Free Flying the Dragon by Natalie Dias Lorenzi

have to count them. Bowling for bunnies.
    She took another breath. Small animals. That had to be the number set she needed.
    “
Ip-piki, ni-hiki, san-biki, yon … yon-biki?
“
    Kumamoto Sensei held up her hand, like it was too painful to hear anymore.
    Then Skye realized her mistake. “
Yon-hiki!
Not
biki.
That’s it—
yon-hiki.
“
    “
Hai,
” said Kumamoto Sensei. “Yes, that is correct if you are counting small animals.”
    Okay,
thought Skye.
Rabbits are small animals.
She continued counting: “
Go-hiki, rok-piki—
“
    Kumamoto Sensei was nodding, but held up her hand again. “I am afraid that is incorrect, Tsuki-san. You may be seated.”
    It was the nodding that always threw Skye off. Whenever an answer was right, there was nodding. When an answer was wrong—more nodding. Talk about confusing.
    “Who knows the number set we must use when counting birds and rabbits?”
    Everyone’s hands shot up. Birds and rabbits? So there was
another
set of numbers for birds and rabbits? But they were small animals, weren’t they? Unless Japan had mutant strains of rabbits and birds. Maybe they were huge in Japan, and people rode them around.
    Kumamoto Sensei called on another kid two years younger than Skye. Figured. Most of the kids were younger than Skye by at least a year.
    “Kurahone-san?”
    A petite girl with a shiny braid down her back stood beside her desk. In a clear voice, she recited: “
Ichi-wa, ni-wa, san-wa …
“
    So it was
wa.
Who knew? Not Skye, obviously.
    With each syllable, Kumamoto Sensei’s smile widened, and the nodding kept getting faster. “
Hai!
Well done, Kurahone-san.”
    Maya Kurahone—the third grader—sat down, somehow managing to look smug and humble at the same time. One of those “I can’t believe I got all the answers right!” looks, when she must have known all along that she’d said the right thing.
    Oh, please.
    Kumamoto Sensei flashed another picture on the screen, this time of a group of people. Skye raised her hand—she knew this one! But Kumamoto Sensei’s gaze skipped over her and on to the next student. Skye felt like slumping in her seat, but that wasn’t allowed. So she slumped in her mind instead.
    Skye wanted to blame her dad for not speaking to her more in Japanese—but she knew it was her fault, too. She and her dad used to have fun playing games and watching movies in Japanese. But then she kept slipping more and more English words into Japanese sentences whenever she couldn’t remember words or rules. Or numbers for birds and rabbits.
    These other kids all studied a bazillion hours a week, like learning Japanese was the most important thing on earth. Most of them had come from Japan a year or two before, and their parents wanted them to keep up their Japanese.
    Skye’s Japanese hadn’t been “up” since she was little. She felt like she was climbing a huge hill, and already she was out of breath. She’d never catch up. She probably should have been with the first-grade class, but the school’s director must have figured that Skye wouldn’t fit in those tiny desks. So there she was, stuck with a bunch of third and fourth graders who knew way more Japanese than she did.
    Skye tapped her pencil eraser on her paper, thinking. She had to get out of this class. But to get out, she had to pass the exams.
    One on grammar.
Tap, tap,
went her pencil.
    One on Japanese history.
Tap.
    One on calligraphy.
Tap, tap, tap.
She actually didn’t mind calligraphy.
Tap, tap.
    One on reading.
Tap.
    And one on speaking. The dreaded oral exam.
Taptaptaptaptap …
    Skye realized the room had fallen silent. Except, of course, for her tapping pencil. Keeping her chin lowered, she looked up. Everyone was staring at her. At her pencil.
    “
Gomen nasai.
” Her shoulders drooped as she mumbled her apology, and she set her pencil on her desk. Kumamoto Sensei gave a quick nod, then moved on. Skye breathed again. If nothing else, Japanese class was good for learning how to