We had two little stalkers on our way to Chinese food the other night. They were no more than two feet high and leaned on their umbrellas like old men. They both had bright, square yellow backpacks that took up all of their tiny backs and jutted out from their sides, like a table strapped to string bean. One boy had a soft baseball cap pushed back on his head so he looked like he had a receding hairline. His forehead stretched at least the width of my hand and was bright white against his blue rain jacket. We were on our bikes, stopped at a light. They stared as they walked past, then pivoted like ballerinas, never taking their eyes off us, and stopped.
“Hello,” one said. Everyone–even the kindergarteners, even the infants in grocery carts–knows ‘hello’.
“How are you?” I asked and they put their hands over their mouths. They giggled into their fingers.
The boy with the receding hairline asked, “American?” in Japanese. It’s one word I understand because kids on corners and in the alleys where I ride my bike after school shout it after me like a cheer. Or a curse. It depends on the day.
“Hai,” I said, “Yes.”
The receding hairline tapped his little friend in the shoulder with his umbrella. “She spoke Japanese! I heard her! She said ‘hai’,” he said in Japanese. Johnathan translated and as we crossed the street to the Chinese restaurant.
The little stalkers followed us across the street. I thought they might run up to us and pinch us to see if we were made of gobs of jelly or stretchy like Gumbi. We locked our bikes as they watched, leaning on their umbrellas like canes. Then, like they suddenly remembered they had mothers waiting for them and couldn’t stand in a Chinese food parking lot and stare at gaijin all evening, they turned their little backpacks to us and waddled off, gripping their umbrellas like walking sticks.
“Bye,” I called, but they didn’t turn around. I was a little sad to see them go. It’s nice to be interesting, isn’t it?
