wants to wake me up by getting me angry. ‘I do not.’
‘You snore like a piggy puking. Guess where I’ve been.’
Let me sleep. ‘Down the toilet.’
‘Out on the roof! You can climb up the balcony pole. I found the way. So warm out there. If you stare at the moon long enough you can see it move. I couldn’t sleep. A pesky mosquito woke me up.’
‘A pesky sister woke me up. My soccer match is tomorrow. I need sleep.’
‘So you need a midnight snack to build you up. Look.’
On the side is a tray. Omochi, soy, daikon pickles, peanut cookies, tea. I see trouble ahead. ‘When Wheatie finds out she’ll—’
Anju scrunches up her face and voice for a Wheatie impression. ‘Your mother may have made your bones, young missy, but inside that head of yours is going to be all my handiwork!’
As always, I laugh. ‘You went down to the kitchen on your own?’
‘I told the ghosts I was one of them and they believed me.’ Anju jumps and lands at my feet without a sound. I know resistance is pointless so I sit up and bite into a squeaky pickle. Anju slides under my futon and dunks an omochi into a saucer of soy. ‘I had my flying dream again. Only I had to keep flapping really hard to stay above the ground. I could see lots of people moving about, and there was this big stripy circus tent where Mum lived. I was about to swoop down on it when the mosquito woke me up.’
‘Be careful about falling.’
Anju chews. ‘What?’
‘If you dream about falling and hit the ground you really die in your bed.’
Anju chews some more. ‘Who says so?’
‘Scientists say so.’
‘Rubbish.’
‘Scientists proved it!’
‘If you dreamed of falling, hit the ground, and died, how could anyone know that you were dreaming of falling in the first place?’ I think this through. Anju enjoys her victory in silence. Frogs start up and die down, a million marimbas. In the distance the sea is asleep. We chomp one omochi after another. Suddenly Anju speaks in a voice I don’t remember her using. ‘I never see her face any more, Eiji.’
‘Whose face?’
‘Mum’s. Can you?’
‘She’s ill. She’s in a special hospital.’
Anju’s voice wavers. ‘What if that isn’t true?’
Huh? ‘Sure it’s true!’ I feel as if I’ve swallowed a knife. ‘She looks like how she looks in the photographs.’
‘The photographs are old.’ Why now? Anju wipes her eyes on her nightshirt and looks away. I hear her jaw and throat sort of clench. ‘Wheatie sent me to buy a box of washing powder at Mrs Tanaka’s while you were at soccer practice this afternoon. Mrs Oki and her sister from Kagoshima were there. They were at the back of the shop and they didn’t notice me at first, so I heard everything.’
The knife reaches my gut. ‘Heard what?’
‘Mrs Oki said, “Of course the Miyake girl hasn’t shown her face here.” Mrs Tanaka said, “Of course, she has no right to.” Mrs Oki said, “She wouldn’t dare. Dumping her two kiddies on their grandmother and uncles while she lives it up in Tokyo with her fancy men and fancy apartments and fancy cars.” Then she saw me.’ The knife turns itself. Anju gasps between tight chains of snivels.
‘What happened?’
‘She dropped her eggs, and hurried out.’
A moth drowns in the moonlight.
I wipe Anju’s tears. They are so warm. Then she brushes me away and hunches up in a stubborn crouch. ‘Look,’ I say, wondering what to say. ‘Mrs Oki and her sister from Kagoshima and Mrs Tanaka are all witches who drink their own piss.’
Anju shakes her head at the daikon pickle I offer her. She just mumbles. ‘Broken eggs. Everywhere.’
Fujifilm says 02:34. Sleep. Sleep. You are feeling sleepy. Your eyelids are veeeeeerrry heavy. I don’t think so. Let me sleep. Please. I have to work tomorrow. Today. I close my eyes but see a body falling through space. Cartwheeling. Cockroach is still fighting the glue. Cockroaches have sensors that start the legs running even before the brain registers the danger. How do scientists find these things out? Cockroaches even eat books if nothing juicier comes along. Cat would have kicked Cockroach’s butt. Cat. Cat knows the secret of life and death. Wednesday evening, I get home from work. ‘Good day at the office, dear?’ asks Buntaro, drinking iced coffee from a can. ‘Not bad,’ I say. Buntaro drains the last drops. ‘What are your co-workers like?’ ‘I haven’t met many. Suga, the guy I’m