“Ah, quit acting the maggot,” Mick shot back.
“I’m serious. I hope that little fella didn’t give me his germs.”
Jaz was lying in the pickup—he’d wanted to get out of the camper for a while.
“Trying to get yerself a holiday?” Mick asked.
Robbie walked over to the chili pot and filled his bowl. He was totally ignoring me. After the rest of the crew got their food, it was silent for a few minutes as everyone ate. Then Mick muttered, “A bit salty, isn’t it?” That made me feel exhausted, like no matter what I did, it wouldn’t be good enough.
Mrs. Parker said, “Yes, a bit.”
I wished someone would say it was delicious. It was kind of disheartening to spend all afternoon making chili and then see everyone scarf it up in eight minutes and call it too salty.
Anyway. Maybe everyone was eating quickly because this was the last chance to work with the whole crew before some of us headed to Oklahoma. Jiichan started flossing his teeth.
Mrs. Parker looked aghast. “I don’t think that’s really hygienic, Toshiro.”
He looked up. “Excuse me?”
“Jiichan, she wants you to stop flossing in front of everyone,” I explained.
“Oh, oh, my dentist tell me to floss as much as I can. But I stop now.” He seemed genuinely surprised. He looked down at his chili, as if he didn’t know how it had gotten in front of him. Then he stood up and wavered a moment, the chili spilling to the ground. Mr. Parker and I jumped up to steady him. He closed his eyes and leaned against me.
Mr. Parker pushed me away and sat Jiichan in his chair. “What is it?” he asked.
“I feel sick for a minute, but I okay now.” His face did have a pasty cast to it.
Obaachan got up and put her palm on his forehead. “Maybe he sick from Jaz,” she said. “His forehead very hot.” As if on cue, Jaz came out of the pickup just then and joined us in the dining area.
“I don’t want you working any more tonight,” Mrs. Parker decided.
“We need him working. We need to get as much work as possible done tonight,” Mr. Parker retorted.
“I hard worker,” Jiichan piped up. “I can work.”
“I know you’re a hard worker,” Mr. Parker said. “That’s why I want you out there.”
Mrs. Parker looked doubtfully at Jiichan, then said more decisively, “It’s out of the question. Look at the man. His skin is practically gray.”
Jaz blurted out, “Summer can drive a combine. My dad taught her. Even I can drive a tractor, except I’m sick now.” He collapsed into Mick’s lap, smiling strangely. My heart fluttered with fear. It was true I had driven under field conditions twice at the Hillbinkses’ farm near our house. And their combine—though a different model than the Parkers had rented—was also a John Deere. But I hadn’t gone past one mile an hour and my dad had been there the whole time. I doubted I was good enough to go out on my own. I gave Jaz the stink-eye. He jolted out of Mick’s lap and staggered back to the pickup.
“I can’t do it!” I said. “What if I mess up?”
“She no can do,” Obaachan said. “I forbid. She make mistake. She maybe break combine. Maybe hit another combine and break two at same time. Then her mother and father be in debt for rest of life.”
“How much experience do you have?” Mrs. Parker asked, looking at me with interest.
“Five hours,” I answered.
“Has everyone lost their minds? We can’t have a twelve-year-old girl driving a combine!” Mr. Parker said. He turned to Jiichan. “You’re sure you can’t work?”
“Absolutely not!” Mrs. Parker exclaimed.
“Honey, let me talk to the man.”
“I can work,” Jiichan said. “I hard worker.”
“Absolutely not!” Mrs. Parker exclaimed again. She turned to Mr. Parker. They stared at each other for three full seconds.
Suddenly, Mr. Parker’s shoulders drooped and he gave up, mumbling, “Happy wife, happy life.”
The others scattered after our quick meal, heading back to work and casting worried glances at my grandfather as they left.
“You go lie down,” Obaachan told him. Then, even though Jiichan hadn’t uttered a word, she said, “Why you want to argue with me?”
“I don’t feel like lie down.”
“I know you since you seventeen year old. I knew you going to argue with me,” Obaachan said.
“I knew you going to say that,” Jiichan retorted. “You want to argue about everything. You argue more than me.”
