“When Americans who were Japanese
had to leave their houses and live in camps in the desert
until the war was over.”
“That never happened,” David says, and
“I never heard of that,” Linda says.
Auntie Sachi was there, so I say, “I’m sure it happened.”
Miss O’Connell raises her hands for quiet.
“You have to understand
how the country felt at the time.
People were scared because
we were at war with Japan.”
No one is saying “Yeah, that doesn’t make any sense”
or “That sounds horrible” or
“How could they do that to people?” or even
“Is it true?”
They’re just looking at me like I made it all up
and want to cause trouble. But Miss O’Connell says,
“You weren’t alive at the time,
so you can’t understand.”
Now I wish I’d kept quiet,
the way Uncle Kiyoshi tells Auntie to be
whenever she brings up her life in Arizona.
Liars
Auntie Sachi wouldn’t have given me the Time magazine
if Uncle Kiyoshi hadn’t read it yet.
She wouldn’t have let us stay in their house
if she wanted us to move out.
She wouldn’t say she loves both her daughters the same
and give one more rice.
She is always truthful—
so I know she didn’t lie
when she told me that during the war
her family had to sell their house and grocery store
and everything they owned in Sacramento
and move to Arizona
to live in a shack
in a camp
surrounded by barbed wire
with hundreds of other families
while her big brother fought in the army
for our country.
“You’re a liar, Liar!”
they’re telling me in history.
“Show us where that’s in our book,”
they want to know.
It’s not in our history book.
Maybe the people who wrote the book
forgot what happened to Auntie,
or decided to leave that part out
so no one would ever know what happened.
And after a while, everyone would forget
or call those who remembered
liars.
Moving Forward
Tonight I tell Mama and Papa
what happened in history.
“It’s true, right?” I ask.
Mama picks up her plate and takes it to the sink.
“Mama, right?” I repeat, in case
she didn’t hear me the first time.
“What is past is past,” she says,
her back still to us. “We need to forget
and do our best now.”
Papa has been watching her back
and now turns to me. “I agree with Mama
to a point. We can’t dwell on what happened
but we need to remember
so we don’t do it again.
It is our history,
but we don’t want it be our future.”
That is why I’ve decided
that even after I hand in my journal to Mr. Pease
in June, I’ll keep writing in it.
I don’t want to forget,
and I don’t want someone else
to tell a different story about me.
Stacey’s Birthday
At 3:36 this afternoon
Stacey will turn thirteen.
She wanted to come to the drugstore
and share a banana split to celebrate
the moment of her birth.
Today is also that soda jerk’s day off,
so I feel okay being here.
But I wish I didn’t have to think about
where not to go.
“What do you want for your birthday?” I ask.
I hope she says earrings, because
last week I’d bought her some, and
they’re in my pocketbook.
She slices the banana with her spoon.
“I really want the Cream album
but Daddy says it’s devil music, so I know I won’t get it.”
“My dad has that one. It’s cool.”
“Then I’ll have to listen to it at your house,” she says,
tipping her spoon at me.
“Sure,” I say, happy that she’ll be over again.
We eat more ice cream
and I ask, “Are you going to have a party?”
It would be my first one here.
She pokes the banana with her spoon, then mumbles,
“I don’t know . . . not today, anyway.”
Then she turns bright red
and buries her face in her arm.
“I’m so sorry, Mimi,” she sobs.
“Why—what happened?” I ask.
She lifts her head and wipes her nose with a napkin
and looks at me with red-rimmed eyes.
“I’m having a party Saturday,
but . . . didn’t ask you.”
“Oh,” I say, guessing why.
“Mimi, you’re my best friend,
but Mother—she’s so old-fashioned.
I wanted you to be there so bad,
but I knew she’d say no.”
This soda fountain hasn’t been good to me.
And now I know
that Stacey wanted me to come here on her birthday
because I couldn’t go to her house for her party.
The clock says 3:38. The moment has passed.
I put Stacey’s present on the counter
and say, “Happy birthday.”
