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maybe thirteen. He wears a white T-shirt and an open yellow plaid shirt. He has long dark-brown hair that curls up a little. As he gets closer, I notice that he has sideburns and a light mustache.
    “Hey,” he says. He kicks up his skateboard and I see the huge skull image on its deck.
    I look down and tighten my grip on my skateboard. My fingers are still sticky from the gummy worms. “Hello.”
    “Are those OJs?”
    “Huh?”
    “Your wheels. They look like Santa Cruz OJs. They’re classic. From the eighties.”
    “No,” I say, “they’re just regular ones. Your skateboard’s nice.” I blush at how stupid that sounds.
    “You go to this school?”
    I shake my head. “I’m from Mill Valley.”
    The skateboarder frowns.
    “It’s near San Francisco.”
    “You’re pretty far from San Francisco.”
    “I’m staying with my grandparents. Not far from here.”
    “Cool. Come out with us.” He grasps the chain-link fence and I notice that his knuckles look knotty and his fingernails have fine white lines on them.
    I’m not wearing a watch, but I know that it’s late. I shake my head. “I have to get going.”
    “Well, next week, then. We’re here every Sunday afternoon.” He backs up and begins walking toward his friends. I reposition my head so that I can place the boy in one of the diamonds in the fence.
    “Hey,” he says, turning back. “What’s your name?”
    “Angie,” I say, and he turns his side to me, signaling that he has not heard me, his hand cupping his ear.
    “Angie,” I yell in a strange voice that doesn’t sound like mine. It is forceful and clear—the voice of a girl who knows who she is. What will this girl do? The voice’s power scares me and I don’t waste any time skateboarding down the sidewalk, away from the playground and the pedestrian bridge.
     
    When I get home, the whole family is in the living room, waiting for me.
    “Angie, where were you? We were close to calling the police,” Grandma says.
    “I was skateboarding around the school.”
    “You can’t just go for hours on end without telling us. We’re responsible for you. You could have called us; you have a cell phone now.”
    “I left it here. Besides, Gramps knew I was going.”
    My grandfather drops his chin to his chest. I know then that although he has the love, he doesn’t have the spine to cover for me.
    “The woman next door told us that she had seen you go down the street on your skateboard.”
    Who? Oh, that lady next door, Mrs. O. “I don’t like her,” I say before thinking.
    Grandma looks slightly pleased. “Why do you say that?” she asks.
    I can feel the sweat balling up on my nose. “I don’t like the way she looks at me.”
    “Now, An-jay, you don’t even know her—” says Gramps.
    “She does have that look,” interrupts Grandma.
    “Michi—”
    “Well, anyway…” Grandma composes herself. “You can’t be skateboarding in the street like that. You might get yourself run over.”
    I want to escape to somewhere. But there is no place to run to, except for the bathroom.
    “Your dad called,” Janet says as I walk toward the hallway.
    I stop. “What did he say? Did he want me to call back?”
    Janet shakes her head. “He said he’ll call you.”
    “See, Angela?” Grandma says. “When you play around, you may miss something important.”

Tofu, Miso, and Nori
    I move into my mother’s old room the next day. Grandma Michi used the room as storage space for her crafts, as if the 1001-cranes room was not enough.
    The Singer sewing machine, shaped like a horse saddle, is still in the room, pushed into the corner. But the bolts of fabric and the bags of yarn have been relocated.
    There are a matching dresser and vanity set, along with the bed frame, made of pressed wood and painted white. The edges are scalloped, fake French, which is perhaps the worst kind of fake. My mother must have felt the same way, because she has trashed it with stickers of peace signs, the Budweiser