I said, “What would it feel like if all the stars were made of bits of ice and they fell from the sky and landed on us?”
And Lynn said it would feel nice. How did she know that? Because she knew everything!
I asked her, “What would happen if all the tea in China suddenly fell from the sky and landed on us?”
She said that would feel nice too.
Finally, we got sleepy and went inside. Our bedroom now contained two beds and a crib. When Lynn needed to study, she used the kitchen table. Some nights I liked to put Sam on my little bed so he could sleep with me instead of alone. I did not want the oni—ogres who I knew guarded the gates of hell—to take my brother in the night. I hugged him to me all night. When he was one year old, I remembered something: At some point since he had been born, I had lost Bera-Bera and never even noticed.
chapter 5
SAMMY WAS THE calmest baby in the world. He hardly ever cried. Lynn took care of me, and I took care of Sammy. And we all took care of one another. It’s hard to believe that for the next couple of years nothing happened. It was wonderful. We spent all our spare time with one another. In my sister’s diary entries from those years she chronicled what days Sammy learned how to walk and talk, what our homework assignments were every night, what time our parents got home from work, and any other details she could think of. She had the neatest handwriting in the world. Sometimes I would watch her write in her diary, and I was amazed at how perfect her writing was.
Occasionally, my uncle brought us on camping trips. Lynn said that his camping trips were the most fun thing she ever did. I agreed with her about that. She asked me, “Do you agree with me all the time just because I say so or because you really, truly agree with me?” I didn’t see the difference between the two things, so I just said I didn’t know.
Sometimes, in case she became a famous writer, Lynn practiced writing little stories in her diary:
Once upon a time a funny witch cast a spell on all the world’s creatures. Suddenly, all the animals that used to be able to fly could only walk and all the animals that used to walk could now fly. So you saw horses soaring through the sky and preening on rooftops; you saw birds by the thousands running through the streets and along highways. And the fish, don’t even mention the fish! The fish learned to drive and the humans lived in the sea. The End.
I think the whole reason she wrote that story was that she loved the idea of living in the sea. That was one thing that never varied about Lynn: her love of the sea. Living by the sea in California was what she looked forward to second most in life, after going to college. Owning our own home was third for her, and first for our mother.
Every week that passed was nearly the same. School was boring and homework was boring. Playing with my brother and sister was fun. That’s the way the days went, with no surprises.
Everything started to change the winter I was ten and a half. One unusually warm day in January all the kids from the apartments were playing dodgeball after school. Lynn was in charge, as always. She said, “Katie, you stand there. Toshi, you stand here.” And so on. She chose a little boy to stand in the middle.
The boy flung the ball at Lynn. That wasn’t very smart, because Lynn was quick. But the ball flew up and hit her chest. She staggered back. Everyone except me laughed. My sister got almost cross-eyed, and everybody laughed more. I didn’t laugh because I knew Lynnie better than anyone.
“Lee-uhn!” I said. I ran over to her.
She swayed a bit but said, “I’m fine.”
“What happened?”
“I don’t know. It seemed swirly for a second.”
“What seemed swirly?”
“Everything.”
I followed her inside. She went right to bed and slept through dinner.
She wasn’t able to help me with my homework that night. That worried her. I got straight C’s at school. So far I had never gotten a B or a D in any subject. My father said that “C” stood for “consistency” and that he was very proud of me, so long as I was doing my best. I guess that in terms of grades I was just as consistent as Lynn was, which, when you thought about it, was surely something to be proud of. Lynn got straight A’s. She loved school.
The next day, however, she didn’t even go to school. Even when she was sick, she usually begged our mother to let her go to school. This was the first time I’d ever seen her happy to stay home. When I got home, a doctor was just leaving. Mrs. Kanagawa was there. She said the doctor had put Lynn on iron pills.
At dinner that night my father said he thought maybe Lynn just took after our mother, who also used to get tired a lot. In fact, my mother said that once when she was a child, she had spent almost the whole year in bed from fatigue, and nobody knew why. So I figured Lynn was just going through a phase, the same as my mother had.
