Free Weedflower by Cynthia Kadohata Page B

But then she couldn’t resist, and she clambered up behind them. As she neared the top she saw the kids gaping at something.She hurried up and saw what they saw. It was something amazing: normal life. Cars drove, people walked, trees swayed in the wind. A couple of the kids on the roof started crying. Sumiko just stared in amazement.
    Later when she got back to the stable, her family was packing. They’d found out the next day they were being shipped to Poston, Arizona. The only thing anyone seemed to know about Poston was that it was very hot there. She thought about the coats and sweaters that had filled the meager space in their suitcases. Her uncle and grandfather didn’t have clothes for cold weather, and Sumiko, Tak-Tak, Auntie, Bull, and Ichiro didn’t have clothes for warm weather. So as before when she’d left the farm, she now found herself almost liking what she thought she had hated. Here the weather was mild; Poston would be hot. Here life was predictable; she didn’t know what Poston would be like. Here she had started to feel safe; who knew what would happen to them in Poston?
    Her family walked through the aisles carrying their things. The camp was like a maze, with only the sun to tell Sumiko which way they were going. The nearer they got to the entrance gate, the more people joined them. Ichiro and Bull walked ahead, carrying the bulk of the family’s belongings.
    Sumiko was so worried, she thought she would explode. “Ichiro?”
    Ichiro stopped and turned to her.
    “Is it better to go or to stay here?”
    “I have no idea,” he said tiredly, and began walking again.
    As they walked more and more people joined them. About a thousand Nikkei waited with their possessions at the gate. Hundreds of others had gathered to watch them leave.
    Sumiko walked through the gate and thought about her knife. Maybe a hundred years from that moment, someone would dig it up. But probably nobody would ever see it again.

13

    S UMIKO FOUND HERSELF IN ANOTHER DARK, RUMBLING TRUCK .
     
They wanted us to leave California.
They wouldn’t let us leave California.
They wanted us in the racetrack.
They don’t want us in the racetrack.
They want us in Poston, Arizona.
???
    This time the trucks took them to a train station where soldiers formed a long line along the platform.
    On the train a white man walked through the carand told them to keep the shades drawn. The train moved slowly. Every so often Sumiko could hear a bang on the windows. Finally she drew aside a shade and saw that a few people were throwing rocks and pebbles. What did they want from her? That was what she didn’t understand. What did they want?
    The train stopped for a long time, and there seemed to be a furor outside. Finally word had spread through the train that a white man had lain on the tracks to protest the evacuation. As the train started she saw the man being arrested. At first Sumiko had thought they might actually be let go because of this white man. Then when he was arrested, she thought maybe he was crazy. She didn’t understand why he had done something that wouldn’t change anything at all. The man didn’t seem to feel any haji at all over his arrest.
    Tak-Tak was studying his crickets. Sumiko peered in the box and saw a cricket sitting on a bit of mush Tak-Tak had saved from breakfast. He closed his box with satisfaction.
    With the windows shut, the temperature was sweltering, but the same white man who’d told them not to pull up the shades walked through the car and announced that nobody should open the windows. Two people got sick, so it smelled pretty awful in the car. Once a Japanese man hurried through the train calling out, “Is there a doctor in the house?”
    Sumiko didn’t feel so well herself, but she sat up straight so Tak-Tak wouldn’t be scared. When darkness fell outside, the only illumination came from little lights on the sides of the seats. Once in the night Sumiko peeked out and saw strange-shaped trees in a