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says.
    I do as I am told, feeling the coldness of the key against my breastbone above my bra. It is one of those bras with molded cups, 34A. In the crisscross intersection is a tiny embroidered pink flower sitting in the middle of a green fabric leaf.
    I don’t make it past the lawn before I hear someone calling to me from the driveway next door. It is a Japanese woman about my grandmother’s age. “Hello there. Hello. You must be Michi and Nick’s granddaughter. I’m Ruth Oyama and this is my husband, Jack.”
    Mr. Oyama holds a black Bible; Mrs. Oyama’s Bible is in a quilted book cover with handles. My family isn’t religious, so I always am both curious about and repelled by people who go to church. Certain Christian people’s faces seem especially bright, like they are shining a light into the dark corners of my mind. The lady, Mrs. O, has a piercing gaze, and I feel that she can see right through me.
    “Oh,” I finally say, realizing that they are waiting for me to introduce myself. I drop my skateboard onto the driveway. “I’m Angela. Angela Kato.”
    “Kato…Your dad related to the Katos in San Gabriel?” Mr. Oyama asks.
    I crinkle my nose and nudge my skateboard with the toe of my sneaker. “I don’t know. My dad’s from northern California,” I say.
    “We’re going to be late, Jack. It was so nice to meet you, Angela. I’m sure we’ll be seeing you again.”
    I wait until they pull their Honda out of the driveway and into the street. Mrs. O turns and waves to me. I look down, hoping that I have dodged the light.
    As soon as they leave, I race down the street on my skateboard.
    For the first time in several days, I feel totally free.

Mixed-up Mon
    Gardena is flat and unadorned; nothing looks organic or particularly wild. The buildings and the three-bedroom ranch homes seem snapped into place like pieces of Lego.
    I stand on my skateboard, and with some quick thrusts of my right foot, I am rolling down the concrete road. The pavement is rough, full of cracks and holes, and the ride is jerky, as well. I turn a couple of corners, move over to the sidewalk, and then approach a business district. There is a series of small storefronts squished together like friends conspiring to keep secrets. Only the Mexican pastry shop seems interesting, and as I roll past, I almost bump into a middle-aged woman doing her weekend shopping.
    I have about a dollar in my pocket, so I go to a corner liquor store and buy some sour gummy worms. Bright blue, orange, red, and yellow, they are tart enough to make me cringe.
    I go down more streets; I don’t recognize the trees growing beside the sidewalks, and their unfamiliarity upsets me. Instead of being heavy and full, they look a bit stunted, controlled. Smog trees, I call them, and begin to feel better. The smog trees, deformed like something inside me, could be my friends.
    I’m looking at some of them when I arrive at a neat black wrought iron fence that comes up to my chin. Behind it are two giant cement Japanese lanterns and a huge structure with a sloped roof. The Buddhist church. Although I’ve been here twelve times before, the white building seems kind of new to me. I notice a pretty crest—called a mon, I remember—right below where the two sides of the roof meet. Mon seem always to be inside of circles. This mon looks like two flattened furry fern leaves tied together.
    I skateboard down a large boulevard and then can see a big overpass and a school. The school, a wallflower attempting to blend in and be unnoticed, is a nondescript tan. Beyond the main building is an open yard with outdoor basketball, handball, and tetherball courts and picnic tables. And a dozen skateboarders.
    Some merely circle the tetherball courts. The more adventurous ones sail down the stairs or grind their wooden decks down metal railings.
    I’m watching them from the other side of a chain-link fence when one of the skateboarders finally rolls toward me. A guy, kind of cute,