Prairie Ostrich by Tamai Kobayashi Page A

nods.
    â€œShe’s going to be fine. She’s not going to die.”
    â€œEveryone dies, you know.” Egg tries to make this a matter of fact.
    Kathy tucks the blanket around her. “Do you remember when you were four years old, you started crying at the table, right out of nowhere, and when we asked you why, you said, ‘I’ll be lonely when everyone dies.’”
    â€œBut I am the youngest and I’m going to die last.”
    Kathy opens her mouth but can only puff out her cheeks. “Why do you think of such big questions?”
    â€œAll the small ones lead to big ones.”
    Kathy picks up Nekoneko who has fallen from the bed. “Do you want me to read a little bit of the book?” Kathy taps the paperback on the bedside table, a copy of Anne Frank: Diary of a Young Girl .
    Egg nods again.
    â€œThen scoot over.”
    Kathy crawls into the cramped space beside her sister. Egg nestles in, closing her eyes, her head on Kathy’s shoulder. “Now let’s see,” Kathy says as she flips through the pages. Egg can hear the words, feel them, a rumble through Kathy’s chest.
    Kathy begins:
    â€œDear Diary. It’s been a while since I’ve written but we’ve finally made the journey to America. So much has happened since our escape by train, since our long voyage across the ocean. Mother ate so much fish and cabbage on the ship that she threw up before we could dock. We’re settling in though. We’ve started school and Margot is surrounded by so many beaux. Peter is so behind in his studies and all he thinks about is the war but Father says there’s time enough for that. Father seems a little lost somehow, maybe because of all the changes. It is hard to be tossed from our cozy Secret Annex but what a relief it is to be out of that cage. Safe and without worry. I do wonder about the world though. What will happen? What will the future bring?”
    Kathy shifts. Egg wills her breathing into an even flow, pretending to sleep. Kathy slowly eases her way out of the bed and clicks off the bedside lamp. In the dark, Egg measures the day. She tries to think of Elvis, of motorcycles, and melty mints. She knows that Good Mama is gone in a whiskey swirl, lost in the shuffle.
    â€¦
    It is Sunday and from the pulpit Reverend Samuels crows about damnation and the everlasting love of the Prince of Peace. Egg perches on the edge of her seat and tries to make sense of it all. Jesus crucified on the hills of Calgary. But if God created the world in seven days, where did the Devil come from? She squirms on the hard wooden pew. Kathy, beside her, taps on the hymn book and hums “Born to be Wild.” Her mother nods and sways at every amen. The veins are popping out of Reverend Samuels’s forehead as he strains for the passion. He is going to pop a gasket.
    Those are her Papa’s words — pop a gasket. He says might as well pray to a tube of toothpaste: cavities are the real evil.
    It is like Papa has cut himself off from the world. If he doesn’t believe then he is going to Hell. And how can it be Heaven if all those you love aren’t there?
    But here, in the brightly lit nave of Bittercreek United Church, Egg is surrounded by Hosannas and Hallelujahs, the gasps and sighs of the faithful. It is hard to figure everything out. She looks around her, at the good citizens of her small town. What do they believe in? That Goodness is rewarded and Badness is punished? And can you be Good but do Bad? What does that make you? Reverend Samuels says the Wages of Sin is Death but doesn’t everybody die anyway? And Mama, what is she looking for in the vaulted ceiling and stained glass? What does she pray for?
    From her seat at the back, Egg can see a good chunk of Bittercreek, the thinning heads and comb-overs, home perms from Julie Duncan’s kitchen, the crewcuts from Nelson’s Barber Shop down on Maple. There are no long-haired hippies in