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I turned around, the girl right in back of me said, “Are you Chinese or Japanese?”
    “Japanese,” I said.
    Another girl called out, “What’s your native name?”
    I wasn’t exactly sure what she meant, but I said, “Natsuko.” That was my middle name. It means “summer”—when I was born. My sister’s middle name was Akiko, which means “autumn”—when she was born.
    Then a girl said to me, “What happened to your hair?”
    I could tell she wasn’t insulting me; she was just curious. I felt my face grow hot. I didn’t answer.
    Then the teacher came to walk us into class. She smiled at my dress and said, “Going to a party?” I would have gone home right then, but I wasn’t sure I could find the way without Lynn.
    When class opened, the teacher saideveryone could sit where they wanted, just for today. All the girls screamed and giggled and rushed this way and that around me. Then they all sat down. At recess I stood in the middle of the schoolyard in my party dress. Once, two girls from my class walked by not far from me, and I called out, “School sure is boring, isn’t it?” but they ignored me. Lynn came out to stand with me. She said she’d stayed inside a few minutes after the bell because her teacher wanted to tell her what a good girl she was.
    Later that afternoon, when I didn’t know an answer, my teacher looked disappointed and said, “I’ve heard your sister is very smart.” I didn’t hold this against Lynn, though. I was proud of her.

    Shortly before I’d started first grade, my mother had started to gain a lot of weight. She peed a lot, she threw up a lot, and she drank a lot of water. She ate weird things, like spoonful after spoonful of barbecue sauce. We had to keep several jars of barbecue sauce in the cabinet. My sister sat me down, and after ourmind meld she told me that we were going to have a baby brother.
    My mother gave birth to Samson Ichiro Takeshima while I was in first grade. His middle name means “first son.” All the nurses at the hospital took turns coming to see him when he was born—they had never seen a Japanese baby before. Sam was covered with bruiselike marks on his backside, the way Japanese babies sometimes are. Nobody had hit him, that’s just the way their bodies are. It was funny how so many people ignored my mother, but they were all fascinated by this little Japanese baby. Then, when he grew up, they would probably ignore him and treat him like an ant! I liked to watch the nurses leaning in toward the glass, cooing over little Samson. I was proud of him because I thought he was the cutest baby in the world.
    Not long after my mother brought him home from the hospital, she returned to work at the factory. She was assigned a late shift at that time and never finished working until mid-evening. Mrs. Kanagawa took care of Sam during the day while Lynn and I were at summerschool. Lynn wanted to go to summer school so one day she could graduate high school early. I had to go to summer school because my parents made me. After school we would run feverishly home to take care of our new brother.
    At night Lynn, Sam, and I would lie outside in the empty street and watch the stars. Sam would lie in the middle as Lynn and I chanted, “Kira-kira, kira-kira.”
    One hot night our father was staying overnight at the hatchery, which he did sometimes to save driving time and get more sleep. Our mother was already in bed. We snuck outside in our pajamas and lay in the middle of the street. I liked wearing my pajamas outside. Someday when I was a grown-up lazy person, I would wear my pajamas whenever I wanted. I liked to ask Lynn questions, because she knew so many answers.
    I said, “What would it feel like if all the stars were made of bits of ice and they fell from the sky and landed on us?”
    And Lynn said it would feel nice. How did she know that? Because she knew everything!
    I asked her, “What would happen if all the tea in China suddenly fell from the