One night, though, she woke up crying. I couldn’t remember Lynn crying since the day we left Iowa. When she woke up, she said she’d dreamed that she was swimming happily in the ocean.
She sobbed. “The sun was shining. Everything was beautiful.”
“Why did that dream make you cry?”
“Because it was only my spirit swimming in the ocean, and not really me.”
“What’s a spirit?”
“It’s the invisible part of me.”
I didn’t understand her reasoning at all. First of all, I didn’t understand what she meant by “invisible part of me.” Second of all, her dream sounded happy to me. But I also knew that Lynn was always right, so I was a little worried. Suddenly, she said, “Don’t worry, sweetie, I’m okay. Go to bed.”
So I went to bed.
The next day was Saturday. She lay in bed all day. She didn’t want to be bothered or talked to or anything.
I said, “Do you all want me to go get you some candy?”
She said, “No.”
I said, “Do you all want an apple?”
She said, “No.”
I said, “Do you all want some company?”
And she said, “No.”
Even with her occasional fatigue, Lynn still managed to help me a lot. The truth was, without Lynn, I probably would have gotten some D’s. I didn’t understand the point of school. You sat in a chair all day and read words and added numbers and followed directions. You weren’t allowed to chew gum. You weren’t allowed to write notes—not that I had anybody to write notes to. But, still. And you weren’t allowed to talk unless you knew the answers to the teacher’s questions.
Lynn actually liked reading stories and adding numbers. And she actually knew the answers to the teacher’s questions. She was fourteen. She had gotten so pretty that the other girls had to take notice of her, if only to be jealous. Of course, Lynn had always been very pretty. Her skin and eyes were radiant, and her hair was strong and shiny. Even though all the other girls curled their hair, she had started to wear hers straight and so long that it touched the middle of her butt. Gregg, the most popular boy in her class, liked her. Finally, one of the popular girls, Amber, broke ranks and became Lynn’s first best friend. That is, I felt I was still Lynn’s best friend, but Amber was maybe her second best friend. Amber becoming Lynn’s second best friend was the other big event that winter.
It did get to be a little annoying. Amber came with us everywhere. She was one of those really girlie girls who paint their fingernails and even their toes. She said she was going to be a model someday, and she walked very upright. All winter and spring she and Lynn walked back and forth in the living room with books on their heads. Amber said, “This is the way models walk.”
I said, “Seems pretty ridiculous to me!” I looked to Lynn for agreement, but she frowned at me.
Amber had brown hair, which she said she was going to dye blond when she turned sixteen. She had brown eyes instead of blue, which was a tremendous disappointment to her. She stuck out her pinkie when she held a cup. And, worst of all, she was making Lynn weird. For instance, Lynn had started to wear lipstick when our parents were
n’t around.
Many days Lynn tried to get me to spend time with her and Amber as they walked in the living room with books on their heads, told secrets while sticking out their pinkies, or giggled in front of the mirror while experimenting with makeup. Amber hated camping, so now Lynn didn’t want to go camping. The thing was, I still loved camping. I think Lynn’s feelings were a little hurt that I didn’t agree with her about camping anymore. I felt strange not agreeing with her.
One day when we were eating roast chicken, I ripped the thigh from the drumstick with my hands. Our parents were at work. Sammy followed my example and ripped a chicken leg in two.
I said, “Let’s see who can put the most food in their mouth at once!” Sammy and I filled our mouths.
Lynn said, “Katie, that’s not very ladylike.”
I couldn’t answer because my mouth was full. Sammy and I thought that was pretty funny. When I’d finally swallowed everything, Lynn looked worried. She wiped food from my chin and said firmly, “Katie, you know you’re not going to be able to act like that much longer.”
She brought her plate to the sink and left the room. I knew that Lynn was actually trying to help me. Usually when she was trying to help me, I didn’t mind. In fact, usually I was eager to please her. But this time I didn’t speak to her all the rest of that night. That was the first time I ever shunned her for a whole night. I was waiting for her to apologize, but she never did because she didn’t even notice I was shunning her. The next day she wanted me to practice walking across the room with her and Amber, but after awhile I was bored and said so. This hurt her feelings, which made me feel bad.