But I don’t say things like “I thought we were friends” and
“I hope it rains at your party,”
because then I’d feel worse than I do now.
And because angry words are like minutes on the clock—
once you use them, you can’t get them back.
Light and Dark
My science project is finished,
a demonstration of the eight phases of the moon.
It is a Styrofoam ball
hanging from the lid of a shoebox.
I punched eight holes around the box,
one for each phase.
When I aim a flashlight at the ball,
it’s like the sun shining on the moon.
You can look through the holes and see
the phases of light and dark:
New Moon
Waxing Crescent
First Quarter
Waxing Gibbous
Full Moon
Waning Gibbous
Last Quarter
Waning Crescent
and back to New
“This explains the phases very well,” Papa says,
peering through a hole.
But Mama has noticed my waning crescent mood,
and asks, “What’s wrong?”
“It’s small and boring and flimsy.
I could have made this in fourth grade,” I say,
and thump the Thom McAn shoebox
until the moon sways.
I will never win first prize with this moon box.
“What are you going to do about that?” Papa asks.
I snap off the flashlight, and the kitchen goes milky dim
from the Full Sprouting Grass Moon outside.
and so do I:
“Make a better one,” I say,
then sigh. “I just don’t know how.”
If I Had a Hammer
If I had a power drill
and a power saw
and a power screwdriver
and a vise for holding glued boards together while they dry,
my moon project would be stellar.
But all we have are a rusty saw
and a screwdriver with a yellow handle
and a drill you crank by hand.
But every time I use those tools
to make a bigger, better, stronger moon box,
the wood splinters,
the corners bend,
my arms get tired from turning the crank,
and I think about switching my project
to lichens.
Poults
We have ten new babies—
ten turkey poults—
that Mama wants to raise
and “give away,” as she says,
for Thanksgiving.
It’s her way of saying
ten families will eat them for dinner.
But they are too cute to be eaten.
The poults will need to stay in the house,
where it’s warm, until spring
because the coop out back
doesn’t have the right heater.
So Mama set up the extra bedroom as an incubator
for the babies
and a cardboard gate to keep them in.
They clump at the gate
and peep whenever we talk or come down the hall
because I have spoiled them by sitting in the room with them.
They climb all over me, looking for food and cuddles.
“Don’t name them,” Mama says,
because then I won’t let her give them away in the fall.
But it’s too late—
Rufus has short wings,
Bobo’s claws are stubby,
and Shirley has a brown streak across her beak.
I wonder how I could bring them to my room
and let them sleep on my bed.
Math
Everyone in study hall is quiet, except for David Hurley,
who’s telling Ann at the next table about his science project,
a water mill that has a motor.
“I’m making it in wood shop. Mr. Sperangio lets me
go in after school.”
“Quiet, now,” says Miss Borden, the librarian.
David and Ann glance at each other,
then back at their books.
I’m staring at my math book,
but trying to solve a different problem—
How to ask Mr. Sperangio in wood shop
about using the tools.
“That’s not possible,” he tells me
in his classroom after school.
“Shop is for boys.”
“But I’m not talking about taking shop.
I just want to use the tools.”
“These tools are dangerous.”
“I’ll be careful. I’m always careful.”
“You haven’t had any training.”
“I can learn . . . really fast.”
Mr. Sperangio lifts his hands,
and shakes them, like I’m a fly.
“Look, Miss Oliver, I’m sorry,
but girls can’t come in here.”
“So, the answer is no?”
“Yes,
the answer is no.
You’ll have to find another way
to solve your problem.”
Disappointment
ripples through me,
but I won’t let it defeat me.
I’ll find another way.
As I walk to the door,
David Hurley comes in
and slips on a pair of goggles.
Something Important
Mama has been invited to a tea
for the wives of professors at Hillsborough College.
When the invitation came in the mail last week,
she opened it and read it
like Mifune
and set it next to the napkin holder.
Today, Papa asks, “What are you going to tell them?”
