Normally breakfast was served at eight in the morning.

Mob was four, now, and she could tell time. Not with the hands and the numbers on the round clock but she could read the numbers on mom's phone. Right now the numbers on mom's phone said that it was six fifteen. That was six fifteen at night, Mob could tell, because it was dark out. Six fifteen in the morning was also dark out but a different kind of dark. That was the dark with the pinks and yellows and also birds singing. This was dark with a lot of dark purples and no birds outside. They were asleep now, mom said so, and she knew a lot about animals. Mom knew a lot about a lot of things, like how the sun was visiting America now but they got to visit his daughter, the moon. Mom knew because she read it in their 'Goodbye Sun, Hello Moon' book.

Well it was mostly Sho's book.

He drew his name on it. He could draw his name, now, and so could Mob. Well she could draw the characters for Mob and Shigeko, but she was called Mob. That was what her friends at school said. Even though mom and dad said that her name was not Mob and that she shouldn't answer to it but Mob didn't mind. The character was much easier to remember and also her friends at school gave her that nickname and that meant that they liked her…right?

Right?

Mom and dad said that it was mean that other people were calling her that. Mom said to tell her teacher. Mob didn't because she didn't mind. She had been called so many mean things before like 'Bowl-Cut' or 'Weirdo' or other comments like that. Mob was a nice nickname, and it made sense, too, because she knew that she was boring and plain looking. Mom braided her hair every day and cut her bangs and got her lots of pretty dresses, mostly pink because mom said that she looked nice in pink, and her socks had pretty lace and her shoes were super expensive, mom said, and mom also said that all of that made her look pretty but Mob knew that she didn't look pretty, she looked like Mob.

Also the character was much easier to write.

Dad didn't care that the character was much easier to write or that people had called her meaner things. Dad said that because she could do the same things that he could, move things without touching them and see certain people's colors, that she shouldn't have taken that from the other kids. Dad said that she was better than the other kids, and he called them 'insects' which meant bugs, which was a mean thing to call someone. People were people and bugs were bugs. Mob didn't see what being able to move things without touching them and seeing a few more colors than most people had to do with other people being bugs.

Besides, that would have meant that Sho was a bug.

He could sort of see the colors. He knew that dad's colors were red with a little yellow and her colors were pink and blue. Fukuda, he made sure that they were healthy and fixed the owies that mom couldn't fix with kisses, had only green as his color. There were some other people too, people from dad's work, and they all had their own colors. Sho could see the colors if he tried really hard. Mom couldn't see them at all.

Mom and Sho were not bugs.

They were people, her family, and family was important. They were the people who would always be there for you. It said so in their book, What is a Family? Mom knew all the best books. A family had grownups and kids and they all loved one another. A family could have a mom and dad, or one mom or one dad, or two moms and two dads, or it could have aunts or uncles or grandparents or foster parents. There could be lots of kids, too, or just two like in her family. Her family was a mom and a dad and a sister and a brother. She wanted another sister. She didn't care if it came from mom's tummy like she and Sho did or if it came from an orphanage like the book said that some kids did.

Kids that came from an orphanage were the same as kids who grew in the mom's tummy, Mom had said so.

People were all the same. Well the same level of being important, mom had said. She also said that dad was just being grumpy when he called the other kids bugs. Dad could be very grumpy sometimes….but at least he hadn't been when Mob told him what mom said.

"Your mother is entitled to her own opinions." Dad had said. That was the same as telling someone 'you can think whatever you want, I don't care' when they disagreed with you a lot. Like how Sho always wanted the stuff in their bath that turned the water green even though Mob thought that it was like taking a bath in a gross swamp or something. Sho said that it made the boring bath fun, much more fun than it was just bubbles, and that was the wrong thing to think.

But Mob hated fighting with Sho.

