opening a door down the hall.
A big bed with a yellow comforter sits against a wall.
Papa is renting most of the furniture
because we didn’t own much in California.
Before Mama and I left Berkeley,
she shipped her tall china cupboard and her kotatsu,
the low table with a heater underneath.
“Where’s my room?” I ask.
Papa takes my hand and leads me up a steep staircase.
My room is at the top. It’s the biggest bedroom I’ve ever seen.
One side of the ceiling slopes halfway to the floor
and seats are built under the two windows.
“If you don’t like it, you can trade with us,” Papa says.
But I say no—
so fast that he can’t take this room away.
Later, Mama comes upstairs to tuck me in,
like I’m five again.
But tonight, because we’re in our new house,
in our new town, on the other side of the country,
I want her to.
She sits for a few minutes on my bed,
as if she needs to as much as I
need her to.
Papa has had a week to get used to this new house,
and Mama and I will catch up.
She kisses me good night and tucks the comforter
all the way around my chin
and goes downstairs. The light glows up the stairs,
stretching her shadow on the wall.
The sky outside is soft pink, and I smile into my comforter.
It is like the soft pink is inside me, resting,
breathing with me.
Is this house making me feel this way,
or the snow outside? Or knowing our long trip is over?
Or having a big bedroom upstairs
but hearing Mama and Papa downstairs,
and we’re a family again after four months?
That’s it—
all the good things have come together
in soft pink
happiness.
First Night
This house creaks
like it can’t find a comfortable place to settle into.
I toss and turn
and can’t find a comfortable spot to sleep in.
My clock says 2:18 a.m.
I get out of bed and sit at a window.
The sky has cleared
and the moon sits high in the sky
like a pearl button.
Stars—bright, cold, voiceless—
are winking, but I know that’s because Earth’s heat is rising,
the atmosphere is shifting.
(A future astronaut needs to know these things.)
I wonder if Earth winked at the Apollo 8 astronauts
when they took its picture from the moon on Christmas Eve.
Something moves in the next yard.
A dog, dark and fuzzy, leaps in the moonlit snow.
Then one sharp whistle from the neighbor’s house
calls it inside.
Like Saturday
The sun wakes me up.
Ouch! my neck hurts
because I’m still sitting at my window.
A fringe of icicles hangs outside,
and the sun makes little rainbows inside them.
I smell coffee and bacon,
and I know that hot chocolate is waiting downstairs.
No cornflakes for Papa this morning—
Mama’s making her special basted fried eggs with onions
and the bacon he loves.
Today is Thursday, but it feels like Saturday
because this is still school vacation.
Thursday is the only day that doesn’t have a personality,
so today it borrowed Saturday’s.
Mama has already set out her maneki-neko,
the cat statue that waves, so we will have good luck from the start.
It makes our new house feel more like home.
“What’s your plan today, Meems?” Papa asks at the table,
the newspaper open in front of him.
What I really want to do is see that dog again,
but I shrug and say, “Explore.”
“It’s cold outside,” Mama says. “Wear your warm clothes.”
Papa looks up from his paper. “And do not leave the yard.”
Next Door Boy
Wood smoke hangs in a blue haze outside,
and far off
a chain saw buzzes through the air.
An empty coop in our backyard is covered in snow
like a tiny alpine chalet,
but in the spring it will be filled with turkeys.
My lips stick to my teeth
and my nostrils are stuck shut. My chest hurts
when I breathe this icy air.
I’ll warm up by making a snowman.
This snow is too deep for rolling three balls for his body,
so I pack it into a mound,
then sculpt him with my hands.
I pack a lemon-size ball for his nose, poke holes for his eyes,
and draw a big smile with my thumb.
By the time I’m done,
my skin prickles with sweat under my clothes,
my nose runs,
and my legs shudder.
A boy steps out of the house next door
and kicks snow down the back steps.
The dog from last night bursts past him,
toppling the boy to the snow.
“Pattress!” he calls, laughing.
But she wanders away from him, snuffling
like a steam train.
Even across our wide yards, I can see
the boy’s cheeks are red on his pale skin,
slapped by the cold.
Pattress wags her long, pointy tail.