“What is this tea all about?” she asks, looking at the envelope
like it has poison ivy in it.
“Well, I’ve never been to one,
but I think you drink tea and talk with the other wives.”
“Oh. I don’t need to do that, James.”
“I think it would be good for you.
You would meet new people and
make some friends.”
“I don’t need friends—
I have you and Mimi
and the turkeys.”
Papa says nothing. Mama says nothing
for a minute, and then,
Papa says, “If you knew
there would be someone at the tea you could talk to,
would you go?”
Mama sighs. “If it’s that important to you, okay.
I will go to the tea.”
Then Papa sits back in his chair and smiles.
“Thank you, Emi,” he says.
It is that important to him.
And now I wonder who that someone will be.
April Vacation
Our yard is now a brown lake,
with patches of snow like stepping-stones.
The ground smells sour, like it threw back its covers
after napping for a hundred years.
Over there, in Mr. Dell’s yard,
is that boy again,
the one I threw snowballs with over February vacation,
the boy Mr. Dell told me didn’t exist.
He tosses a Frisbee across the backyard,
and Pattress chases it, jumping and barking.
She catches it, runs in a wide circle,
drops it on the ground in front of the boy.
Then she backs off, barks again.
He tosses it,
then sees me standing here
by the turkey coop. I wait
for him to wave, speak, or walk away
like he did before.
I won’t go first—
respecting his ways
and protecting my feelings.
I spread grain in the feeders.
I refill the waterers.
I check the inside temperature.
“Hi,” I hear behind me,
and turn around.
He’s standing
on his side of the fence.
Pattress is sitting, but
her tail sneaks a wag.
“Hello,” I say, and wait.
“Are those chickens?” he asks.
“Turkeys.”
“Oh.” He stretches his neck for a better look.
“Wanna see them?” I ask.
The boy glances over his shoulder at Mr. Dell’s house,
then steps over the fence,
mud squishing around his boots.
Pattress jumps the fence and scampers ahead.
She nudges my hand with her nose
and I nuzzle it,
so cold and soft.
It’s the first time I’ve touched her,
and she makes me want a dog of my own
just like her.
“How did she get her name?” I ask.
“Well, my uncle named her Patches,
but I pronounced it ‘Pattress’
when I was little.”
“I’m Mimi,�
�� I say to the boy.
“I know,” he says. “I’m Timothy.
He’s my uncle—my great-uncle,”
and I know he is Mr. Dell.
“I was about to clean the coop. Want to help?”
“Yeah,” he says, and tells Pattress to stay.
Inside, the coop smells like hay and sawdust
and turkey poop.
The turkeys think we have more food
and mob us, gobbling.
We shuffle through them,
and they stream around us, gobbling.
I give Timothy a shovel. “I don’t think your uncle likes me.”
Timothy scoops some spread and dumps it in the bucket.
“I don’t think he likes anybody
but Pattress.”
We both shovel more, and I have more questions,
starting with “Why?”
Timothy shrugs. “He likes to be by himself.”
“But you’re here.”
“My brother, Wesley, brings me here on school vacations
to keep Uncle Raymond company.
My mom gets worried about him
all alone.”
As we clean the coop,
I find out more about Timothy’s uncle:
His wife died eight years ago,
he flew missions in World War II.
Now, when the weather is good, he goes flying
by himself. Or driving when it’s bad.
And he has a telescope.
“It’s huge,” Timothy says. “You can see planets and stars.”
When he says that, I drop my armful of hay.
“And the moon?”
Timothy nods.
“Can I see it?”
But now he shakes his head.
“Please?”
“He won’t even let me touch it.”
“I’ll just look through it. Please-oh-please?”
Timothy shoves his hands in his pockets, then
says, “Maybe . . . when he goes out.
But no promises.”
Just the thought is good enough
for now.
The back door of his uncle’s house opens,
and Wesley sticks his head out and looks around.
Timothy doesn’t call him. He just says, “I gotta go now.”
“You’re not supposed to come here, right?”
Full Cicada Moon Page 6
