Mieko and the Fifth Treasure (4 page)

Mieko did not dare look at Grandpa and Grandma. She was ashamed. How could she write about school? Or new friends? Or painting? A lump came into her throat and she ran outside. Leaning against the side of the house, Mieko could hear voices from the living room.

“That girl keeps too much to herself.” Grandma sounded anxious. “It is as though a wicked goblin has taken over her soul. She hardly smiles, and whenever anyone drops in, Mieko disappears as fast as a boiled egg slips off chopsticks. And she will not pick up a brush—or even a pencil.”

Grandpa spoke calmly. “When she is ready, Mieko will go back to school. ”

After a long silence, he added, “A young girl in trouble should be left alone. Only Mieko can heal her inner self. We cannot do that for her.”

“I suppose so,” Grandma said with a deep sigh.

Mieko swallowed hard. She was making her grandparents unhappy, too.

In the morning the doctor arrived. He was surprised at the change in Mieko.

“My goodness, you don't look at all like the skinny girl who arrived in August. The farm food must do you good.” He leaned toward Mieko. “But I don't like that long face. A little happiness would help you grow up into a pretty young lady.”

Mieko blushed and managed a tiny smile.

“That's better, ” he said, touching her hand and moving the fingers. “Now, you should be painting and writing to loosen up those stiff muscles.”

“Is she all right?” asked Grandma, coming in from the kitchen, still carrying the radish she was chopping up for pickles. “Can she go back to school?”

He nodded and got up to leave.

Mieko's eyes moved from one to the other. The tightness in her throat almost choked her.

“But I never want to go back!”

“Never is a long, long time,” the doctor said, his eyebrows drawn together in a frown. “You have a good mind, Mieko, and a talent for calligraphy. They will not develop if you stay home and sulk.”

“Nobody sees my mind.” Mieko's voice trembled. “They see only my ugly hand. And I am not sulking. ”

“I don't know what to do with her,” Grandma said helplessly.

When the doctor spoke, his voice was stern.

“Mieko, you can be a bitter person all your life, but you are only hurting yourself and your family. Hatred will grow in your heart like a bad weed until there is no room for love or beauty.”

“I don't care!” Mieko shouted, running out the door.

Tears stinging her eyes, she ran past the quiet neighborhood farmhouses and climbed up the mountain. The path wound around oddly shaped rocks and over grassy slopes. Mieko did not stop until she reached a stream partway up. Hot and tired, she flopped down and dabbled her fingers in the cool water.

The air was quiet and dry as a rice cracker. Mieko rested her head on the mossy bank, listening to the slow droning of insects and the trickling of the water over pebbles.

Suddenly, there was a rustling nearby.

It was a queer sound—not very far from her. Mieko remembered the stories she had heard about the red-faced Tengu, the demon that lived in mountains. It was said that he had wings and claws and a long, long nose. He carried bad children into his cave and they were never seen, again.

If that were true, Mieko thought, the Tengu would get her for sure. She began to think that perhaps she had been a little bad lately. Mieko counted the bad things: she worried her grandparents, stayed home from school, was rude to the doctor, hated almost everyone, and did not even try to paint or write a letter home. It was quite a lot.

Mieko held her breath and listened.

The spooky sound came again—a sort of whirring of wings.

She scrambled to her feet and scurried down the twisty path as fast as her legs could go.

YOSHI

As Mieko rushed headlong down the mountain she almost bumped into someone.

It was Yoshi.

In a yellow dress and matching bow in her black hair, Yoshi looked like a butterfly. For a few seconds Mieko was too stunned to say anything.

“What's the matter?” Yoshi asked. “Why are you running? You look scared to death.”

When Mieko could get her breath, she pointed toward the mountain. “Up there,” she panted, “near the stream. A Tengu was chasing me.”

“Are you sure?” Yoshi asked, her eyes full of smiles. “We have no Tengu around here. At least, I don't think so.”

Mieko's cheeks turned pink.

“I ... I honestly did hear something. ”

“Probably some small animal.” Yoshi looked curiously at Mieko. “Why don't you come to school anymore?”

“The doctor told Grandma that I needed a rest, ” Mieko said softly.

“We thought that you didn't like any of us at school. ”

“But I thought ... ” stammered Mieko, “I thought you might not like me.”

An awkward silence fell between them.

Finally, Mieko said, “Well ... I guess I should be getting back home.”

Yoshi nodded and followed Mieko down the mountain. When they came to Mieko's yard, Grandma was sliding clothes off the bamboo clothes-line into a basket.

“Hello!” Grandma waved. “Come in and sit down.” She served them a special treat of bean cakes. Grandma asked Yoshi many questions, but Mieko sat silently sipping her tea.

Between bites of the light-as-air crispy pastry filled with sweet bean-jam, Yoshi told Grandma all about herself and school.

“My parents were killed when I was a baby,” she said, “so I live with my aunt and uncle.”