He was her little brother and she loved him. She was a big sister and a good big sister was nice to her little brother. So she told him that he could think whatever he wanted and she didn't care. That was before dad said that mom was entitled to her own opinion. That was a much more grown up way of saying that. It was still kind of mean, though, even if it was grown up. Dad shouldn't have been mean to mom, in Mob's opinion, but she couldn't tell dad what to do. That wasn't how it worked. Dad told her what to do because he was her dad and that was what dads did. The only trouble was that she didn't want to listen to dad and be mean to the other kids, especially since they really weren't being that mean to her.

"An ant has no quarrel with a boot." Was what she had said. Dad said that a lot. When he said that he was calling people bugs, which was not nice, but he was saying that her powers were like a big shoe and she could squish people with them. That was mean. She didn't like squishing bugs, neither did Sho even though he was a boy, so she did not want to be a great big shoe. Great big shoes didn't make friends, people made friends, even Mobs.

Background characters.

Better a background character than a big shoes. Dad must have agreed because he patted her on the head and then gave her a present from his trip. He took a lot of trips, she and Sho figured that was his job, professional trip taker. He went all over the world in big airplanes and brought them back toys and candy and clothes and whatever they asked for. Mom said that dad spoiled them but that didn't make any sense, spoiling was for things like milk, not people. Besides that was what parents did, they made money and stuff and they used the money to get the kids whatever they wanted. A family worked to make all of it's members happy, the book had said that, and mom had read the book so it must have been a true story. Mom was not a liar. Moms were good people and good people did not tell lies.

Like now.

Mob believed mom when she said that dad's plane had touched down safely and he was only his way. She had a thing on her phone that told her when the planes came and went. There were lots of planes coming and going from Japan, that was where they lived, so if dad missed one plane he would just be able to take another. Like when mom took her and Sho to the big park downtown or the museum or the candy store and she didn't want to drive so they took a bus. If one bus missed them then they could always just take another.

Dad wasn't taking the bus, though.

His driver took him home from the airport. That was good, then dad would be less likely to be grumpy, which was good because he could be very mean when he got grumpy. He punished them a lot when he was grumpy, mostly Sho, but sometimes Mob. He punished Sho more because Sho was a boy and also he couldn't put a bubble around himself to keep from getting hurt. He would though, when he got bigger, because they were brother and sister and that meant that anything that she could do he could do.

Except pee standing up, but that was because he was a boy. Not that Mob was jealous or anything. She could grow a baby in tummy when she grew up so there! That made them even!

She knew that he would be able to do all the other things that she could do, though, when he got to be her age. Move things without touching them. Put a bubble around himself. See all the colors. Make things float and even break when he got upset. Anything that she could do, most anything, he could do too. They were brother and sister. They came from mom and dad. It all made perfect sense.

"Where's dad? I want dad!" shouted Sho from his spot at the table. He kicked the underside of the table and his animals went flying. Mob caught them without touching them and put them back. Dad always got very grumpy when there was a mess. They were supposed to be better than other children, dad was always saying, and that was why they had to be neat and tidy and not like little pigs. Even though that made no sense. Pigs lived on farms, not in cities, and they lived in sties, not castles.

Their house was a castle.

"Sho, honey, shush. Your daddy's on his way home right now. See? The Google says that it's smooth traffic so he should be here very soon. Ok? Now remember, we have to be good when daddy comes home. You both know how grumpy he can be after one of his trips. Travel really take it out of him." said Mom as she checked her phone. She tucked some of her hair behind her ear and then put her eyebrows together really close. That meant that she was thinking very hard about something. Mob could tell.

"I want to travel too!" said Sho. He was still at the table but he wasn't kicking it. That was the breakfast table where they had breakfast. That part of the kitchen was called the 'breakfast nook'. They also had a dining room but that was for dining. Mob didn't much understand why they needed two separate places to eat, all of her friends said that it was weird, but mom said that this was what she and dad were used to. Mob didn't know why they couldn't do something different, well something more like what other people did, but mom was the mom and dad was the dad and they decided how the household was run. It didn't matter what she and Sho wanted. They were the kids.

