"Chapter 6"

"Chapter 6" was published on March 25th 2021.

### Description

Chapter 6 follows the story of a younger girl named Cynthia as she makes friends with the Japanese exchange student Rin.

CW/TW: Mention of murder and mafia.

### Original

Here is the link to the original story, although it has been copy-and-pasted onto here for simplicity and nothing has been changed.

### The Story

*Date: September 1948*

*Time: Early morning, past*

*Place: 3586 Blue Spruce Avenue*

*...*

*Chapter 6*

*~~~*

“Cynthia! Get up for school!” Mother shouted from the kitchen. I rubbed my eyes and sat up in bed, then stood up with a smile on my face. I hopped on over to my closet and began dressing in my school uniform which consisted of a white tank top, a blue pleated skirt, and black slip on shoes. I sat in front of my vanity and brushed out my medium-length brown hair and I put on my large round black glasses. Mother said that they were too big for my face, but I insisted on wearing them because I loved to look just like Father. He was currently in jail and Mother said that it wasn’t his fault and I knew that he would never do anything to hurt anyone, but the mean old policemen said that he was dangerous and did bad things. I knew that Father would get out soon enough and I’d get to hug him again, but I never knew when he’d return. Mother always said soon, but he never came back and I was starting to get worried.

I shook that off and smiled at myself in the mirror, examining the gaps in my mouth where my big girl teeth were going to start growing in soon. Mother said that I was going to turn into a wonderful woman and I was really happy. I wanted to be a successful woman like her when I grew up. I wanted to be a princess. I grabbed the tiara I got for my 6th birthday off of my vanity and placed it perfectly on my head and smiled, then left my room. Mother was in the kitchen cooking some pancakes and I crawled up onto the dining room chair and bounced up and down in my seat as I stared hungrily at the plate of food that she was making.

“Hungry now are we? My my darling, be patient,” Mother said with a wink and I laughed. She finished arranging the food on my plate and walked over to the table where I sat, placing the plate down in front of me. She made a smiley face out of the eggs and bacon with the sausages acting as hair for the food lady. I giggled and Mother smiled her warm and kind smile. I love her so much. I grabbed my fork and knife and began to chow down on the food. “Cynthia! Where are your manners?” Mother asked, sitting down and crossing her hands over her chest in displeasure. I set down my cutlery and folded my hands in front of me, bowing my head and closing my eyes.

“Dear God, thank you for this wonderful meal and for my lovely Mother of whom is kind and dear and is a gift from you in which I will always treasure. Amen,” I said, looking up at Mother who was smiling at me and held a hand over her heart.

“You should say it in English too, to make sure that God knows that you appreciate everything that he’s given us,” she said. I repeated my prayer in English and began to eat my food. I feel like I should mention now that both my Mother and I were Swedish and spoke only Swedish at home. I looked over at the newspaper that Mother was reading, but I didn’t understand any of it as it was in English.

“What are you reading?” I asked.

“Oh, just the daily newspaper. There was another murder last night across town. Was a woman I helped out recently too; just moved here from Indonesia too with the rest of her family. The police suspect that it was that local mafia too.”

“The one who kills the immigrants?” I asked, my mouth full of eggs.

“You know better than to talk with your mouth full, but yes. They’ve been on a roll lately, killing more and more people. It doesn’t help that with the wars all over, people keep moving here.” Mother sighed and folded the newspaper up.

“We’re just too cool! People can’t help but move here!” I exclaimed and Mother laughed. She stood up and tousled my hair as she walked by me and into the kitchen. I quickly finished the rest of my meal and rinsed off my plate, then ran back to my room and fixed my hair. Mother stood at my doorway and smiled at me.

“Are you ready to go to school darling?” I nodded and ran out to the living room. I sat down and got Mother to help me do up my jacket as I put on my backpack. She held my hand as we walked to school. I skipped the whole way and accidentally dropped my tiara a few times until Mother offered to carry it for me so I didn’t drop it anymore.

