Kira-Kira by Cynthia Kadohata Page A

but he was just as handsome. He smiled at me.
    "Don't worry. I got caught in a trap once when I was a kid. How old is your brother?"
    "Five." Then I remembered that he was four. I blushed.
    "That's how old I was. And later I ran track in high school." He smiled again. "I wasn't any good, but I made the team."
    I glanced out the window, then said shyly, "Really?"
    "You caught me in a lie," he said. He grinned. "It was junior varsity. Hang on!"
    The truck screeched through the street and made a sharp turn. We reached the field I had just come from and jumped over the curb and onto the grass. I bounced up and hit the ceiling of the car. My teeth clattered together when I landed. For a moment I feared I'd made a big mistake by finding this crazy-driving Hank Garvin. But he was so calm, it made me calmer.
    I said, "I think you go left here!"
    "Here?" he said.
    "Yes!"
    "Hang on!"
    He turned hard left while I hung on. I had never been alone like this with a grown-up white person. But I wasn't scared exactly. I felt breathless and excited. He bumped along as if he drove over fields like this every day.
    'Your daddy work in the hatchery?"
    "Yes. My mother works in the big plant."
    "Really? My wife is helping to unionize that plant."
    Lately, my mother and father sometimes talked in low voices about the attempts to unionize the plant. I'd overheard my mother say you couldn't trust anyone anymore. And Silly had told me that one of the pro-union workers had got beaten up one night. Now I felt scared. What if Hank Garvin was secretly a thug? I wasn't even sure what a thug was exactly, which was all the more reason to be scared. A thug could be anyone, anywhere.
    Hank seemed to sense my fear. He drove with his knees maneuvering the steering wheel while he searched his pockets and came up with a piece of striped gum that he threw to me. He took the wheel with his hands again. I was holding on for my very life. He smiled. He was so awfully handsome. "I've never been in an accident in thirty years."
    Thirty years! He was way too old for me! I put some gum into my mouth. "You go right here!" I said. "At least, I think so."
    "What's your name?"
    "Katie!"
    "Hang on, Katie!" He veered right. I hung on tight, and then I saw my sister and brother.

    chapter 11

    LYNNIE AND EVEN Sam were both a little surprised to see Hank: He was that handsome. It was as if he had stepped out of a comic book. I felt rather important, since I had sort of discovered him. He picked up Sam and strode quickly to the truck.
    "You girls sit in back!"
    I thought I heard dogs baying in the distance, and I remembered I'd heard rumors about Mr. Lyndon owning vicious dogs. Lynn and I climbed in. Right before Hank started the truck, he leaned out the window and looked at us. He said, "Hang on!"
    We grabbed some straps attached to the inside of the truck bed. I could see inside the cab. Sam lay wide-eyed across the seat. His eyes locked on mine. I smiled slightly and laid my hand on the glass. He smiled very slightly at me and reached his hand up toward mine. We bumped across the field again.
    This time we sped in a different direction. We reached the street in a short time. Hank drove expertly but very fast. I looked behind us and saw our bicycles lying in the grass.
    It felt strange to be speeding through the streets of this neighborhood where I didn't belong, in a truck where I didn't belong, with my brother hurt and my sister sick. I thought of all those stories I had to read for school and the questions the teachers always asked. What is the theme? What does the story mean? Why did the characters act in a certain way? We whizzed by the pretty houses. It seemed that at this moment I was inside a story. This was the story of my life, and I did not know what any of it meant. Despite all that was terrible about that day, I found myself exhilarated by our speed, by the sheer adventure of the moment, and most of all by the fact that, by myself, I had found this man Hank Garvin,