While I Was Away Read online

  “Not because of these.” My grandmother picked up her glasses and set them aside. “Before my wrinkles, before these glasses, I had big eyes. That’s what your ojiisama would tell me.” She closed her eyes.

  It seemed like Obaasama had forgotten about her fabric, my clumsy first attempts at sewing, and me for that matter. I would have left her to her memories had a voice from the back door not broken through them.

  “Package for you!” the mailman called out.

  Obaasama opened her eyes and fumbled for her glasses. “Hai!” she responded as she made her way to the door.

  It was a care package from my mom, full of the Twix bars and Kit Kats I hinted at wanting in my last letter. Plus more Jell-O and Knox gelatin packets. “Twix!” I shouted as I ripped open the bag.

  “So are those . . . the American treats you like?” Obaasama asked.

  My mom always sent Obaasama unfrosted Pop Tarts or Pepperidge Farm cookies—treats that weren’t as sweet. Come to think of it, I had hardly seen Obaasama eat anything sweet since I arrived. I worried she wouldn’t like Twix, but I couldn’t not offer. After all, who doesn’t like gooey caramel covering a crisp cookie and then coated completely in milk chocolate? She took her first bite. Her eyes grew larger, and I waited for her reaction.

  She looked at the candy bar, then at me. “Oishii. . . .” It’s delicious.

  I felt as proud as if I had made that crispy, caramely, milk chocolaty goodness myself.

  So what if she wasn’t impressed with my first attempt at sewing? I learned about my grandfather. I learned Obaasama was a seamstress. And I learned she liked, no loved, Twix. Just like me.

  Turns out school wasn’t the only place where I could learn.

  Thirteen

  After hearing Obaasama talk about Ojiisama, which group to choose didn’t seem as important . . . but that didn’t mean it wasn’t. For the past week, it seemed nothing had changed. I played with Emi-chan’s guruupu when I felt like playing on the gymnastics bar and Midori-chan’s guruupu when I felt more like chatting and walking around. But it wasn’t the same.

  I tried to be fair by dividing my time equally between the two groups in case they were paying attention, which I knew they were. Maybe they didn’t view my efforts as fairness, but instead saw me as fickle or flighty or both. Or it could be that they didn’t notice at all. Even if I was just being paranoid, the pressure of having to choose hung over me every day like the June clouds of Japan’s rainy season. Which group to choose, which guruupu to choose . . .

  I hoped Annette and Kris could write back before I had to make my decision, but as we entered Week Two of guruupu drama, I could tell Emi-chan and Midori-chan wanted an answer soon. Comments such as, “Oh, you’re with us today? We weren’t sure,” said sweetly but not really sweetly were starting to drive me crazy.

  It was a good distraction when I tried shuuji—Japanese-style calligraphy—for the first time. Unlike the calligraphy I had seen back home, shuuji used brushes instead of pens. For shuuji, we had palm-sized, rectangular ink tablets and small, rectangular ink sticks. Both were black as night. I watched as my classmates dribbled some water on the ink tablet and rubbed it with the ink stick. I did the same. They added a few more drops of water, rubbed the stick against the tablet together some more, and then took a thin brush, dipped, and tested the ink on the newspaper covering their desks. Always a step behind, I imitated what they were doing without completely understanding why.

  “Just a little more,” Fujita-san mumbled to herself as she repeated the steps from before.

  I get it now! I thought to myself. The more we rubbed the stick to the tablet, the darker the ink became.

  Dip, test, rub. When our ink was finally ready, Mr. Adachi commanded our attention at the front of the room where he demonstrated how to write the kanji for tomo, which meant “friend.”

  The first brush stroke was straight across. Sounds easy enough, but we had to pay careful attention to how we started and ended each stroke. The second stroke began at the top right, crossed the first, and gracefully tapered off. The third stroke was the trickiest since it started straight and then made a sharp turn to the left before it also tapered. The fourth and final stroke started narrow and finished with a broad swoosh.

  We practiced on sheets of rice paper, so thin they’d float to the ground if we dropped them. Straight, swoop, right, and turn, gentle beginning, strong finish. I looked around. Was that all? My classmates moved onto their second sheet of paper and tried again, so I did too. Over and over again, we wrote. Friend, friend, friend, friend.

