Kira-Kira

  She shot up as if I’d thrown ice on her. She didn’t even say good-bye, just mumbled something about showering and then sped back toward the factory. I had never seen her run so fast before. Her feet pounded across the asphalt. Because she’d come out here into the dirty world, maybe she needed to take another shower before she started work again. I felt guilty that I hadn’t woken her sooner.

  When Sam finally woke up, I fed him rice balls and water. We played with special little kid cards for a while. To tell the truth, he was so young, it was kind of dull to play cards with him. I let him win two games to make him happy, but I took seven games, just so he wouldn’t forget I was the older sister.

  Later I read some books to him, and afterward we slept some more. When our mother drove us home, we were tired from doing nothing all day in the hot car. My mother smelled funny. The factory workers weren’t allowed to take unscheduled breaks, so they all wore pads in case they needed to use the bathroom. It smelled like my mother had used her pad. I decided that someday when I was rich, I was going to buy the factory and let the workers use the bathroom whenever they wanted.

  chapter 8

  WHEN WE RETURNED home from the factory, we were surprised to find Lynnie lying in bed. She didn’t feel well, so Amber’s mother had sent her home. Her temperature was normal, but she looked kind of green.

  “She looks gross,” I said.

  “Shut up!” snapped my mother. I stepped back, as if she’d struck me. I had never heard my delicate, polite mother say “shut up.”

  “It came on suddenly,” Lynn said. “We were eating cookies and talking about school in the kitchen, and all of a sudden, I got sick.”

  “Is Amber sick too?” asked my mother.

  “She feels fine. But I feel dizzy when I sit up.” My mother turned to where Sammy and I were standing.

  “You two sleep in the living room tonight. Maybe it’s contagious.” I drew Sam a step back. My mother seemed to be searching her mind. “Maybe it’s the measle? You never had it. Katie either.” My mother spoke perfect English, but every so often when she was upset, she slipped. She didn’t seem upset on the outside, but I knew she was inside. It was like the time she broke her leg and she kept saying, “I breaked my leg.” I drew Sam another step back.

  Lynn got tired more often lately. My parents talked about her a lot. Meanwhile, they scolded me, and even Sammy, more and more often. Our parents didn’t really have time for us anymore because they liked to spend all their extra energy thinking about Lynn.

  When Lynn felt good, she had a lot of energy, so I never thought of her as sickly. She was the only one of us who ever went to the doctor. The doctor usually gave her suckers, which made Sam and me jealous. Also, she got to stay home from school whenever she was sick. So I had thought of her as lucky. But today she seemed worse than usual.

  My mother made me take Sam a couple of doors down to watch TV at the Muramotos’ apartment. They were the only ones in the apartments with a TV. Television was such a treat. Fortunately, the Muramotos liked The Twilight Zone, so we got to watch that every week with them. Now we let ourselves in and sat on the couch with Mrs. Muramoto, who was watching the news. She loved the news because her husband had a low, clear voice, and she said that if he were hakujin—white—he could work as a newsman on TV. He wasn’t home now. He was working with my father at the hatchery. Sometimes I thought he made his voice sound lower than it was naturally. He liked to sit alone in the kitchen reading the newspaper out loud as if he were a newsman.

  “Where’s Lynn?” asked Mrs. Muramoto. She was a quiet woman who worked for a tailor.

  “She’s tired again,” I said. I always told people she was “tired,” not “sick.” We watched the news and a couple of game shows, and then I took Sammy back home. My parents were in the bedroom with Lynn, so I filled the bath for Sam and read to him while he sat in the bathtub. That was his favorite thing: getting read to in the bathtub. After his bath I got his pajamas for him and made up the couch for him to sleep on. Ordinarily, I didn’t like to do work around the house, but taking care of Sam was the exception.

  Unfortunately, if Sam was sleeping on the couch, that would leave the living-room floor for me. I didn’t see why we couldn’t sleep in our regular beds. If Lynn was contagious, we would get sick just from living in the same apartment. Her germs were probably all over the place by now.

