In the middle of the stack was a collage of my favorite animal—the flamingo. I wished I had a pet flamingo! If I had one, I could take it with me to the talent show and have it do tricks, like stand on one leg for a long time. Flamingos are very good at that. Maybe I could pretend to be a flamingo. I thought about standing on the stage and balancing on one leg. I shook my head. That would be fun, but was probably not a talent. What was a talent anyway?
By the time Mom called us for dinner, my stomach was in knots.
Dad passed me the green beans. I am not a fan of green beans. I took a very small scoop.
“You haven’t filled out your form yet, Jasmine,” Mom said.
“Mine is going to be a surprise,” I said, taking a big bite of green beans. Mom has a lot of rules and one of them is no talking with your mouth full. If I kept my mouth full during dinner, I wouldn’t have to admit that I didn’t have any talent.
I needed to figure it out, and fast!
4
STICKS
After dinner, Sophie practiced her lines for the play with Dad. I was afraid Mom would ask me again what I was planning to do for the show. I thought about walking to Mrs. Reese’s house to climb my thinking tree, but I wanted to go somewhere nobody would find me and ask me questions about my talent. So I went to our garage.
Our garage was not as interesting as Mrs. Reese’s. Hers had boxes full of fun costumes. We had a lot of boxes, but most of them had boring things in them, such as Mom’s old files and Dad’s textbooks. Mrs. Reese had a special door around the side, like a little house. Ours had a regular garage door that we left open during the day when we were home.
I plopped down in an old stuffed chair in the garage. Dust puffed up in a cloud, tickling my nose.
Dad kept his woodworking tools in the garage. He liked to build things like bookcases and tables. Maybe that was Dad’s talent. Dad was a history teacher at a college. That was his job.
Mom’s job was being an editor. She worked with writers, fixing their mistakes. Mom had a lot of talents, like making up rules and sniffing out trouble. She was also good at needlepoint. She made pretty pictures using a needle and thread. It looked like a lot of work, but she said it was fun.
Sophie wrote poems and now she was an actress. She also played on a soccer team. She had lots of talents. That didn’t seem fair. Maybe that was why I didn’t have a talent, because everyone in my family had used them all up. There was no talent left over for me.
“There you are,” Mom said, standing in front of the garage.
I guess it wasn’t a very good hiding place after all.
Mom sat down on the arm of the chair and put her hand on my shoulder. “Is something wrong? You didn’t ask for any dessert tonight.”
Like I said, Mom was good at sniffing out trouble. And I had trouble with a capital T.
“Are you having a hard time figuring out what to do in the talent show?” she asked.
“How did you know?” I asked.
“A mom knows,” she said. “Is there a way I can help you?”
“I don’t have a talent,” I said, slouching in the chair. “Linnie plays the piano. Sophie is an actress.”
“I’m sure you have a talent. What are some things you like to do?”
“I like to climb trees, make collages, and pound mochi. But those are not things I can do for the talent show,” I said.
“Hmmm. Why do you like doing those things?” Mom asked.
I leaned my head back and thought. “Climbing makes me feel free like a bird,” I said. “And pounding mochi makes me feel strong. Creating my own collages makes me happy.”
“All good things!” Mom said with a smile. “In fact, that reminds me of something…” She walked to the back of the garage and started rummaging around.
I turned in the chair, peering up over the back of it. Mom pushed boxes out of the way. She opened one and then another, digging through each of them. Mom was making a mess. That was not like Mom at all.
“Aha!” Mom shouted. She turned around and raised two fat wooden sticks.
I didn’t understand why she was so excited over sticks.
“This is what you can do for your talent,” Mom said, waving them in the air.
“You want me to wave sticks on the stage?” That didn’t sound like a good talent at all.
“No,” Mom said, laughing. “Taiko!”
“What-ko?”
“It’s a special Japanese drum,” Mom said. “I used to play it in college. It made me feel all the things you mentioned. Playing taiko made me feel free and strong and happy.”
She handed me the sticks. They reminded me of chopsticks, but were much bigger and fatter. They were heavier than chopsticks, too. I gripped them and sucked on my bottom lip. I remembered what it had felt like hitting Ms. Sanchez’s xylophone. It was not good.
“That’s not your usual look,” Mom said, patting my arm. “I need to make a phone call, but I think tomorrow you and I are going to go somewhere special.”
“Really? Just you and me? No Sophie?”
“Nope! Sophie’s going to Maya’s house,” Mom said. “I think you’ll enjoy our little outing.”
Suddenly I didn’t care so much about the talent show. I hardly ever got time with Mom without Sophie. I couldn’t wait till tomorrow after school!
5
AFTER-SCHOOL SURPRISE
The next day, Ms. Sanchez collected the forms that listed everyone’s talent. When she got to me, I told her I would give her my paper tomorrow.
“That’s fine,” Ms. Sanchez said. “As long as I have it before