“Hi,” I say, raising my hand, sniffling.
The boy raises his hand and nods, then
goes back into the house,
calling, “Come on, Pattress.”
The brown dog looks at me, then at the steps,
and follows the boy inside.
Ready for School
These are the new slacks that Mama sewed,
butterscotch corduroy with three black buttons at the waist,
because four would be bad luck.
This is the sweater that Auntie Phoenix sent from Baltimore,
tangerine and fluffy,
scratching my wrists and neck.
These are my tights
and my secondhand boots with a run-down right heel
that crunch in the snow, leaving waffle footprints.
This is the wool coat that Mama wore
the winter she married Papa in Japan.
And mittens with snowflakes on each palm
and a long scarf to shield me from the tiny wind daggers.
When I breathe, my cheeks and chin feel moist
and cold at the same time.
These are my frozen eyelashes
and my Popsicle nose.
You have to wear a lot of clothes
just to go to school in Vermont.
First Day
Papa doesn’t want me to take the school bus,
so he’s driving me on his way to the college.
When the wind blows the snow, it makes a rainbow.
Rainbows mean hope. I hope for a good day,
good teachers, a good friend.
Deep in my pocket, I touch the round of omochi
and a square of corn bread
that Mama wrapped in wax paper
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so I can remember our small, late oshogatsu.
I wish we didn’t have to live out in the sticks,
but Mama wants to raise turkeys and grow vegetables,
so even in spring, Papa will take me and bring me home.
Maybe there’s another reason we live two miles from town
and Papa drives me to school.
Even if we lived in town,
in the kind of house other professors live in—
like that white-shingled Victorian with the black shutters—
would Papa escort me every morning
and stand guard after the last bell?
Rules
I thought that Papa was going to drop me off
in front of my new junior high.
Instead, he turns into the drive and parks in front
of the PRINCIPAL sign.
Our car is a green Malibu, which Papa drove
all the way from Berkeley to Hillsborough.
One day he’ll tell us about that trip
all at once.
Or, maybe he has been telling it all along,
the way snowpack grows:
a million tiny flakes
drifting
one by one,
but I haven’t been listening.
“Everything cool?” he asks.
I look out the windshield at the white clapboard building,
the wide steps up to the front doors,
the tall windows framed in green sashes.
“It’s cool,” I say, because it’s what he wants to hear,
and because so far there’s nothing to worry about.
But in my stomach
little ice wings are fluttering.
Then he asks, “Do you want me to go in with you?”
I shrug, which today means yes,
and he knows that. “Just remember,” he says,
“be kind, be respectful, and persist.”
“Like raindrops on granite,” I say,
because we know that’s how I persist—
drip, drip, drip
until the granite cracks.
The office smells like warm wood and paper
and sweet mimeograph,
and when the secretary, Miss Holder, gets up from her desk
and comes to the counter where Papa and I are standing,
I smell Ambush by Dana perfume.
She has to look up at my tall, dark, handsome dad.
“May I help you?” she asks,
glancing at me, then back to Papa.
“Mimi is starting school today,” he says
kindly, and hands her my packet of forms.
That’s when she smiles, finally,
and says, “Oh, yes. We’ve been expecting you.”
Maybe she was expecting a new girl from California
but not expecting me.
Miss Holder takes a folder from the gray file cabinet,
and taps her pencil as she reads. Then she says
my homeroom teacher will be Mr. Pease and
I’ll need to take a test for math.
“Mimi is doing algebra at home,” Papa states respectfully.
“Be that as it may,” she says, “the test is required.”
“And did she bring a skirt? Girls must wear skirts,” she says,
as if I’m not standing right here.
“But it’s freezing outside,” I say.
“It’s the dress code. Those are the rules.”
Papa gives me a quick hug. “I’ll bring you one.”
Then I remember he’s going to school today, too,
and whisper, “Drip, drip, drip.”
Shop
Miss Holder hands me my schedule.
“You travel with the same students to all your classes
except homeroom.
And home ec, of course,
when the boys go to shop class.”
“When do the girls go to shop class?” I ask.
Miss Holder frowns,
like my question makes no sense.
Then she says, “They don’t.
