Dream With Little Angels by Michael Hiebert

car remained at the curb. Both me and Carry looked at my mother expectantly. After a few seconds, Carry closed her eyes, stood and, leaving her backpack on the bench, came over to the open window. “You’re not gonna sit here and wait until the bus comes, are you?”
    My mother sighed.
    â€œWhy don’t you just follow me all around Satsuma?” Carry asked with a defiant gleam in her eyes.
    â€œI would if I thought I could get away with it.”
    â€œMother,” Carry said, “either you’re okay with me going on my own or you aren’t. This is ridiculous.”
    My mother took two deep breaths before responding. “You’re right. I’ll leave you to wait for the bus. Remember: home by five.”
    â€œBye, Mother,” Carry said, turning her back and returning to the bench.
    Pulling away from the curb, my mother turned down the first side street, turned the car around, and headed back down Main Street toward our house, taking one last glance at Carry as we went past. “I hope you never go through this, Abe,” she said to me.
    I was about to make a snide remark, asking if she meant she hoped I was never going to discover boys, when something darted out in front of us from between two buildings. For a brief second, I saw it, frozen in place like a picture. It was a possum. Then there was the unmistakable double bump as the car ran it over.
    I turned around and looked out the back window at the brown lump of dead possum lying in our wake. I couldn’t believe it.
    I couldn’t wait to tell Dewey. The roadkill was back.
    Then we stopped at the intersection in front of where the new sushi restaurant was being built. Well, the building was already there, they were just putting a new front on it. That was pretty much all the construction that happened on Main Street. The buildings were all brick and stone so they weren’t going anywhere anytime soon. Shops would just redress the front and sometimes add new walls inside.
    This restaurant had intrigued me and Dewey since they first started hanging the plywood signs from the top. A big purple fish arched above the main window with an army of Japanese people spewing from its open mouth, carrying thick swords and big silver shields. I laughed again now as we drove past.
    â€œWhat?” Mom asked.
    â€œThat place looks funny.”
    â€œWhy?”
    â€œBecause it’s called the Happy Shogun Sushi Palace and I don’t think the fish or the guys with the swords look very happy. And is the fish swallowing them? Or are they coming out of his stomach?”
    â€œSounds like you’ve put a lot of thought into this already.”
    A week ago the name had appeared along the bottom of the window, and me and Dewey nearly split a gut when we saw it. We’d heard about sushi, of course, but neither of us had ever tried it. “Isn’t sushi like raw fish? Who wants to eat that? It doesn’t sound very good,” I said.
    â€œYou have no idea how good it is until you try it. You shouldn’t judge things like that. Millions of people around the world love sushi.”
    â€œNot people in Alabama.”
    â€œNot yet. We’re only startin’ to see the sort of immigration that brings people to our town who will offer us new food like this. You should be happy about it.” The Japanese family who owned the restaurant were called the Takahashis. They had moved to Alvin at the beginning of summer and were the topic of conversation for most of July.
    I looked back at the fish. It had sharp teeth and the sword guys looked pretty mean. “Maybe the Takahashis took Mary Ann Dailey,” I said. For all I knew, Japanese people might eat little girls. If you ate raw fish, you probably ate anything.
    â€œNow why do you say that?”
    â€œWell, they just moved in a few months ago and then Mary Ann disappears. Just the timin’ is all.”
    â€œListen, Abe, I don’t want you