Just as I expected, Bom asked me to the kids’ card up on the shelf with Top’s panda bears. However, she looked at each one first and smiled once or twice.

“Get Ready!” she read and held the drawing up for me to see.

“He mens, ‘Get Well,’” I told her.

“I don’t know,” Bom replied, resting her hand on her stomach. “Get ready might be the right wish for me.”

After dinner, when she was absorbed in a K-drama, I moved the bears down to a lower shelf and surrounded them by the cards, displaying them as decoratively as I could. I also picked out there books that she liked and slipped them between the magazines in the pile next to her bed.

In the morning I left her fixed up like a princess – breakfast on bedside table, a freezer chest packed with snacks and juice, books, and magazines and the TV remote, letter paper and colored pens, an Ipod, batteries, portable phone, and list of phone numbers – all within reach. Our neighbor, Hayi, was supposed to come over at eleven-thirty.

I was late for work on a day that we were going on a field trip. When I finally climbed onto the singing, vibrating bus, the kids gave me a big cheer.

“They really like you!” Minzy said. She was sitting in the front seat next to Jae.

I nodded and smiled a little.

“Hey, Dara,” Jae grinned at me. I guess he was as happy as the kids to see the girl who could make his dreams come true – with someone else.

“Hey, Jae.” I moved on to the back to sit with CL. Yoochun was going to follow the school bus in his own car, so he could give the counselors a ride back to campus when we sent the kids home at the end of the day.

A trip to the Museum of Art was Top’s idea. He thought that the schools would take our campers to places like National Aquarium and the zoo, where the exhibits would be fascinating and the kids naturally well-behaved. So we should date to offer some culture. Of course, Top was staying behind at YGU, collecting bedrolls being dropped off the scout troops for tomorrow’s sleep-over. It was the rest of us who had to inform museum guards of stopped-up toilets, apologize for alarms going off, and explain about art and polite behavior when the kids pointed and hooted at nudes.

But the day went better than expected. After a tour with the 2 museum guides who said they enjoyed a challenge, the campers played Treasure Hunt. Jae and CL had made up lists of people and objects to be found in the museum pictures, and the kids eagerly searched from room to room. Then we had lunch in the pretty park across from the main entrance. Afterward, we let the kids run and scream their lungs out for an hour. When they were calmer, we took them back into the museum, along with a supply of paper and pencils, to draw what inspired them.

When we finally got the campers back on the bus with our trustworthy driver, the five of us set off for YGU in Yoochun’s car. I rode up front and after one block could not keep my eyes open. My head bobbed and banged against the window. Must be catching, I thought. Sleeping Beauty disease. Minzy asked me something, and then I heard Jae say quietly, “Shhh. She’s asleep.”

But I woke up quickly a half hour later when we were back on campus and I saw the note left for me on the camp office door.

Dara,

Bommie called. Have gone to your house.

Don’t worry – I’ve called the doctor. I’ll stay with her until you get back.

Top

“I’ll drive you home,” Jae said, reading over my shoulder.

“Thanks, but I’ve got the car this week.”

“Even so, it might help to have someone with you.”

I glanced back at him.

“I mean, if you drive anything like the way you bike,” he added, trying to turn his offer into a joke.

“I can handle this.”

But maybe I couldn’t, I thought, when I got home and saw my sister asleep in her bed of pillows, looking pale and years younger than her age. Top was sprawled out on my bed, reading one of Bom’s books. He smiled at me, glanced over at her, and then walked me silently downstairs.

“The doctor said she’s all right and can be up in a couple of days, if she takes it easy,” he told me.

“Why’d she call you? Where was the Hayi?” I asked.

“No one else was here when I arrived,” Top said, sitting me down on the sofa. “She called the office about twelve-thirty and she said she had fallen. She was scared.”

“How did she fall? Did she black out?”

“She said she slipped on a scatter rug.”

“A scatter rug?” I thought for a moment, and then leaped up from the sofa and hurried into the hall. “We have wall-to-wall upstairs,” I told Top, who had followed me. I pointed to the small rug on the bare wood floor. “She knew she was not supposed to do steps!” I said angrily. “She knew she was supposed to stay upstairs!”

“Why don’t I hang around for a while?” Top suggested. “I’m really enjoying this book.”

I leaned against the door frame. “Don’t worry. I’ll calm down before she wakes up. I just don’t know what to do with her, Top. I’m tired of acting like the older sister around here.”

“Maybe she’s tired of acting like the younger one,” he suggested, “but doesn’t know how to stop playing the role. Maybe that’s why she’s doing things her way, even if it’s not the smartest way.”