One weekend it turned out that Gregg and another cute boy from Lynn and Amber’s class were going to be going camping near the same place where Uncle Katsuhisa used to take us. Lynn and Amber begged Uncle to take us camping that weekend, and he agreed. The thought of Amber going camping was a bizarre thought indeed. It was hard to picture her sitting around a campfire with a book on her head. She and Lynn wanted the whole family to go camping, for authenticity. That is, they wanted the boys to believe that the whole family just happened to be going camping at the same time and in the same place as the boys just happened to be going camping.
My parents had started to work more and more. They used to go camping sometimes, but they never thought about having fun anymore. My father was exhausted from working ninety hours a week. My mother was exhausted from working overtime whenever she could. So they didn’t go camping with us that weekend for Lynn and Amber’s Great Boy Hunt.
Uncle, however, brought his whole family, even my Auntie Fumi, who hated camping. She had grown chubbier, and she didn’t like the outdoors, maybe because it might muss her beehive hairdo. The whole time we drove, she stared worriedly at the sky, even though there were only a few white clouds.
We parked the truck near the campgrounds and hiked about a mile. Auntie Fumi looked worried the whole time. She kept staring into the forest, as if she thought a tree might fall on her. But she never complained—it wasn’t her nature. For a while as we walked I tried to talk to Lynn and Amber, but they were obsessed with a cute dress they had seen in a store. Instead, I walked hand in hand with Sammy or pushed his stroller over the bumpy ground. He thought Amber was stupid too.
When we found our campsite, my cousins David and Daniel and I helped Uncle pitch the tents. Then he put us in charge of starting a fire. He went into the tent with Auntie. David said they were trying to make another baby. He said they did it all the time. I wasn’t quite sure what he meant. But years ago when our parents were trying to make Sammy, Lynnie had told me never to go in our parents’ bedroom without knocking. She didn’t tell me not to listen at the door, however, so I knew trying to make a baby was hard work that required a lot of effort and grunting.
I turned my attention to starting the fire. It took me several minutes to keep the match from blowing out in the wind, and then the match almost burned me, so I flung it away. I guess when I flung it, it landed on a sleeping bag, because the next thing I knew, David was shouting, “Fire!” David was a devil like me, at least that’s what Uncle liked to say. David seemed excited about the fire. He helped me throw all of our drinking water, as well as all of our sodas, on the sleeping bag, which sizzled and smoked. Finally, when it was charred but wet, we tried to hide it behind a tent since we didn’t want Uncle to see it. Then we set our minds to starting a fire again. But in a moment Daniel pointed at the tent, and we saw smoke snaking from the back.
When we ran behind the tent, smoke billowed into our faces. We tossed mounds of dirt on that weird sleeping bag. Amber and Lynn sat behind the tent, probably telling secrets. They watched the whole event with mild disdain, but I thought I saw a certain yearning in Lynn’s eyes, as if maybe she would rather be setting fire to sleeping bags than sticking her pinkie out and telling secrets.
When Uncle and Auntie finally emerged from the tent, he sniffed the air and frowned. Smoke coiled through the air. David and I tried to look innocent. Uncle stamped on the dirt over the sleeping bag until finally the smoke stopped. He started to get annoyed, but then Auntie said to him, “They’re just children.”
Uncle needed to walk back to the truck and drive into town to get us water, sodas, and a sleeping bag. To his credit, he only yelled at us for a short time about burning the sleeping bag. When he got back from town, he started the fire, which seemed to cheer him up. Then he announced that he was going to shoot us some rabbits for dinner with a bow and arrow. David, Daniel, and I begged to come. Uncle said we could all watch from a distance if we wanted. He said he could shoot a rabbit from thirty yards. Auntie (holding Sammy), my cousins, and I followed Uncle, with Lynn and Amber following us. They walked arm in arm and whispered the whole time.
