Kira-Kira

by Cynthia Kadohata

  The first things out of our uncle’s truck were our desks. Lynn and I were going to put our desks in the alcove. Our father and uncle walked into the empty house carrying Lynn’s desk.

  “Where should we put it?” said our father.

  Lynn looked at me. “Which side do you want?”

  “You choose first.”

  We both knew which was the good side: the side facing the big magnolia in the next yard.

  “You can choose,” said Lynn.

  “Anytime, girls,” said Uncle Katsuhisa.

  “I’ll take that side,” I said, pointing to the bad side.

  “You’re just saying that,” said Lynn.

  “I don’t mind standing here all day, girls,” said Uncle. He was pretty tired, since he and my father had just finished loading all the stuff into the truck a few minutes earlier. He and my father set down the desk, and Uncle said we’d flip a coin.

  He threw a quarter into the air, somehow caught it behind his back, and slapped it on his forearm. Lynn and I looked at each other.

  “Tails,” said Lynn.

  Uncle glanced at the quarter and quickly put it into his pocket. He said, “Lynn’s got tails, and it was heads.”

  I said, “I’ll take the side that faces toward our old apartment. That way, I can see where we used to live.”

  So Lynnie got first choice even if she didn’t want it.

  She was radiant as she watched our father and uncle carry boxes into our new house. Actually, I thought of it as Lynnie’s house. I held Sammy while she stood in the living room excitedly watching all the commotion. Lynnie loved commotion.

  My father and uncle had painted the week before, so as we lay in our bedroom that night we could smell the paint. I took in big breaths so I would never forget how fun it was to live in our own new house and sleep in our own newly painted bedroom with my sister and brother.

  I’d heard our mother tell our father that this was just a “beginner house” and that someday we would own a “better” house in a “better” neighborhood, but I could not imagine a better house than this one. We had a grass yard in front and in back, and at night raccoons, possums, and skunks walked through the backyard just as if they lived there.

  My sister got better every day, and I heard my mother telling my father that she thought the house itself was making Lynn better. I agreed. It was as if the house were healing Lynn. That made me love the house even more than I would have anyway.

  A few days later Lynn, Sammy, and I planned a picnic to celebrate how good she felt. We hadn’t gone on a picnic since she’d first made friends with Amber. My parents were a little worried about her going out, but they were also excited that she felt so well. It was as if she’d never been sick.

  On the day of the picnic she shook me awake at dawn. “Dad left a whole dollar!” she said. I opened my eyes. Dad had told us he would leave us money to get food for our picnic.

  “Shall we buy doughnuts, then?” I said.

  “Maybe we want doughnuts. Maybe not.”

  “I wish the store had the kind with jelly inside.”

  “I wish that too!” She was excited. She used to love picnics before Amber came along. “I can’t decide. We might want Popsicles.”

  Pleasure flushed my face. I hadn’t thought of Popsicles! It felt nice to think about treats again, after all that time saving for a house.

  Sam said, “I’ve wet the bed.” That brought us back down to earth. I had to clean up after Sam while Lynn made us breakfast: what we called brown eggs, made by scrambling eggs with shoyu and sugar. It was my favorite breakfast.

  After we ate, we made rice balls to take with us. We talked it over and decided to use part of our money for root beer and the rest for doughnuts.

  We rode our bicycles—Sam rode with me on mine. It was a lovely late-summer day. I loved the days at the end of summer. Each day before the regular school year started became more and more precious.

  The wind blew hard. Decaying magnolia petals drifted on the streets as we rode. We headed south toward Mr. Lyndon’s mansion—white with white pillars. We liked to see his house. My father always said it was his dream house. It was even in a book at the library, about Georgia mansions from the pre–Civil War days. When Lynn and I were rich, we would make Mr. Lyndon an offer he couldn’t refuse and buy that house for my father. That would be one of the seven houses we’d get our parents. Over the years we’d gone for a couple of picnics on Mr. Lyndon’s sprawling unfenced property. His property was kind of a local tourist attraction—he’d even offered tours at one time.