Mieko stared at her in surprise. She had imagined that Yoshi was the luckiest girl in the world who had absolutely everything. She wondered how Yoshi could smile and be nice all the time when she had lost her family.

She accompanied Yoshi to the gate and watched her walk toward home.

 

In the days that followed, Mieko lingered outside, hoping to see Yoshi again. But she didn't see her until a week later. Mieko and Grandma were buying tea in the grocery shop when Yoshi came in.

“Aunt Hisako sent me for some tea,” she told Mieko .

 

“We came for the same thing,” Mieko said, smiling.

They walked together back to Grandma's house.

“Would you like to see my room?” Mieko asked shyly.

“Well ... sure. I guess.”

Upstairs, Mieko wanted to show Yoshi something, but she had no special clothes or pretty dolls. She hesitated, then opened a drawer and brought out her four treasures: the inkstone, inkstick, brush and roll of rice paper.

Yoshi ran her fingers over the lily that was carved into the inkstone. Then she stroked the bristles of the brush.

“What fine art supplies!” she exclaimed .with admiration. “You must be good at painting.”

Mieko did not answer. She put the treasures away. She could not bear to tell Yoshi about how she had lost the fifth treasure. Mieko was sure that Yoshi would not like a girl with so much hatred inside of her.

To change the subject, Mieko took Yoshi to the garden where they puzzled over the words on Grandpa's rock.

As Yoshi was leaving, she asked, “Are you going to school tomorrow?”

Mieko wasn't sure she was ready for school, but she didn't want to say no to Yoshi.

“Maybe.”

By suppertime she had made up her mind. Mieko stopped eating her noodle soup and said, “I think I'll go to school tomorrow.”

Her grandparents looked up, surprised.

“Grandpa,” Mieko went on, her dark eyes serious. “I'm beginning to understand the words on your rock. They mean that I should not worry about my scar, or about going back to school.”

He pulled her close to him.

“I do believe you are becoming wise,” he said with a chuckle. “You are learning to accept things you cannot change. And most important, you are accepting yourself—scars and all.”

After the dishes were washed and put away, they sat and talked—all smiling—until the stars came out.

At bedtime Mieko stared at her face in the mirror. It was plain and round, framed by black hair and bangs. That was all. Mieko wished that a tiny bit of goodness showed in her face like it did in Yoshi's.

This time, as she was falling asleep, there was no sick feeling at the thought of school, and her throat was not so tight. It was as if she was coming into the light after being in a dark tunnel. Maybe everything was going to be all right.

As soon as Mieko entered the classroom, she knew that something was different. Everyone was smiling—except Akira, who scowled at her from his new place in the front row under the teacher's nose.

“We are happy to see you back, Mieko,” Miss Suzuki said pleasantly, as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened.

“We've been studying the atom bombs of Hiroshima and Nagasaki,” one of the girls said. “You must have been brave.”

Mieko felt the bitterness inside of her beginning to disappear like the early morning mist.

After that, school went surprisingly well. Mieko managed to write her lessons with a pencil. Miss Suzuki looked pleased. In composition class, Mieko wrote her first letter home.

One day, in her bedroom, Mieko opened the drawer and brought out her four treasures. Sitting on a cushion, she rubbed the inkstick onto the wetted inkstone. When the ink was black and thick enough, Mieko picked up the brush and began to make the stroke for “one.” She felt like a small child learning to write for the first time.

Holding a pencil hadn't hurt much, but a flash of pain went through her hand when she pressed the brush hard onto the paper. Mieko caught her breath and finished the stroke. She frowned at the crooked line. It didn't look at all like the graceful bone stroke that she had made perfectly countless times before.

Grandma came in and bent over for a look. Mieko tried to cover the paper, but Grandma had already seen the sloppy “one.”

“Here.” Grandma took the brush and smoothly painted the stroke. “So—that is the way it goes,” she said. “Now you try again.”

Without a word, Mieko cleaned the brush and inkstone and put the four treasures away. Of course she knew how the stroke should look. Why didn't Grandma know that?

 

Mieko and Yoshi began spending more and more time together.

“You girls are as close as a pair of chopsticks, ” Grandpa said.

Sometimes, after school, Mieko took Yoshi to her secret place. Inside the pipe they sat and watched the hermit crabs skittering crazily around on the sand. Or they collected tiny shells, and pebbles worn smooth by the waves.

They wandered up the mountain, gathering yellow and gold leaves for Grandma and for Yoshi's Aunt Hisako. Mieko loved the mellow autumn colors that spread over the earth and trees. Often they flung themselves down onto the grass, looking at the sky, trying to find animals in the puffy clouds. Mieko was forgetting the loneliness that used to bring her to the mountain and to the shore.

All the while they kept an eye out for Tengu.

“He has probably gone underground for the winter,” Yoshi said with a giggle.

As they raced back down the mountain, they sang,

The folktale demon became their private joke. During dull history classes they passed notes to each other, adding more lines to their song. Then they hid their faces behind their books and tried not to laugh.