Banana Splits

by Coco Simon

  “R-E-S-P-E-C-T!” Mom sang.

  “Do I have to respect Mom’s singing?” I asked.

  “No, but you have to listen to it,” Mom said with an evil grin.

  Then we started piling food onto our plates. Mom cooked most of the time, but Dad said he cooked better Japanese food than she did, since he was born there. Mom didn’t argue with him, probably because she didn’t want to do all the cooking by herself anyway.

  Tonight Dad had made teriyaki tofu, veggies, and rice. I loved how teriyaki sauce was savory but also a little bit sweet.

  “I made our flight reservations to Japan today,” Mom said. “We’re leaving on August 1 and will be back on August 20.”

  “In time for cross-country practice?” I asked.

  Mom nodded. “The schedule’s not out yet, but you should be fine.”

  “I think you should let Hayato and me go into the city alone this year,” Kai said. Hayato was one of my cousins.

  Mom frowned. “I’m not sure, Kai. I mean, I know you’re going to be sixteen, but Tokyo is such a busy city.”

  “But I’ll be with Hayato,” Kai said. “He’s seventeen, and he goes to school in Tokyo, so he knows how to get around.”

  Mom looked at Dad. He shrugged. “I think Kai can handle it. I did when I was his age.”

  I frowned. Every summer we went to Japan to visit Grandpa Sato. He lived in Tokyo. I loved when we visited downtown Tokyo, which was so bright and colorful. It was fun to see what people were wearing on the streets and also the fashions in the shop windows. And to listen to the pop music that you could hear blaring from the shops. I would have loved to go into the city with Kai and Hayato, but I knew there was no point in asking. Even if the boys wanted me to tag along, Mom and Dad would never let me.

  “You know, when you both were little, I spent weeks planning on how to keep you busy for the summer,” Mom said. “But I don’t think you need my help anymore with that. Tamiko, Allie’s mom might have you in the shop during the week some days, right?”

  I nodded. “She’s expecting it to get really busy once tourists start coming in the summer,” I said. “So Mrs. S. will need some extra help. But she’s hiring some more college students too.”

  “I’m so glad that Allie’s mom has made a success of that place,” Mom said. “I mean, she deserves it. That ice cream is so good.”

  “And they’ve got a great website,” I added.

  “You should link to the Molly’s website on your blog,” Kai said. “You know, somebody might be on your page and not even be thinking about ice cream until they see the link and say to themselves, ‘Oh yeah, Molly’s! I should check that place out!’ ”

  I nodded. “That is an awesome idea. I don’t know how you do it. Your mind is, like, full of business ideas.”

  Kai shrugged modestly. “There are more ideas where that came from. Give me a few minutes after dinner, and I’ll get a list of some of the best blog hosting sites ready.”

  “Great!” I said. Despite Kai being kind of annoying earlier, I was feeling really grateful to have a brother with his skills—and excited again to start working on the blog.

  After dinner I headed into my room and texted Sierra and Allie.

  Need some name ideas for my blog. Go!

  Sierra texted back right away. ALL TAMIKO ALL THE TIME!

  I texted her back with a bunch of laughing emojis.

  Allie came through next. She was a good writer, so I wasn’t surprised that she had lots of ideas, one after the other.

  Time with Tamiko

  Tamiko’s Fashion Forecast

  Flavorful Fashion (Because you work in an ice cream shop. Get it?)

  I appreciated Allie’s effort, but none of them were quite right. I wanted something simple, and catchy, and . . . fresh, I guess.

  Thanks! I need to think about these, I texted back.

  Then Kai came in with his laptop, and he showed me the different blog hosting sites.

  “I narrowed it down to these two, which are both for bloggers sixteen and under,” Kai said.

  I frowned. “Wait, what? Am I going to be blogging on a site with a lot of little kids?”

  Kai shook his head. “Sixty-seven percent of its users are between the ages of thirteen and sixteen. This is your target audience, Tamiko. Besides, it’s smart to go on a safe site like this, where adults can’t see your photos or comment on your posts. There are a lot of mean and creepy people online.”

  I nodded. “All right. You’ve convinced me. Let me see them.”

