Flying the Dragon (8 page)

“Skye, come on,” Amber called. “I’ve got your seat right here.” Skye offered Hiroshi a feeble wave, then moved past him and sat next to Amber. “So what’s with Dr. Hiroshima?” Amber whispered.

“It’s
Hiroshi,
not Hiroshima. And I have no idea.” Skye sighed as more kids turned and whispered about Hiroshi’s mask. If he got off the bus with that mask, he’d be the laughingstock of the whole school. She had to warn him.

When the bus finally lurched to a stop in front of the school, Skye saw her chance. “I’ll meet you outside,” she told Amber, and hurried up the aisle to catch up with Hiroshi. “What are you doing?” she whispered as the line shuffled toward the bus doors. He turned and answered in Japanese, but with the mask hiding his mouth and muffling his voice, Skye couldn’t understand a word he said.

“What?” she whispered louder.

“I said I’m getting off the bus.”

Skye rolled her eyes. “I can see that. But why are you wearing a mask?”

“I’ve got a cold.”

Now that he mentioned it, he did sound a little stuffed up. But still. “You need a mask for that?”

Hiroshi looked at her as if
she
were the crazy one. “Of course. I don’t want to give anyone my cold germs.”

Well, he did have a point. She followed him down the steps and up the sidewalk.

“Skye, wait up!” Amber stepped off the bus.

“Just a sec.” Skye turned to tell Hiroshi that American kids didn’t wear masks, but he had gone ahead and was out of earshot.

When Skye reached the classroom, Hiroshi was already seated, organizing his papers. And still wearing that mask. Skye could see some kids whispering and others pointing, but either he didn’t notice or he chose to ignore them. She couldn’t wait any longer—she had to tell him to ditch the mask, cold or no cold.

But as soon as she sat down, the bell rang and Mrs. Garcia started calling the roll. Skye tore out a piece of paper from her notebook. She had no idea how to write
take off your mask
in Japanese, and she figured Hiroshi wouldn’t know the English version. She drew a stick figure wearing a mask, circled it, and then drew a line through it.

She got up to sharpen her pencil and dropped the note onto Hiroshi’s desk. But when she came back, he was still wearing the mask. He pointed to her drawing, his eyes showing his confusion.

Skye closed her eyes and shook her head.
How can he not understand?
When Mrs. Garcia went to speak with another teacher at the door, the class broke out in whispers. Skye leaned into the aisle. “Take that off,” she whispered in Japanese.

“This?” Hiroshi pointed to his mask.

“Yes, that!”

He looked confused. “But why?”

“Because no one wears them, that’s why!”

Hiroshi didn’t make any move to take off the mask. “I must be the only one with a cold.”

Skye felt like screaming. He looked ridiculous, and he needed to be told. Better to hurt his feelings a little bit now than to have the other kids tease him. “But you look …” What was the Japanese word for
ridiculous?
She had no idea. “You look—I mean, the mask looks … well, stupid.” That wasn’t what she wanted to say. If only she could think of the right word in Japanese.

Hiroshi scowled. “It’s not stupid. I don’t want to cough all over everyone.”

“I’m not saying the idea is stupid. Just that it makes you look—”

“Stupid?”

Hiroshi didn’t seem to be taking this well. Skye sighed. “No! Not stupid.” More like ridiculous. But she couldn’t explain that to Hiroshi.

Just then quiet laughter spread throughout the room. Skye looked up. Mrs. Garcia still stood at the door, looking over some papers with the other teacher. In the back of the room, a kid in the last row had taped a white tissue across his mouth and nose. Skye rolled her eyes and shook her head.

When she turned back to Hiroshi, his eyes told her that he’d figured out who everyone was really laughing at. He slipped the elastic from each ear, folded the mask, and slid it into his desk.

Skye sighed. She’d been trying all morning to make him understand, and now he did.

Understanding isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.

