Kira-Kira by Cynthia Kadohata

then at her with her expression of exhaustion.
    "Can you keep going?" I said.
    "Yes." Lynn picked up the blanket and we continued. But in a few steps the blanket slipped again. Sam no longer cried tears, and he no longer wailed loudly. His face was still red, but it looked almost frozen, as if he were paralyzed.
    Lynn and I stared at him. His ankle had swollen like a balloon. We dripped sweat. "I'm cold," said Sam.
    Lynn looked at me. "Go get help. I'll wait with him," she said.
    I hesitated. I hated being alone. I loved having a brother and sister. I did not even like walking alone half a block from the house to the mailbox. When my parents asked me to mail something, I always took Sam with me.
    "You have to," said Lynn. She sat down next to Sam and stroked his face. Her own face was starting to get that green look, and she was panting, but not just from fatigue. It was also as if she couldn't breathe.
    "Keep him warm, then."
    Lynn nodded. Sam stared at me. "Help me," he said again.
    I ran off through the field, hoping I wouldn't get lost. But after awhile I couldn't figure out which way I was supposed to go. It seemed to my memory that at first we'd walked north to get to the picnic site, and then we'd turned west. That meant that I should walk east and then south. But when I walked east, it seemed to me that I was going in the wrong direction. So then I looked around and tried to remember where the sun had been when we'd first entered the field earlier. I decided the sun had been before us: east. So we'd walked east first and then south? I checked to see where the sun was starting its midday descent. Then I realized it didn't matter which way I went. I just ran .
    I ended up not where we'd come from, but in an unfamiliar neighborhood that nevertheless seemed familiar because it looked so much like a neighborhood I knew my mother would want to live in. The houses were "better," though not by a lot.
    All the houses were almost the same. The same old frame houses, mostly white, but a few in blue, pink, or yellow; the same gravel driveways; and even the same rich man's mansion in the distance. I was on the back side of the mansion, though. Before, we had seen it from the front. I guess that meant we'd been going west earlier. Or ... I wasn't sure. Directions were not my specialty.
    I ran down the block, to the house that looked most like one my mother would have wanted, if we could have afforded it. I knocked so firmly on the door that I was surprised at the loud noise I made. Sunflowers decorated the curtains, and a plastic sunflower was stuck into the front lawn. A young white woman answered the door and was unabashedly surprised to see me.
    "My goodness," she said.
    "My brother! An accident! He got his foot caught in a trap." I burst into tears.
    "My goodness," she said again. She thought a moment. "I think Hank Garvin is home." She turned toward the inside of her house. "Casey stay put, do you hear me!"
    I followed her to a nearby house, where she didn't knock, but rather stuck her head in an open window and called out. "Hank Garvin, are you home?"
    In a moment a couple of men walked into the living room as the woman and I peeked in. One of the men leered at the woman while the other man came forward. She spoke to the one who came forward, but not until she had cast a disdainful glance toward the other.
    "This little girl's brother has got caught in a trap." She turned to me. "Was it on Mr. Lyndon's property?" I pointed, and she nodded. "Uh-huh, Mr. Lyndon. That idiotic son of a bitch. I hate him and his wife."
    "Show me where," said Hank. He opened the door and strode to his truck. He stopped once to see if I was following. "Come on."
    As we got in the other man was walking onto the front porch. I heard him saying, "Ginger, honey, you sure are looking good," but we were out of range then, and I couldn't hear her reply.
    I turned to Hank and momentarily forgot why I was there. He did not look like Joe-John Abondondalarama,