I ran as fast as I could. Faster than I was able to run. When I reached the Tokiwa Bridge, there were soldiers lying on the ground. Around Hiroshima Station, I saw more people lying dead. There were more on the morning of the seventh than on the sixth. When I reached the riverbank, I couldn't tell who was who. I kept looking for Masako. I heard someone crying, "Mother!" I recognized her voice. I found her in horrible condition. And she still appears in my dreams that way. She said, "It took you so long."

I apologized to her. I told her, "I came as fast as I could."

It was just the two of us. I didn't know what to do. I was not a nurse. There were maggots in her wounds and a sticky yellow liquid. I tried to clean her up. But her skin was peeling off. The maggots were coming out all over. I couldn't wipe them off, or I would wipe off her skin and muscle. I had to pick them out. She asked me what I was doing. I told her, "Oh, Masako. It's nothing." She nodded. Nine hours later, she died.

INTERVIEWER. You were holding her in your arms all that time?

TOMOYASU. Yes, I held her in my arms. She said, "I don't want to die." I told her, "You're not going to die." She said, "I promise I won't die before we get home." But she was in pain and she kept crying, "Mother."

INTERVIEWER. It must be hard to talk about these things.

TOMOYASU. When I heard that your organization was recording testimonies, I knew I had to come. She died in my arms, saying, "I don't want to die." That is what death is like. It doesn't matter what uniforms the soldiers are wearing. It doesn't matter how good the weapons are. I thought if everyone could see what I saw, we would never have war anymore.

I pressed Stop on the boom box, because the interview was over. The girls were crying, and the boys were making funny barfing noises.

"Well," Mr. Keegan said, wiping his forehead with a handkerchief as he stood up from his chair, "Oskar has certainly given us a lot to think about." I said, "I'm not done." He said, "That seemed pretty complete to me." I explained, "Because the radiant heat traveled in straight lines from the explosion, scientists were able to determine the direction toward the hypocenter from a number of different points, by observing the shadows cast by intervening objects. The shadows gave an indication of the height of the burst of the bomb, and the diameter of the ball of fire at the instant it was exerting the maximum charring effect. Isn't that fascinating?"

Jimmy Snyder raised his hand. I called on him. He asked, "Why are you so weird?" I asked if his question was rhetorical. Mr. Keegan told him to go to Principal Bundy's office. Some of the kids cracked up. I knew they were cracking up in the bad way, which is at me, but I tried to maintain my confidence.

"Another interesting feature that has to do with the explosion was the relationship between the degree of burning and color, because dark colors absorb light, obviously. For example, a famous chess match between two grand masters was going on that morning on a life-size board in one of the big city parks. The bomb destroyed everything: the spectators in the seats, the people who were filming the match, their black cameras, the timing clocks, even the grand masters. All that was left were white pieces on white square islands."

As he walked out of the room, Jimmy said, "Hey, Oskar, who's Buckminster?" I told him, "Richard Buckminster Fuller was a scientist, philosopher, and inventor who is most famous for designing the geodesic dome, whose most famous version is the Buckyball. He died in 1983, I think." Jimmy said, "I mean your Buckminster."

I didn't know why he was asking, because I'd brought Buckminster to school for a demonstration only a couple of weeks before, and dropped him from the roof to show how cats reach terminal velocity by making themselves into little parachutes, and that cats actually have a better chance of surviving a fall from the twentieth floor than the eighth floor, because it takes them about eight floors to realize what's going on, and relax and correct themselves. I said, "Buckminster is my pussy."

Jimmy pointed at me and said, "Ha ha!" The kids cracked up in the bad way. I didn't get what was so hilarious. Mr. Keegan got angry and said, "Jimmy!" Jimmy said, "What? What did I do?" I could tell that inside, Mr. Keegan was cracking up, too.

"What I was saying was, they found a piece of paper, about half a kilometer from the hypocenter, and the letters, which they call characters, were neatly burned out. I became extremely curious about what that would look like, so first I tried to cut out letters on my own, but my hands weren't good enough to do it, so I did some research, and I found a printer on Spring Street who specializes in die-cutting, and he said he could do it for two hundred fifty dollars. I asked him if that included tax. He said no, but I still thought it was worth the money, so I took my mom's credit card, and anyway, here it is." I held up the sheet of paper, with the first page of A Brief History of Time in Japanese, which I got the translation of from Amazon.co.jp. I looked at the class through the story of the turtles.

That was Wednesday.

I spent Thursday's recess in the library, reading the new issue of

American Drummer, which Librarian Higgins orders especially for me. It was boring. I went to the science lab, to see if Mr. Powers would do some experiments with me. He said he actually had plans to eat lunch with some other teachers, and he couldn't let me be in the lab alone. So I made some jewelry in the art studio, which you are allowed to be in alone.

Friday, Jimmy Snyder called me from across the playground, and then he came up to me with a bunch of his friends. He said, "Hey, Oskar, would you rather have a handjob or a blowjob from Emma Watson?" I told him I didn't know who Emma Watson was. Matt Colber said, "Hermione, retard." I said, "Who's Hermione? And I'm not mentally retarded." Dave Mallon said, "In Harry Potter, fag boy." Steve Wicker said, "She has sweet tits now." Jake Riley said, "Handjob or blowjob?" I said, "I've never even met her."

I know a lot about birds and bees, but I don't know very much about the birds and the bees. Everything I do know I had to teach myself on the Internet, because I don't have anyone to ask. For example, I know that you give someone a blowjob by putting your penis in their mouth. I also know that dick is penis, and that cock is penis, too. And monster cock, obviously. I know that VJs get wet when a woman is having sex, although I don't know what they get wet with. I know that VJ is cunt, and also ass. I know what dildos are, I think, but I don't know what cum is, exactly. I know that anal sex is humping in the anus, but I wish I didn't.

Jimmy Snyder pushed my shoulder and said, "Say your mom's a whore." I said, "Your mom's a whore." He said, "Say your mom's a whore." I said, "Your mom's a whore." "Say 'My' 'mom' 'is a whore.'" "Your mom is a whore." Matt and Dave and Steve and Jake were cracking up, but Jimmy was getting really, really angry. He raised a fist and said, "Prepare to die." I looked around for a teacher, but I didn't see any. "My mom's a whore," I said. I went inside and read a few more sentences of A Brief History of Time. Then I broke a mechanical pencil. When I came home, Stan said, "You've got mail!"