1001 Cranes Read Online Free Page A

know I am still awake.
    “Can’t sleep?” she asks.
    “Feels strange in here.”
    She struggles with the zipper of her sleeping bag, which Gramps and I laid out on the couch, and finally gets in, not even bothering to take off her jeans.
    “It won’t be so bad,” she finally says. “I’ll come down as much as I can.”
    “How about Dad?”
    “Angie, please, not that again.”
    “You mean, I won’t get to see him the whole summer?”
    “He’ll call you. Probably every day, even.”
    “He didn’t call today.”
    “Well, today doesn’t count, because you saw him this morning.”
    He was in his favorite pair of torn Stanford sweatpants, which he wears to bed every night. He hugged me hard and tousled my hair. His unshaved face felt like sandpaper against my cheek. He’s not like those Asian men with thin rattail mustaches; he can grow a full beard in a matter of days. “Don’t cause any trouble down there in L.A. And remember: no monku. ”
    He said the stuff about monku as our special code, I realize deep down inside. No matter how surrounded I would be by Inuis, I was still a Kato, he was reminding me.
    “It’s going to go by so quickly, Angie. The summer’s going to be over before you know it,” Mom says. Then she turns onto her side, her back toward me. The streetlight outside bleeds a thin line of silver onto the wall above the drapes, and I see the outline of Mom’s narrow shoulders, first tight and still, and then rising and falling, ever so slightly, matching the beat of her breath.

Poisoned Phone
    She’s ready to go when I wake up the next morning. Seeing her freshly washed hair and her car keys in her hand makes me feel desperately lonely.
    “It’s just for the summer,” she reminds me again. “It’ll be best. For everyone. Really.”
    I now feel like kicking and screaming and telling my mom not to leave me here. But instead I nod as Gramps, Grandma, and Aunt Janet stand by the door.
    I have been taught well. No monku. I stand in front of my mother and let her briefly embrace me, her chin cutting into the soft fold of my neck.
    “I have something for you,” she then says, revealing a red cell phone in her hand. “An early birthday present.” It’s as shiny as a fresh candy apple. I don’t like red. My mother knows that. She must have bought the phone in a hurry. Or else she wasn’t thinking.
    “I’ve already programmed my cell phone number. And your father’s.” Two different numbers, two separate lives.
    I wave good-bye from the sidewalk. After the car turns the corner, I take a big breath through my nose. And then another and another. But no matter how hard I try, I cannot smell the smog.

 

M ICHI’S 1001-C RANES F OLDING T IP N O . 2: Select an origami paper with a color that is vibrant, bright, and hard to miss. Gold and silver are the best.

Three Kinds of Kami
    I know that there’s not just one kind of grandma. I know this because I met Nana, the grandmother of my best friend, Emilie, when she was visiting from New York City. Nana’s hair was short—real short, like a businessman’s—and as white as a polar bear’s coat. She wore huge round earrings from Africa and brightly colored clothes that had no zippers or buttons. When she spoke to us, she got right in our faces; the rims of her red-framed glasses almost hit our cheeks. She wanted to know everything about us—whether we’d had boyfriends (Emilie, yes, for two weeks; and me, no, never), whether our school taught sex education, and whether we regularly read (Emilie, no, except for celebrity magazines; and me, yes, especially manga). She kept telling us that girls needed to learn skills and make money; they couldn’t depend on men, and besides, women outlived men. Emilie was totally embarrassed, but I thought Nana was funny. After that first interrogation, Emilie made sure her nana never ever met her friends again.
    I’ve also had firsthand experience with my grandma on the Kato side, my dad’s mom. My