Girls learn how to cook and sew
so they can be good homemakers.
Why would you want to make a bookcase
when you can make a cake?”
But I want to ask her why wouldn’t I.
Getting to Know You
In homeroom, I look for someone
like Marciela, Yu-Lin, Poornima, even creepy Eiji
or the boy from next door.
I don’t want to stick out,
don’t want to be different
or scared.
Mr. Pease shows me an empty seat in the first row.
My name is written on the chalkboard
and underlined. Mr. Pease smiles, and I like him.
“Stand up, Mimi,” he says.
“Do you have a real name?”
“Mimi is my real name.”
Then he tells the class they can me ask three questions.
Michael, with blond hair and braces, goes first.
“Where did you come from?” he asks.
“Berkeley, California.” Michael looks puzzled.
“It’s near San Francisco,” I say, but
he still looks confused.
I look at Mr. Pease,
who nods to a girl with glasses and a brunette flip. “Vicky.”
“What do you want to be when you grow—”
“An astronaut,” I answer quickly. I don’t have to think about that.
I look around, expecting nods or smiles,
but everyone laughs. Even Mr. Pease.
“Maybe you should be a comedienne,” he says,
and right away I don’t like him as much.
“Last question—Carl,” he says to a boy reaching his hand so high
he could pull the tiles out of the ceiling.
“What nationality are you?”
“I’m . . . American.”
“I mean . . . what are you?”
And then I understand what Michael had really been asking.
If everyone was laughing before, they’re all quiet now,
as if they all had the same question and made Carl ask it.
But how do I answer that?
I look at Mr. Pease for help, but his eyes tell me
he has the same question.
It’s up to me to solve the puzzle
of how to answer the question
What am I?—
when I know the real question
begins with Who.
Obento
My mouth waters whenever I think of my lunch
sitting in my new locker
(number 348, combination 36-11-17 . . . or 15?):
hinomaru—one pickled plum on pearl rice—
and grilled salmon,
carrot slices shaped like flowers,
black-eyed peas and collard greens,
and the corn bread.
Mama packed this obento for me, even though
Papa told her a tuna sandwich and a thermos of soup
would be better at this school.
But after what happened in homeroom this morning,
I leave my obento in my locker
and eat the turkey tetrazzini and canned peaches
in the cafeteria
like everyone else.
Hungry
Turkey tetrazzini tastes like a ball of paste,
and these canned peaches
are not like the ones Mama preserved in California.
Whenever she’d open a new jar
in the cold, rainy winter,
i
t became summer again in my bowl.
Everyone else is talking to everyone else
but not to me. So I eat this food
because I’m starving
and there isn’t anything else to do
in this cafeteria
that smells like American cheese and Comet.
Nothing to do but look at my tray and eat
by myself.
Why is that boy over there—
the one in a fifth chair at a table of four—
staring at me?
Mama told me not to be pushy
but wait to be invited.
I smile at the boy. He smiles back
but doesn’t invite me to a sixth chair.
Journal
Mr. Pease is also my English teacher.
I’m so glad he doesn’t tell me to stand up in this class
and answer three questions.
“Welcome back from vacation,” he says.
His bow tie is crooked, like a propeller ready to spin,
and I imagine him soaring above our heads.
“Did I say something funny, Mimi?” he asks,
and in my mind Mr. Pease drop-lands on his
desk.
I shake my head.
“Stand up, please,” he says. “We have fun in my class,
but we work hard
and we don’t tolerate clowns.”
“Yes, sir,” I say, and sit down again.
Feet shuffle on the floor,
and voices around me murmur, “Wooo.”
“From now until the end of the year, you’ll be keeping a journal,”
he says, handing out spiral notebooks from a stack on his desk.
“You’ll write, draw, collage, or whatever you want.
But you’ll do it at least three times a week.”
“Do we have to show them to you?” asks a girl beside me.
“Do I see a hand, Barbara?” he asks.
Vermont teachers are stricter than teachers in Berkeley.
Barbara raises her hand. “Do we have to show them to you?”
“You’ll turn them in before the end of the year.”
I raise my hand, and Mr. Pease nods.
“What do we write about?”
Full Cicada Moon Page 2
