What I Carry

The next morning, Francine asks Muiriel to attend the island’s traditional welcome-back picnic so that she can meet some of her classmates before school begins. Kira strikes up a conversation with her. Kira moved from Los Angeles a year ago and is in 12th grade like Muiriel and Tiana, the bully from the cafe. Although Muiriel usually tells people right away that she is in foster care, she surprises herself by saying that she is staying with her aunt. The cheerful Sean joins them and tells Muiriel how happy he is that she’s working at Salishwood with him. Tiana and a group of popular students pull Sean away, making Muiriel feel uncharacteristically self-conscious about her teeth and nondescript clothes. Kira explains that Sean is a sincerely kind person who is friends with virtually everyone on the island and that his father, who was a forest ranger, died when he was 10. Kira also explains that the annual welcome-back picnic started in 1945 after the end of the Japanese internment so that “the white students [could] get reacquainted with their Japanese pals who were back from prison” (62). Kira tells Muiriel that Sean likes her, asks if she can call her Muir, and agrees to walk to school with her.