Maci Masaki Makes Her Mark Read online

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  Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Pickle, Charley.

  Title: Maci Masaki makes her mark / Charley Pickle.

  Description: New York : West 44, 2020. | Series: We the weirdos Identifiers: ISBN 9781538382073 (pbk.) | ISBN 9781538382080 (library bound) | ISBN 9781538383049 (ebook)

  Subjects: LCSH: Friendship--Juvenile fiction. | Schools--Juvenile fiction. | Drawing--Technique--Juvenile fiction.

  Classification: LCC PZ7.P535 Ma 2020 | DDC [F]--dc23

  First Edition

  Published in 2020 by Enslow Publishing 111 East 14th Street, Suite 349 New York, NY 10003

  Copyright © 2020 Enslow Publishing

  Editor: Theresa Emminizer Designer: Sam DeMartin Interior Layout: Rachel Rising

  Photo credits: Cover, p. 4 (Maci Masaki) Plattform/Getty Images; Cover ( cupcake, donut, rainbow, diamond) gst/Shutterstock. com; Cover (seahorse) wenchiawang/Shutterstock.com; pp. 1, 7, 16, 23, 30, 36, 43, 47, 51 (sea turtle) © istockphoto.com/ Drawlab19; p. 3 (Amy Price) Digital Vision/Photodisc/Getty Images; p. 3 (Jayden Jackson) Arthur Dries/The Image Bank/ Getty Images; p. 4 (Eli Michaels) Juanmonino/E+/Getty Images; p. 4 AllNikArt/Shutterstock.com; p. 7 Evgeniy Yatskov/ Shutterstock.com; pp. 8, 56, 58 hchjjl/Shutterstock.com; p.14 Christopher Hall/Shutterstock.com; p. 16 NikonMaelao Production/Shutterstock.com; pp. 21, 46 LHF Graphics/Shutterstock.com; p. 24 frescomovie/Shutterstock.com; p. 28 lineartestpilot/Shutterstock.com; p. 29 Maria Averburg/Shutterstock.com; p. 33 hudhud94/Shutterstock.com; p. 36 wasa kong/Shutterstock.com; p. 40 silm/Shutterstock.com; p.44 Yuliya Serebrennikova/Shutterstock.com; p. 48 doodleboards/ Shutterstock.com; p. 50 wenchiawang/Shutterstock.com; p. 52 puruan/Shutterstock.com.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer.

  Printed in the United States of America

  CPSIA compliance information: Batch #CS18W44: For further information contact West 44 Press, New York, New York at 1-800-542-2595.

  My father thinks I am messy. My mother thinks I don’t have friends.

  Both of my parents are right.

  But I don’t need a clean room. And I don’t need friends.

  My father is standing at my door right now.

  “Good morning, Mitsuko.” He bows to me. He calls me my Japanese name. It is too hard for Americans to pronounce. My Japanese name feels like the old me. The one who used to live in Tokyo. I used to be Mitsuko Masaki. Now, I’m Maci Masaki. I live in New York. I am a whole new person.

  But my dad doesn’t understand this. He still treats me like we live in Japan. I bow back, but I don’t look at him. I am drawing. And I don’t want to bow anymore. It’s annoying! If I am drawing, I don’t want to talk. And if I live in America, I don’t want to bow.

  “Today is O-souji,” he says.

  I nod again I know! O-souji is a Japanese holiday. Like spring cleaning. I don’t know why we moved here if we are just going to do all the same stuff.

  He pauses. He is silent. I draw a big turtle. A character I made. Turtle Samantha. She hides her head in her turtle shell. She wears a blue Japanese school uniform. I write “OMG” next to her.

  My father is not impressed by Turtle Samantha. He does not understand manga comics.

  “Your room is a mess!” he says.

  There are pens on the floor. The drawers are stuffed with markers. There are clumps of neon-colored clothes on my bed. My school bag slumps in the corner. “Mitsuko. You must organize. Your room reflects your mind. And your mind is messy!”

  I don’t listen. I draw the next frames of the comic. Turtle Samantha sticks out her tongue. Then she puts her head back into her shell.

  Sometimes, I wish I were Turtle Samantha.

  My father does not speak. He is looking at the half-empty box of Japanese candy open on the floor.

  “Where is your other slipper?” he asks, pointing to the one slipper under my bed.

  I look up. “Don’t know.”

  He sighs, “You don’t wear slippers in the house anymore?”

  “No. It’s stupid. Shoes aren’t dirty.”

  He picks up one of my sneakers. Then crouches down to where I am drawing. I am leaning with my back up against the bed. “Mitsuko, look.”

  I just want to draw. Why do we have to talk? “See this?” He points to a pink blotch on the shoe. “This is chewing gum.”

  I nod.

  “See this?” He points to a little gray circle. “This is dirt.”

  “It looks like half of a moon to me. I like it!”

  “Really?” He places the shoe down on my drawing. It leaves a footprint all over Turtle Samantha.