It was a nice day out. The sun was shining out from behind some gray clouds in the distance and the sky was a light blue. The last bit of sunrise could still be seen beyond the city skyline in the distance. There were puddles on the ground from when it rained last night and I kept trying to jump in the puddles, but Mother kept telling me not too. I pouted each time, but I obeyed her wishes anyways. We reached my school and I gave Mother a great big hug and kissed her on both cheeks before I skipped into the school. I breathed in the smell of floor wax and dried glue and I ran to my classroom. I hung up my jacket and my backpack on my designated coat hook and I sat down at my desk. I sat there kicking my feet for a little while while I waited for my friends to show up. The clock on the wall said that it was 8:02 am, but school didn’t start for another 28 minutes, so I had some time to kill. I stood up and left the empty classroom and began to wander the halls. Soon some of the older kids began arriving and I waved to them, but they didn’t wave back and it made me sad. In my head I was counting the number of kids that arrived and greeting all of them by name because I knew everyone’s names and I wanted to be a good friend. However, I stopped when I noticed someone new.

She arrived with her mother holding her hand as she hid behind her. She had pale white skin and straight white hair with bangs that mostly covered her eyes. She wore a uniform but it wasn’t ours, that’s for sure. She looked to be Japanese or something similar. I focused on her as I watched her and her mother walk through the crowd of children and into the office. I stood up from where I sat and tried to peek at them in the office. They stood at the front desk talking to the lady there and I tried to get the little girl to notice me. I waved at her and walked around, trying to get her attention. Finally she turned to look around the office and noticed me standing in the hallway. We locked eyes and I smiled at her, but she turned away and buried herself in her mother’s side. Disappointed, I walked back to my classroom as the bell rung. I did my work as I was instructed and went through my day as if everything was exactly the same as it always was, because that’s exactly what was happening: nothing.

Recess couldn’t have come sooner and I headed outside. The sky had clouded over and the clouds were darker than earlier and it looked like it might rain. None of my friends were at school today so I didn’t have anyone to hang out with, so I just swung on the swings by myself. I quickly got bored and headed inside to draw in my sketch book when I saw her again. It was the new girl from earlier. She was standing in the door of the library tugging on the closed doors. I walked up to her and tapped on her shoulder and she jumped a little. I pointed towards the door as I spoke.

“The library is closed right now. It says so on the sign,” I said, pointing to the sign hanging on the glass door that read CLOSED in large red letters. The girl looked back and forth between me and the sign before tugging on the handle some more. “He-Hey! That’s not going to work! Aren’t you listening to me?” I asked, grabbing her hands. She pulled her hands out of mine and spoke out loud, but I didn’t understand a single word she said. “Don’t you know any English?” I asked her, but she still only spoke in her weird language. I was determined to get to know this girl though, so I grabbed her hand and I dragged her into my classroom. I pointed at a chair beside the desk and she seemed to understand, and she sat down. I grabbed a notebook and a pen from my backpack and sat down at the desk beside her. I wrote down my name in large letters for her. “Suh - in - the - ah,” I said, sounding out my name and pointing to each letter as I spoke. “Can you say that?”

“Suh - in - ti - ah,” she said quietly. I smiled and nodded.

“Yeah! That’s me, Cynthia,” I said smiling. She pointed at me and quietly repeated my name a few times. “What’s your name?” I asked, but she didn’t understand me. I stared down at the sheet of paper for a few seconds before my brain clicked. I handed her the pencil and tapped on the paper as a signal for her to write her name. She seemed to understand and she wrote some strange symbols that I definitely did not understand. I stared at them for a minute or two with a dazed look on my face before she realized I couldn’t read what she wrote. She pointed at the symbol and read it to me.

“Rin,” she said as she pointed towards herself.

“Rin? Is that your name?” I asked, pointing to her and she nodded.

“Rin,” she said pointing towards herself, then motioned towards me and said “Si-n-te-a.”

