Read Online Kira-Kira by Cynthia Kadohata - Free Book Online

in and see the plant?" I said.
    "You might steal a chicken!" she said, as if scolding me. I saw the man walking around the building again. She saw me studying him and said, "That's the thug."
    "What's a thug?"
    She looked at him. He was watching us now, but then he kept walking. She leaned toward the car. "Didn't your mother tell you? The workers are trying to unionize. The thug works for Mr. Lyndon. He discourages union activity. He doesn't let any of the employees gather in the parking lot, even if they're not talking about the union." She checked her watch and said, "Gotta get the first load going!"
    She ran to the building and disappeared around a corner. Insects clustered around the lights at the fence. I wished we would get a house soon so my mother could stop working here. After a pause I decided that I wished that the girl I'd just met would get a house too, and maybe a new dress. My leg was falling asleep, so I shifted Sammy's head in my lap. He looked so cute. I rolled up the window so the thug couldn't get in and harm him.
    When I next woke, the hot sun was slanting through the windshield. I saw that Sam was still asleep. We used to joke that if nobody remembered to wake him, he would just sleep through the day and night and not get up again until we called him for breakfast. Lynn was like that too. That girl could sleep. Sometimes she slept for twelve hours in a row. But me, I slept restlessly a lot, and sometimes it seemed I barely slept at all. It was funny, because even though I was bad a lot, I also worried a lot about how bad I was. When I worried, I couldn't sleep.
    Perspiration spotted Sam's forehead. I wiped him off with my shirtsleeve. I opened a window, and a muggy gust of air shot across my face. If I'd known how to drive and had the keys, I would have driven the car into better shade. Then I saw my mother rushing across the asphalt surrounding the plant. She seemed even smaller than usual as she hurried over. Lynn was already a few inches taller than our mother. I pushed the car door open.
    "I was so worried!" she said.
    "I saw the thug walking!" I said.
    "What thug?"
    "The man who works for Mr. Lyndon to keep anyone from gathering and doing union activity."
    "Who have you been talking to?"
    "A girl. I kept the door locked!"
    "You are not to talk to that girl again. And you are not to call that man a thug. He is an employee of Mr. Lyndon. Do you understand me?"
    'Yeah—yes. But, Mom? What's 'union activity'?"
    "A union is when all the workers get together and fight the very people who have provided them with a job and the very people who pay the employees money to give them the means to buy a house someday." "So a union is bad?"
    "It's wrong to fight the people who are trying to help you."
    She looked at Sam sleeping so peacefully. I felt proud of myself that we were doing fine. She noticed the sweat on Sam's face and got in and started the car. She pulled directly under a tree but kept the motor running. She tried the air conditioner. Sometimes it worked and sometimes it didn't. This time it worked. The noise was loud, though. Once, we had turned on the air conditioner and driven through various neighborhoods where my mother could admire the houses. Now she lay back against the car seat. I noticed a few white hairs that I'd never seen before. She was thirty-three, two years younger than my father. She was starting to look tired all the time. Usually when my parents were home, they were eating or sleeping. They didn't eat with us because we ate earlier. We never did anything together anymore.
    Later I read some books to him, and afterward we slept some more. When our mother drove us home, we were tired from doing nothing all day in the hot car. My mother smelled funny. The factory workers weren't allowed to take unscheduled breaks, so they all wore pads in case they needed to use the bathroom. It smelled like my mother had used her pad. I decided that someday when I was rich, I was going to buy the