  Stop! I think. But I don’t say anything. I draw a speech bubble. Turtle Samantha says, “Fine! Step on me. I don’t care. MY SHELL IS MY HOME!”

  “It is not a home. It is a mess. You are a mess!” my father says.

  I don’t say anything.

  He smiles very faintly. “Your mother and I would like you to have tea with us this afternoon.”

  Oh no. This cannot be good.

  “We have something to discuss with you.”

  The last time they did this, they told me we were moving from Tokyo to New York City. They didn’t give me a choice. They said we would leave for the next school year. My friends cried when I told them. But my friend Nanae made a YouTube channel for me. She posts videos from my Tokyo school for me to watch. I don’t need American friends.

  “Come downstairs at 2:00 p.m.,” he says.

  “Okay.” I nod.

  When he leaves, I look at my room.

  My room is not a mess. It is my studio. I will be just like Hayao Miyazaki one day. He is a manga artist. He makes movies. Beautiful movies of beautiful worlds that do not exist. When I see his drawings, I leave my lonely world. I love his world. I plan to send him my Turtle Samantha comic. I hope he will give me a job in his film company. I don’t need to clean up. I don’t need to make friends. All I need to do is draw. It is the only thing that matters.

  Snow falls outside. The kettle is boiling on the stove. The house smells like warm rice. It is nearly time for tea.

  Today is December 31. My parents have been cleaning our apartment since December 13. They have cleaned the bathroom. The shower. The kitchen. They have washed the cushions of the couch. They have cleaned their room. They have even cleaned the cleaning supplies!

  Maybe this conversation is to say we are going to move back to Tokyo. Nanae would be so happy! I could return to my old school.

  My clock flashes the time: 1:58 p.m. I hear the water pouring into the teapot.

  At 2:00 p.m., I slide open my door. I see my mother and father at the table. They are kneeling. They are both wearing dark pants and dark shirts. My mother has red glasses. My father has no glasses. They are both looking at me. They look stern.

  There is a violin on the table.

  My violin. It used to be my mom’s. When she was learning.

  But I don’t play.

  I sit down. They bow.

  They pour me tea.

  I wish I were drawing.

  My father starts, “I have talked to Mitsuko about her room.”

  My mother nods. “Good.”

  I don’t want to have this talk again.

  “Mitsuko, you cannot take these habits into the new year with you, “ my father says.

  My mother nods. “We also need to talk about your lack of friends.”

  My stomach churns. I want to be Turtle Samantha. I want to curl up inside my shell. I don�
�t like talking. I only like art.

  And Nanae. Because Nanae said that Miyazaki will love Turtle Samantha and will definitely make a film about her.

  My parents’ faces are very serious. My father says, “You have not joined any clubs or activities at your school. We picked this school because it is not just Japanese people. It is all sorts of people. New people. New friends. This is not Tokyo. You have to find new friends.”

  “I have friends,” I say.

  “Who?”

  “A girl.”

  “D oes she have a turtle head?” my mother

  asks.

  “Yes.”

  “No, she is not your friend,” my mother says. My mother pushes the violin across the table to me. “You will join the orchestra.”

  “What?”

  Both my parents nod.

  “I don’t like violin.”

  “I didn’t like violin for the first five years that I played it,” my mother says. “But now it is the first thing I do on the weekend.”

  It’s true. My mother practices the violin on Saturday mornings at 6:00 a.m. I don’t think my parents think they are annoying. BUT THEY ARE.

  My father nods. “We are requiring you to clean your room and join the orchestra. You need to organize your life. You need friends. It is not possible to live life alone. Cartoons are not friends.”

  Cartoons! Ha! My drawings are not cartoons. This is manga. Art. My father does not understand anything.

  He continues, “You have not cleaned your room, so you no longer get to sleep in it. The things we love need to be cared for. Like bonsai trees. You cannot neglect them.”

  My father has my grandfather’s bonsai tree. He wants to pass it on to me. But I am not interested in taking care of a miniature tree. I am not like him at all.

  “Mitsuko, are you paying attention?” my father asks.

  I nod. I wasn’t. But I don’t think I missed anything.

  “So, you can have your bed back when you clean your room and join the orchestra.”

  Wait, what? Maybe I did miss something.

  “We ask that you sleep on a cot outside of your room until you show us you can tend to your room,” my mother says. “Organize your room. Clean it. Join the orchestra at your school. Make friends. And, then, you can have your room back.”

  I am shocked into silence.

  I think about Turtle Samantha. She needs a superpower.

  She can turn annoying people into sand. Then they will just wash away into the ocean. My parents love the ocean. They would not mind being sand. Then they could clean the ocean!

  Well, maybe I do not want them to be sand.

  “We will have a meeting in one week to review your changes in lifestyle,” my mother says. She hands me the violin case. “You will take this to school tomorrow.”

  I am not going to play the violin. I don’t want to be in an orchestra.

