Dolls of Hope Read Online Free PDF Page A

could not smile back. Again, she felt out of place.
    Hana may laugh, but I will hold my mouth as Hoshi does and eat slowly and learn to walk with quick, tiny steps. When Yamada-san returns, he will be proud of a new Chiyo.
    As she carefully separated a small piece of fish with her chopsticks, the effort felt stiff and wrong. Obviously, there was more to learn at Girls’ School than writing kanji characters and learning dance steps.
    By the time she relaxed on her futon, Chiyo was happy to have become friends with Hana. She thought the school’s strict policies could never dim Hana’s laughter.
    “We are learning a song for the American dolls,” Hana said from the next sleeping mat. “It’s called ‘The Welcome Song.’ Do you know it?”
    “No, but I’d like to,” Chiyo said, remembering the dolls Yamada Nori had described.
    “I’ll teach you,” Hana assured her. “It begins like this. . . .”
    But Mrs. Ogata called for silence and put out the light.
    Chiyo turned restlessly. Even the sounds were wrong. She listened for frogs but instead heard occasional footsteps and voices from the street that made her feel unsafe.
    She reached into her folded clothing and brought out the
kokeshi
doll her sister had given her. Holding Momo close, smoothing her thumb along the doll’s painted kimono, she thought of home until gradually sleep claimed her.
    After chores and breakfast, Chiyo walked to class with Hana and several others. Each carried a cushion, so Chiyo was surprised to see desks and chairs in the classroom. “Why are we bringing cushions?”
    “They make the chairs more comfortable,” Hana said with a grin. “And we use them to save a good seat in the room before the town girls take them all.”
    Another girl called and Hana went away to talk to her. Chiyo decided on a seat at the front of the room where she could see and hear the teacher. Yamada-san would not be sorry that he was spending so much money to send her to this school.
    She placed her cushion on a seat in the front row, then joined another girl who was sharpening her slate pencil at a table in a corner. Raised voices told her that the town girls were arriving for class. As they came in, their confidence took over the room. Most wore school uniforms today, but even in dark skirts and blouses, they dressed more richly than Chiyo in her borrowed uniform.
    A question asked in a pleasant voice with a bite beneath it silenced everyone. “Whose cushion is this?”
    Before she turned, Chiyo knew the cushion would be hers and that Miyamoto Hoshi would be holding it by one corner as if it were a fish going bad.
I will remember and copy the patience with which she observes the unwanted item.
    On the heels of that thought came another, hotter one.
No one told me others might have saved seats ahead of time.
She drew in a breath to answer. “The cushion is mine.”
    The stylish town girl looked at her with pity on her perfect face. “You are new, so you do not know you have broken a rule. My name is Miyamoto Hoshi. I sit in this chair. Every day.”
    Instead of offering the cushion to Chiyo, she handed it to a girl in the row behind. That girl threw it to a girl in the next row. While Chiyo watched, her face growing hotter, the cushion flew from girl to girl toward the back of the room. Some girls hid smirks, while others looked sympathetic. No one looked surprised.
    Across the room, Hana pursed her mouth in the “Hoshi shape” Chiyo had worn when trying to be like Hoshi the day before. Chiyo understood the warning to remain serene. She thought that holding their mouths like rosebuds might quickly become a joke between Hana and herself.
    But she didn’t feel like laughing or even smiling. Humiliated and confused, she stood frozen at the front of the room while her cushion sailed from girl to girl.

T he sensei, Mrs. Kaito, swept into the room and cast a sharp glance over them all. The cushion landed abruptly on the floor at one side. Sensei motioned