. It’s like I never even took English lessons before. And I’m tired of eating without chopsticks.”
“You could always bring lunch from home, Hiro-chan,” Mother said.
Hiroshi thought of the spiky-haired boy and what he would say if he saw Hiroshi’s Japanese food and chopsticks. Better to try and blend in with the others.
“Maybe,” he said. “I’ll think about it.” Hiroshi took a sip of tea. “I’m starving.” He reached for the plate of sushi rolls.
Mother handed him a napkin. “I am so glad Sorano-chan is there to help.”
Right. Hiroshi popped a sushi roll in his mouth.
“The box containing the dragon kite arrived this morning,” Grandfather said. “It’s in my workshop, but I haven’t unpacked it yet. I thought we’d open it together.”
Hiroshi stood and grabbed another sushi roll. “Let’s go.” Seeing the dragon kite again would be like seeing an old friend.
Hiroshi hurried down the stairs. It wasn’t until he had reached the bottom step that he realized Grandfather wasn’t behind him. He turned to find him gripping the railing, knuckles white, as he placed both feet on each step.
“Are you okay?”
“I am fine, yes. My old legs just need to get used to these steps.”
Hiroshi climbed back up the stairs and offered Grandfather his arm.
“Thank you, Hiroshi. But I can do it myself.” Hiroshi stayed close to Grandfather, just in case. “I am starting the new treatment at the hospital soon. I will be good as new in no time.”
Hiroshi had always trusted Grandfather. But this time he wasn’t so sure.
When they reached the bottom of the stairs, Hiroshi glanced at the high, small windows. “There’s not much light down here. There’s no view, either. Your workshop in Japan was better.”
Grandfather looked at the windows and put his hand on Hiroshi’s shoulder. “What do you say we open that box?”
Hiroshi peeled off the packing tape as if he were opening a birthday gift. He bent back the box flaps and dipped his hands into the Styrofoam pellets, feeling for the kite. His fingers closed around its bamboo bones, and he gingerly lifted it out of the box, spilling bits of Styrofoam onto the floor. He unwrapped the tissue paper, one layer at a time, until the dragon’s face finally appeared. He had almost forgotten the fierce glint of the eyes and the whiteness of the jagged teeth. But it was the magic of the colors that amazed Hiroshi the most. When the kite danced far up in the sky, the dragon appeared to be different shades of red, depending upon the light of the sun. But up close its skin and scales were tiny strokes of color and light—hundreds of lines of black, reds, blues, and greens. Holding the dragon kite in his hands felt like holding a piece of home.
Then he saw it—a rip in the paper near the top of the kite.
“Oh, no!” Hiroshi peered closer. Grandfather ran his fingers over the dragon’s four-inch wound. “Can we fix it?” Hiroshi watched the wrinkles deepen across Grandfather’s forehead.
“I don’t know. We could patch it, but it wouldn’t be as strong.”
“Would it still fly?”
“Yes, but it might not survive a rokkaku battle.”
“All that work for nothing.”
Grandfather lifted the kite from Hiroshi’s hands and set it on the worktable. “Doing something you love is never a waste of time, Hiroshi.”
“Moving to America has ruined everything.”
“It may seem like that now, Hiroshi. But it won’t always be that way. You’ll make many more kites in your lifetime. Even better than this one.”
“You mean we’ll make more kites. Together. You and me.”
“Perhaps. But you’ve become an expert kite maker in your own right. You made this kite yourself. You don’t need my help anymore, Hiroshi.”
“Yes I do. I put the kite together, but you had to remind me what to do. And I’ll never paint like you do.”
“The picture does not bring the kite to life; it is the design of the bamboo bones and paper skin that make it fly. I began painting kites sixty years ago.” He pointed to the dragon. “Do you think I could paint like this when I was a boy?”
Hiroshi eyed the medallion that hung from the chain around Grandfather’s neck. No bigger than a quarter, the medallion’s worn inscription was barely legible after all these years. Grandfather had been Hiroshi’s age when he had won it, the youngest rokkaku champion in his vil
lage. As long as Hiroshi could remember, Grandfather had never taken the medallion off.
“What’s it like to win?” Hiroshi asked.
“Winning one thing can mean losing something else.”
“But you’ve never lost.” Hiroshi took the medallion between his fingers. “You’re the best there is.”