“That not true. You argue the most.”
Then they spent the next couple of minutes arguing about arguing. In the end, Jiichan relented and got into the passenger seat.
“I need to work,” he said petulantly. But he closed his eyes and said, “Ahhh,” as if it felt really good to slump down.
After Obaachan and I got Jaz and Jiichan into bed, Obaachan began washing dishes. I dried. “By the way, I decide. Pressure most powerful force on Earth.”
I didn’t answer. When the kitchen was clean, I went outside with a flashlight to walk Thunder before confining him for the night. The field looked barren, like a bomb had been dropped. It was the opposite of the flowing field the workers were cutting. I thought about our skimpy savings and wondered if they would deduct some of Jiichan’s salary because he couldn’t work tonight. And worse yet, what if we got fired?
Thunder galloped through the cut field. He flushed out a rabbit and took off in pursuit. They were both so fast. I stood still to admire Thunder’s muscular black body bounding in the moonlight. He caught the rabbit in his mouth and shook it dead. Back home when he did that, we ate the rabbit meat. Dogs killed rabbits, mosquitoes killed people, and people killed just about anything. But I really thought we all had good souls. That was so deep, I made a mental note of it.
“Thunder!” I called out. He tore back across the field and barreled into me with his dead, bloody rabbit. I took the rabbit inside, where Obaachan was reading a Japanese magazine. “Look what Thunder caught.”
“Rabbit not in Mrs. Parker’s recipes. Get that out of here.”
“Can I cook it for Thunder?”
Obaachan seemed to consider that. “If you clean up after.”
I took out a big knife. “Is there a hammer someplace?” I asked Obaachan.
“Use that,” she said, gesturing to one of the recipe books. “I do it.”
So I rested the knife blade on the rabbit’s ankles, and Obaachan pounded down on the blade, snapping the back feet off. We did that with the front feet and the tail as well. Finally, we did the head. Starting at the ankle, I yanked the rabbit’s skin off. Thunder was whining impatiently next to me. I gutted and rinsed the rabbit, saving the liver. Then I started boiling the meat with carrots and celery.
Obaachan went to check on Jiichan and Jaz. We’d turned down the air conditioner to save energy for the Parkers. But with the stove back on, sweat started to drip down my face and chest. I washed my hands and stepped outside. It didn’t feel much better out there, but at least it was windy. The uncut wheat looked like a flying carpet in the distance.
I stared for a moment at the Parkers’ camper. I decided to go say hi to Robbie, then I decided not to because it was being too forward and he’d been ignoring me. Then I decided to do it after all. I knocked, and Robbie answered. Right behind him was Mr. Laskey’s pretty daughter. I stared at her for a moment. I was so surprised that for a second it was like my whole brain was empty. Then I blurted out to her, “What are you doing here?”
Robbie turned to her and said, “Her grandfather is a combine driver for us.” And from the way he said it, I could tell he meant that I wasn’t important, and neither was my family. I remembered I still had my apron on. I looked down and saw blood and guts on it. Anger and sadness washed over me at the same time, and I was torn between wanting to cry and wanting to shout at him.
Instead, I said calmly, “You didn’t seem bothered by that when you kissed me.” He l
ooked truly surprised, and I felt a surge of triumph.
I walked away, making sure to hold my head high. Jaz was sitting by himself under our “porch” light, his head lolling to the side. “What’s that?” he asked me.
“What’s what? I’m in a bad mood, so don’t bother me. What are you doing up?”
“There’s something on your forehead.”
I wiped at my forehead and found a piece of rabbit guts. That meant I’d had it on my forehead when I went to see Robbie. Wasn’t that wonderful? “Mind your own business!”
“I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: What did I do?” Jaz scratched at his face, then suddenly fell to his knees and started pounding his head on the ground. I grabbed him from behind, enveloping his arms. He was too sick to put up much of a fight, and in a moment he calmed down. Sometimes he did that as a trick, so that I would let go and he could pound his forehead some more. I took a chance and released him. We were both dripping sweat. He lay out on the ground like Obaachan does, then gagged.
“If you’re going to throw up, maybe you should sit up so you don’t choke,” I said. “Why are you even out of bed?”