  I took a bath in Sam’s old water and laid out some blankets on the living-room floor. When I was a little girl, sleeping on the floor always seemed like a treat. We used to beg our mother to let us sleep on the floor. It was like camping. Now that I was older, the floor felt hard. In a few minutes my mother came in looking annoyed. I knew it was because I hadn’t wiped the ring around the bathtub, but I didn’t say anything. I was in a bad mood because the floor was hard.

  My mother seemed exasperated. She was kind of crazy about cleanliness. “How many times do I have to tell you?” she said. My father came up behind her. Even he seemed annoyed with me, and he almost never got annoyed.

  “Katie,” he said, “how many times does your mother have to tell you to wipe the ring in the bathtub?”

  “I don’t see why I have to sleep on the floor,” I said.

  My father’s face darkened. I felt a little scared. He never got truly mad at us, ever. That was our mother’s job.

  My mother looked as if she was going to cry. But I was famous for being hardheaded. Maybe it was because Lynn had always let me have my way. So now I pulled the covers over my head. I was shocked when my mother pulled the covers off and yanked me up by my arm. My father rested his hand on her to restrain her. She started crying. I didn’t know what was going on: It was just a bathtub ring. My father looked at me sternly. “I want you to clean the bathtub now,” he said very quietly.

  I walked into the bathroom and shut the door behind me. I sat on the floor for a few minutes to think, but I was getting sleepy, so I cleaned the bathtub. I had to admit it took only a couple of minutes. When I got out, my parents were in their bedroom. I could hear them talking but couldn’t hear what they were saying.

  I stopped at my bedroom and put my ear to the door. All was quiet. I looked around to make sure my parents were still in their room. Then I opened the door. The light was on, and Lynn was staring into space. She didn’t even seem to notice when I opened the door.

  “Lynnie?” I said. She turned to look at me, her face blank. “Y’all need anything?”

  “Like what?”

  “I dunno. Food?”

  She shook her head. “You’re not supposed to be here. I could be contagious.”

  “What’s wrong with you?”

  “I don’t know. Anemia, I guess. That means I need more iron and have to eat liver. I have to stay in bed all day tomorrow. You and Sam have to go with Mom again.”

  “We could stay with you.”

  “Dad says no, you might get sick.”

  “Anemia is contagious?”

  “No, but maybe I have something else.”

  “Like what?”

  “The doctor doesn’t know.”

  Sometimes when I was younger and I got sick, my parents wouldn’t let Lynn in the room with me. But she used to sneak in anyway, so she could take care of me. She used to worry about me quite a bit. Now I went into the living room and lay on the floor next to the couch. I got up and checked to see if my brother’s forehead felt either too hot or too cold. He felt perfectly normal.

  By the time I woke up, my father had already left for work. It was still dark. My mother woke Sam and me and told me to dress my brother. She said our auntie Fumi, who didn’t work, was going to drive out and spend the day with Lynn. It must have been serious if Lynn couldn’t even take care of herself.

  Sam was half asleep as I dressed him. He whined a bit: “Why do I have to go? It’s hot in the car.”

  “I know. Go get your toothbrush for later.” He hurried away—he always listened to me.

  I grabbed the lunches our mother had
made for us. We followed her out of the house and got quietly in the car. I decided to sit in back. I didn’t feel like being grown up today. As we drove along the dark highway Sam leaned against me as he slept. We passed the swamp, and I watched for Brenda, the little girl who had died. I also watched for swamp lights, the weird lights that locals were always saying they saw in the swamps.

  Sometimes I thought I saw something moving through the trees. But then I would realize that I had just seen moss swaying in the wind. Then I really thought I saw her! She was a pale girl running in a white dress with a dog at her side. I lowered the window. The humid air rushed in. Brenda wove through the trees before moving deeper into the swamp, so I could no longer see her. I turned to check whether my mother had seen, but she was staring straight ahead.

