Free Weedflower by Cynthia Kadohata

was cod stew. The other kids ate as if starving, and then ran out.
    Sumiko’s stomach rumbled all evening, even after their lone dim lightbulb had been turned off and everybody else was asleep. Later she woke up with a desperate need to use the bathroom. When she sat up, Tak-Tak said softly, “Sumiko?”
    “Yes?”
    “I pooped in my pajamas.”
    “All right, come on.”
    She switched on the bulb to find new clothes for him.
    “What is it?” Auntie said sleepily.
    “Tak-Tak needs new pants,” she said. She’d packed only one pair of pajamas for him. She decided she’d put him in his long Johns. “Come on.” She took his hand.
    A few steps outside their stable a searchlight caught them in its glare. Sumiko hissed, “Stay still.” Tak-Tak froze, whimpering very softly. Then she looked up and saw a soldier standing beside the searchlight. She looked down and saw another searchlight following an old man toddling down an aisle. The beam that had been on her moved and crossed the other beam, and then it began to follow somebody else. She pulled her brother to the latrine. Despite the hour, there was a line outside.
    “Everybody’s got diarrhea from dinner,” an old woman told her.
    Inside the latrine was a line of holes in a wooden platform. Several old women sat on some holes. Sumiko cleaned off her brother’s behind and put him in his long Johns. On the way back to the stable the searchlight followed them again, the beam accentuating Tak-Tak’s skinny legs.
    Tak-Tak fell right asleep. But instead of sleeping, Sumiko lay on her straw, smelling manure and listening to her family breathe and imagining the world outside: houses and grocery stores and playgrounds. Auntie already had thought of a phrase to describe that world: out there . Sumiko remembered something she’d overheard Jiichan say once, that sometimes when you were low, all you had left in life was your right to close the door on the world and sit in your room alone where nothing further could befall you.He had said he’d felt that way when Sumiko’s mother died. He had closed the door to his room and separated himself from everything that was out there.
    Beams from the searchlight reached inside through the stable slats and moved in flashes across the far wall. The searchlights were part of out there. At least Sumiko’s family was in here. At least they had a door, and at least it was closed.

12

    T HE NEXT MORNING S UMIKO JUMPED OUT OF BED TO peek out the front door and see if the camp looked just the way she thought it had yesterday. For some reason she didn’t know what to expect this morning. When she stepped out, not a thing had changed. Stables lined the outer wall, and barracks filled the center of the camp. Japanese people walked here and there, some of them looking dazed.
    So they really were here, in a town enclosed by stone walls, and almost everybody else was out there. It all reminded her of something, but she couldn’t remember what. Then she remembered. The place was like the dioramas her class had made for geographyonce. The class had formed groups, and each group had made a diorama of life in a different country. That was a lot of fun, a good memory from school. Sumiko had helped make the Paraguay diorama. The teacher said all the kids did a great job. But now Sumiko thought that if you had enlarged all the dioramas, there would have been things missing, like curtains, pets, and gardens. Details . Those details were also missing from the assembly center.
    The bell sounded for breakfast. Throngs of kids were already running toward the mess hall and shouting.
    Breakfast was about two tablespoons of scrambled eggs and two pieces of bacon the size of postage stamps. All the kids ate ravenously and then ran like mad to another mess hall to get more. Sumiko grabbed Tak-Tak and ran with the other kids.
    After breakfast they took a walk, Tak-Tak holding tightly to Sumiko’s blouse. As they walked Sumiko saw that many people had left