Coffee. Sweet, sweet, coffee. Floating in a sea of wonderful, delicious coffee. Coff...

I sat up suddenly and noticed two things immediately. There really was a most enticing aroma of coffee floating through my room, and it was 19 minutes after seven. I'd overslept by almost an hour. But then, given yesterday, I had deserved to sleep in.

I stretched and was bumped by something wiggling under the covers. It looked like one of the cats had decided to keep me company sometime during the night. I pulled the covers back and saw a small person next to me. My mind went blank for a few seconds, then I remembered. KIMIKO!

She was lying on her side, facing away from me and there were two of the cats curled up against her chest and thighs.

I stroked her cheek and then each of the cats. (Cats get pretty jealous if the affection isn't divided evenly -- fair warning.)

Two sets of eye appeared briefly and appeared to be contemplating me, then they disappeared, and all I could see was two piles of fur. They looked like nothing so much as hairy dust rags.

With that cheery thought I leapt out of bed. (All right, all right, I carefully extracted myself. If I'd leapt I'd have landed on my face.)

<>

I wrapped a robe around myself and, carefully, walked down the hall. I could hear the television. It sounded like the news was on.

Jane waved a hand full of toast at me and said, "Hi Mama. It's going crazy out there."

"How so sweetie?" Grabbed a mug of coffee, snagged a piece of toast for myself, and turned to look at the TV.

There wasn't much to see, unless you count multiple, sequential images of gigantic crowds, apparently from all over the world since in each scene the clothing and skin color tended to vary.

Jane put on her professorial face and started ticking things off on her fingers.

"1) The Muslim radicals are claiming that the events yesterday prove that the Americans are godless infidels.

"2) The Muslim moderates are claiming that the radicals are idiots who couldn't see the obvious working of the hand of God unless HE smacked them with it. They also said that, the way the radicals treat their women, they should be looking over their own shoulders instead of pointing fingers.

"3) The Pope has asked for a day of fasting and prayer in support of all the helpless victims of the world.

"4) Police all over the world are reporting that known criminals as well as people they had no prior knowledge of have been turning in guns, knives, and drugs and are on their knees crying for forgiveness. There are nowhere near enough cells left to put them in, so the police are telling them to take themselves off to the local church/temple/mosque and make their repentance to the clergy. They ARE encouraging them to leave the weapons and drugs at the police stations though."

She bent down her last finger as she ticked off number 5.

"Incidents of pickpocketing and bank robbery have gone through the roof all over the world."

I laughed, and not with amusement. "I recall that in the old days in England pickpockets came out in force when crowds gathered to see other thieves executed." I shook my head and sat down to have my breakfast.

I'd barely had my second gulp of coffee when my head nearly exploded again.

"Mama, mama, MAMA!! Where ARE you? Don't leave me alone again!!!"

I tore down the hall like a rocket, skidded around the corner, and ran into my bedroom. (Rather surprisingly I didn't trip even once. I need to think about that, later.)

I was hit by a living projectile that launched itself off the bed and then proceeded to wrap all 12 arms and legs around me.

I 'whoofed' and barely managed not to be knocked over. Primarily because I fell back into a wall.

"Mama, I thought ya'd gone away. Don't ever do that to me again, do ya HEAR me?!"

Dang but she could be imperious.

"And what the heck are those things on the bed?"

She pointed and I looked. Then I laughed.

"Those are cats honey. Haven't you ever see a cat before?"

"Of course I have, but everyone knows that cats have 4 legs, heads, eyes, things like that. Those are just round balls of, something or other."

She gasped and gave me a look of wonder. "Are they tribbles?!"

Have you ever tried to laugh while a child was wrapped around you and strangling you? It's an interesting experience but one that I don't recommend that you try at home.

"Is it OK if I put you down now?"

She nodded, so I did, then I walked over to the bed and sat down. I started petting Mrrrrr and a head popped up. She stood up and stretched in that lovely way that I wish I could do, and then she moved closer to me and butted me with her head so I'd keep petting.

Kimi huffed at me, "Well, ya could have warned me ya know."

Stolen story; please report.

Then, very sweetly, she whispered, "Do ya think it will let me pet it?"

I nodded and she came over and sat down beside me, carefully. Then she gingerly began to pet Mrrrrr. (Yes, 5 r's. It's as close as we could get to the sound she makes when she "talks" to us.)

That was when Tigger woke up and came over to demand some attention of his own. Kimiko obliged both of them.

My but she had a sweet smile. And what a complicated child she was. Hard as nails at times (and with quite a mouth on her), then in a flash she'd change into a little girl again.

When it became apparent that she'd be quite happy to sit there all day petting the cats, I took her hand and led her across the hall to her bedroom to get a robe. Then we went back to have our interrupted breakfast. That was when I realized that when Kimiko had screamed, I'd just dropped what I was doing and took off.

What I'd dropped was my toast and coffee. Then I realized that I hadn't heard the mug hit the floor. Oh, right. Jane must have caught it. Jane had caught it? She's been on the other side of the counter from where I was. How did she....?

What happened when we we got back to the kitchen was that Jane smiled at us.