  My mother hadn’t said a word since we’d left home. I could tell that she was worried about Lynn. And even though I couldn’t see him, I knew that my father, probably hard at work right now, was worried too. The measles did not seem like such a horrible thing. I’d known many children who had gotten the measles. From what I’d heard, anemia was not so terrible either. Auntie Fumi had been anemic once. And yet my parents were very worried. I decided that was because they loved us so much, even though we weren’t always good. Lynn was better behaved than I was, of course, and so was Sam. But even if I got sick, I knew my parents would be very worried about me.

  I was sleepy, but at the plant I tried to stay awake so that I could watch out for the thug. My mother hadn’t said anything else about him. She hurried inside for her shower. A short time later the laundry girl’s mother parked across the lot. I remembered that my mother had said not to talk to the girl. But she waved at me, so I had to wave back. Then she walked over, so I had to lower the window. She peered into the car at Sam. “I have a brother too, but he’s older,” she said.

  I had to talk to her now, because it would have been rude not to. “His name is Sam. I’m Katie Takeshima.”

  “I’m Silly Kilgore.”

  “What kind of name is Silly?”

  “It’s short for Sylvia.” Silly was pale, with kind of messy pale hair and pale eyes. Very skinny, like me.

  “Oh. My name is short for Katarina.” Actually, it was short for Katherine. I wasn’t exactly precisely telling a lie, because even though my birth certificate said Katherine, Lynn had always told me that my real name was Katarina.

  “Are you going to come here every day?”

  “Just for a week. Then I have to go to summer school because my grades aren’t so good. I’m going to go to Africa and study animals when I get big.”

  “I’m going to be a doctor.”

  “Can girls be doctors?”

  “I can.”

  “Really?” I paused. That was news to me. I had never seen a girl doctor. I looked around. “Where’s the thug?”

  “They had some trouble at the other plant. He had to go there.” She added proudly, “My mother backs having a union.”

  I didn’t answer.

  “I’d better get to work,” Silly said. She ran off.

  I slept for a while, woke up and fed Sammy a little rice, slept awhile more, and then woke up for good as the sun rose over the fields. I decided to walk through the gate and explore the plant.

  The plant was a long rectangular building with a few windows high up the walls. On one side of the plant a garbage can lay in the dirt. I set it up and climbed on it. If I stood on my tippytoes, I could just see into one of the narrow windows. Everyone inside was dressed in white. At first I couldn’t pick out my mother, but then I saw her small back. She was the tiniest worker in the factory. She expertly sliced a couple of legs off the body of a chicken. Then she sliced the drumsticks from the thighs and sent the drumsticks down one conveyor belt and the thighs down another. At the exact moment that she finished, another chicken arrived and she cut the legs off it. Over and over. I couldn’t see her face, but the faces of the workers I could see were blank, perfectly so. Most of the workers were women.

  I could just make out a sign titled THE THREE RULES OF MEAT PROCESSING. Underneath the title it said: 1. HYGIENE. 2. HYGIENE. 3. HYGIENE. My mother sometimes said proudly that this plant was the cleanest in Georgia. Some of the poultry plants were supposed to be filthy. She said that the chickens at this plant were special gourmet chickens that Mr. Lyndon’s wife served guests at the mansion. We’d never eaten any of these special gourmet chickens. Every Christmas there was a lottery and an employee won two chickens. But my mother had never won.

  I heard a cracking sound, and the next thing I knew, the corroded metal of the garbage can began to collapse and I fell to the ground. I lay on the ground for a moment, the way my father had taught me to do when I fell. “Make sure you’re not hurt before you move,” he had told me. When I sat up, I saw my legs were bloody. The thug was standing over me frowning. He had permanent frown lines between his eyes, and he was taller even than my father.

  He looked behind me, and I saw another man approach. I felt sick to my stomach.

  Then Silly ran up. It was a regular convention! “Hi, Uncle Barry,” she said to the man who’d just arrived. Her uncle looked down on me and helped me up. He was wearing a real button-up shirt, and he held himself with a kind of pride.

  “Are you okay?” asked Silly’s uncle Barry.

  The thug said, “What’s going on here?”