“Yeah! You got it!” I clapped my hands and she smiled. Rin smiled too. At that point in time, a teacher walked into the classroom.

“Hello Cynthia. Who’s this?” She asked.

“This is my new friend Rin! Say hello Rin,” I said gesturing towards her. She awkwardly looked between me and the teacher before shyly waving at her.

“Ah, Rin. You’re new here right?” She asked. When Rin didn’t respond, the teacher sighed. “Right, I forgot you don’t speak English,” she mumbled under her breath.

“What language is she speaking?” I asked.

“Oh, Rin speaks Japanese. Her mother informed us that she speaks almost no English at all so it’s going to be difficult to teach her. We told her mother that she should have just taught Rin English by herself before enrolling her but she insisted that we enroll her today so we couldn’t really do much of anything to persuade her.” The teacher sighed as she crossed her arms. “Wait- how did you learn that her name is Rin? Did one of the other teachers tell you?”

“Nope, Rin told me herself,” I smiled. The teacher paused for a moment and looked between us.

“She . . . told you? How?”

“With this,” I said, holding up the notebook for her to see. She walked over and grabbed it and examined it for a moment.

“I told her my name and made sure that she knew it was me and then I just used the same gestures and such to learn her name. My mother works with people who speak other languages too so sometimes I watch her speak with kids and this is how she does it, so I just did what she does. I’d say that I’m pretty good at it because I did learn her name after all,” I beamed. Rin was looking between us and had a very confused look upon her face.

“Well, I guess you learn something new everyday. Is your mother coming to pick you up today?” The teacher asked me, setting down the notebook and I nodded. “Good. I’d like to speak to your mother, so bring her to the office when she arrives, okay?”

“Will do ma’am.” I smiled at her and she smiled back. She glanced at Rin before she turned and left the classroom. Rin looked at me with a puzzled expression and I smiled at her. I continued trying to teach her some words in English by sounding out words as I pointed to what they were in the classroom we were in. However, soon recess ended and she had to go back to her own classroom and we waved goodbye. We hung out again together at lunch and wandered around outside as I pointed at the playground and named the various things out there. We had some fun and I pushed her on the swing set, but lunch was too soon over.

At the end of the day, I hurriedly collected all my stuff and placed it in my backpack and ran over to Rin’s classroom and waited for her. She emerged and we smiled and walked down the hallways together. We stood outside the school as we waited for our parents and I pointed at the ants crawling around. Rin looked at the ants with amazement and wonder and tried to pick one up, but screamed as soon as one crawled up onto her hand and she began frantically waving her hands around and I laughed. I found the ant on her arm and picked it off, throwing it onto the ground and stomping on it for her and she calmed down. We stood there crushing ants for the next little while until my mother showed up.

“Mother! I made a new friend today!” I said, running up to her and jumping into her arms when I saw her. She grabbed me and swung me around in a circle and hugged me.

“Oh really? And here I thought you were already friends with everyone here at school,” she smiled. I grabbed her hand and dragged her over to where Rin was standing. As soon as Rin saw my mother, she immediately got shy and hid her face.

“This is my new friend Rin. She just came to this school today and I’ve been teaching her English!” I said happily. I dropped Mother’s hand and grabbed Rin’s, and brushed her hair out of her eyes. She had really red eyes and it was kind of scary, but it was really cool at the same time.

“Teaching her English?” Mother questioned. She crouched down in front of Rin and looked at her in the eyes. Rin shied away from her. “Do you know if she speaks any other languages?”

“I think one of the teachers said she speaks Japanese or something like that,” I said. Rin looked up from the ground at me when I said that and I smiled at her. Mother tapped Rin on the shoulder and looked at her with a smile, then began speaking. It sounded like the same language that Rin had been speaking, and Rin looked over at Mother with a shocked face. She began talking rapidly and my mother smiled and nodded. The two of them held a conversation with one another for a minute or two before the woman who I assumed was Rin’s mother showed up. She walked over to us and Rin ran over to her the second she noticed that her mother was standing there. Her mother said something to Rin and my mother stood up and bowed to Rin’s mother. Mother began speaking with Rin’s mother and my mother pulled out a small white card from her coat pocket and handed it to Rin’s mother before bowing again.

