Sit by Deborah Ellis

Author:Deborah Ellis
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Groundwood Books Ltd
Published: 2017-09-06T20:08:23+00:00

7

The Glowing Chair

Miyuki was sitting on a tatami mat in the evacuation center.

The center was usually a high-school gymnasium. Now it was full of people who had run from their homes.

Miyuki’s father stood over her.

“You cannot go back,” he said. “How many times do I have to say this? You cannot risk yourself for a foolish donkey!”

“But she’s Mother’s donkey!”

“It’s a foolish donkey. Your mother was a foolish woman, and you are a foolish girl.”

Miyuki’s father had been a teacher in the before-tsunami world. His school had been broken by the earthquake.

Miyuki didn’t know what he was now, but he still lectured like a teacher.

“You cannot go into the danger zone,” the lecture continued. “You will come out glowing with radiation. All your hair will fall out and you will get sick. At twelve years old, you should be able to understand that.”

I understand it, Miyuki thought while she played with the buckles on her school bag in her lap. I just don’t like it.

“The government has made these rules for us, and we will obey them. We do not break rules in this family.”

“Mother broke rules,” Miyuki said before she could stop herself. “She broke your rules.”

His rules said that her mother could not study to be a veterinary technician. His rules said that she should stay at home and look after things there.

“Your mother agreed to those rules, and then she broke them,” her father said. “Look where it got her.”

Miyuki did not think that her mother going to work was what caused the giant wave to swallow up the veterinary clinic and other shops and homes, but she did not say so.

Father loomed large over her, like a shadow in a bad dream. She did not look up at his face, but stared at the crease in his trousers. After three days at the evacuation center, the crease was less sharp, and the cuffs had picked up dust and bits of rice crackers.

“The donkey will be fine until we get back home,” he said.

“How can you say Hisa will be fine if it’s not safe for me to go back and get her?” Miyuki asked, unable to keep the anger out of her voice.

“Hisa? Who’s Hisa?”

Miyuki clenched her fists to keep from screaming. “You know the donkey’s name.”

It was a game her father played with her. When she got angry, he got light. It always felt like he was making fun of her.

“I named you Miyuki so you would be silent, like a snowfall. I should have named you Nariko, because you are always noisy, like thunder. All I have to say to you is that your constant insolence would have disappointed your mother.”

His comment was designed to fill Miyuki with shame, but it failed.

You don’t know how Mother talked about you when you weren’t around, she thought. “The grayer his hair, the smaller his mind.” That’s what she said about you.

Her father turned right around and stood with his back to his daughter.

This was an old trick.

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