Cynthia Kadohata - The Thing About Luck

I lay with my back facing her and my eyes open, willing myself to stay awake. I heard movement, and the light turned off. It was pitch-black. Behind me Obaachan seemed to have finally lain down. Thunder hopped onto the bed and lay pressed against me. I counted to a thousand in my head. “Obaachan?” I said. She grunted in reply, but I thought she was only half awake, or maybe more like a quarter awake.

My heart was beating hard. As quietly as I could, I got out of bed, Thunder following. It was so dark, I kept my hands raised in front of me and moved slowly. I felt around for my flip-flops at the door. I had kept my keycard in my shorts pocket, so I was able to just slip outside. The temperature was pleasant, maybe mid-seventies. A wind blew in my face. I hesitated. It sure was dark out there beyond the motel! I made up my mind and stepped off the curb.

I wished I had a flashlight. There was the flashlight in the combine, but that didn’t help me now. The motel sign blinked unsteadily. No vacancies. I loved the light. It made me feel safer. I knew Thunder could see, but for me it was kind of scary. There was a slight illumination toward the road, so I headed that way. I heard a thump and cried out. Then I stood perfectly still and listened. I didn’t hear anything more. So I continued to the road. When I got there, I saw that the illumination came from what looked like some kind of warehouse-y building, with a flag out front. Still, it was so dark. Then Thunder ran off and disappeared in the night. I froze. “Thunder, come!” He ran back and nudged my hand.

In the distance the combines from the other farm threw more smidgeons of light my way. Thankfully, the headlights were facing me, so the light kept growing as I kept slowly moving forward. “We’re going to save the day,” I said to Thunder. “That’s what we’re doing, in case you’re wondering.” And then I wondered if I was dreaming all this.

I thought about how my father had sat with me when I’d operated the combine at the Hillbinkses’ farm back home. And now he was far away. Far, far away. It would be daytime in Japan now.

I suddenly felt sick with worry. What if I damaged the combine somehow? I thought about that $350,000 they cost. I wasn’t sure exactly how I could damage a combine—there weren’t any trees or big rocks or anything on the Franklin farm for me to hit, but still ...

Relief flooded through me when I finally saw the headlights from Mick’s combine. I could make out where the other combine was parked. “There it is, boy! Hurray!” I jogged forward, surrounded by the din of a seeming army of crickets.

When I reached the combine, I pressed my cheek against the cool, soothing metal. I pushed Thunder up before scrambling up myself, closing the door, and getting behind the wheel.

Then, suddenly, unhhh. My insides felt like they were all squishing around, as if everything inside of me was trying to change places or something. Ugh. I closed my eyes and took a few big breaths. But I didn’t have a choice. I felt along the floor for the flashlight and set it next to me. I honked the horn twice, even though I knew nobody but Mick was out there. I turned the key in the ignition and switched on the lights.

The radio crackled immediately. “Toshiro?” Mick asked.

I picked up the radio. “It’s me, Summer.”

“Summer! What are ya doing?”

“I’m going to drive the combine. I know how.” Sort of. I sort of knew how.

There was a long pause, so long that I almost asked him if he was still there. Then he said, “Are ya sure, then?”

“Yes, I’ve done it before. It was a breeze.”

“There’s no such thing as a breeze in life,” he replied, but he didn’t say more.

I put the combine into second gear and released the parking brake, then eased the machine toward the wheat beyond. The radio came on again.

“Why don’t ya take the north and I’ll take the south?”

“Okay,” I said smoothly. But my brain was saying, North? Which way is north? But then I remembered where the sun had set. So that was west.

I drove at two miles per hour to the edge of the uncut wheat. I engaged the separator by pushing the button down and up. Then I engaged the header button, which was located right beside the main drive—both yellow buttons that you pushed down and forward. I wasn’t even sure what all these buttons were for. I just did what my dad had taught me.

Once everything was engaged and running, the combine vibrated, and I knew something big was happening. I then lowered the header with the right-hand control. Next I pushed the hydro handle, and a hydraulic propulsion motor moved the machine forward. It made it very easy to slowly push the lever to the right just a tad and then forward. I could have pushed farther forward for a faster speed, but I was too scared.

I kept my left hand on the steering wheel and my right hand on the headers’ height-control button. Like I said earlier, the field was terraced. I had to be very sensitive to the ground. It was kind of like when you’re walking and you automatically adjust your feet with each step. My queasiness was gone, and I felt more alert than I’d ever felt. It was like all my senses were amped. I could even smell better, my nostrils filling with the scent of wheat. I pushed the lever up to four miles per hour.

“Don’t go too fast,” Mick’s voice boomed over the radio.

I was feeling annoyed with Mick and didn’t answer him. He was just a negative person. But I did feel a little out of control, so I slowed back down to two miles per hour. Even safe in the cab and slathered with DEET, I worried about mosquitoes. They had an amazing sense of smell. But then I thought how they could fly only one or one and a half miles an hour. So if they were chasing me, they couldn’t catch me in the combine. That was probably pretty illogical, but it made me feel better. It wasn’t a fair fight because they could use senses scientists didn’t even understand. They could see a hot body, smell my sweat, and smell my exhaled breath from a hundred feet away, all of which got them really excited. And take it from me, you don’t want to get a mosquito excited.

Now I felt a strange pressure all over my body. And the pressure on my insides seemed so intense that my chest hurt. Something started squeezing my heart and lungs. Who ever heard of a twelve-year-old girl having a heart attack? I knew I wasn’t having one, but my chest did hurt, and I thought for a moment that maybe it was a rare young-girl heart attack. I remembered Obaachan saying pressure was the most powerful force in the world. I had a lot of pressure on me and in me.

After driving for five minutes, I idled the combine to calm down. The control panel said the bin was at 40 percent capacity, just a little more than what Jiichan had filled the bin with. If I went two miles an hour and cut 7.5 acres an hour, then ... Argh! I couldn’t figure it out just now. Anyway, who cared? Just drive.

I began driving again. I could feel my insides warm up, like I had just drunk hot apple cider. It was only me. Driving a combine on my own! And it was working. Dust filled the air, and I turned on the windshield wipers. I put my whole attention—everything I had—on what I was doing. The only other time I had ever focused this much was when I was holding Jaz still during one of his outbursts.

I was doing good. I knew it. I couldn’t see Mick because of the dust, but then he suddenly appeared out of nowhere, and we passed each other going in opposite directions. The controls said the combine was filling. When I reached 50 percent, it kind of seemed like a miracle. I happily watched the header turn around and around as it cut.

Time seemed to be moving so slowly. I could walk faster than two miles per hour. It was taking forever for the combine to fill. But the readout said it was getting fuller. Then, finally, unbelievably, it was full. I raised the header. The combine could turn on a dime. I made a U-turn and headed for the big rig.