“Come on Cynthia, it’s time to go home,” Mother said, grabbing my hand. I waved goodbye to Rin and smiled at her before I looked up at Mother.

“Were you talking to them?” I asked.

“Yes, I was.”

“You speak their language?”

“Yes I do. I speak a lot of languages because it’s part of my job,” she said.

“What were you saying to them?”

“Well, Ms. Saito told me that she and Rin had just moved here a week or two ago and that she just decided to enroll Rin in school today. Ms. Saito was concerned because neither of them really speak any English at all and she was worried about how she would teach the both of them, so I gave her my business card to call,” Mother explained.

“Are you going to teach Rin and her mother English?” I asked.

“I am, yes. You said that you were also teaching Rin how to speak too?”

“Yeah! I used some of the things that I’ve seen you using when you teach kids.”

“Remember not to use the word things when you can describe what you’re talking about,” Mother reminded me.

“Right, yes. My bad. I did the . . . uh . . . I copied what you do when you teach kids,” I said, restating my sentence.

“I see. Remember to always plan out your sentence and know what you’re going to say before you speak so that you don’t have to stop and think midway through a sentence. You know that you should try to never say ‘uh’ or pause while speaking unless it’s for a reason,” she said.

“Of course. I’ll remember for next time,” I said, smiling. The two of us chatted while we walked home. It began to drizzle and we hurried up so that we wouldn’t get rained on too much. Thankfully we got home before it started raining hard, but we still got a little wet. We laughed together as we burst into the house and shut the door behind us. I ran to the bathroom and grabbed a towel to dry myself off and I changed out of my semi-wet school uniform and into some comfy dry clothing. I helped Mother with some chores for a bit as she taught me how to do the dishes and I accidently got water all over the floor. She was kind though and didn’t yell at me, but she did make me clean it all up. I did the little bit of homework I had at the kitchen table while Mother helped me and then we began to cook dinner together. I grate some cheese to put on top and accidently cut my finger. I cried and Mother bandaged it and kissed it better. I returned to my room after I was done and drew until dinner, then after dinner I got ready for bed and Mother tucked me in. She kissed me on the forehead and turned off my light and I hugged my stuffed animals as I fell into a dreamy sleep.

~

I dreamt that me and Rin were sitting together on the playground at school. We were on the swings and we were smiling. It was sunny out and the sun was shining and Rin was illuminated by the sunlight and she looked so pretty. Her hair shone and her eyes sparkled and she looked so beautiful. I keep her all to myself because she was so pretty. I was so glad to have a friend like her.

~

I woke with a smile on my face as Mother called out to me from the kitchen again, just like every other day. I jumped out of bed and dressed in my uniform and hurriedly ate breakfast. I rushed through my morning routine because I wanted to get to school as fast as I could so that I could hang out with Rin some more. Mother seemed to be okay with taking me to school earlier than usual and we left. The sun was still rising but it was a lovely day out and the sky was bright baby blue. Mother said goodbye to me at the doors and I headed inside to drop off my jacket and backpack at my locker, then I waited outside of Rin’s classroom for a while until I decided to wait near the front door. I noticed my mother still standing around outside and I was about to go talk to her until Rin ran through the doors and greeted me with a hug.

“Ahah! Hi Rin! You seem happy to see me,” I said, hugging her back. She let go of me and grabbed my hand as we walked to her classroom so that she could drop off her stuff there before school started. “So, anything exciting happened yesterday?” I asked her, leaning against the wall while she hung up her backpack. Today she wore a jacket and leggings to cover all her skin and sunglasses, even while she was inside. She smiled and reached inside her backpack and shuffled things around a little bit until she pulled out a silver half-heart necklace. She held it out to me.

“Us,” she said in English. “Friends.”