  What did it mean to be friends? For the girls in my class, it meant dropping some people for others. Growing up, I wasn’t one of the popular girls, pretty or rich enough to be living in a big house by the lake. But I always had friends. There were some kids who were mean to me, but these kids were mean to everyone.

  This past school year, a group of girls who were pretty, rich, and well-liked by the boys decided they’d make up nicknames for themselves and print their cool, new names on pink T-shirts. A lot of us had nicknames, but they weren’t our choice (for instance, mine was “wakawakawakawakawaka Pac-Man!” or “wakawakawaka Fozzie Bear!”). We certainly didn’t have matching T-shirts. Even if I were part of this T-shirt gang, my mother would never have spent money on something, as she would have put it, “so stupid.” The sixth-grade teachers put a stop to it, but these girls weren’t mean or exclusive otherwise. Maybe Emi-chan’s guruupu was a little like the T-shirt girls back home.

  The decision about the guruupu was a big deal. Even if I didn’t think it made sense, it did to my classmates. I had to decide, but I didn’t want to.

  For the first time ever, I was really glad to have to write kanji.

  A few classmates took their calligraphy up to Mr. Adachi for approval. He took a large brush, dipped it in red ink, and corrected each student’s work.

  “This line is too thin. It should be thicker like this.” And then he wrote right on top of the student’s example and sent the student back to try again.

  My heart sank as Mr. Adachi sent student after student back to their seats. I showed him mine, even though I knew what he was going to do.

  “Not bad, Waka-chan!” Mr. Adachi swiped red over my very first stroke, the easiest one that just went straight across. “Start like this, bring your brush across straight like this, and end the stroke like this.” Even though he was being really nice to me, it was hard seeing him correct my very first stroke.

  As I walked back to my desk, I kept thinking about the word tomo—friends. I didn’t know which group to choose. Emi-chan was sporty, and when I felt like running around, I liked playing with her and her friends. I also enjoyed hearing Fujita-san’s opinions. Although I wasn’t on her level in Japanese, if she were in Kansas, she’d definitely be a brain, too, so I felt I had that in common with her. The girls in this guruupu had been friendly from the very beginning.

  Midori-chan, on the other hand, was neither sporty nor a brain. Midori-chan was the head of her group, which surprised me a little, considering she didn’t have any close friends during my short visit a couple years ago. That is, except for me. We were best friends, even if it was only for a few weeks. I guess a little bit of me had hoped I’d resume my place as Midori-chan’s best friend, but I could tell that role belonged to Naomi-chan now.

  Yamashita-san wasn’t on the same level as Naomi-chan. If she ever tried to interrupt them, Midori-chan ignored her and continued her conversation with Naomi. That was when Yamashita-san’s obsidian eyes would look uncertain for a moment before they glinted even harder than they were before. Then, she’d play with her ponytail and act like she didn’t care if they heard her or not.

  Saito-san was like a lion, she roared her loud opinions to anyone and everyone, even if people didn’t like what she had to say. Like if Midori-chan complained about the ugly shirt her mom made her wear, most girls would say, “No, no, it’s really cute! It looks good on you, it does!” But not Sa
ito-san. She would say, “Yeah, I can totally see why you hate that shirt. That shirt is uuuuugly.” Saito-san rubbed a lot of kids the wrong way, but I thought she was kind of funny. With Saito-san, what you saw was what you got, whether you liked it or not.

  Their guruupu dynamics were weird, there was no denying that. How would I fit in? They weren’t always nice to each other, but maybe there was some history between them that I didn’t know about. I convinced myself it would be different if I joined because the only history I had with any of them was with Midori-chan and it was all good! Turning my back on our past friendship just seemed wrong. I didn’t have much in common with Yamashita-san, Naomi-chan, or Saito-san, but I didn’t dislike them.

  Back at my seat, I practiced on sheet after sheet of rice paper. Friend, friend, friend, friend.

