The Third Son Read Online Free PDF Page A

wall for a minute to keep from falling. But then I kept walking, feeling very odd as I left the rancid bedroom and found my way outside. My mother was sitting on a bench by the back door, trimming beans. My littlest brother and sister were poking at an army of ants with a stick a few feet away.
    My mother looked up. “Ah, you’re up,” she said, and she bent back to her work.
    I had seen Yoshiko’s brother enfold Yoshiko in his arms. I had heard the worry in his voice. And now I knew how a child should be greeted after escaping death.
    I was starting to wish I had never met Yoshiko. Before meeting her I had not known how very much I was missing at home. I felt again that rising ache inside and turned my face from my mother. I closed my eyes and breathed in deeply, soothing myself with the scent of sun-warmed grass. The wind blew gently on my face, and bamboo leaves rustled beyond the house, calling me to explore their shady, hidden-away places.
    I felt light headed again and sat down on the stairs. “Where are Kazuo and Jiro?” I asked after a moment. “Are they at school?”
    “There’s no school here,” she said. “I told you many times that I had no access to school when I grew up here. They’re with their tutor.”
    I remembered Toru’s admonishment to study. “Do I have a tutor?”
    “No.”
    “I’ll sit in with Kazuo and Jiro, then,” I said.
    She looked up at me, eyebrow raised. “With Kazuo and Jiro? You’re still sick.”
    “I’ll be better in a couple of days,” I said.
    She snapped the ends off a few more beans, eyes flickering as she calculated the extra costs, which were probably close to zero. “Hou, ” she said. “But you’re not to slow them down. I will not allow her to change her lessons to suit you.”
    T WO DAYS LATER I sat in the kitchen with Kazuo, Jiro, and a curly-haired Japanese tutor named Keiko Sato, who was reciting arithmetic drills. Kazuo was in his element, eyes focused on Sato Sensei, his plump hands calmly folded over the neat rows of writing on the papers in front of him. He answered with great speed and just enough scorn to let everyone know he knew the sums cold, but not enough so as to be punished for being disrespectful. Jiro sat beside him, stumbling over his responses, his eyes wide with panic and doubt. Before him was a pile of his own work, each of his strokes neat enough, but just a bit too short and uneven to be considered beautiful.
    Sato Sensei glanced at me, her round, freckled face smiling kindly. “Sorry, I know you’ve only just finished second grade.”
    “It’s all right,” I said. Though I took a bit longer, I did the problems as well as Jiro, who was two years older than me.
    Sato Sensei cocked her head. “How did you figure out that sum?”
    “Well,” I said, “you count up by twenty to one hundred sixty, and eight threes is the same as two twelves, so I subtracted two tens and a four.”
    Jiro looked at me, mouth open.
    Kazuo snorted. “That’s not how you multiply!” His voice was scornful, but I could see him looking off, trying to figure out what I had just said.
    After our session ended, I overheard Sato Sensei talking with my mother in the entryway.
    “He’s exceedingly bright. He figures these things out intuitively, and his fund of knowledge is extraordinary—”
    “I don’t know what you’re talking about. His school reports are mediocre at best.”
    “Perhaps he’s bored at school—”
    “Bored! He’s just lazy. Not like my Kazuo! He’s already said he wants to be a doctor. Have you seen his calligraphy?”
    The following day, Sato Sensei quizzed us about the water cycle and laughed in amazement at my answers. I had never had a teacher who paid so much attention to me. I grew bolder with her praise, enjoying Kazuo’s crestfallen looks, and I thought that perhaps Toru was right, that if I studied I might go places.
    But on the third day, I overheard my mother and Sato Sensei again.
    “ . . . the boy is