The Blackberry Bush by David Housholder

the Pacific Rim—the Ring of Fire. Mini-quakes happen all the time. An understated, subtle, rolling aftershock waves past me as I sit back down at my drafting table.
    I’m drawing another stop sign with my T square. So simple. Just need 45-degree angles to make it perfect. How many of these have I drawn over the years? Dozens? Hundreds? And I don’t even know why.
    My left hand leads the sketching, and I ask myself a silly question. Are thumbs fingers? Of course not. We have eight fingers.
    Something is wrong this particular Monday evening, and I don’t know what. I’m unsettled somehow. Drawing always calms me down.
    It’s been a coolish, sunny day. On these hinges between the seasons, when the change comes, you know the old weather patterns of the past season are not going to reassert themselves. Change is going to stick. Autumn is on its way.
    You can do so many things with an octagon. Sevens and eights are really the same amount, in a way. Dad (and all the Germans) say there are eight days in a week, and they’re right because they count both of the bookends of the week—for instance, Monday and Monday—and all the days in between.
    My life is simple and balanced here in Zarzamora. But change is in the air. Dad keeps talking about going back home to Europe. A home that’s not home to me at all; it’s just where my mom’s mother, Oma Adri, lives.
    My chessboard, as I glance over to my left, has sixty-four squares—eight by eight. My grandmother, Oma Adri, sent it to me last year. It has marble chess pieces.
    The only great thing about going back to Europe would be Oma Adri. I always smile when I think about her. She’s so intense—more like a high-strung cat than a person—that she wears me out. She’s also really short. At twelve, I’m already a lot taller than she is.
    The marble chess pieces she gave me have Spaniards, portraying figures from around the year 1600, in Catholic white, and Dutch freedom fighters in Protestant black. The border of the board is in patriotic Dutch orange, and the whole chess set is a continuous reenactment of the Eighty-Years’ War, which gave birth to the Holland we all know.
    Dad loves to play chess with me, and he’s really competitive. We also have a drawer full of German games like Rummikub.
    Oma Adri tells me the most important thing in a game is not winning. It’s also not about having fun or making sure you are “doing your best.” It’s mooi spelen (playing beautifully).
    Dad believes and lives the opposite. For him, it’s all about calculation and winning—even if it’s winning ugly, with brute force. He yells when he coaches kids’ teams. That embarrasses me.
    Nothing against Dad’s winning focus, but my whole day, every day, is an attempt at mooi spelen . I practice smoothness every day. In every step. In every gesture.
    For instance, how you look on your skateboard is everything. It ruins the best trick if you feel awkward while doing it, even if you can land it. Here in Cali, we call it steezy . It’s a combo of stylin’ and easy.
    Even when I ride my bike, it’s not just about getting there fast. It’s about how it feels and looks when you ride. Oma Adri so “gets” me when I talk like this. I especially like throwing in carves, when you swoop left and right on your bike as if you’re making big bottom turns with your surfboard.
    It doesn’t matter if there is anyone around or not, I want every motion (and I love motion) to look and feel good. Steezy. Mooi.
    Life is like a dance…every single move.
    They want to get snowboard racing going up at Gold Mine. How dumb. Riding is so not about racing. Nothing is about racing.
    I hate it when they turn Olympic skating, one of the most graceful things humans can do, into a competition and nine-point-whatever. Mooi has nothing to do with judging; it is about doing .
    Maybe Dad didn’t make it in the NBA with his basketball because he never understood all this. I’ll try to walk down the hall to