  Second try with Mr. Adachi. This time, my first stroke was fine. He didn’t seem to have any issues with my second stroke either. But the tricky, third stroke, the one that went one direction and then made an abrupt turn, was no good, and Mr. Adachi returned my attempt at tomo covered in red ink once again. I dragged my feet back to my seat. While none of my classmates passed on their first try, after their second check some of them did. But not me. Was I ever going to get the hang of this?

  Earlier in the day, I didn’t feel like playing with anyone during morning recess. Instead, I crouched off to the side and scratched kanji into the dirt with a short stick. When Emi-chan and Fujita-san approached, I knew I had to give some sort of answer.

  “We wanted you to know whatever decision you make, no hard feelings.”

  I looked up, wondering if this was true.

  “But before you make it, we think you should know something.”

  What now? I thought.

  “We don’t like to say anything bad about our classmates, but . . .” Emi-chan lowered her voice and glanced around to make sure no one else was within earshot.

  “Midori-chan and her friends, well, their status is . . .”

  Fujita-san finished her sentence for her. “Low status. They’re low status.”

  Low status? Thinking back to these comments, I began to see red—red like the ink Mr. Adachi used to write all over our kanji. All I knew was that back in Kansas, high status meant popular. And for some of those kids who had deemed themselves popular, it meant wearing the right clothes, being pretty (preferably blond), and not talking with anyone who didn’t look like or live like they did. “They’re snobs,” my sister said.

  What would Obaasama do? That was easy. Wearing her colorful asymmetrical dress with the mismatched sleeves, she’d tell Emi-chan and Fujita-san to “stick it where the sun don’t shine.” More politely, of course.

  Having a chance to be part of the group of beautiful people might seem like a dream come true for many girls, but I wasn’t one of those girls. I’d never been one of those girls. I couldn’t stand snobs and avoided them at all cost. Emi-chan and Fujita-san didn’t seem like snobs, but warning me of the other group’s status sure sounded snobby to me. Telling me I couldn’t play with Reiko anymore did too. But all I said at the time was, “Really? Oh.”

  “You’ll let us know?” Emi-chan and Fujita-san looked relieved I seemed to understand.

  I understood. I understood completely.

  Friend, friend, friend, friend.

  Finally, after dozens of attempts, Mr. Adachi was satisfied with my calligraphy. “Looks good, Waka-chan!”

  I breathed a sigh of relief, but then my eyes widened in horror as he took his brush, dipped it in red ink, and drew a huge crimson swirl over the calligraphy I had just worked so hard to perfect.

  “Maru maru maru!” Mr. Adachi smiled as he marked my calligraphy with the Japanese-teacher equivalent of a “Great job!” sticker.

  During the lunch after our calligraphy lesson, I approached Midori-chan and her friends.

  “So I gave the whole guruupu thing some thought.”

  Midori-chan glanced up. She looked defeated, like she thought she knew what I was going to say. Naomi-chan chewed her nails as her eyes darted back and forth between Midori-chan and me.

  “If I join your group, do you care if I still walk to and from school with Reiko? And play with her sometimes if she has recess the same time as us?”

  Midori-chan and Naomi-chan exchanged surprised looks.

  “Sure!” Midori-chan piped up without consulting with the rest of them. With Midori-chan’s answer, Naomi-chan nodded too.

  “That’s fine with me!”

  Saito-san boomed. “Of course you can. It’s not like I was planning on walking you home.”

  Yamashita-san shrugged. “Great.” The way she said it, it was clear she didn’t think it was great at all, but I was tired of turning this decision over and over in my mind. I was just ready to have this nonsense over with.

  When I let Emi-chan and Fujita-san know, they seemed disappointed but not upset.

  “You and Midori-chan were such good friends a couple years ago.” Fujita-san and Emi-chan nodded knowingly.

  It was settled, then. I didn’t like having to choose in the first place, but I felt like of the two options, I made the right choice.

  I walked home with Reiko, as usual. I didn’t tell her about my guruupu woes. I didn’t want her to know the girls of 6-5 thought it was weird I wanted to be friends with someone outside of their class. I didn’t want to hurt her feelings, and to be honest, I didn’t want to give her any reason to decide being my friend was more trouble than it was worth. Out of everyone, she was the person I felt like was my truest friend here.

