Also by Holly Thompson
Orchards
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Text copyright © 2013 by Holly Thompson
Front jacket photograph copyright © 2013 by Mark Owen/Trevillion Images
Back jacket and chapter opener photograph copyright © 2013 by Jules Kitano
All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Delacorte Press, an imprint of Random House Children’s Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.
Delacorte Press is a registered trademark and the colophon is a trademark of Random House, Inc.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Thompson, Holly.
The language inside / Holly Thompson. — 1st ed.
p. cm.
Summary: Raised in Japan, American-born tenth-grader Emma is disconcerted by a move to Massachusetts for her mother’s breast cancer treatment, because half of Emma’s heart remains with her friends recovering from the tsunami.
eBook ISBN 978-0-375-89835-8 — Trade ISBN 978-0-385-73980-1
Hardcover ISBN 978-0-385-73979-5
[1. Novels in verse. 2. Moving, Household—Fiction. 3. Interpersonal relations—Fiction. 4. Breast cancer—Fiction. 5. Family life—Massachusetts—Fiction. 6. Tsunamis—Fiction. 7. Massachusetts—Fiction. 8. Japan—Fiction.] I. Title.
PZ7.5.T45Lan2013
[Fic]—dc23
2012030596
Random House Children’s Books supports the First Amendment and celebrates the right to read.
v3.1
For Bob, Dexter and especially Isabel
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Chapter 1 Aura
Chapter 2 The Afterwards
Chapter 3 Gone
Chapter 4 Cleanup
Chapter 5 The Next Minute
Chapter 6 Beads
Chapter 7 Seawall
Chapter 8 Filling
Chapter 9 Patients
Chapter 10 S-e-x-y M-a-n
Chapter 11 Ghosts
Chapter 12 Luck
Chapter 13 Slipping
Chapter 14 Breasts
Chapter 15 Pizza
Chapter 16 Hey
Chapter 17 Noodles
Chapter 18 Running
Chapter 19 L-a-t-e
Chapter 20 Camfood
Chapter 21 Sweet and Sour
Chapter 22 Yet
Chapter 23 American Treasures
Chapter 24 Fear and Hope
Chapter 25 Sci-fi
Chapter 26 Yes Yes Yes
Chapter 27 Tubes
Chapter 28 Costume
Chapter 29 Mermaid
Chapter 30 Fishing Dance
Chapter 31 Americans
Chapter 32 Maybe Couple
Chapter 33 Daughters and Sons
Chapter 34 Loss
Chapter 35 Path
Chapter 36 Seeing the Buddha
Chapter 37 Seven Times Down
Chapter 38 Tanko Bushi
Chapter 39 Cranes
Chapter 40 Ever
Chapter 41 Workshop
Chapter 42 Corner
Chapter 43 Wish
Chapter 44 Plunging
Chapter 45 Hanuman
Chapter 46 Plum Island
Poetry Mentioned in The Language Inside
Recommended Resources
Acknowledgments
About the Author
third time it happens
I’m crossing the bridge
over a brown-green race of water
that slides through town
on my way to a long-term care center
to start volunteering
pausing
to get my courage up
peering over a rail
by a
Tow Zone
No Stopping
on Bridge
sign
glimpsing shadows
below the river’s surface . . .
but when I look up
the sign is halved—
one side blank
the other saying
Zone
pping
idge
I glance back at the water
that my grandma YiaYia says used to
power this town’s mills
which are now closed or reborn
as outlet malls, doctors’ offices
dance and art studios, clinics
and care centers like the one
I’m headed to
to work with a woman
who can’t move her legs
her arms
her head
and can’t even talk
but the water has a spot of darkness
and my blindness grows
to a black hole
and I begin
to panic
should I find this guy Sam
the other volunteer
from my high school
who’ll introduce me
to the recreational therapy director?
should I return to the bus stop
and try to get to YiaYia’s house?
I haven’t lived here long
I don’t have a cell phone yet
I don’t know if there’s a bus
to my grandmother’s neighborhood
and I have just twenty minutes
before my speech and thoughts
shatter
I go for Sam
I cross the bridge
turn right then left
walk up the paved pathway to
the Newall Center for Long Term Care
where standing by the entrance
is a guy whose face looks
half there
who says
I’m Sam Nang—you Emma?
