Three Scenarios in Which Hana Sasaki Grows a Tail by Kelly Luce Page A

my homeroom, and Nozomi was coming up the path. I prepared to say hi, tell her I’d see her at karaoke later, but just as we got close enough to speak, she veered toward me and leapt, flinging her arms around my neck. I stood frozen for a second until she fell off and stumbled backwards, laughing. “You were supposed to catch me!” she said. My friend Naoki flexed his bicep and said, “Try me next time.” She made to jump at him and he crouched, arms extended, but she didn’t actually do it. She swatted his hand and turned toward me.
    “I didn’t know you were gonna do that!” I said, grabbing her shoulders. I was desperate to touch her, desperate to affirm what she’d initiated. Do it again, I pleaded silently. I won’t drop you .
    THE WAY I IMAGINE IT —and I’ve spent a lot of time imagining it—she rides over on her purple bike, schoolbag in the basket, her school blazer knotted around her waist. The frogs are deafening. She does one of her tiny fist-pumps when they tell her Room 17 is available, the news ensuring she won’t have to forgo any of her favorite songs. She jogs up the stairs, tapping each step, though theincline is so shallow she could take them two or three at a time. The door with the handwritten “17” in red marker (someone had ripped the placard off and they never replaced it) is wide open. She drops her bag on the couch and punches 31121 on the remote. In fades the familiar scene: a girl walking among falling cherry blossoms. She sings through “Sakura” three or four times, first crosslegged, then while standing up straight to push the air out smoother. After warming up, getting her scores over 90, she really lets it rip, boogeying on the plastic couch and going through all the classics. Sometimes a waitress passes in the hall without seeming to notice. The waitresses in that place were experts at not noticing.
    She can tell her voice has grown stronger from all the after-school workouts, and she finds that she’s able to hit notes a step or two higher and lower than usual. She sings both parts of the “Ryozenji” duet; she nails the harmony on “Sounds of Silence,” a song our English teacher had taught us. She’s never sung better; she’s in the zone. On the screen, which is taller than she is, cartoon dolphins splash and mermaids play in the surf. Cram Island draws closer.
    When it happens, she’s singing “Sakura” for the seventh time, and as she hits the final note, her voice clicks into a new, secure place in her throat. She rides the pitch out to its full crescendo, her eyes shut in concentration, her shoulders back and abdominals tight. Then she opens her eyes, and there it is.
    The words, “Welcome to Cram Island,” scroll slowly across the screen. A simple, five-note melody plays. “Itis high time for you to come,” whispers the high voice, echoed by the barbershop bass. In unison they chant, “We want you, only you. Don’t get lost now. We’ve been waiting so, so very long... you... only you...”
    Palm trees shimmy; there’s a light breeze on Cram Island. A coconut wobbles down a sandy slope toward azure water, where smiling fish burst from the surface. Nozomi steps toward the screen, her expression a mix of pride and contentment. Maybe she’s brought her bathing suit that day, even worn it under her school uniform. I’d like to think so.
    KARAOKE LIVE! CLOSED DOWN right around graduation. The building sat dark during the summer, and kids went there to drink and try to scare themselves. It was still there when I left for college, but by the time I returned home for the semester break at New Year’s, it’d been turned into a swanky fitness club, the rice paddies paved into parking lots. For a long time, I thought about where all those frogs went.
    You’d think Nozomi’s disappearance would’ve brought Miho and me closer, but it didn’t. In fact, after the day Nozomi disappeared, nothing romantic happened between us again. It was an unspoken and