  I spent a few minutes scrolling through the two sites and picked the free one with an easy layout that would allow me to post photos and create polls.

  “And you can choose a design for your blog from this list,” he said, scrolling to show me. He clicked on one, and a sample page popped up with pink bubble letters and clouds in the background.

  “Ooh, cute,” I said. “But maybe too pink?”

  “Maybe,” Kai said. “There are more to choose from.” He stood up. “You got this. I’m gonna go study.”

  “Thanks,” I said, not taking my eyes off the screen. The purple design was fun. But ooh, there was a clean black-and-white one with a really cool font. . . .

  “Tamiko, it’s Grandpa Sato!” Dad called up the stairs.

  “Coming, Toshi!” I yelled back.

  “Don’t push it, Tamiko!” Dad replied, and I bounded down the stairs and into the kitchen, where Dad’s laptop was open. Grandpa Sato liked to video-chat with us when he woke up, because here in Bayville it was early evening.

  “Ohayō!” I said, which means “good morning” in Japanese. Grandpa practiced his English when he talked with me, and sometimes I practiced my Japanese with him.

  “Ohayō, Tamiko,” Grandpa Sato said.

  “How are you?” I asked.

  He smiled. “I always wake up happy during baseball season,” he said.

  Grandpa and I were both big baseball fans, and we spent a few minutes talking about his favorite team, the Swallows. Then he asked me what my plans for the summer were.

  “I’m going to keep working at the ice cream shop,” I told him. “And also, I’m starting a blog.”

  “Blog?” he asked.

  “It’s kind of like a website, but you update it regularly and tell your followers what’s new in your life, or post about what you’re into,” I said. “I’m going to post about all the stuff that I make, I think.”

  “And people will want to see this?” he asked.

  I laughed. “I hope so, Ojiichan!”

  “That is very interesting,” Grandpa Sato said. “I think you should blog about baseball. I would like to see that.”

  “Maybe I will. I haven’t figured it out yet,” I said. “I don’t even have a name for my blog yet.”

  “Whatever you decide to call it, it will be wonderful, Tamiko,” he said. “I am sure it will be a big hit. You always have your own special take on everything.”

  As soon as he said that, it hit me. “Tamiko’s Take! That’s it! That’s the perfect name for my blog.”

  Grandpa smiled. “I like it.”

  “Thanks, Grandpa!” I said. “Hey, do you mind if I go work on that now? I want to see if the name is taken.”

  “Get busy!” Grandpa said. “I will talk to you tomorrow morning. Let me finish talking to your father now.”

  I almost called out “Toshi!” but I stopped myself. The last thing I wanted to do was upset Grandpa after he’d helped me out so much. Instead I yelled out “Dad!” and then ran back up to my room.

  Tamiko’s Take was going to be the best blog ever!

  CHAPTER THREE

  AWKWARD

  The idea to start my blog had given me the inspiration to start playing with something else—a drawing app on the new tablet I’d bought with some of my Molly’s wages. I had resisted the idea for a long time, because there was something about the sound of a pencil scratching on a sketch pad that I really liked. Besides, using a pencil and paper
just felt more open and free to me somehow, and I was worried that maybe I wouldn’t be able to do as much with a drawing app.

  But then I started watching videos of people using the app to draw, and I saw some of the amazing things they could do, like adding glittering effects or quickly changing the size of something. It also looked really easy to revise something when you didn’t like what you’d done. One article I read said that professional illustrators were drawing digitally more than ever before, so I thought I should give it a try. Sometimes I thought I might want to go to art school after high school, and I wanted to be totally prepared if I did.

  Sketching a logo for Tamiko’s Take seemed like a good place to start testing out the app. I thought that putting two capital Ts together might looking cool. I started by using Ts from different fonts (the app let me do that), but I wasn’t crazy about any of them. Then I spent time drawing letter Ts—some straight, some with lots of curlicues—until my eyes were drooping, and then I went to sleep.

  I woke up with more ideas in my head. I slipped my tablet into my backpack so that I could work on the logo during school. Since the school year was almost over, we had a lot of study sessions—or what most kids used as free time. While other kids were talking and goofing around, I could work on my logo.