  “They’re just little girls, Dick.”

  Dick scratched at a bite on his cheek. “Well, get them out of here.”

  Barry took our hands and led us away from the plant.

  Silly said, “This is my new friend Katie.”

  He stopped and shook my hand, just as if I were a grown-up. “Nice to meet you, Katie.”

  His button-up shirt made me feel I should be very polite. “Nice to meet you, sir.”

  Then he let go of my hand, and he and Silly got into his car. I watched them drive off. Her uncle’s car was pretty nice. It looked like it was only a couple of years old.

  Back in my mother’s car Sam shunned me for a few minutes because I had left him alone. But he never stayed mad for long. He was little Mr. Sunshine. That was why I loved him so much. Dick the thug had paused by the building, watching me. I locked the doors.

  Over the next few days Silly tried to work as fast as she could so she had time to come out and talk to me. We shared our rice balls and seaweed with her, and she shared sandwiches with me and Sam. The bread on the sandwiches was kind of amazing. You could tear out the white middle section and press it into a hard ball of dough before you ate it. Or you could twirl it into long strings and wrap it around your tongue. Sammy had never seen bread before. He loved it.

  It turned out that Silly’s father had died shortly after she was born. Her uncle—her father’s brother—was like a father to her. Her uncle had owned a sign store once, but it had gone out of business. Silly needed to work to help pay for her school clothes. In her spare time she also helped her mother fold union flyers.

  She made me feel lazy. I did manage to clean up after myself a little, but other than that I didn’t do much of anything except take care of Sammy. The area around my bed was the messiest part of the room, except for the area under my bed, which was even worse. Every time it was my turn to do the dishes, I always had an excuse—or else, if Lynn felt well, I let her do them for me. And yet my parents could afford to buy me my school clothes.

  Silly and I exchanged phone numbers. I promised her she could use Lynn’s bicycle and we would go riding. She was the only kid I knew who did not even own a bicycle!

  chapter 9

  LYNN GOT BETTER and didn’t get sick again for so long that I figured everything was fine. My parents still kept a careful watch on her, but even they seemed more relaxed. On my eleventh birthday I got to invite Silly over. I was so excited, I didn’t even mind that my mother let Lynn invite Amber over for my birthday. I baked a cake, which was lopsided but tasty, and Silly and I spent the whole day calling ourselves the Shironda
s and singing and dancing wildly to the radio. We made up special dance steps and pretended we were on The Ed Sullivan Show. Amber acted like we were stupid. She tried to get Lynn to think we were stupid too. But Lynn thought we were “too cute for words.” That was her new phrase for me. She and Amber walked around with their heads held high. They didn’t even need books on their heads anymore. They just naturally walked like that! Amber was mad because she wanted to go down to the schoolyard in case any cute boys were hanging about. But my mother said Lynn had to stay home because it was my birthday.

  So they just sat in the living room and held their heads high while Silly and I danced. Then Silly and I told ghost stories. Then we dressed up Sam in funny clothes until my mother scolded us. Finally, we went outside to wait for Silly’s mother to pick her up. I walked to the street with her to help her carry her water jugs. She lived in an area just outside of town where many people did not have running water, so whenever she came over, she filled big jugs to take home. I asked my mother to come outside so she could bring a jug too. She frowned but agreed. I knew she’d frowned because water didn’t grow on trees.

  We sat on the front stoop. Across the street some grown-ups sat talking and laughing. Some kids from another apartment played kickball in the street.

  Silly’s mother, Mrs. Kilgore, drove up and got out of her car. She and my mother nodded politely at each other and tried to think of something to say. Mrs. Kilgore was a no-nonsense woman. She didn’t believe in small talk. She looked at my mother and said, “There’s a union meeting next Wednesday at the church on Frame Street.”

  “Yes,” said my mother coolly. My mother was scared the union supporters would get them all fired, even her. She wanted a house, and she didn’t care if she couldn’t use the bathroom during work or if her fingers were so stiff that she couldn’t move them when she got home. If that’s what a house cost, she would pay the price.