Grandfather took the medallion from Hiroshi and tucked it back into his shirt. “This medallion does not represent winning, Hiroshi. It is a reminder of the value of humility.”
Hiroshi started to ask what he meant, but the faraway look in Grandfather’s eyes told him not to ask any more questions. Whenever he’d asked about the medallion in the past, Grandfather always managed to change the subject.
“You have talent, Hiroshi. What you lack is patience. But that, too, will come with time. You’ll see.”
Hiroshi wasn’t so sure. “You can teach me patience. I’ll learn from you.”
“You must find patience within yourself. I won’t always be here to help you. Some things you will need to learn on your own.”
But Hiroshi didn’t want to learn on his own. “We’ll always make kites together, Grandfather.”
But even as he said the words, Hiroshi knew they couldn’t be true.
13
Skye
“Tsuki-san, please count the number of animals in the picture.”
“Yes, Sensei.” Skye still couldn’t get used to being called by her last name. She breathed in, then let her cheeks puff as she blew the air out. The dramatic sigh didn’t buy her enough time—if she were to take as many deep breaths as she needed to think of the right answer, she’d hyperventilate before getting a word out. Come to think of it, hyperventilation wouldn’t be too bad. If Skye passed out on the floor, Kumamoto Sensei would naturally have to move on to the next student, right?
Kumamoto Sensei waited, her frown deepening as each second ticked by.
Skye rose and stood beside her desk. Think. Numbers. Animals.
Why couldn’t the Japanese have come up with one system of numbers, like in English? It wasn’t fair to have different sets of numbers for counting different things. Skye had memorized the numbers she needed to count money. And soccer goals. And even long objects, like pencils or forks. But counting animals was a whole different matter.
She stared hard at the picture of rabbits at the front of the room. They were cute. But those cute fluffy tails and pink noses seemed to taunt her in little singsong voices: You can’t count us! You can’t count us!
Skye imagined kicking a soccer ball right at them. Not hard enough to hurt them, just enough to scatter them so they’d run and hide in the bushes and she wouldn’t have to count them. Bowling for bunnies.
She took another breath. Small animals. That had to be the number set she needed.
“Ip-piki, ni-hiki, san-biki, yon … yon-biki?“
Kumamoto Sensei held up her hand, like it was too painful to hear anymore.
Then Skye realized her mistake. “Yon-hiki! Not biki. That’s it—yon-hiki.“
“Hai,” said Kumamoto Sensei. “Yes, that is correct if you are counting small animals.”
Okay, thought Skye. Rabbits are small animals. She continued counting: “Go-hiki, rok-piki—“
Kumamoto Sensei was nodding, but held up her hand again. “I am afraid that is incorrect, Tsuki-san. You may be seated.”
It was the nodding that always threw Skye off. Whenever an answer was right, there was nodding. When an answer was wrong—more nodding. Talk about confusing.
“Who knows the number set we must use when counting birds and rabbits?”
Everyone’s hands shot up. Birds and rabbits? So there was another set of numbers for birds and rabbits? But they were small animals, weren’t they? Unless Japan had mutant strains of rabbits and birds. Maybe they were huge in Japan, and people rode them around.
Kumamoto Sensei called on another kid two years younger than Skye. Figured. Most of the kids were younger than Skye by at least a year.
“Kurahone-san?”
A petite girl with a shiny braid down her back stood beside her desk. In a clear voice, she recited: “Ichi-wa, ni-wa, san-wa …“
So it was wa. Who knew? Not Skye, obviously.
With each syllable, Kumamoto Sensei’s smile widened, and the nodding kept getting faster. “Hai! Well done, Kurahone-san.”
Maya Kurahone—the third grader—sat down, somehow managing to look smug and humble at the same time. One of those “I can’t believe I got all the answers right!” looks, when she must have known all along that she’d said the right thing.
Oh, please.
Kumamoto Sensei flashed another picture on the screen, this time of a group of people. Skye raised her hand—she knew this one! But Kumamoto Sensei’s gaze skipped over her and on to the next student. Skye felt like slumping in her seat, but that wasn’t allowed. So she slumped in her mind instead.
Skye wanted to blame her dad for not speaking to her more in Japanese—but she knew it was her fault, too. She and her dad used to have fun playing games and watching movies in Japanese. But then she kept slipping more and more English words into Japanese sentences whenever she couldn’t remember words or rules. Or numbers for birds and rabbits.
