They’re chirping, “Are we there yet?”

They’re twittering, “How much longer?”

They squawk, “It’s so hot. It’s so hot. It’s so hot.”

I say, “Don’t be such babies.” The sweat streams down my chest. I pull out my collar and blow down. Frank stops to watch.

He says, “Look, what a perv, she’s trying to check herself out.” The little kids laugh because they don’t know any better. Dean and Marcel are old enough to blush and turn away.

On Quintara Ave., there’s an old white man watering his plants. He’s wearing plaid shorts and a blue fishing hat and he’s the only person we’ve seen outside all day. Frank says, “Check out Humpty-Dumpty,” because the man is round as a ball. When we get closer, we see that his plants and bushes are shaped like animals. We gasp because it’s as if we’ve walked into a zoo. “How cool,” I say because it’s beautiful. The boys say, “That’s bad, blood,” because they want to sound tough.

At the man’s knees, the bush is in the shape of a big turtle. It has a leafless twig for a tail. The green hose sprays water on the turtle’s shell. There is also a bear, a dog, and a bunny! Little Sophia reaches for the pointy ears. It’s dotted with pretty purple flowers. I say, “Don’t even try.”

I don’t think he wants us kids to bother him until he turns, raises the sprayer to the sky, and showers us. We giggle beneath the umbrella of sprinkles. Above us, a rainbow stretches across the curtain of mist. We stand still, side by side, single file like we’ve been taught at school. “More, me more,” each one says because nobody wants to get passed up. He directs the water from left to right, back and forth. It rains down on us in big refreshing drops, splattering our faces. I open my mouth and soon the younger ones do the same. We chirp with our begging beaks lifted to the skies. And while we laugh with our throats bared and our eyes squinting against the sun, he lowers the nozzle and aims directly at our bodies. He presses the handle all the way. The water sprays an angry blast.

“Stop it,” I say, “it hurts.” After this, he aims only at me. The blast stings like being slapped again and again. The water pushes me off the curb.

“Sneaky rats, my brother marched at Bataan,” he says. I drink water and choke for air. My hair gags me. “C’mon ya dirty Japs, I’m goin’ wash you up.” The man is cursing so hard he’s spitting.

I turn my back and curl into a snail with my knees on the ground. The blast pounds my spine. It unravels the ribbon of my shirt. I wrap my arms around my chest to cover up. My cousins stand frozen until I yell, “Help!”

Frank grabs a chalk rock from the man’s rock garden and pegs him in the stomach. The man folds over and we all run. I am running and my shirt has fallen but I don’t care. From half a block away I throw a rock aiming at his head. It grazes his blue fishing hat and clangs off his garage door. He’s tugging the eagle wings of his belt buckle. It’s cinched so high, the eagle soars toward his chest. His other hand is waving above his head, beckoning, daring us to return.