Mighty Morphin’

by Ileen Choi

In fourth grade, my class drew pictures of our favorite animals for an open house poster display. Leonard Hannon, the blonde Catholic boy who sat in my table group, drew a triceratops. I never understood why he took it so hard when I told him they were extinct. Everyone knows that the triceratops is extinct. It’s a scientific fact. Leonard Hannon cried for 35 minutes straight over an animal that became extinct 35 million years ago, and I got detention. After I vented my frustration through the science fair by submitting a diorama of a triceratops family sinking tragically into a tar pit, Leonard’s mother demanded he be switched to a different class, and I received a full week of detention. And so, I met Kenji Watanabe.

It was on a Wednesday. After my hour of penance was over, I threw my backpack over my shoulder and marched out, silently indignant, past the overweight gym teacher. My prison guard barely looked up from his magazine, which featured an anatomically preposterous blonde woman on the cover. The sky was aflame, orange mixing with purple. The sun was already setting. I walked down the hall, through the eerie gloom that settled just after dismissal. My life was subject to only three rules: Finish all homework before Mother gets home from work, don’t buy anything from the ice cream truck and never use a metal utensil to scoop rice from the rice cooker. Mother didn’t get home from work until 7 p.m., so I headed for the playground to swing for a few minutes. I passed the empty cafeteria, the smell of ketchup and sour milk wafting from the garbage cans into my nose. My stomach grumbled. When I reached the playground, I stopped short. Standing at the top of the slide was Kenji Watanabe, scrawny and fearless, staring motionless at the sky.

Kenji had moved to California from Japan in the first week of October. Seated by the bookcase in the corner of our classroom, he paid as little attention to us as we to him, and since his arrival, had made no friends at all. The only person he acknowledged was the teacher. While he never responded, he seemed to understand what she was saying. As far as anyone could tell, he either couldn’t speak English or was mute. He also did not play kickball or freeze tag, so eventually, we all forgot about him.

Kenji and I were the only kids who didn’t get picked up after school, and our lonely paths were now crossing on this playground. I could feel in my chest this was a moment of great fate. I walked over to the slide and tilted my head back to squint at him.

“Hey, what are you doing up there?” I noticed he was wearing a Power Rangers T-shirt—Green Ranger. I never understood the point of that character, and preferred all of the other Rangers by far, especially Pink. But to each his own. Kenji remained silently frozen to the slide, ignoring me so completely he could have been a rock. We learned about metaphors just that afternoon, and I briefly imagined Mount Rushmore superimposed on Kenji’s face.

“What are you doing up there?” I asked again, and then began climbing up the ladder to where he stood. I moved carefully, in case I should knock him down to shatter against the pavement. Finally, Kenji turned to look at me climbing toward him. He looked annoyed. I paused, letting him get used to my presence. It felt a little like stalking a pigeon. Holding onto the ladder rails, I leaned back and smiled.

“I said, what are you doing up there? Why are you still at school? Are you waiting for your mom, because maybe we could walk together if you live near my house? I live three blocks up from the high school . . . ”

Kenji let out a quick short breath through his nose, and crossed his arms. I stood my ground, and met his gaze. A staring contest ensued. I won.

Reluctantly, he responded, “I don’t need to hold onto the handrails,” and looked down his nose at me. “I can fly.” He turned, and resumed his position staring at the sky. I decided to stick around.

It became clear after about an hour that while Kenji knew he could fly, he didn’t know how to fly—a subtle but important distinction. Every day, after dismissal, he stared at the sky from the top of the slide. Every day, I followed him and watched. We never conversed as intimately as we had that first Wednesday, but I succeeded in carving myself a niche in our relationship. At the very least, I had discovered a blind spot in his antisocial nature. He handed me his backpack before going up the ladder, and after he came down, we walked home together. We would go five blocks before I turned into my driveway, and waved as he continued walking without a backward glance. Once, though, he commented on my Yellow Ranger shirt, which I had already worn three times that week, waiting for him to notice.

“Nice shirt,” he said.

“Thanks,” I said.

Twenty-three days of this went by until something happened. It was a Thursday. After standing still for a solid 20 minutes, Kenji took a step, and flung himself into the sky. It took him almost a second to land with a thud on the rubber mat covering the pavement, and he narrowly missed the end of the steel slide. Our backpacks dropped with my jaw, and I rushed over to him. I didn’t know what to say, so I grabbed his face. His leg looked like it had bent at an awkward angle, but with a grunt he pulled away and sat up. I hovered over him while he caught his breath.

“Okay,” he breathed. And for the first time, Kenji looked me in the face, and smiled. He limped all the way home, and I carried his backpack until we reached my house. The next day, he climbed the slide again, and I anxiously waited for him to crash to the earth. He stared at the sky for about 10 seconds before he leaped, and I nearly wet myself. His body followed the predictable arc, and began to fall. But then it seemed as though he had caught a wind current. He hovered briefly, his arms outstretched, and then he began to rise. He rose faster and faster, and he was moving forward and backward. He soared so high that he became a black dot smaller than my bottom front tooth, then he came barreling down to the playground, pulling up just before he embedded us both into the pavement. And I cheered. I whooped, spun around waving my arms like flags, and did cartwheels. Kenji had been right—he just needed to figure out how to fly. Once he got himself in the air, he was a regular Jonathan Livingston Seagull.

After an hour of daredevil speed and tricks, he floated down serenely onto the slide. I picked up his backpack, ready to congratulate him and head home. It had been an eventful day. Kenji squinted at the sun and breathed a deep sigh that seemed to empty his entire chest. He rose into the air again. At that moment, I had nothing to say to him, so I waved goodbye as he flew away without a backward glance. I watched him shrink until he became a dot, a speck, and then there was orange mixing with purple. Leaving his bag at the top of the slide, I picked up my things and walked home.

The next few days were chaotic at school. The administration sent home a packet with an article about Kenji’s disappearance, a map of registered sex offenders in the area and a letter to parents: “Talk to your kids about safety and dealing with strangers; offer rides to friends; know where your children are at all times, etc.” After about two weeks, the drama died down, and Kenji’s mother came to pick up his things along with a poster we had made for him. It was green, with signed notes from us and anyone else who felt like it. We pasted on our class photo and drew a heart around his face, since no one had any other pictures of him. The notes were fairly repetitive, and read, “I wish I talked to you/got to know you better,” and “We will always miss you.” His mother moved out of town that week, I think to New Jersey, but before she left she gave me an action figure of the Pink Ranger’s pterodactyl.

“He bought it for you,” she said.

“Thank you,” I said.