Read the selection below. Then answer the questions that follow.
Kumi and the Tako
1 Kumi gazed up into the cloudless sky. Next week, her whole family would gather here for the kite festival. The sky would be a patchwork quilt of kites. Her family had made a tako, or kite, for the festival too. Kumi had helped her grandfather make one. She painted the dancing doll onto the delicate rice paper. People of all ages would bring their homemade bamboo and rice-paper takos to the festival. Hand-painted fish, turtles, birds, and dragons would join the paper dolls in flight. Kite runners would stand shoulder to shoulder, pulling on cords controlling their takos. Kumi’s brother would have the honor of flying their family’s kite.
2 Kumi could feel the excitement building inside of her. A week was so long to wait! Then, she spotted a young man down by the water. He was holding some cord and bending his body up and down. At last, he began running. Kumi watched as he tugged at the cord. Finally, the wind caught finally hold of the tako. Up, up, up it went. Diamond after diamond, it raised into the sky. It was a kite train, and it had more than one hundred colorful diamonds all attached to a single cord! The young man struggled to keep control of his creation. The kite train swooped and dipped and turned. It looked like a rainbow dancing in the sky. Kumi watched the kite train for nearly an hour. Then, the young man, exhausted by his battle with nature, cut the cord and watched his kite train sail away.