Dad said that hierarchies were very important.

And he hated it when she and Sho whined about what they wanted. They were only allowed to ask once, and nicely, and then never again. If he answer was yes then she and Sho would get whatever it was that they wanted and if the answer was no then what they wanted would never happen. It was hard to tell when something was a yes and when something was a no. Sometimes it could take days or even weeks for an answer.

Patience was a virtue, dad had said.

Virtues were good things, good traits, that people had. Mom said that. So she and Sho had to be patient about what they wanted. She wanted a lot of things, like the doll with the hair that really grew or the robot cat that could learn tricks, but she also wanted more than toys. She wanted dad to be less grumpy. She wanted Sho to be able to do the things that she could do. She wanted mom to have a little sister for her growing in her tummy. She wanted the other kids to be able to come over and play, and she wanted to be able to go to their houses. Even though that had everything that they needed in the house. Their house was their castle and they had no need to leave it.

Dad had said.

"Can we, mom?" Mob asked. She loved the house, the castle, because it had her family in it. It also had all of her and Sho's toys in their playroom and their TV in the TV room and their swing set in the backyard and also the tall tree that sometimes had the neighbor's cat in it. She didn't want to leave the castle and mom and Sho but she also wanted to see the places that dad went to. See all the different countries, like Australia where people rode around in kangaroo's pouches or England where they talked funny and drank weird tea or even the other side of the world where people walked upside down! She could have, with dad, gotten on a plane whenever the sun tried to say goodbye to Japan and follow it to America and Europe and Australia but also the North Pole where Santa lived or the South Pole where penguins lived, according to a book Sho picked out at the library, or China where they had pretty things they wore in their hair or anywhere, really.

Any of the places dad had been to.

The places that he brought back pieces of for them.

"Can you two help me set the table? Why yes, you most certainly can Shigeko." Said Mom as she took some plates, the breakfast ones, and put them on the table. Sho crossed his arms and shook his head. Mob shook her head right back at him. They got into a brief head shaking match before he swept his animals off the table with his arms and into his lap. He used his shirt as a basked and carried his toys back to the playroom. Little brothers could be so weird sometimes. Sho knew that if he left his toys out dad would just get mad and break them but he had been about to anyway.

"I'll help, mom, but that's not what I wanted to ask about." Said Mob. She didn't move at all from her spot in the middle of the kitchen, or 'under foot' as mom called it sometimes. Mainly because she sometimes stepped on Mob as she went about her work in the kitchen or the garden or the house or wherever else she was trying to do things. That was because she had to move things by touching them, sometimes Mob helped her, but she couldn't do the things that Mob and dad did.

Mob had no idea why mom and Sho were so different.

"You're taking a bath tonight and that's final. Shigeko, you know that if you go for too long without washing your hair it gets knots in it. Now which would you rather have? Hair with knots or hair without knots?" asked Mom

"Without, but I wasn't going to ask about that, either? But tonight can we not turn the bathwater colors? I just want bubbles." Said Mob

"Now you know that it's Sho's turn to pick what goes in the bathwater, Shigeko. When you get big enough to take your own baths then you can decide what goes in the water. When you share with someone you have to make compromises, that's just how it goes." Said Mom

"But I hate it when the water turns colors. It's all…gross." Said Mob

"Shigeko-" said mom

"Mob. How come you never call me Mob? I want to be called Mob and it's my name so why can't I be called what I want to be called?" asked Mob. The stack of plates beside her began to shake. She didn't know why. She wasn't upset, when she got upset the whole room shook, but she knew that she should not have been making anything shake at all. Dad said that power was nothing without control.