  Lynn called back from her bicycle, “Mr. Lyndon inherited everything he owns!” I knew that, of course, because the grown-ups always mentioned it. I think they wanted to remind themselves that he had never earned his way like they did.

  We stopped at the edge of one of his fields and left our bicycles in the grass.

  Grass and trees stretched before us. I looked doubtfully at Lynn. Would she get tired? But she was jubilant with energy. It seemed we walked forever, but Lynn’s enthusiasm never flagged. Every so often I studied Sam for signs of fatigue. But all I saw was satisfaction. Other times Sam glanced at me, to make sure everything was okay. Each time he glanced at me, I smiled furtively at him. It was our secret that I was his special favorite.

  A field is a magical place. I could imagine what the past held: cows grazing, a Civil War battle, maybe dinosaurs. The tall grass tended toward blue green and waved in the wind the way I imagined weeds would wave in the sea. I loved that beautiful blue-green color.

  After awhile there was nothing behind us and nothing before us except more field and a grove of trees. Lynn stopped.

  “Here’s the spot,” she announced.

  We spread out the blanket and lay on our stomachs, with our heads near the edge so we could look into the grass. I said, “We’re on a raft in the middle of the sea!” Sam looked a bit apprehensive; Lynn ignored me. She drew an imaginary square as she bit into a rice ball.

  “Let’s see how much we can see in the square. I’ll go first. I see an ant.”

  “I see grass,” I said.

  “That’s what I was going to say,” said Sam. He sighed. I could tell he was getting tired of being the young one and losing every game except when we felt sorry for him and let him win.

  “I see that tiny piece of quartz.”

  “Snail poop,” I said.

  “Liar,” she said. “I see a caterpillar! I just noticed!”

  And so on, square after square, until Lynn yawned and I knew the game was over. Sam sat a few yards away eating rice and doughnuts. What a beautiful day! What a perfect time for a nap. I lay on my back and closed my eyes. The wind tickled my face. I dreamed I was a mermaid, the fastest mermaid in the ocean. I was at the Mermaid Olympics. Thousands of fish-people watched at the Undersea Olympic Stadium. They were cheering. But in the midst of all the cheering someone was screaming. I had to swim to help. A little boy . . .

  Lynn was already plowing toward a grove of trees. Sam shouted over and over, “Waaaaaaaa! Waaaaaaaa!” in a voice that I didn’t recognize at first as his. But even before I recognized it, it was pulling me toward it. I wished I didn’t run faster than Lynn, so I wouldn’t have to arrive first. But since she’d become a teenager, her legs had grown long and gawky. I passed her and ran toward the screaming.

  Someone had set a trap in the field, the metal kind that bites an animal until the animal is forced to chew off its own leg. The teeth dug through Sam’s skin, making a circle of red on his thin ankle. For some reason his face was red, as if someone were squeezing his neck. He looked at me pleadingly. “Help me,” he said. For a second I thought his foot was cut off.

  I felt dizzy and started to say, “I don’t know what to do.” But instead, I knelt down to remove the trap. I couldn’t pull the teeth apart. I wished I could just run away and let Lynn take care of it. Then I saw how to open it: by pushing down the tabs on the sides of the trap. I pushed them as hard as I could. �
�Move your foot; I can’t hold it!” I cried out. Sammy pulled his foot out, and I let go of the trap, which snapped shut. My brother stared at his leg and let out a wail.

  “We’re going to take you to the doctor,” I said. “He’ll sew you up and make you better.”

  “Sew me up with a needle?” He wailed even more.

  Lynn arrived, and I felt relieved that I was no longer in charge. I carried Sam piggyback to the blanket while Lynn directed me. “Watch out, that part’s hilly.” Or, “Careful, you’re shaking him.” It seemed to take forever, and I got exhausted. We decided to use the blanket as a gurney and head back home. Lynn took the back end. I was glad she was in back because I didn’t want to look at my brother’s ankle. It made me dizzy. I walked backward but kept my head turned so I could see where I was going. After just a minute I could hear Lynn panting.

  We walked forever, and when we had walked forever, we did not seem to have gotten anywhere. Lynn needed to stop to adjust her grip more and more frequently, and finally, the blanket slipped out of her hands. My brother grunted as he fell. I turned to look, first at him with his shocked expression, and then at her with her expression of exhaustion.