“I don’t know. I’m sick of being inside. I’m just going to lie here and maybe go to sleep.”
“You can’t sleep out here.”
“Will you carry me inside?”
“I can help you, but I can’t lift you.”
“Then I’m going to lie here.” He closed his eyes and really did seem to be asleep.
I sat on the steps and leaned my head back against the door for a long time. I felt like I didn’t understand a single thing in the whole world. I didn’t understand a single person. I didn’t even understand myself.
I went inside and took Obaachan’s cell phone from her purse. Then I went back outside, away from Jaz, and dialed Melody. One of the combines was driving in for some reason.
“Hi, Mel.”
“Summer! I was just thinking about you. Mr. Lerner had a family emergency so we have a substitute for the rest of the year, and he gives so much homework and he’s so mean. You’re lucky you’re not here.”
“Mel, I kissed a boy.” I spoke urgently but also quietly enough that Jaz couldn’t hear me.
“What?! Who?”
“A boy named Robbie Parker. He’s the son of the people we’re working for. I had a crush on him, and then he must have liked me too because he kissed me.”
“That’s amazing!”
“No, now he likes the girl who lives at the farm here, and he kind of insulted my grandfather.”
“Oh, that’s terrible. What a jerk!”
“And I have to see him all the time for the whole rest of the harvest season. What should I do?”
“Maybe he’ll apologize to you.”
“Nobody can insult my grandfather. I don’t even like him anymore.”
Then the camper door started opening, and I slipped the phone into my pocket.
Obaachan stepped out. “Don’t ever leave stove on when you go out. What I just say?”
“Don’t ever leave the stove on when I go out,” Jaz and I both recited.
The combine that had been heading in finally reached the edge of the wheat field and pulled to a stop. Mrs. Parker climbed down and headed over.
“I was worried about Toshiro and wanted to check on him,” she said. She glanced at Jaz. “Why is he on the ground?” She cocked her head. “And what is that sound?” It was Mel’s little voice talking to me from my apron pocket.
“My husband sleeping already,” Obaachan said.
“Do you think we need a doctor?”
“No doctor. Doctor give you pill and make you drug addict. He get better. Jaz stay sick a long time, but Toshiro never sick long time in his life.”
Mrs. Parker looked thoughtful. “Well, all right, if you think he’ll be fine.” She glanced at Jaz again. “You can’t leave him there.”
“He’s too heavy for me to carry, and he refused to get up unless I carry him,” I explained.
“Well, that’s a problem easily solved,” Mrs. Parker said. She knelt down and, with a huge grunt, pulled Jaz over her shoulder, as if he weighed twenty pounds instead of eighty.
Then she said, “There is that noise again!” Then the noise stopped, and I knew that Mel had hung up.
I held the door open as Mrs. Parker climbed up the three stairs into the camper, grunting all the way. She tried to lay Jaz in a bottom bunk, but she missed and got only one side of his body onto the mattress. His other side, with nothing to support it, pulled him down. He plopped to the floor. “Ahh,” he groaned. “Mrs. Parker, please don’t ever do that again.”
“I’m so sorry, Jaz.”
Jaz slowly pushed himself up and fell into bed.
“Now all of you get some rest. I can’t be worrying about everyone while I’m driving,” she said crisply.
I liked Mrs. Parker. I mean, she was a pain in the neck, but at the same time I knew she was a pain in the neck only because she cared about all of us. I followed her outside. I had a question that I would ordinarily ask my mother. But since Mom wasn’t around, I thought I should ask Mrs. Parker. When we reached her combine, she turned to me. “What is it, Summer?”
“Mrs. Parker?”
“Yes?”
“Have you ever felt humiliated and proud at the same time?” I blurted out.
“It’s the human condition, sweetie,” she said in her no-nonsense voice. “Now you get some rest. It’s late.” She climbed up her combine.
