“Big rocks.”
As we went back down into the shade of the trees, away from the sound of the water, he recovered a little. He began to talk easily, if unhappily. “I dunno, man. I don’t think it’s the booze, man; I think I got that out of me. It’s just being here, y’know, out of the States. I guess it’s caught up with me. I been away before and it’s always the same. And those fuckin’ statues …”
“Just homesick, huh?”
“Something like that, I guess.” Then he added with sudden warmth, “Hey, thanks, man. You’re a good guy, y’know?”
We heard a cry far off. Sharp but still indistinct.
I don’t know why, it wasn’t that unusual, but maybe just because of the awkwardness that follows when one man expresses affection for another, I tilted my head to listen, and so did Pickett.
The cries were coming closer. They didn’t sound quite like a distressed person. There were several voices.
I tapped Pickett’s arm and we started down, him with two bottles of Yuenling still in the sack.
I made out “Kari-chan, doko?”—a girl’s voice.
Kari, where are you?
Then a boy: “Oi, Mori! Joudan janee yo!”
Mori, this no joke.
The girl again: “Onegai, onegaishimasu!”
Please, oh, please.
Then, although I should have known already, came what stopped my heart: “Taeko-chan, onegai!”
There was pain in that voice.
I jumped—but it was only Pickett’s hand on my arm.
A moment later the boy appeared in front of us, wearing a school coat, scratching his head. He looked big for his age. He took us in unsurprised and said in fair enough English, “Excuse me. Have you seen three girls?”
Pickett and I exchanged a look. We had to admit we had. And then the whole business started.
MICHIKO KAMAKIRI
The first time I got caught lying, I was in third grade and I took a pair of scissors and cut the heads off all my mother’s sunflowers. I think it just got on my nerves: Where did they get off looking so happy? But I told her I saw our neighbor Mrs. Nomura doing it because there was always a war over who had the nicer yard. Well, the war got a whole lot worse, and they were yelling at each other all day. Finally I felt so bad I started crying and told my mother everything, but I couldn’t tell her why I did it. I know why I lied—because I couldn’t tell her why I did it. She slapped me and told me I wasn’t a human being. Then later she felt bad and let me eat some roll cake.
Okay. Here goes.
I didn’t want to go on the stupid trip anyway. To make matters worse, they stuck me on the bus next to that creepy Bug. I was lucky, though, because I didn’t have to be the one to ask if we could change seats: Chizu Sato asked first. But she’d gotten the seat next to Seiji Sumiregawa, and everyone thought she was crazy because everyone knew Seiji-kun was a total hunk—one of the top three in class A—but I knew she was just using reverse psychology because she liked him but wanted him to know that she didn’t want him to know that she liked him. Someday I’m going to write the psy-ops book for junior high girls because God knows, just telling someone you like them, you might as well be committing suicide.
No, said Mr. Tanaka. No changing seats. Make a new friend.
Mr. Tanaka is such a loser. Who’s actually named Tanaka? You never hear about any Americans named John Smith.
What did he mean, make a new friend? It was the stupid senior trip. In a month we’d all graduate and go to high school. If we were going to make friends, we’d already made them. And nobody, at least no girl, was ever going to be friends with Bug.
I guess his name was Keiichi Hirata, but he collected bugs and he looked like a giant bug himself: so, Bug. It started back in sixth grade, when we each had to collect twenty of them for the science project. Twenty was too many for stupid downtown Morioka, but Ms. Kazan was a mean old slave driver. All you got were cicadas, cockroaches, and a few weird flies—no spiders because spiders aren’t bugs, but that didn’t stop a few kids from bringing them anyway. If you brought eighteen, that was an A-minus; fifteen was a C; and so on. If you brought ten or less you failed. But Bug brought in nine, and the one he was most proud of he kept in a little paper bag so no one could see. Taeko Maeda, that happy girl, begged him and begged him until he finally showed her. But he would show Taeko-chan because even then he liked her. He probably kept it in that bag just so she would beg him to show her, since she sat next to him. But when she saw it she started crying. I’m not kidding: real, superbig tears.
Everyone crowded over: Taeko-chan doushita no?
It was a rhino beetle as long as your finger, glossy, like a stone. There was a green pin stuck in it where the wings met the body.
Taeko kept crying and asking him how he could kill something so beautiful.
You’d think that squirt would’ve learned his lesson that bug collecting wasn’t something that made girls like you, but it got worse. I only know because he brought his box into class sometimes and the teacher would yell at him. Okay, I admit it was sort of interesting, and I’d take a peek over his shoulder. He had moths in there, beetles in all kinds of colors like designer stuff, spiders as big as your face.
Okay, I didn’t hate him. Maybe I even liked him better than other girls did. I mean, I don’t think bugs are gross or anything, although I don’t like the idea of sticking a pin through one any more than Taeko did. It’s just that this was the senior trip and this was the last chance to do a love confession before we’d all go to high school and work ourselves to death—on a senior trip the success rate for love confession has got to be like 95 percent—and that bus ride was something precious, you understand; it was a whole two hours you could spend with anyone … getting to know them.
Tohru Maruyama, the Class Rep. Rank: A-plus.
Tall, handsome, kind. The perfect gentleman. Maybe too perfect a gentleman. I don’t think he’d ever even been on a date because we all would have known. Probably the kind of guy who would never figure out when no meant yes. In the final analysis a big No Way. There were at least six girls after him, and I’d have to take my place in line, and besides, everyone knew he liked that weird witch-girl, Kari Hiraoka.
Jin Sul-Kim: the Korean athlete. Rank: A-minus.
He’d transferred in in the ninth grade. There’s a lot of prejudice against Koreans and I don’t think it’s right, but no one was prejudiced against Jin-kun. He had more muscles than he knew what do to with; first in track and a soccer player, and not stupid, either. Not as nice as Class Rep but not exactly mean, just kind of standoffish. The kind of thing some girls like. But stupid Cow-Boobs Sakura was going for the push with her stupid breasts—where did she get those; I think she must be Hawaiian—and she’d landed the seat next to Jin-kun on the bus from the airport to the hotel in Taipei, so she’d pulled a huge tactical lead. I think in such cases a strategic retreat is called for.
Seiji Sumiregawa: brains and a ponytail. Rank: B-plus.
They didn’t like long hair at the school, and if Sumiregawa hadn’t been the top male student in class A, I doubt he could have gotten away with it. He wasn’t much in the rest of the looks department—his chin was too small—but the ponytail turned girls’ knees to jelly. Also he told jokes and seemed experienced (although I don’t think he was exactly, if you know what I mean).
Outside the