Outside Beauty by Cynthia Kadohata Page A

said, knowing it might be impossible even as I said it. “Soon. I’ll be there soon.”
    â€œShelby?” she said. “Shelby?”
    â€œWhat is it?”
    â€œShelby. He spanked me last night.” She startedsobbing huge, hysterical sobs unlike any I’d ever heard from anyone.
    â€œMaddie? Maddie!”
    But she didn’t stop sobbing, and there was nothing I could do. I couldn’t hold her. I couldn’t calm her wild hair. I felt sick at the thought of that man spanking my little sister. We all cried a lot—our mother said it was because we were girls. Sometimes we cried as much as we laughed. But I couldn’t think of another time that I had heard Maddie truly sob.
    That night as Jiro and I sat outside, I asked him whether Maddie could come live with us, and he said it was fine with him but he doubted Mr. Bronson would approve. I knew this was true. I sat quietly. The night got so windy that sitting on the porch was almost like sitting in a car with all the windows open. It was the kind of night you could wish for anything and believe that it would come true. I wished that Maddie would come to live with us. I tried to picture the wind carrying the wish through the air and sprinkling it all over Mr. Bronson.
    â€œHe spanked her!” I said angrily. I couldn’t believe anyone would actually spank my Maddie. I’d never been spanked, so I couldn’t even conceive of it. I would rather get spanked myself than have Maddie get spanked.
    Jiro nodded sadly. He cocked his head as if heheard a voice speaking to him. Then he shook his head. “I’ll call him, but . . .” But like me, he knew he couldn’t change Mr. Bronson.
    The next day Jiro asked me if I’d like to go with him to service a few customers. To tell the truth, I was trying to avoid being seen in public with him. I nearly had heart failure when I saw what he was wearing: purple plaid pants with a white shirt and a purple vest. I wondered if he dressed like an insane person on purpose, but he didn’t seem like he did. I think he honestly thought he looked fine. My mother said nobody wore purple except aging hippies. He wasn’t an aging hippy. He was . . . he was . . . my father. On the pro side, I wouldn’t see anyone I knew today, so why not go out with him on his rounds? It was something to do.
    Jiro drove an old car that was about as big as a boat. He was, oddly, positively chatty, going on and on about Benton Springs. “Some of the most beautiful nature I ever see here.” The nearby river really was called the Gloomy River, although Jiro said it was a cheery place. He said he would take me there for a picnic. Actually, it was part of the larger Buffalo National River. Jiro said the “gorgeous Buffalo National River” was the reason he’d ended up in Arkansas instead of Japan or Southern California,where his sister and one of his two brothers lived. It was funny to hear him use a word like “gorgeous” to describe a river. Usually, that was the word people used to describe my mother. There were several waterfalls within twenty miles of where we lived, and Jiro said that during the autumn, the fallen leaves looked like gold stars lying along the riverbank.
    â€œHow did you discover Benton Springs in the first place?” I asked.
    â€œStudent at college,” he said. He smiled ruefully. “Couldn’t get in anywhere else.”
    He was driving boxes of Gum-Bo to customers in the area. I was chewing some. Gum-Bo tasted like it had a bit of licorice in it, maybe even a bit of apple. I couldn’t quite figure it out. But it was good. Really good. “What all do you put in your gum?” I asked.
    He seemed surprised. “Gum maker never tell formula.”
    We drove to a place called the Sherwood Local Emporium. The only other buildings nearby were a small gas station and a small medical clinic that looked closed. Before we got out of