"Because that's not your name, Shigeko. I know that you…you like that nickname but I'm going to call you by your actual name, alright? And I don't want either of us to get upset over this. Now, what is it you wanted to ask me and why is it getting in the way of you helping set the table? Come on, Shigeko, do your part too. Sho's off putting his toys away so you can arrange the plates. Come on, you're four years old, you can do this." said Mom. Mob did as she was told. She put the plates, all four of them, down where they belonged. She got the silverware from the drawer, too, without being asked. That was very important, doing things without needing to be asked. That was a good thing, doing nice things for people without needing to be asked. It was the kind of thing that made mom happy.

She did the eyebrow thing, the thing that she did whenever Mob used her powers. Mob wasn't super sure what the eyebrow thing meant, exactly. Faces were kind of hard for her sometimes. That was ok, though, because mom had gotten her a book at the library with different pictures of faces and what they meant.

"Mom, I want to go with dad next time." Said Mob as she got the drinking glasses from the cabinet and put them on the table. Mom's drinking glass was clear with cats on in, Sho's was shaped like a cat but blue, hers was shaped like a cat but pink. Dad's was clear and plain. He didn't like animals much, Mob didn't know why. It wasn't just cats, which already would have made no sense, but also all animals. He said that there was no point in taking care of them unless you were going to eat them, which was what farm people did, only not for cats and dogs and hamsters and gerbils and guinea pigs and rabbits. Those were the kinds of animals that mom had at her job. Sometimes she took Mob and Sho with her to work but that wouldn't be happening anytime soon because dad was coming back. Mob didn't know how long he would be back for but when he was back they mostly just did things that he wanted to do.

"Shigeko, you know that daddy needs to travel for his work. Daddy's work isn't like my work, there are no kids allowed. Ok? Besides, don't you have fun here with me and your little brother?" said mom. She was cooking and talking, now, which was dangerous. One time mom did that and she burnt herself so bad that dad had to call Fukuda. Mom didn't deserve that, she was so nice all the time. She never got grumpy, not like that, not that Mob didn't love dad! She did, she really did…she just didn't like it when he came home all grumpy. Even though he was mostly mad at Sho because Sho was the worst listener in the house…not that Mob would ever tell him that to his face. She did wish, a lot of the time, that he would have been a better listener so that dad wouldn't have to punish him so often. Even now Sho was walking much too loudly, dad didn't like it at all when they were loud, and if dad had been there then he could have yelled at Sho or even given him a punishment.

She shushed him as he walked really heavy through the castle and into the kitchen. He even opened the door much too hard. It hit the wall and make the cat cake pans hanging on the walls rattle. She hoped that nothing broke. Dad hated it when things broke.

"I want to go with dad too….I don't want dad to go again!" said Sho. He stomped his feet when he said that. Mob shook her head and put her foot down, under his, when he went to stomp again. She could see, off in the distance, dad's colors. He was getting closer. Mob wanted to stomp her feet, too, and yell and shout like Sho did but she couldn't. When she did those things the whole castle shook. The castle shook like there was a dragon outside trying to get the family living inside…but it wasn't a dragon at all but Mob herself….and that was not good. Dad always said that power was nothing without control so Mob needed better control.

But it was hard.

But she just had to work harder.

"Can't we all go with him just once? I want to see the places he goes to and…and I want to be with him too. Whenever he comes back he's all grumpy and sometimes he doesn't get better until it's almost time for him to go again. Why does he have to go all the time? Why can't he get a different job where he stays here?" asked Mob. Mom was quiet, then, before she turned off the fire and put the pan on the other burner.

"Shigeko, Sho, I need you both to listen-" said mom. She got down on her knees so she wasn't so much taller. Mob knew that a serious talk was coming. Mom always got down really low to their height when a serious talk was coming. The last one had been her explaining to Sho that animals had to live outside where their homes and families were and that if he brought them inside it would be like someone taking him away from his home and his family forever.

"But I want-" said Sho. He didn't get it yet, maybe because he was so little or maybe because he was a boy, but he just didn't get it. They couldn't get upset. It might have even been because he didn't have powers, he couldn't do what Mob and dad could, so he didn't have that kind of control. They had just had his birthday, he hadn't been three for very long at all.