Maybe, but I was still feeling angry and worn out from worrying about her. Top stayed for another hour, and we talked about the kids at camp. I let him take home Bom’s book. Before he left, he gave me his phone number again.

When Bom woke up, I had dinner ready. She told me the same thing Top had, and then we ate together off bed trays, silently watching TV reruns.

I was being pretty cool. I knew I shouldn’t upset her. I kept reminding myself of the time I’d played a volleyball game on a hurting ankle without telling the coach I’d sat in the ER most of the night before and had been diagnosed with a hairline fracture. Stubbornness to the point of stupidity ran in our family.

Then the phone rang. It was Hayi, calling to thank Bom for letting her go to the mall today and wondering if we wanted her to come over tomorrow.

“I’ll call you back,” I said.

“Who was that?” Bom asked innocently.

“Hayi.”

“She said thanks for letting her off today. She was wondering if we’d like her to come over tomorrow.”

“Whatever you think is best,” Bom said mildly.

“Whatever I think is best?” I repeated. “I thought it was best for her to be here today. Obviously, you didn’t.”

“When she came, she said that her mother made her do it. I didn’t think that was fair,” Bom replied. “She was supposed to meet her friends at the mall.”

“I don’t care if she was supposed to meet the President of South Korea.”

“I don’t want people waiting on me, Dee,” Bom insisted. “The doctor said I was doing fine.” She fussed with the pillows behind her. “I don’t need help – I’ll be back to normal soon.”

“Back to normal? Back to normal?” I could hardly keep from shouting. “I don’t think you get it, Bommie. We’ll never be back to normal. This is a baby, this is corn-muncher, not one of those lost cats or dogs you brought home, not the bird with the broken wing.”

She bit her lip.

“It’s not as simple as feeding it and waiting for it to fly away.” I went on. “You’re going to need help. Big time. So get used to it.”

She pressed her lips together stubbornly. It was like looking into a mirror.

“I can’t imagine what was so incredibly important that you had to go downstairs,” I muttered.

“The photo album. I wanted to look through it. I…I was trying to imagine corn-muncher. I wanted to see pictures of us as babies.”

The albums were in the hall closet. The oldest one was high up on a stack of books.

“You mean,” I said slowly, “you were standing on a chair – that nice wobbly one – on that nice slippery rug?”

She didn’t reply.

“Bommie!” I exploded. “You’re going to make a terrible mother! You can’t take care of yourself. How are you going to take care of a kid?”

“What do you care, Dee?” she shot back. “You’ve never wanted my baby around. Admit it – you were horrified when I first told you about it. Corn-muncher’s messed up your plans. And you’re mad about it. Now leave us alone.”

I swallowed hard. Both of our eyes were burning red.

“I’m calling Mom.”

“No, Dee, wait. Don’t. Please don’t.” She tried to pull the paper with the phone numbers out of my hand. “It’s just a couple more days.”

But I started dialing, I was mixed up about a lot of things, but I knew for dead certain I was in over my head with Bommie.

**

My parents made reservations for an early morning flight and arrived home noontime Thursday. I was never so glad to see them. I threw my bedroll and backpack in the car and took off for YGU. The camp sleep-over could not have happened at a better time. I wished I could camp out somewhere all weekend – and cancel the “date” with Jae too.

When I arrived, Top reviewed the basic strategy of the day. The first-graders were leaving as usual at 3:15. After that, my job was to lead the second- and third-grade kids in games and activities that would thoroughly exhaust them.

I loved it. We ran every possible kind of race. We had jumping and hopping competitions. We chased soccer balls and softballs. After our evening cookout, we had simultaneous games going of Capture the Flag, Steal the Bacon, and Hoopla.

I was running from one game to the other when Jae caught me by the arm.

“The kids are supposed to conk out early, not you,” he said.

“Well, we’ll see which of us falls asleep first tonight,” I replied.

“Want to bet on it?” he asked.

I hesitated.

“Whoever dozes off first, buys dinner Saturday night.” He grinned, and then held up his pinky.

I know – it’s a silly little gesture, but linking fingers had the same effect on me as his turning my face toward him in the dark car. I felt as if somebody had cast a spell, as if time had stalled for a moment. I pulled away and raced off to my next game.

When the games were finally over, it was time for CL and Jae to work their magic. We sat in circle, close to the wooded area by the stream. We couldn’t have a campfire, but the night was alight with fireflies, and the mood came up almost round, a golden egg. To kids who had lived to the neon city all their lives, just being on a grassy field, near tall