Hiroshi stepped off the school bus and headed up the sidewalk. Angry tears burned his eyes, but he refused to let them fall. Everything was all wrong—this school, this stupid language that he didn’t understand and never would. He just wanted to go home. Back to Japan.

“Hey!” Skye’s voice came from behind him.

Hiroshi kept walking. Maybe she’d think he hadn’t heard her and just leave him alone.

“You dropped your book!”

Hiroshi was surprised to hear her yell in Japanese. It was probably because they were alone at the bus stop, and no one else was around to hear. He turned to see Skye flipping through his copy of
Tim Gets Dressed.

“Give that back!” Hiroshi snatched the book from Skye’s hands. He shoved it into his backpack and yanked the zipper closed.

“Listen, I’m sorry about the mask.”

Right.
Hiroshi turned and started up the street. Her words were empty—except for the word
stupid.
That word weighed a ton. Fine. He’d go his way, and she could go hers. Just because they were cousins didn’t mean he needed her. He’d figure things out on his own.

“Those words aren’t the important ones, you know.”

He slowed. “What?”

Skye caught up and fell into step beside him. “Your book.”

Why did that book have to fall out of his backpack? And why did she have to see it? “I’m not stupid, you know. That book is stupid, but I am not.” He kept walking.

Skye followed. “I know you’re smart.” She shook her head. “You don’t need those books. They leave out all the important stuff. Most schoolbooks do.”

“Like what?” Hiroshi stopped.

“There’s the English you learn in school, and then there’s real English.”

Hiroshi’s curiosity snuffed out some of his anger. But not all of it. “So how do I learn real English?”

Skye stepped off the curb. “Leave that to me,” she said over her shoulder. Then she crossed the street and headed home.

What is she talking about?
Hiroshi shrugged and shifted his backpack from one shoulder to the other. Girls. They didn’t make sense in any language.

When he reached his house, Hiroshi opened the front door, slipped inside, then closed the door without a sound. He heard Mother and Grandfather talking in the kitchen. Slouching against the wall, he closed his eyes and listened to Mother talk about her trip to the supermarket. A month ago Hiroshi would never have stopped to listen to such everyday conversation. A month ago this conversation would have been boring. But after a day of wrestling with English, he let the rise and fall of their Japanese words wash over him. It felt like a small miracle to actually understand what people were saying.

When he entered the kitchen, Mother and Grandfather were sitting at the table with cups of green tea. He dropped his backpack onto the floor and sank into a chair.

“How was your day?” Mother asked.

“I don’t want to go back.”

“Is your cold worse?” She put her hand on his forehead. “No fever. Here, have some tea.” She lifted the china teapot by its bamboo handle. Hiroshi watched the steam rise as she poured his tea.

“I still don’t understand anything. It’s like I never even took English lessons before. And I’m tired of eating without chopsticks.”

“You could always bring lunch from home, Hiro-chan,” Mother said.

Hiroshi thought of the spiky-haired boy and what he would say if he saw Hiroshi’s Japanese food and chopsticks. Better to try and blend in with the others.

“Maybe,” he said. “I’ll think about it.” Hiroshi took a sip of tea. “I’m starving.” He reached for the plate of sushi rolls.

Mother handed him a napkin. “I am so glad Sorano-chan is there to help.”

Right.
Hiroshi popped a sushi roll in his mouth.

“The box containing the dragon kite arrived this morning,” Grandfather said. “It’s in my workshop, but I haven’t unpacked it yet. I thought we’d open it together.”

Hiroshi stood and grabbed another sushi roll. “Let’s go.” Seeing the dragon kite again would be like seeing an old friend.

Hiroshi hurried down the stairs. It wasn’t until he had reached the bottom step that he realized Grandfather wasn’t behind him. He turned to find him gripping the railing, knuckles white, as he placed both feet on each step.

“Are you okay?”

“I am fine, yes. My old legs just need to get used to these steps.”

Hiroshi climbed back up the stairs and offered Grandfather his arm.

