I took a bath in Sam's old water and laid out some blankets on the living-room floor. When I was a little girl, sleeping on the floor always seemed like a treat. We used to beg our mother to let us sleep on the floor. It was like camping. Now that I was older, the floor felt hard. In a few minutes my mother came in looking annoyed. I knew it was because I hadn't wiped the ring around the bathtub, but I didn't say anything. I was in a bad mood because the floor was hard.
My mother seemed exasperated. She was kind of crazy about cleanliness. "How many times do I have to tell you?" she said. My father came up behind her. Even he seemed annoyed with me, and he almost never got annoyed.
"Katie," he said, "how many times does your mother have to tell you to wipe the ring in the bathtub?"
"I don't see why I have to sleep on the floor," I said.
My father's face darkened. I felt a little scared. He never got truly mad at us, ever. That was our mother's job.
My mother looked as if she was going to cry. But I was famous for being hardheaded. Maybe it was because Lynn had always let me have my way. So now I pulled the covers over my head. I was shocked when my mother pulled the covers off and yanked me up by my arm. My father rested his hand on her to restrain her. She started crying. I didn't know what was going on: It was just a bathtub ring. My father looked at me sternly. "I want you to clean the bathtub now," he said very quietly.
I walked into the bathroom and shut the door behind me. I sat on the floor for a few minutes to think, but I was getting sleepy, so I cleaned the bathtub. I had to admit it took only a couple of minutes. When I got out, my parents were in their bedroom. I could hear them talking but couldn't hear what they were saying.
I stopped at my bedroom and put my ear to the door. All was quiet. I looked around to make sure my parents were still in their room. Then I opened the door. The light was on, and Lynn was staring into space. She didn't even seem to notice when I opened the door.
"Lynnie?" I said. She turned to look at me, her face blank. "Vail need anything?"
"Like what?"
"I dunno. Food?"
She shook her head. "You're not supposed to be here. I could be contagious."
"What's wrong with you?"
"I don't know. Anemia, I guess. That means I need more iron and have to eat liver. I have to stay in bed all day tomorrow. You and Sam have to go with Mom again."
"We could stay with you."
"Dad says no, you might get sick."
"Anemia is contagious?"
"No, but maybe I have something else."
"Like what?"
"The doctor doesn't know."
Sometimes when I was younger and I got sick, my parents wouldn't let Lynn in the room with me. But she used to sneak in anyway, so she could take care of me. She used to worry about me quite a bit. Now I went into the living room and lay on the floor next to the couch. I got up and checked to see if my brother's forehead felt either too hot or too cold. He felt perfectly normal.
By the time I woke up, my father had already left for work. It was still dark. My mother woke Sam and me and told me to dress my brother. She said our auntie Fumi, who didn't work, was going to drive out and spend the day with Lynn. It must have been serious if Lynn couldn't even take care of herself.
Sam was half asleep as I dressed him. He whined a bit: "Why do I have to go? It's hot in the car."
"I know. Go get your toothbrush for later." He hurried away—he always listened to me.
I grabbed the lunches our mother had made for us. We followed her out of the house and got quietly in the car. I decided to sit in back. I didn't feel like being grown-up today. As we drove along the dark highway Sam leaned against me as he slept. We passed the swamp, and I watched for Brenda, the little girl who had died. I also watched for swamp lights, the weird lights that locals were always saying they saw in the swamps.
Sometimes I thought I saw something moving through the trees. But then I would realize that I had just seen moss swaying in the wind. Then I really thought I saw her! She was a pale girl running in a white dress with a dog at her side. I lowered the window. The humid air rushed in. Brenda wove through the trees before moving deeper into the swamp, so I could no longer see her. I turned to check whether my mother had seen, but she was staring straight ahead.
My mother hadn't said a word since we'd left home. I could tell that she was worried about Lynn. And even though I couldn't see him, I knew that my father, probably hard at work right now, was worried too. The measles did not seem like such a horrible thing. I'd known many children who had gotten the measles. From what I'd heard, anemia was not so terrible either. Auntie Fumi had been anemic once. And yet my parents were very worried. I decided that was because they loved us so much, even though we weren't always good. Lynn was better behaved than I was, of course, and so was Sam. But even if I got sick, I knew my parents would be very worried about me.
I was sleepy, but at the plant I tried to stay awake so that I could watch out for the thug. My mother hadn't said anything else about him. She hurried inside for her shower. A short time later the laundry girl's mother parked across the lot. I remembered that my mother had said not to talk to the girl. But she waved at me, so I had to wave back. Then she walked over, so I had to lower the window. She peered into the car at Sam. "I have a brother too, but he's older," she said.
I had to talk to her now, because it would have been rude not to. "His name is Sam. I'm Katie Takeshima."
"I'm Silly Kilgore."
"What kind of name is Silly?"
"It's short for Sylvia." Silly was pale, with kind of messy pale hair and pale eyes. Very skinny, like me.
"Oh. My name is short for Katarina." Actually, it was short for Katherine. I wasn't exactly precisely telling a lie, because even though my birth certificate said Katherine, Lynn had always told me that my real name was Katarina.
"Are you going to come here every day?"
"Just for a week. Then I have to go to summer school because my grades aren't so good. I'm going to go to Africa and study animals when I get big."
"I'm going to be a doctor."
"Can girls be doctors?"
"I can."
"Really?" I paused. That was news to me. I had never seen a girl doctor. I looked around. "Where's the thug?"
"They had some trouble at the other plant. He had to go there." She added proudly, "My mother backs having a union."
I didn't answer.
"I'd better get to work," Silly said. She ran off.
I slept for a while, woke up and fed Sammy a little rice, slept awhile more, and then woke up for good as the sun rose over the fields. I decided to walk through the gate and explore the plant.
The plant was a long rectangular building with a few windows high up the walls. On one side of the plant a garbage can lay in the dirt. I set it up and climbed on it. If I stood on my tippytoes, I could just see into one of the narrow windows. Everyone inside was dressed in white. At first I couldn't pick out my mother, but then I saw her small back. She was the tiniest worker in the factory She expertly sliced a couple of legs off the body of a chicken. Then she sliced the drumsticks from the thighs and sent the drumsticks down one conveyor belt and the thighs down another. At the exact moment that she finished, another chicken arrived and she cut the legs off it. Over and over. I couldn't see her face, but the faces of the workers I could see were blank, perfectly so. Most of the workers were women.
I could just make out a sign titled the three rules of meat processing. Underneath the title it said: 1. Hygiene. 2. Hygiene. 3. Hygiene. My mother sometimes said proudly that this plant was the cleanest in Georgia. Some of the poultry plants were supposed to be filthy. She said that the chickens at this plant were special gourmet chickens that Mr. Lyndon's wife served guests at the mansion. We'd never eaten any of these special gourmet chickens. Every Christmas there was a lottery and an employee won two chickens. But my mother had never won.