  My father walks to the closet. He gets out the tatami, the Japanese mattress. It is very low to the ground. He puts one pillow, a sheet, and a comforter on it. “Here.”

  He then pulls the doors to my room shut. He posts a sign that says in Japanese, “Closed until Cleaned.”

  Then my parents take the tea and clean it up. They are cleaning up everything. All the time. They are trying to clean me up. But I don’t want to be reorganized.

  I am not happy. I hate how the violin sounds. I hate how it feels. It leaves a mark on my neck. The boys at my old school made fun of me. Told me it looked like a kiss mark. Nanae stood up to them. She said they had pop haircuts. She called them mushroom boys. They did not like this. Ha! But Nanae is not here. Not one of my friends is here. They are across oceans. MORE THAN ANNOYING.

  It is the first school day after break. I am very tired.

  I am on the train to Public School 71. I am drawing Turtle Samantha turning a violin into sand. The speech bubble says, “This is a warning! Anyone who annoys me will become grains of sand!”

  I practice an evil laugh out loud.

  A man on the train looks up from his cell phone. “Are you choking?”

  “No.” I smile. “I’m just practicing laughing.”

  He gives me a strange look. A lot of people give me strange looks. I used to think it was because I only wear bright clothing. Even my shoelaces are neon. But I don’t think this is why people think I’m weird. I think it is my personality. I don’t care. I don’t need friends who are boring! I like Turtle Samantha because she’s different from everyone else. She is not afraid to be unusual.

  I get off the train and walk to P.S. 71. The front hallway smells of bleach. Window cleaner. Lemons. Is the school doing O-souji too? I did not know Americans cleaned over New Year’s. But they must. Everything looks very clean. The floors. The lockers. The lunchroom. I am shocked. I thought Americans didn’t care about cleaning at all.

  I put my coat and backpack in my locker. I have to carry my violin around the entire day. I cannot wait until lunch. I like to sit under my lunch table. It is very quiet there. And no one talks to me. I don’t think they even know I am there. I will hide the violin under the table with me.

  My morning classes are boring. I hate Life Sciences. The only class I like is art. In art, the teacher has changed the tables. We have new seats. I sit next to Amy Price. She sits at my lunch table. People say our lunch table is for weirdos.

  I lug my violin case to the new seat.

  “Need any help?” Amy helps me store the violin under my chair.

  I nod. “Thank you.”

  “Absolutely!” she says.

  Amy is so cheery. And confident. She is THE Amy Price. She won the class election. I voted for her. Amy has a stutter, so she sang her speech. Her singing was great! She is so funny. I would never want to sing in front of people. I would be too scared. Amy seems like she is not afraid of anything.

  “Does Konnichiwa mean hello?” she asks me.

  I am shocked. Amy knows Japanese?

  “Yes,” I nod. “You know Japanese?”

  She smiles. “Not really. I just listen to a Japanese band while I run. And I know you’re from Japan. So I thought I’d try it out. I thought it might have been something weird, like ‘howdy partner.’ But, I guess not.” She is laughing, but I don’t understand the joke.

  “Howdy?” I ask.

  “Oh, it’s just what cowboys say!” She is smiling at me.

  But I am still surprised that she listens to a Japanese band. Also, that she runs. What can’t she do?

  “You’re a runner?” I ask her.

  “I joined the track club. Ms. Shelby, the Life Sciences teacher, invited me. And it’s cool. It’s not like my old school, but still cool.”

  I did not know she is a new student, too. I guess I do not know much about this school.

  The art teacher, Ms. Redford-Martin, tells us that we are making cloud sculptures today. We are hanging cotton from wires so the whole art room will have a cloud sky. She is smiling. She is holding a tree branch. I think the art teacher looks a little weird. She has long gray hair and always wears clothing with rainbows on it. Some people call her Ms. Rainbow-Magic to be mean. But I like Ms. Redford-Martin. She never says, “We can’t do that” or “I can’t do that.” She says, “I’ll figure it out.” I think she used to be part of the circus. She is always drawing circuses.

  At the end of class, Amy looks at my sculpture. “Wow! Your clouds are beautiful. You did so many!”

  I am so focused. I did not even realize.

  Sometimes when I am making art, I forget about time. I say, “It is three types of clouds: rain, storm, and flat.”

  “OMG. Radical bananas!” Amy says. “You are so creative.” I don’t understand this expression, “radical bananas.” Maybe it is like “cool beans.” Eli at the lunch table says this. I want to learn these expressions so I can fit in.

  “Are you in comic club?” Amy asks.

  “Comic club?” I ask. I don’t know about comic club. Amy Price knows everything about this schoo
l! “No.” I shake my head.

  “You should join!” She pulls up a web page on her phone. There is a whole PS. 71 website. I didn’t even know about this. “Here, I’ll send this to you. What’s your phone number?”

  A second after I give her my number, I get a text with the link. I am shocked again. I didn’t know any of this was happening. I guess because I was always under the table. Maybe this is why most people don’t eat their lunch under the table.