  When I got home, I took my first calligraphy attempt out of my randoseru. Once I fished my paper out, it struck me that “got home” meant Obaasama’s house now. And that, instead of automatically wanting to show my mom my schoolwork, I thought of my grandmother first. That surprised me. Then, it was a relief. I didn’t feel like a guest anymore. I took a good long look at my calligraphy and remembered how Obaasama said part of my apron was “clumsy.” Although I was so happy to have Mr. Adachi finally approve my kanji for “friend” during class, it was clumsy too. It might do for Mr. Adachi, but it could be better. I tucked it away and decided not to show Obaasama my work. Not yet.

  Fourteen

  July 7, or the seventh day of the seventh month, marked the Tanabata Festival in Japan. According to legend, the Weaver Star (Vega) and the Cowherd Star (Altair) fell in a love so deep the Weaver Star stopped weaving and the Cowherd Star stopped cowherding, so his cows were left to wander all around the night sky. This made the Weaver Star’s father so angry he forbade the Weaver and Cowherd to meet and used the Milky Way to separate them forever. However, the Weaver’s father took mercy on them when his daughter pleaded with him to lighten their punishment. He allowed them to cross the Milky Way to meet once a year, on Tanabata, July 7. As part of the festival, people decorated their homes with bamboo branches, wrote wishes on tanzaku (strips of colored paper), and hung them along with other paper decorations on the bamboo branches. It was a love story for the ages.

  That week at school, we prepared to celebrate Tanabata too. On Monday, Mr. Adachi instructed us to think about what we would wish for on our tanzaku for our celebration on Saturday. I wasn’t sure what to write.

  Long bamboo branches were brought into our school and displayed on its balconies. They were bare now, but not for long. In class, we made chains and other ornaments from colorful squares of origami paper.

  The festivities were a welcome break from my regular school routine with mini-tutoring sessions during breaks. For the past couple weeks, I also had them when there was any time after lunch, and sometimes even during recess. This meant I had less time to play with my new guruupu, but . . . I actually didn’t mind too much.

  I wondered how being in a guruupu would change my life. At first, it didn’t. Every morning, I stood up, bowed, and sat back down like I did before. I walked to and from school with Reiko, just like before. Now that I understood the guruupu rules, I only hung out wit
h Midori-chan and her friends, who sat around and gossiped most of the time. Emi and her friends weren’t mean, but they didn’t ask me to play anymore.

  Yamashita-san was a jock like me. I wished we could run around or skip or something, but she never suggested anything different, so neither did I. Both of us just tagged along wherever Midori-chan and Naomi went. If Midori and Naomi were involved in something that didn’t include Yamashita-san or me, Yamashita-san ran to join them and acted like I was the one who was on the outs.

  Big Saito-san came and went as she pleased, sometimes getting up abruptly and wandering off by herself. I thought about following her sometimes, but she didn’t seem like she wanted to be followed. I liked her, but it was hard to figure out if she liked me. I didn’t take it personally, though, because sometimes it was hard to figure out if she truly liked anyone.

  Usually, Midori-chan and Naomi-chan welcomed me with smiles and included me in their conversations or activities. But sometimes I felt ignored. I didn’t have a lot to say, though, so maybe I was just imagining things.

  This week, Yamashita-san caught me watching Emi and her friends play on the gymnastics bar. “Waka-chan, doushita no?” she asked. What’s going on?

  My focus snapped back to them. “Nothing.” I avoided their eyes.

  Should I write “I wish I had friends” on my tanzaku? I pushed that thought away. I do have friends, I convinced myself.

  I never showed anyone my textbook with the furigana my aunt Kyoko had written next to the kanji. I was afraid my classmates would discover how stupid I was, even though it was pretty obvious since Mr. Adachi still skipped me when we read together as a class.

  A girl in Emi-chan’s group sat behind me, and the last time we read aloud in class, the pause when I was skipped was long—really long. In fact, Mr. Adachi had to look up from his text and ask, “Whose turn is it? Pay attention, class!”