These other kids all studied a bazillion hours a week, like learning Japanese was the most important thing on earth. Most of them had come from Japan a year or two before, and their parents wanted them to keep up their Japanese.
Skye’s Japanese hadn’t been “up” since she was little. She felt like she was climbing a huge hill, and already she was out of breath. She’d never catch up. She probably should have been with the first-grade class, but the school’s director must have figured that Skye wouldn’t fit in those tiny desks. So there she was, stuck with a bunch of third and fourth graders who knew way more Japanese than she did.
Skye tapped her pencil eraser on her paper, thinking. She had to get out of this class. But to get out, she had to pass the exams.
One on grammar. Tap, tap, went her pencil.
One on Japanese history. Tap.
One on calligraphy. Tap, tap, tap. She actually didn’t mind calligraphy. Tap, tap.
One on reading. Tap.
And one on speaking. The dreaded oral exam. Taptaptaptaptap …
Skye realized the room had fallen silent. Except, of course, for her tapping pencil. Keeping her chin lowered, she looked up. Everyone was staring at her. At her pencil.
“Gomen nasai.” Her shoulders drooped as she mumbled her apology, and she set her pencil on her desk. Kumamoto Sensei gave a quick nod, then moved on. Skye breathed again. If nothing else, Japanese class was good for learning how to take deep breaths. Too bad there wouldn’t be a test on that.
Kumamoto Sensei announced the break, then left the room. The other kids all pulled out their o-bento containers. Skye took hers out of her desk. Her dad had bought this one for her online. He’d said it was like the ones the kids had in Japan. Maybe it was, but Japanese school was the only place where she’d dare show her face with this o-bento box. She’d been hoping for one with soccer balls on it or something. But no. It was pink. With Hello Kitty grinning at her.
She wasn’t the only one with Hello Kitty—half the girls had o-bento boxes like hers, or with some other equally cutesy designs. The boys had boxes with superheroes—always Japanese, and always looking like they’d just stepped out of some manga comic book.
But there was one difference between Skye’s o-bento box and the others’—the contents. She lifted the lid, revealing four inner compartments just like the others. Not like the others, hers were filled with pretzels, chunks of pineapple, and a Fruit Roll-Up. The other kids had things like sushi rolls, rice rolls, hard-boiled eggs, and some unidentifiable stuff.
It wasn’t like Skye hated Japanese food. Not all of it, anyway. She used to eat it all the time when she was little. Back then her dad cooked a lot more often. But that was when he’d worked from home as a consultant. Now he didn’t consult
the recipe books anymore—he worked in an office. So her mom did most of the cooking, and it wasn’t Japanese food. Mom’s specialties were the regular stuff—American food.
Skye watched the other kids with their chopsticks and listened to their chatter—all of it in Japanese, of course. Most of them spoke pretty good English, but if Kumamoto Sensei overheard them speaking it, they’d get marked down for their daily participation grade.
“Sorano?” It was Maya, the one-braid wonder who could talk circles around her any day.
“Mmm?” Skye was thankful that her mouth was full. She couldn’t make any grammar blunders while she was chewing, could she?
“Do you want to join our study group? We meet at my house this afternoon, then we rotate so each week we will be at a different person’s house.”
A study group? Skye and Lucy used to do homework together sometimes. They’d usually end up doing more talking than studying. But sitting around speaking in Japanese with Maya and the others was not Skye’s idea of a good time.
Skye forced a bite of pineapple down her throat. “Um, arigato, Maya.” Skye was about to shake her head before remembering that was a no-no. So she nodded like she was about to say, “Why, yes. A study group would be just lovely.” Nodding felt unnatural, like she was lying or something. Actually, she was about to lie; nodding was the least of it. “You see, my cousin just moved here, from Japan.”
Maya looked at Skye blankly.
Skye kept going. “So we’re going to be studying together. I mean, he’ll be helping me out, you know. I won’t be helping him, since he already knows Japanese. Being that he is Japanese.” She laughed at her own lame joke, but Maya apparently didn’t see the humor.
“We are Japanese, too.” Maya looked confused.
“Right, I know that. But he just came from Japan. And we live in the same neighborhood and everything.” Couldn’t this girl just take no for an answer?
“Yes, okay.” With that Maya turned to another kid. They started chatting, and Maya scratched something off a list she had on her desk. It was official, then—Skye was off the A-list. Not that she cared.
Flying the Dragon Page 6