“Thank you, Hiroshi. But I can do it myself.” Hiroshi stayed close to Grandfather, just in case. “I am starting the new treatment at the hospital soon. I will be good as new in no time.”

Hiroshi had always trusted Grandfather. But this time he wasn’t so sure.

When they reached the bottom of the stairs, Hiroshi glanced at the high, small windows. “There’s not much light down here. There’s no view, either. Your workshop in Japan was better.”

Grandfather looked at the windows and put his hand on Hiroshi’s shoulder. “What do you say we open that box?”

Hiroshi peeled off the packing tape as if he were opening a birthday gift. He bent back the box flaps and dipped his hands into the Styrofoam pellets, feeling for the kite. His fingers closed around its bamboo bones, and he gingerly lifted it out of the box, spilling bits of Styrofoam onto the floor. He unwrapped the tissue paper, one layer at a time, until the dragon’s face finally appeared. He had almost forgotten the fierce glint of the eyes and the whiteness of the jagged teeth. But it was the magic of the colors that amazed Hiroshi the most. When the kite danced far up in the sky, the dragon appeared to be different shades of red, depending upon the light of the sun. But up close its skin and scales were tiny strokes of color and light—hundreds of lines of black, reds, blues, and greens. Holding the dragon kite in his hands felt like holding a piece of home.

Then he saw it—a rip in the paper near the top of the kite.

“Oh, no!” Hiroshi peered closer. Grandfather ran his fingers over the dragon’s four-inch wound. “Can we fix it?” Hiroshi watched the wrinkles deepen across Grandfather’s forehead.

“I don’t know. We could patch it, but it wouldn’t be as strong.”

“Would it still fly?”

“Yes, but it might not survive a
rokkaku
battle.”

“All that work for nothing.”

Grandfather lifted the kite from Hiroshi’s hands and set it on the worktable. “Doing something you love is never a waste of time, Hiroshi.”

“Moving to America has ruined everything.”

“It may seem like that now, Hiroshi. But it won’t always be that way. You’ll make many more kites in your lifetime. Even better than this one.”

“You mean
we’ll
make more kites. Together. You and me.”

“Perhaps. But you’ve become an expert kite maker in your own right. You made this kite yourself. You don’t need my help anymore, Hiroshi.”

“Yes I do. I put the kite together, but you had to remind me what to do. And I’ll never paint like you do.”

“The picture does not bring the kite to life; it is the design of the bamboo bones and paper skin that make it fly. I began painting kites sixty years ago.” He pointed to the dragon. “Do you think I could paint like this when I was a boy?”

Hiroshi eyed the medallion that hung from the chain around Grandfather’s neck. No bigger than a quarter, the medallion’s worn inscription was barely legible after all these years. Grandfather had been Hiroshi’s age when he had won it, the youngest
rokkaku
champion in his village. As long as Hiroshi could remember, Grandfather had never taken the medallion off.

“What’s it like to win?” Hiroshi asked.

“Winning one thing can mean losing something else.”

“But you’ve never lost.” Hiroshi took the medallion between his fingers. “You’re the best there is.”

Grandfather took the medallion from Hiroshi and tucked it back into his shirt. “This medallion does not represent winning, Hiroshi. It is a reminder of the value of humility.”

Hiroshi started to ask what he meant, but the faraway look in Grandfather’s eyes told him not to ask any more questions. Whenever he’d asked about the medallion in the past, Grandfather always managed to change the subject.

“You have talent, Hiroshi. What you lack is patience. But that, too, will come with time. You’ll see.”

Hiroshi wasn’t so sure. “You can teach me patience. I’ll learn from you.”

“You must find patience within yourself. I won’t always be here to help you. Some things you will need to learn on your own.”

But Hiroshi didn’t want to learn on his own. “We’ll always make kites together, Grandfather.”

But even as he said the words, Hiroshi knew they couldn’t be true.