Chapter 1



SEAT CHANGE: HAN SIX

we draw numbers

picking slips of folded paper

from Oshima-sensei’s box

matching them

to a map of desks

to find our han—

the group we’ll

sit with

clean with

study with

for the next

two months

I hope for at least

one friend



and by friend

I don’t mean

what I used to mean by friend

before I moved to Japan

before I started here

at this school once called

Dragon’s Mouth

by friend I just mean

anyone who doesn’t

punch me

for using the wrong word

kick me

for having an accent

or call me

stinking foreigner

but this time

I get no friends

I get

Shunta

Go

Yuki

Naho

and Mika



Shunta being the one

who hurled a chair

out the classroom

balcony door

Go being the one

who hit my friend Yohei

above his left eye

requiring stitches

Naho and Yuki

being the girls

all the other girls

are afraid of

and Mika being the one

who cuts everyone down

with her sword-sharp

words



as we push desks

into position

Mika points

to her seat

beside mine

checks the map

says no way!

next to the stinking foreigner?

and they all laugh

she keeps a gap

between her desk

and mine

across from me

Go slides his desk back

to do the same



kids from all

the other han

point

murmur

stare

I expect Oshima-sensei to help—

separate my han members

divide them up

spread them out

save me

but he frowns

says

I expect no trouble

from han six



he seems to think

I can fend for myself

since I’m a year older

having repeated a grade

when we moved to Japan

but being a year older

in grade six

in this school

in this out-of-the-way

seaside neighborhood

where hardly anyone

isn’t Japanese

makes me even more different

than I already am

even more the nail

that sticks out

just waiting

to be hammered down



in two periods of science

with Takata-sensei in the lab—

I have ninety minutes to think

on how to survive

nearly two whole months

in han six

Yohei, Sho, Ken, and I

take plant specimens to our station

slice across stems, set them in water

for observing changes day by day

I laugh with Yohei like he expects me to

write observations like I’m supposed to do

draw diagrams like we’re told to

but I feel sick

watching Shunta and Go

across the room

waving cutter knives

making nicks in the desktop

and dicing an eraser

into smaller

and smaller

pieces



lunch is in the classroom

back with han six

eating chicken stuff on rice

salad with cucumbers

and a mikan orange

trying to chew

and swallow

surrounded by

Shunta

Go

Yuki

Naho

and Mika

Naho eats her mikan fast

and wants another

so I give her mine

thinking

maybe I can change her mind

about foreigners



Naho stares at my mikan

sitting on her tray

I don’t like fruit I explain

but she says iyada!—no way!

won’t take it

won’t touch it

tells Mika to remove it

from her tray

which Mika does

with thumb and finger

then throws it to Shunta

who puts it in his pocket

and says he’ll

feed it to his dog



I don’t finish my rice

can’t finish my rice

knowing my day

will only get worse

because after lunch is

cleaning

upstairs in the music room

no teacher

just me with

Shunta

Go

Yuki

Naho

and Mika



Copyright © 2016 by Holly Thompson