That afternoon, Raoul goes to his apartment and brings back my indigo plant.
“I’m sorry,” he says, although he’s already apologized and I’ve already forgiven him.
He hands over the little pot. The seedling that I had imagined would be lush and leafy right about now is a shriveled sprout. Any other person would give up at this point and start over, but I still have hope. I put it back in its usual place, at the edge of my desk in a circle of lamplight, knowing that it’s going to take more than just a few beams to cure this baby. And then I have an idea.
The bottle of holy water that I bought for Whitney is still sitting on my dresser. I grab it and study the label for a few minutes. This is the water that cured the Emperor’s baby and the bullet-riddled solider. At any rate, this water isn’t going to hurt my plant.
I screw off the top and tip the bottle over the withering seedling just enough so that a few drops wet the soil. I sprinkle another couple of drops on the tiny, curled-up leaves, and screw the top back on.
Japanese is way more complicated than French or Spanish. For starters, there are three different writing systems—hiragana, which is a phonetic alphabet consisting of 47 letters; katakana, which is a simplified version of hiragana and is used for words borrowed from foreign languages, like “cheeseburger”; and kanji, those ideograms from China that look like trees and picnic tables. And then there are different vocabularies depending on whether you’re male or female, younger or older, royal or not. So far, using workbooks and a few key websites, I’ve mastered hiragana, katakana, and a few kanji, which enabled me to write the following letter last night:
“To Junpei,
Today is sunny. [Note: In Japan, you’re supposed to start out talking about the weather.]
I am Aiko. I am your sister. I am fifteen years old. You are my brother. I am happy. I like manga. Do you like manga?
From Aiko.
It’s a poor excuse for a letter, I know, but it’s the best I can do in my self-taught baby Japanese.
Art can be understood in any language. A picture is worth a thousand words and all that. I tuck a couple of issues of Gadget Girl into a manila envelope. I also include last year’s school portrait and a leaf plucked from my indigo plant. I figure he’s spent some time in the fields, so he should be able to identify it. And then I dig a bunch of stamps out of Mom’s desk drawer and mail it to my half brother in Japan.
On the first day of school, I wake to find that my indigo plant has definitely perked up. It has grown—count them—two inches, and greened up nicely. A miracle, I would say, and an excellent beginning to ninth grade.
In celebration, I decide to wear my Frida skirt—the white one with the folkloric appliquéd flowers. Mom is allowing me to wear mascara. She even helps me put it on. Raoul makes a special breakfast—blueberry pancakes with maple syrup—and offers to drive me to school in his convertible. I bundle up hot-off-the-press copies of Gadget Girl Falls in Love, and put them in my backpack. I’m thinking this issue is my best work yet.
Whitney meets me at the school entrance. She’s wearing a T-shirt and a crinkly gauze skirt.
We have English together, first period, but class doesn’t start for another fifteen minutes, so we station ourselves against the lockers in the hallway. I hand over a pile of comics to Whitney. We pass them out to anyone coming through who shows the slightest bit of interest.
Luke spots us from thirty feet away. He’s grown over the summer, and his brown hair is now streaked with blond. He must have spent some time at the beach. “Yo, ladies!” he says, coming closer. “Whatcha got there?”
“The new issue of Gadget Girl!” Whitney says.
Luke lights up. “Gimme, gimme!” He practically rips one out of Whitney’s hand and flips to the first page. He has yet to notice that I’ve included my byline on the cover.
I foist a copy upon Jason Tran, who looks up in surprise after he sees my name, and pass out a few to the cheerleaders. I’m down to my last copy when the bell rings, signaling first period. Whitney has successfully unloaded all of hers.
“Well, it’s done!” she says, slightly breathless from exhilaration. “We’ve outed you as author.”
“Yeah.” I think of the handful of harsh reviews my mother has suffered. Not everyone gets or appreciates her work, but that’s the way it is with art. There may be some people who don’t like Gadget Girl and who will be more than willing to tell me about it. There may be some people who make a big deal of my disability—“Look! The crip girl can actually do something!” When you put yourself out there in art or in love—or in life in general—you’re risking rejection. I think I can handle it, though. Or at least I’m willing to give it a try.
Whitney and I make our way to English. The classroom is full of familiar faces, and a few new ones. I see that Chad Renquist has already staked out a seat in the back row. There are a couple of empty desks up at the front. “Can you save me a seat?” I ask Whitney.
“Sure,” she says.
I take a deep breath and walk up to Chad. My heart is banging against my rib cage. I concentrate on every step, to make sure I don’t fall. “Here,” I say, holding out the comic book to him. “I heard you were a fan.”
I wait for him and his friends to say something mean about my leg or my mom or my art, but they don’t. Maybe they went through some changes over the summer, too.
“Thanks,” Chad says. He accepts my small gift and looks at the cover. I turn to go to my desk.
“Aiko,” Chad says.
“Yeah?” It’s been years since he’s said my name. I turn around, and he is looking straight at me.
“Your work is really good.”
I smile. “Thanks.” And then I remember all of his assignments in middle school art class. Blue Chad. A painting he did of the lighthouse. “Yours, too.”