Naturally we smiled back. Everyone smiles back at Jane. She asked Kimiko, "Would you like toast and orange juice? We have strawberry jam for the toast -- it's homemade."

"Yes please. But what is 'strawberry jam'?"

Jane looked a bit puzzled but she held up the jar to show Kimi.

Kimiko clapped her hands together and started jumping up and down.

"Oh!! Ichigo jamu. Daisuki desu. Sugoi, sugoi!"

Jane got a bigger smile and said, "Sou desuka. Ureshii."

Kimiko started bouncing high enough that I wondered if she had pogo sticks built into her legs.

"Nihongo! Subarashii!!!"

Time for me to butt in. "Kimiko honey. Just how much English do you know? You mentioned that your adoptive mother was teaching you to read. How far did you get? You obviously know a fair amount about plants and their English names."

"My adoptive parents were, probably, a bit...odd. We lived in the countryside in northern Idaho near the Washington border. My mother was a more than fanatic (fanatic? Is that the right word? Yes, fanatic.) gardener. She was, however, a not very good teacher. She spent most of her time outdoors, so I followed her around. She pointed out all the plants, told me their names, and how ta grow them.

"There aren't many open areas with plants in Asakusa. That's where the orphanage I was in is. Asakusa's a huge tourist trap, what with that gigantic temple ta Kanon there, and the residential areas around it are pretty cramped.

"My adoptive mother's garden was like being in heaven, so I didn't mind so much that she wasn't very good when it came ta teaching me formally."

Kimiko took a deep breath and sighed. "I really loved her garden."

"My new father was mostly a fan of the game you call here 'football'. When he wasn't working at his computer, or yelling at people on the phone, he was watching sports on TV.

"I learned just enough from my new mother ta be able ta start reading the children's books she had bought for me. So when I wasn't outside with her in the garden I'd work at reading English. I'm probably only reading at about a 7th grade level though. At least that's what it said on the books. I'm so sorry that I didn't do better."

Amidst being astonished, I managed to pick her up and swing her around in circles. "That's fantastic honey! You're four years ahead of most children your age."

"I am? I don't understand. The books she had for me were labeled as for up to grade 12. They had hundreds of other books, all over the walls of almost every room. I thought that you had ta get to a grade 12 level before ya could start ta read real books."

I was at a loss as to how to explain things but, fortunately, Jane knew what to do and she stepped in.

She knelt down and put her hands on Kimiko's shoulders. "Sweetheart, 7th grade here is the same as chuugaku ichinensei."

Kimiko's hands went to her cheeks and her mouth made a big "O".

"Ah, well, I see. I guess, maybe, I must be pretty smart then?"

We both put our arms around her, and we had a group hug. Then I took her shoulders and shook her a little. "Yes Kimiko. You're pretty smart."

"Oh, well, of course I am!" she declared arrogantly. She backed up and looked at us to see how we'd respond. Then she dropped her chin and stared at the floor. "It's just that after being called a 'retard' my whole life, and even being treated like one by my adoptive parents, I really wasn't completely sure."

I reached for the closest kleenex box and we all had a brief cry.

Jane surfaced first, and asked what Kimiko might have considered a totally irrelevant question. "Uh, Kimiko, do you know how to type?"

"Not really well. I was just starting ta learn when....when....you know."

I was startled by the gleeful look that suddenly appeared on Jane's face.

"We need to get that fixed, immediately. As soon as we finish breakfast, we'll go down to your room and get you set up with a good touch typing program. I'll make sure that it's one that's a game so you can have fun while you're doing it.

"Let me see. We're going to have to get you a good tablet as well, one with a long battery life and bright display, probably one of the Acer Iconias, so you can type what you need to say at school and not have to recharge the batteries during the day.

"The teachers won't like it if it makes the usual click when you hit each letter, so I'll have to turn that off. Then..."

By now Jane was staring unseeingly at the ceiling.

"Whatever is wrong with her? Is she always like this?"

"You can't even imagine." This time I got to roll my eyes for a change.

Kimiko huffed. Then she looked at me with astonishment on her face.

"Wait a minute! She said 'school'. Someone like me can go ta school here?"

"Of course you can sweetheart. In fact, you have to. It's the law here."

"But how? I mean I can't talk ta the teacher or the other kids. I was barely learning cursive writing. My handwriting is still awful!"

I laughed again. "Sweetling, they hardly teach cursive anymore, unless someone is interested in calligraphy. You just learn to print neatly, and then everyone types everything else. That's why Jane wants you to have a tablet computer. You can type what you want to say to the other kids, or even send emails to their phones."

Kimiko suddenly looked gleeful. Oh, of course, she'd probably seen every kid she knew back in Japan texting all the time. I expect that I should have known. If anyone in the entire world lived by the smartphone it was the Japanese. Most don't have computers, they just use their phones.

" But you're not supposed to do that during class. Do you hear me?"

"Yes Mama, I hear you."

She dropped her chin again and looked up at me and batted her eyelashes at me. She 'heard' me. She didn't say that she'd obey.

I don't know if I can survive raising another child like Jane.