  The morning sun streamed through my bedroom window, and the sky was so bright and blue outside that I definitely felt like summer was here. I took a shower, and then, inspired by the beautiful day, I put on a T-shirt I had bought in Tokyo the previous summer, white with a wood-block print of pink flowers on it. I paired it with striped pants and bright pink sneakers. And after I pulled my hair back into a ponytail, I added some pink hoop earrings for good measure.

  I worked on my logo on the way to school and during homeroom, because after the Pledge of  Allegiance and announcements, Ms. Zajak let us do whatever we wanted for five minutes, as long as we did it quietly.

  My friend MacKenzie leaned over and looked at the tablet.

  “Tamiko’s Take? What’s that?” she asked.

  “I’m going to start a blog,” I said. “It was Allie’s idea, actually. Since the Molly’s website is so popular.”

  “That sounds like fun,” MacKenzie said. “I’d read your blog.”

  “Thanks!” I said. “I’ll send you the link as soon as it’s up.”

  The bell rang, and I resisted the urge to draw and walk at the same time. The last time I hadn’t resisted, I’d ended up walking into a wall, which was totally embarrassing. So I put my tablet away and rushed to the art room, hoping that Mr. Rivera would let us draw whatever we wanted. But of course the chances were slim, because he was such a boring teacher.

  Taking my seat in the art room, I got a sudden inspiration from all of the wood tables in there. I could make my Ts look like tables! I sketched the first one with DIY fashion stuff on it: feathers, a glue gun, a hat with a crocheted flower on it, and a spool of thread. On the other table I drew an ice cream sundae with two scoops and a cherry. Then I drew some more ice cream treats: an upside-down cone in a cup, and a banana split. It looked busy, but this design was my favorite so far. I couldn’t wait to show Allie and Sierra and see what they thought!

  “Ms. Sato, are you aware that the bell has rung?”

  I flipped over my tablet and sat up straight at the sound of Mr. Rivera’s voice. Today he was wearing a boring white shirt and the same boring blue tie he’d worn Friday. Couldn’t he at least wear a striped tie? And what kind of art teacher wears a tie to begin with? I’d always thought artists were supposed to be free-spirited and creative, but Mr. Rivera’s spirit was more like a bank teller’s.

  “Sorry, Mr. Rivera,” I said.

  He nodded. “For our last project of the year, I’d like you to choose a famous building or structure and draw a detailed sketch of it,” he said. “This will exercise some of the skills you’ve developed this year, such as perspective and shading.”

  Pete Bradley’s hand shot up. “What do you mean, a structure?”

  “The Brooklyn Bridge. The Roman Colosseum,” Mr. Rivera said. “I want to encourage you all to select something challenging. A skyscraper rather than a shed. I’d like to see you give some attention to the architectural details of your subject. You may use your phones to find a reference, but if I catch anyone texting, your phone will be confiscated.”

  Mr. Rivera could not have given a more boring description of the assignment, but I was excited anyway. I knew exactly which building I wanted to draw, and I did a quick search for it on my phone as soon as Mr. Rivera stopped talking.

  The Chrysler Building was a skyscraper located in Manhattan in New York City. It was built in the art deco style in the 1920s.

  I knew about art deco, no thanks to Mr. Rivera. Mom had found a book about it at a yard sale the previous summer and had gotten it for me. Art deco was a style of art created in France, and there were tons of examples of buildings, jewelry, and other objects with a modern look and beautiful, clean shapes, made of really gorgeous materials like shiny metals and gleaming glass. The style was glamorous and cool.

  One of the things that made the Chrysler Building art deco was the shape of the spire at the top—half circles one on top of the other, decorated with triangles. I stared at the photo on my screen. A tall, straight tower rose up in between two buildings that anchored the tower on the bottom. What looked like hundreds of windows covered each side of the building. It was going to take a lot of work to get it right, but I knew that this level of detail was going to impress Mr. Rivera for sure.

