Kumoru was staring out the car window thinking, headphones on, listening to the CD his father had asked him to listen to before he sent his son off for another summer in Japan with his grandparents. The boy had half forgotten the morning when his father had kept his greatest burden secret in order protect his perhaps overlly-sensitive son. “I finally understand why you didn’t tell me, Otoosan, but I wish you had. I would have stayed with you. I could have helped you. We could have shared the sky a little longer, Otoosan.... When you left I felt so alone, I still do, but I’ll manage.” The sky had always been his favorite thing, but unlike most who find it calling them he did not want to fly in it, he wanted to capture it and hold it, call it his own. The bright blue, the pure clouds, they sent him wandering, they made him believe that his father could hear his messages. “Kumoru.....Kumoru, are you listening to me at all? You, idiot!” He really hadn’t been listening to a word she was saying, hadn’t even realized she was talking to him. No notice was given to him before her manicured nails swung at his ear like a cat’s paw at a stringed toy. He cringed, shocked. This made her angrier. She swung again and hooked the black headphones, threw them at the passenger-seat, and sneered an I-bet-you-didn’t-see-that-one-coming sneer. A little girl, his sister looked like she was about to wet herself in the see beside him, “Which,” the boy consider silently, “is completely acceptable. Because Wendy has never seen our mother lash out like this. When Wendy annoys Mom she just start talking in her sweet, little, chamomile voice, ‘just like a housecat’ but with me, she doesn’t try to hide her anger, she just busts it out like an irritated puma waiting in the trees abve a hiking trail.” “You never cease to piss me off, do you Kumoru? I’ve put up with you all week but if you don’t straighten out now I’m not driving you the rest of the way to your uncle’s house.” All Kumoru could do was stare at her hair as its crimson curls rejected sunlight and flicked it out the window. His hair wasn’t even shiny, it was the mat finished paint on an unimportant closet wall, and it was three-toned-black like dog fur, scruffy, and perfectly opposite from his mother’s mane of glorious flame. Their uniquely pale skin could have be their only similarity if he had inherited the girly freckles that flooded the woman’s face. He hadn’t. “Are you going to answer me?” Her jaw tightened, the muscles twitched, she looked like she was about to go crazy. He was torn. “If I answer her,” he speculated, “I’m so nervous, just with being in the same car as her, that I might stutter, and then she’ll be even angrier.” The car’s wheels hit gravel, the woman’s eyes narrowed, and her round hands clenched the wheel as she turned it abruptly. The car jolted slightly, her curls bounced like hundreds of miniature vipers lunging for their prey. “Get out. Your father might think you’re the best thing to happen on planet earth, but to me your just another slab of pavement on my sidewalk.” She was getting way to harsh for me to handle. I hadn’t seen her for awhile, and my dad didn’t make me talk to her on the phone after they were divorced, so I had become unaccustomed to her tortureous fighting styles. “M-m--m-m-mom please don’t.. I-I’m sorry-” He was nearly whimpering, begging. She didn’t care. His mind juggled pleads, calculated what her reaction would be, and tossed them from the un-ebbing loop, “A Snake wouldn’t have taken into consideration either, that I might not have intentionally disturbed her nest? No, she would strike and ask questions later. That’s her instinct,” rationalizing and forgiving were his best features. “Oh, you’re getting out of this car whether you like it or not, even if I have to push you out myself.” He could see Wendy was about to burst into tears of fear for her older brother, as well as from amazement, but he couldn’t even keep his own tears from spilling, more-over comfort her. He realized how heavy the tears rolling down my cheeks felt, he remembered how mad his mother had become last time he started crying(when he was four) and she had smacked him across the face. He felt the points of her nails digging into my neck. “She really does hate me,” He thought, “But why? Why so much? What the did I do...to make her hate me... this much?” Usually he could have thought his neck out of her clutches, but his brain shut down under pressure, “Like a balloon,” silently, “I can feel my thoughts deflate until they’re useless.” “You useless little dweeb. You’re fifteen, darn it all! You can’t even say anything, can you? You’re useless! Get out of my car!” Her nails started to sting, to draw red blood, her emerald eyes were stabbing his dull black ones like scorpian pincers and he didn’t dare try to pry away. Loooking to Wendy for help, he prayed, “God, I must really seem like a wimp right now, but I’m scared out of my mind, and I don’t want to get ditched five hours from Dad, please.... get Wendy to help.” Wendy was mortified, her eyes were as focused on my mother as his mother’s on him. She lunged forward, grabbing her mother’s hands, “Mommy! Mommy, don’t hurt Kumori! Please!” Tears were flying from her wide, hazel eyes, she was scared her mother was going to kill her older brother! The cat gave up her game, suddenly looking shocked, “I’m sorry sweetie. I didn’t mean to scare you.” She dropped him back into the leather seat, “Kumoru,” she snapped, “Thank your sister for saving your dumb ass.” The boy turned to his sister, whose eyes were still rimmed with tears, he brushed them away gently, and whispered his thanks as the car was set back into motion by the cat. The sky enveloped the girl with sun as he looked on. “I just remembered, Otoosan, I remember what you said to me before I left! ‘Don’t become to much like the mouse when I’m gone, Nezumi. I only call you that because of how severely inoccent you are when attacted. I want you to know that I’m sorry. I never would of had children with her had I known that she was never going to settle down, and I’m sorry she got bored with me, and you became her ball of string. She may not love you, but know, that I do love you....Kumoru.’ I thought that you were just being overly-dramatic about my being away for the summer, Otoosan. I never thought that I would really never see you again after that.”