I realized how exhausted I was. Being humiliated and then getting mad had done me in. I went inside, returned Obaachan’s cell phone, and lay down in my bunk, together with my sick, sleeping family, where I felt safe.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
The chirp of crickets accompanied the soft sounds of country music—the music a little scratchy from the cheap radio, the chirping strong and clear and seemingly coming from everywhere in the world all at once. In the dim morning I could see Robbie inside the cab of a combine, cleaning the windows. It was six a.m. Jiichan and Mick each loaded a combine onto a trailer attached to a semi. The music was coming from one of the big rigs, with Mr. Dark sitting in the cab waiting for everyone to load up.
This is what our group was bringing to Oklahoma:
1. Big rig hauling combine and grain trailer
2. Big rig hauling combine
3. Pickup hauling header
4. Pickup hauling header
Jiichan and Mick would each drive a big rig. Rory and Mr. Dark would ride together in one of the pickups. Obaachan would drive the other pickup. Then Rory would drive one of the pickups back to Texas, and Mr. Dark would drive one of the big rigs back. Or something like that. It all made my head spin.
Once we got to the Franklin place and started cutting, Jiichan and Mick would dump directly into the grain trailer instead of into a grain cart. Then Obaachan would drive the semi, with the grain trailer attached, to and from an elevator. She’d gotten her commercial driver’s license a couple of years earlier, so she was allowed.
As we set out around six thirty, Jiichan was still sick, but he was trying hard to pretend he was fine. He’d told Mrs. Parker that he and Obaachan were feeling well. Maybe that was the wrong thing to say, because now Obaachan had to drive the pickup to Oklahoma, though it would have made more sense for Mr. Dark to drive us. Mr. Dark was getting a rest because he hadn’t slept well.
But since the drive wasn’t long, I thought both Jiichan and Obaachan could make it. Jaz and I did jan ken pon to decide who had to ride with Obaachan. I lost. “Errrrr,” Obaachan kept saying. She didn’t talk much, just seemed absorbed in her pain.
After a while I fell asleep. When I opened my eyes, we were parked by the side of the highway. Everyone except me had gathered around Obaachan. She was lying on her back on the roadside.
“How long has my grandmother been there?” I asked, getting out of the pickup.
“About ten minutes,” Mick said. “I don’t know why
yer grandparents came when they can barely work.”
“They work just as hard as you,” I said, but he didn’t respond. “Obaachan, can you get up?” I asked, kneeling by her side.
She held out her hands. Jaz and I each took a hand and pulled her up. She seemed surprisingly light, even more so than usual, as if she were fading away into nothing this morning.
I was surprised to see Obaachan get in the passenger side. They must all have been talking while I slept. Now Mr. Dark would drive the semi Jiichan had been driving, and Jiichan would drive us in the pickup.
Jaz climbed into the truck after me.
We all started off again. “I tell you I drive,” Obaachan said. “Stubborn old man.”
“You stubborn old woman,” Jiichan said. “I can drive.”
“Who old? You older than me!”
“Only one month older!”
“Thirty-five days! That more than month!”
It amazed me that they could argue about the smallest things even when they were trying to do something nice for each other. Each of them wanted to drive in order to save the other from having to. “They’re expressing love for each other,” my dad had once said while he was watching a football game. “That’s just the way they talk. Down in front—I just missed a touchdown!”
Before I got malaria, I used to think that my dad loved sports more than he loved me. But then while I was sick, my whole family practically moved into my hospital room. I had a vague, almost hallucinogenic memory of them drifting around the room like silent ghosts. I felt like I was alive and they were the walking dead. We were in two different worlds. But in my world I just knew how badly my father wanted me to get well. In fact, I knew everything. I did.
“How far are we?” I asked Obaachan now.
“You need sleep” was all she said.
Then I thought of Mick and felt anger rise in me. Jiichan happened to have gotten sick, but otherwise, he worked just as much and just as hard as Mick. And Obaachan and I cooked for everyone every day. We were all doing good jobs, and he had no right to say what he’d said. I didn’t like Mick at all.
I turned my head toward the window, my mind filled with evil thoughts about Mick. I wished he would fall out of the truck and get run over by another truck. Then I felt guilty for thinking that. But you know how it is. You can’t stop yourself from thinking something. At least, that’s what I believed. My parents agreed with me, but my grandparents didn’t. In fact, all that meditating I did was supposed to help me think nicer thoughts. Sometimes it was hard, though.