  In art class we used the same sketchbook for the whole year, so all of our work would be in one place. I opened up mine, which was almost completely filled after a year of sketching. The last drawing I’d done was of a boy with spiky dark hair and a dimple in his left cheek . . . Ewan, the boy Allie and Sierra loved to pointlessly tease me about.

  I flipped through my book to the first sketches we’d done of buildings, trying to remember what we’d learned. Looking at the Chrysler Building photo, I had a feeling I’d need to use a ruler. Not my favorite way to draw, but I wanted to get this right, and I saw a few other kids getting out their rulers too. Then I connected my phone to the classroom printer and printed out the photo I’d found.

  With all of my tools in place, I got to work. I used the ruler to figure out how wide the tower was compared to the two lower parts of the building on either side, and how tall it was. I made some guidelines in my sketchbook and then started on the beautiful curved top of the building. I could have saved it for last, but I wasn’t one of those people who saved the best for last. When I ate an ice cream sundae, I ate the cherry on top first. (It helped that I worked in an ice cream shop, because I could always grab another cherry to eat at the end if I wanted. But that was beside the point.)

  Getting the size of each curve just right was challenging, and I was concentrating really hard when I heard a voice behind me.

  “Great choice!”

  I shrieked, and everybody around me laughed. I turned around to see that the voice belonged to Ewan and, thankfully, not Mr. Rivera.

  “Sorry,” Ewan said, laughing. “Actually . . . not sorry. That was pretty funny.”

  I had to admit that he was right, and I laughed too. “I was just really into my sketch,” I told him. “I didn’t even realize you were behind me.” I held up my sketchbook. “What do you think?”

  “Nice!” Ewan said. “I always liked the Chrysler Building too. It’s so art deco and cool.”

  I tried not to show how impressed I was that he knew about art deco. “So what are you drawing?” I asked him.

  Ewan laughed again. “We were close,” he said. “I also chose a New York landmark building.”

  He held up a sketch he had started of the Empire State Building. “But now I don’t know,” he said. “Too boring? Should I add a little King Kong scaling up the side?”

  “That would be hilarious!” I replied. “I’m not sure how Mr. Rivera would feel about it, thou
gh. But I think the class would love it.”

  Ewan grinned and closed his sketchbook. “That settles it! I’m going to do it. It’s the end of the year, so I might as well live dangerously,” he said. “Worst case scenario, he makes me take it out.”

  Then he kind of coughed a little bit. “By the way . . . are you going to the block party over on Wilson Street next weekend? I heard that the band your friend is in, the Wildflowers, will be performing.”

  I nodded. “Yes! Sierra is so psyched that they booked a second gig. I’m definitely going.”

  “Oh, okay. Because I’m going too,” he said, and then he did that strange cough thing again. “And I was wondering if . . .” He hesitated for a minute, and then a thought hit me and I panicked. Oh no, I thought. Is he going to ask me to go with him?

  Ewan got a weird look on his face then, and he might have noticed my panicked look. I was definitely not good at hiding my emotions.

  “I was just wondering if you were going to be there,” he said, and I saw that his cheeks had gotten a little bit red. “So I guess I’ll see you there, then.”

  “Yeah, I guess you will,” I said, and the awkwardness between us right then was as thick as peanut butter. I knew I had to change the subject. “Hey! If I had a blog, would you check it out?”

  Ewan gave a little sigh of relief. “Sure, why not? Where can I find it?”

  “It’s not up and running yet,” I said. “But it’s close. I’m going to call it Tamiko’s Take. I’ll let everyone know when it’s live.”

  “Cool,” Ewan said, and then he glanced over my head. “Okay. I see Mr. Rivera giving me the stink eye. I’d better get back to my seat. Talk to you later.”

  He hurried away, and I couldn’t help wondering, Was he about to ask me to the party? Why did I panic when I thought he was going to? Would it be so terrible if he had asked me?

  I could talk to Sierra and Allie about it later—or maybe not. They were always teasing me about Ewan, even though I’d said a million times that I didn’t have a crush on anybody and I wasn’t ready for anything like that.

  It was all too much to think about, so I returned to my drawing. I had hundreds of tiny windows to draw, so I started on them. After my forty-seventh window my mind was empty of all thoughts except windows.