  “Can you keep going?” I said.

  “Yes.” Lynn picked up the blanket and we continued. But in a few steps the blanket slipped again. Sam no longer cried tears, and he no longer wailed loudly. His face was still red, but it looked almost frozen, as if he were paralyzed.

  Lynn and I stared at him. His ankle had swollen like a balloon. We dripped sweat.

  “I’m cold,” said Sam.

  Lynn looked at me. “Go get help. I’ll wait with him,” she said.

  I hesitated. I hated being alone. I loved having a brother and sister. I did not even like walking alone half a block from the house to the mailbox. When my parents asked me to mail something, I always took Sam with me.

  “You have to,” said Lynn. She sat down next to Sam and stroked his face. Her own face was starting to get that green look, and she was panting, but not just from fatigue. It was also as if she couldn’t breathe.

  “Keep him warm, then.”

  Lynn nodded. Sam stared at me. “Help me,” he said again.

  I ran off through the field, hoping I wouldn’t get lost. But after awhile I couldn’t figure out which way I was supposed to go. It seemed to my memory that at first we’d walked north to get to the picnic site, and then we’d turned west. That meant that I should walk east and then south. But when I walked east, it seemed to me that I was going in the wrong direction. So then I looked around and tried to remember where the sun had been when we’d first entered the field earlier. I decided the sun had been before us: east. So we’d walked east first and then south? I checked to see where the sun was starting its midday descent. Then I realized it didn’t matter which way I went. I just ran.

  I ended up not where we’d come from, but in an unfamiliar neighborhood that nevertheless seemed familiar because it looked so much like a neighborhood I knew my mother would want to live in. The houses were “better,” though not by a lot.

  All the houses were almost the same. The same old frame houses, mostly white, but a few in blue, pink, or yellow; the same gravel driveways; and even the same rich man’s mansion in the distance. I was on the back side of the mansion, though. Before, we had seen it from the front. I guess that meant we’d been going west earlier. Or . . . I wasn’t sure. Directions were not my specialty.

  I ran down the block, to the house that looked most like one my mother would have wanted, if we could have afforded it. I knocked so firmly on the door that I was surprised at the loud noise I made. Sunflowers decorated the curtains, and a plastic sunflower was stuck into the front lawn. A young white woman answered the door and was unabashedly surprised to see me.

  “My goodness,” she said.

  “My brother! An accident! He got his foot caught in a trap.” I burst into tears.

  “My goodness,” she said again. She thought a moment. “I think Hank Garvin is home.” She turned toward the inside of her house. “Casey, stay put, do you hear me!”

  I followed her to a nearby house, where she didn’t knock, but rather stuck her head in an open window and called out. “Hank Garvin, are you home?”

  In a moment a couple of men walked into the living room as the woman and I peeked in. One of the men leered at the woman while the other man came forward. She spoke to the one who came forward, but not until she had cast a disdainful glance toward the other.

  “This little girl’s brother has got caught in a trap.” She turned to me. “Was it on Mr. Lyndon’s property?” I pointed, and she nodded. “Uh-huh, Mr. Lyndon. That idiotic son of a bitch. I hate him and his wife.”

  “Show me where,” said Hank. He opened the door and strode to his truck. He stopped once to see if I was following. “Come on.”

  As we got in the other man was walking onto the front porch. I heard him saying, “Ginger, honey, you sure are looking good,” but we were out of range then, and I couldn’t hear her reply.

  I turned to Hank and momentarily forgot why I was there. He did not look like Joe-John Abondondalarama, but he was just as handsome. He smiled at me.

  “Don’t worry. I got caught in a trap once when I was a kid. How old is your brother?”

  “Five.” Then I remembered that he was four. I blushed.

  “That’s how old I was. And later I ran track in high school.” He smiled again. “I wasn’t any good, but I made the team.”

  I glanced out the window, then said shyly, “Really?”

  “You caught me in a lie,” he said. He grinned. “It was junior varsity. Hang on!”

