“Guh, fine,” Uncle Hikaru snorts. “Just try to keep him hidden under the table. If any of the Nikkei Week board members come in here during our demonstration, I know nothing.”
Great—Craig is so reporting this to his dad.
I hear disapproving mutterings among the audience of Aunties as Belle gives Uncle Hikaru a regal nod and settles in behind the long table that’s been set up at the front of the room. Completely disregarding Uncle Hikaru’s orders, she keeps Nak clutched to her chest, his little paws resting on the tabletop, precariously close to the blobs of mochi. Rory sits next to Belle, the rest of the court taking their places around her as Uncle Hikaru starts barking instructions.
“Mmm, our famous Hollywood grand marshal is a no-show,” the Auntie next to me murmurs, frowning at the empty seat at the end of the table. “I told the Nikkei Week board not to choose some flighty actress. Not that they ever listen to me. And now look: she’s disrespecting our traditions, hmm?”
“What do you think happened yesterday—nervous breakdown?” the Auntie on my other side says, talking over me like I’m not even there. “Mmm, I thought only white actresses had those.”
“Who knows, but what happened was very disruptive,” the first Auntie says.
And then both Aunties give me major side-eye. Like it’s all my fault that the parade was disrupted.
In a way, I guess it was my fault. But they don’t know the whole story. Still, I find myself shrinking into my seat, trying to disappear.
“Some people are like that, always disrupting things,” the second Auntie says, her side-eye intensifying. I shrink even more. “Are they gonna appoint someone else? We can’t have no grand marshal! It’s Nikkei Week!”
“No one’s asked me what I think,” the first Auntie sniffs. “But they should replace her. How will it look if we have no grand marshal at the gala?”
Nikkei Week always ends with a big gala at the Japanese American National Museum, and the grand marshal is expected to give a speech and take photos with everyone. But now that the grand marshal’s MIA . . .
“This year’s Nikkei Week is cursed,” a loud, braying voice at the end of the row says.
I swivel to look—and inwardly let out a huge groan. Somehow, Craig Shimizu must have sensed my presence and the fact that I was trying to get away from him and has moved so he’s sitting closer to me.
“Didn’t everyone read that letter Uncle Taki wrote to the paper?” Craig continues, naming one of the cranky old men who seems to have lived in Little Tokyo forever—no one knows where he came from or who he’s related to, but everyone knows him all the same. “He said only pure Japanese girls should be Nikkei Week Princesses. Because Nikkei Week is a festival that’s supposed to celebrate everything Japanese.”
“Japanese and Japanese American,” I blurt out without thinking, my temper flaring. So much for shrinking. Now the Aunties are side-eyeing me again. “And Japanese American can mean a lot of things. Anyway, what does that have to do with anything? Belle is one hundred percent Japanese.”
“She’s related to you,” Craig counters, his sneer deepening. “And you’re only half. Therefore, she’s tainted by association.”
“Uncle Taki writes that same letter every year,” I snap. “My Auntie Och says he does it because it’s something to do—otherwise he’s got nothing to do except boil so much fish that his white neighbors complain about the smell.”
“My dad says your Aunties or moms or whatever are living in several kinds of sin,” Craig says, latching on to something else he can needle me about. “So—”
“So shut up!” I explode, leaping to my feet. My hands curl into fists, my face flushes bright red, my kaiju-temper roars—
Craig regards me smugly, a sly grin spreading over his face. Because he’s gotten to me, really gotten to me, and that’s all he wanted. He leans back in his seat, his grin getting wider by the second. “Machigai,” he murmurs—the Japanese word for “mistake.” “Your whole family.” He jerks his chin toward Belle. “Maybe you all should be banned from Nikkei Week.”
“Do not talk about my family,” I snarl, my fists curling so tight, I can feel my fingernails scratching tiny crevices into my palms. “You listen to me, Craig Shimizu, if you ruin this for Belle and Rory, I will end you—”
“Ahem. Rika Rakuyama. Please stop whatever you are doing.” Uncle Hikaru clears his throat and glares at me.
The Aunties are also glaring at me.
Even Belle is glaring at me from her perch up front.
Stop, she mouths at me.
I breathe deeply, forcing my temper to quiet. When it just explodes like that, it feels like it’s consuming my entire body, burning me up from the inside. I lose all awareness of my surroundings, which means I didn’t notice how loud my voice was getting or how the room has gone totally quiet and everyone is staring at me.
That’s exactly what it was like when I bit Craig all those years ago. I could only feel rage, and before I knew it, my teeth were sinking into his forearm.
The second Auntie’s words echo in my head: Some people are like that, always disrupting things.
Face still flaming, I sit down in my seat again, trying to make myself small. I picture myself as the nure-onna, strategically stowing her anger away so she can strike when it makes sense.
Everyone goes back to whatever they were doing—Uncle Hikaru yelling orders at the princesses, the Aunties casting judgmental looks his way, the princesses valiantly attempting perfect mochi. But I already know this incident will spread through the gossip grapevine of Little Tokyo, yet another unruly blowup from Rika the Biter.
I only hope Belle won’t be too mad at me for ruining one of