We came upon an opening. Uncle Katsuhisa suddenly knelt and moved stealthily forward. Auntie’s eyes glowed with pride. He put up his palm to still us, and we stopped. He’d apparently sighted a rabbit that I could not see anywhere. I surprised everyone, including myself, by shouting out, “But Bera-Bera is half rabbit!”
That disturbed Uncle’s concentration. He turned to me and opened his mouth, but Auntie spoke first. “She’ll be quiet next time.” She pulled me to her. I was embarrassed by my outburst. Lynnie and Amber would think I was being a baby if I was worried about a stuffed animal. I didn’t even know where Bera-Bera was anymore.
I could feel Uncle Katsuhisa move into another zone, he and the bow becoming one. I felt queasy. We walked awhile more, and then he let loose of the arrow, and it screamed forward, piercing its mark cleanly. For the first time I saw the rabbit, still and bloody. That was the last thing I remembered. The next thing I knew, the faces of Lynn, Auntie, the twins, and Sammy were looming over me as I lay on my back. I sat up and saw Uncle holding three rabbits. Their ears were exactly as long as the ears of Bera-Bera. The trees started to spin as I looked at the bloody rabbits. Someone said, “There she goes again!”
chapter 6
WHEN I OPENED my eyes once more, Amber was squealing and giggling. Two lanky boys were joking with her. One of them had red hair and about a million freckles. The other had hair as yellow as a dandelion. Amber was practically slobbering over them. Lynn leaned over me. “I know where Bera-Bera is,” she said. “He’s safe in the closet.”
I didn’t like how Lynn still thought of me as a little kid. I sat up. “I’m okay.”
Lynn knelt beside me. “You don’t have to say that, you know. There’s nothing wrong with loving a stuffed animal.”
“I’m fine.” But Lynn looked really worried. Even though she was friends with Amber, she still worried about me all the time. But lately, she worried about me the way I worried about Sam, the way you might worry about a baby or young child. I stood up. “I’m fine.”
One of the boys glanced at Uncle and said, “That was really something, sir.” He turned to Amber. “Can you shoot an arrow, Amber?”
He was just making conversation, even I could see that. But Amber
got flustered and said, “I could certainly try.” She looked at Uncle Katsuhisa.
“It’s not a toy, Amber.”
Auntie Fumi touched his arm. “She seems very mature,” said Auntie Fumi. I heard her whisper, “She’s a guest.”
He relented, showing Amber how to concentrate, aim, pull, and shoot. She glanced at the boys, who gazed admiringly at her. That seemed to give her confidence. She stepped away from Uncle, aiming at nothing that I could see. She stuck her pinkies out. Just as she let go of the arrow she tripped, and the arrow whizzed through the air about a foot from Uncle’s head and pierced a lollygagging bird before sailing to the ground twenty feet away. David jumped up and down. “My turn! My turn!” he said.
We followed Uncle as he walked to the bird. We all stood around while he touched his head in wonder. “That could be my head,” he finally said. “That could be my brains.”
“I’m sorry,” said Amber, which didn’t seem quite enough.
For some reason the boys seemed pretty impressed with Amber’s display. They invited Lynn and Amber to eat dinner at their campfire. Lynn asked me if I wanted to come, but I said no. My sister and her silly friend left. I immediately felt lonely.
David, Sammy, and I buried the bird and headed quietly back to camp to eat rabbit. The rabbit tasted kind of like chicken, except more like . . . rabbit. I didn’t like it much but didn’t say so. David said that if you ate too much rabbit, your ears would grow longer and fur would grow on your butt where a tail might be. Sammy didn’t seem to notice anything special about it.
Uncle was a good talker, and Auntie was a good listener. So as we sat around the campfire later Uncle talked while Auntie nodded as if he were telling fascinating stories. Sometimes I wondered what Lynnie and Amber were doing. Actually, Lynnie didn’t like me to call her “Lynnie” anymore, but I did anyway. She thought “Lynn” was more grown up.