  The truck screeched through the street and made a sharp turn. We reached the field I had just come from and jumped over the curb and onto the grass. I bounced up and hit the ceiling of the car. My teeth clattered together when I landed. For a moment I feared I’d made a big mistake by finding this crazy-driving Hank Garvin. But he was so calm, it made me calmer.

  I said, “I think you go left here!”

  “Here?” he said.

  “Yes!”

  “Hang on!”

  He turned hard left while I hung on. I had never been alone like this with a grown-up white person. But I wasn’t scared exactly. I felt breathless and excited. He bumped along as if he drove over fields like this every day.

  “Your daddy work in the hatchery?”

  “Yes. My mother works in the big plant.”

  “Really? My wife is helping to unionize that plant.”

  Lately, my mother and father sometimes talked in low voices about the attempts to unionize the plant. I’d overheard my mother say you couldn’t trust anyone anymore. And Silly had told me that one of the pro-union workers had got beaten up one night. Now I felt scared. What if Hank Garvin was secretly a thug? I wasn’t even sure what a thug was exactly, which was all the more reason to be scared. A thug could be anyone, anywhere.

  Hank seemed to sense my fear. He drove with his knees maneuvering the steering wheel while he searched his pockets and came up with a piece of striped gum that he threw to me. He took the wheel with his hands again. I was holding on for my very life. He smiled. He was so awfully handsome. “I’ve never been in an accident in thirty years.”

  Thirty years! He was way too old for me! I put some gum into my mouth. “You go right here!” I said. “At least, I think so.”

  “What’s your name?”

  “Katie!”

  “Hang on, Katie!” He veered right.

  I hung on tight, and then I saw my sister and brother.

  chapter 11

  LYNNIE AND EVEN Sam were both a little surprised to see Hank: He was that handsome. It was as if he had stepped out of a comic book. I felt rather important, since I had sort of discovered him. He picked up Sam and strode quickly to the truck.

  “You girls sit in back!”

  I thought I heard dogs baying in the distance, and I remembered I’d heard rumors about Mr. Lyndon owning v
icious dogs. Lynn and I climbed in. Right before Hank started the truck, he leaned out the window and looked at us. He said, “Hang on!”

  We grabbed some straps attached to the inside of the truck bed. I could see inside the cab. Sam lay wide-eyed across the seat. His eyes locked on mine. I smiled slightly and laid my hand on the glass. He smiled very slightly at me and reached his hand up toward mine. We bumped across the field again.

  This time we sped in a different direction. We reached the street in a short time. Hank drove expertly but very fast. I looked behind us and saw our bicycles lying in the grass.

  It felt strange to be speeding through the streets of this neighborhood where I didn’t belong, in a truck where I didn’t belong, with my brother hurt and my sister sick. I thought of all those stories I had to read for school and the questions the teachers always asked. What is the theme? What does the story mean? Why did the characters act in a certain way? We whizzed by the pretty houses. It seemed that at this moment I was inside a story. This was the story of my life, and I did not know what any of it meant. Despite all that was terrible about that day, I found myself exhilarated by our speed, by the sheer adventure of the moment, and most of all by the fact that, by myself, I had found this man Hank Garvin, who was going to save my brother. It seemed amazing.

  We pulled up to the hospital where my brother had been born. Hank ignored my sister and me and picked up my brother and was already running through the hospital doors as Lynn and I stepped down from the truck. We hurried after Hank.

  By the time we got inside, Sam lay on a gurney and was being rushed away. Hank watched. We stood beside him. He smiled at us. “He’s going to be fine,” he said. Lynn hugged me.

  The hospital called our parents. Hank sat in the waiting room with us. Once, he looked at his watch and left the room to make a phone call. When he returned, he had a coloring book and a few broken crayons for me. I was a little old for that, but I said thank you and pretended to be absorbed in coloring. Every so often I peeked at Hank Garvin. White people were not really mean to me, but they were rarely nice, either. And here was Hank, acting like we were the most important people in the world. I decided that besides being a handsome millionaire and a karate expert, my future husband Joe-John Abondondalarama would help out people in need, just like Hank. Maybe he wouldn’t even be a millionaire.