"Dad's coming, Sho, you should be good." Said Mob. Mom let out a shaky breath and put her one of her hands on each of their shoulders. She did the shaky breathing thing again. Mob didn't know what it meant but she knew that it wasn't good. People said all kinds of things without words. She didn't know why people were always saying things without words, it made things harder than they had to be, but they did. That was just the way things had to be.

"Yes…daddy's coming home. He's coming home and we're going to be good, ok? He's had a long flight and he just wants to relax. That's why we're having breakfast for dinner, you know, because daddy loves breakfast food. Ok? Let's not make it any harder for daddy than it has to be. Ok? That means no getting upset, no shouting, no making a mess, and no asking daddy if you can go with him. Alright? Can we just be good?" asked Mom. Mob nodded. Sho didn't nod under she nudged him with her powers.

"Ok. I'll be good….so dad likes me." Said Sho. Mom had that look on her face and she did that weir breathing thing again. Maybe it was because Sho was wrong. Dad liked them all the time, even when he didn't show it like other dads did. Sometimes he did, of course. Sometimes he gave them outer space rides, that was when he picked them up without touching them and flew them around the house, sometimes he went with mom with them to the park and pushed them super high on the swings, and sometimes he told them bedtime stories about the things he could do if he were the king of the world and they were his royal family.

Then the whole world would have been their castle.

But that was just a story. The castle was castle enough for them.

"Sho, dad likes us all the time. He's our dad, it's what they do. Remember the book? Families come in all different shapes and sizes, some big and some small, but love is something had by all." Said Mob. Mom kissed the tops of their heads.

"You're such a sweet girl, Shigeko…my sweet little girl…" said Mom as she got up from the ground. Sho tugged on her dress as she tried to get up.

"What about me? What about me? What about me, mom?" asked Sho

"You're not a girl." Said Mob. Even though she kind of wished that he was. Boys were loud and they ran around a lot and jumped and climbed and stuff like that, stuff that mom and dad said that girls weren't supposed to do. If she had a sister then she'd have someone who she had more in common with. Someone who didn't make her dolls look for worms in the dirt or toss them down the stairs so they could fly or jump on her bed to get her to wake up in the morning. Those were good reasons to want a sister.

She also had another reason to want a sister, though it was not a good one. At least she thought that it was not a good one. She didn't really know what it was. She just felt…sad…when she thought about Sho. About her little brother. She remembered….at least she thought that it was a memory. It felt far away, like a memory from a dream, but…not.

She remembered being very sad. It had something to do with…with a boy who was not Sho…but that didn't make sense. She only had the one brother and he was Sho. So why did she feel like someone was…missing…sometimes when she looked at him. Why did she sometimes expect someone else to be there?

"You, Sho, are my gentle little boy. My sweet little girl and my gentle little boy…what more could I ever have asked for." Said mom. She kissed them both on the head again. Mob fixed her bangs after mom messed them up. She didn't like people being able to see her forehead, she didn't know why. It felt kind of like she could hide behind her hair, sometimes, even though she knew that she had no reason to hide at all. '

"What's dad?" asked Mob as she saw dad's colors getting closer. She saw his colors getting closer and she could feel them, too. She pushed her colors against his. He pushed back but not meanly. She could sort of tell, from colors, because those were better than faces for that, how people felt.

And dad did not feel terribly grumpy.

"Your father…..dad….daddy is a good man. Your daddy is a good man and he works very hard to make a better world for the two of you so…so the least we can do is make him his favorite dinner." Said mom. She fixed her dress and went back to the stove. Mob and Sho looked at each other for a moment. Sho would tell her if mom was upset or not. She could read colors but he could read faces.

He ran to the door when the lock turned.

So mom must have been ok, then, even if Mob got the feeling that she wasn't. Why wouldn't she have been? Dad was home and they were having breakfast for dinner and dad had probably come back with presents, too! Now the whole family would be together and be happy.

They way that they were supposed to be.