I turn my head
pan his face with the half
of my vision that remains—
Asian, I realize
Japanese, I dare hope
though I know that’s doubtful
here in Massachusetts
I tell him yeah, but I’m sick
when he gets that I mean it
he says the lobby . . .
and leads me inside to a waiting area
where I drop onto a chair
I feel in my bag
pull pills from a plastic case
and swallow two caplets with
the last swig of water
from my bottle
along the edge
of my blindness
flickers a crescent
of tiny triangles—
white
edged by
&
nbsp; cuts of blue
black
yellow
my stomach turns
I close my eyes
try to slow my breathing
and feel the thud of Sam
sitting down beside me
I squint my eyes open
shade them with my hand
against too-bright lights
and tell him
my head
I can’t see
I need to go home
zigzags of light seem to
bolt from his jaw
I tell him YiaYia’s address
and phone number
I tell him
to tell her
migraine
he tries calling
but there’s no answer
now I’m breathing too fast
and as the numbness
starts creeping up my arm
I can’t help crying
okay, okay Sam says
I’ll call Chris
he’ll drive you home
I unwrap the scarf from around my neck
drape it over my head to hide in the dimness
wishing my grandmother had a cell phone she actually used
wishing my mother or father could come get me
wishing we’d never left Japan
under the scarf I let myself cry
missing my friends
from Kamakura
Madoka, Kako, Kenji, Shin
from Yokohama
Min, Grace, Yuta, Sophia
whispering their names
like a prayer
to get me out of here
a prayer to get me back there
where I know people
where I know my way around
where I know what to expect
where my body didn’t do this
Sam speaks softly
into his phone
stows it
then goes off
and has a conversation
I can’t quite hear
with a person
I can’t quite see
when he comes back he’s silent
just the lobby noise
surrounds us
after a while I feel him rise
return
and press a tissue
into my hand
I wipe my eyes
try to keep calm
try to keep the light out
just breathing
through the weave of the scarf
as we wait
finally Sam tugs my jacket
takes my arm
and leads me outside to a car
parked near the entrance
he speaks to the driver
pain slams my head
I can hear words
catch words
grandmother
ride back leap
sock close
here
but I can’t connect the words
to make meaning
I start to get in the car
get out
throw up in some bushes
wipe my mouth with
another tissue from Sam
get in the car
lie down on the backseat
my head covered with my scarf
and a towel the driver hands me
then I close my eyes
and let myself be driven off
to who knows where
by two guys—
one I’ve just met
one I don’t know
at all
when the car stops
doors open
close
open
close
the crescent of triangles
pulses
pulses
pulses
my arm’s numb
half my face, too
my head bowling-ball heavy
I hear talk
outside the window
hear the driver say sleep
then it’s quiet
and I do
when I wake
it’s dusk
I lie not moving
on the car seat
turn onto my back
and wait
sit up
wait
testing my head
my vision
the car has been pulled
into YiaYia’s driveway
her back porch light is on
when I’m sure the worst
is really over
I get out
walk gingerly to the house
taking soft
unjarring
steps
from the porch I can see
my grandmother, the man and Sam
all seated in the living room around
the coffee table with emptied glasses
and a plate of rice cracker packets
that my father brought for Toby and me
his last visit from New York
at the kitchen sink
I rinse my mouth
wash my face
with paper towels
then join them
easing slowly into
one of YiaYia’s armchairs
I’m Emma I say
resting my head
solidly on the chairback
nice to meet you
and everyone laughs
the man, Chris
Sam Nang’s uncle
stands, says his wife
gets migraines, too
you taking anything for them? he asks
and I tell him the name of the pills
YiaYia’s doctor gave me for
whenever the blindness hits
same as Beth he says
but I threw them up I say
that you did he says
and he and Sam smile
talk to Beth sometime Chris says
she’ll tell you ways to avoid attacks—
sleep patterns, exercise . . .
it’s good you slept
that’s best
soon they’re leaving
but I can’t rise from where
I’m curled in the armchair
my head all aching and fuzzy
and full of the afterwards
but now that I’m not half blind
I can see that Chris’s clothes are
spattered with paint and stain
and I can see that Sam is
lean
muscled
and Asian
but Chris is not
I’m curious
but say nothing
remembering those girls
in the first meeting for Model UN
how when I asked
anyone here speak Japanese?
one rolled her eyes and said
Asian doesn’t mean Japanese, you know
and when I tried to say
of course not, I know that
I’m from Japan, is all . . .
another girl looked me up and down and said
yeah, sure, white girl
then a guy across the room whispered
Japan—I thought she was glowing!
and everyone laughed
YiaYia walks Chris and Sam to the door
thanks them, returns, says
well, never a dull moment!
as she lays a fleece blanket over me
I come home to drop the groceries off
before going to the Newall Center to pick you up
and I find those two lounging on the porch steps—
I thought they’d broken in!
turns out they’d been sitting there
over an hour
they seem nice I say
yes she says
definitely your angels for today
I think I saw the boy
at the Newall Center once or twice
when I was there for your Papou
I ask
have you heard from Mom and Dad?
did Mom call?
YiaYia eyes me
I try to read her face
but I don’t know
this grandmother well
we usually stay in Vermont
with Mom’s mother and father
near our cousins up there
when we come back summers
not here with Dad’s mother
YiaYia sizes up my state
curled in the armchair