insists that she fight to live so she can raise the younger children to upright adulthood. The orphans decide to try to earn money shining shoes to help Gen's mother, and he sings to drum up business, but they are chased by orphan-catchers trying to take them to an orphanage. They assume Gen is an orphan, too. They escape, and ask the old man to become their father, "Papa", so they won't be orphans anymore, vulnerable to being hauled off. The old man is a novelist, but no one will publish his newest novel, because it is critical of the Americans for dropping the Bomb. Gen's mother goes to the ABCC, which gives her no help, only treating her as a specimen to be studied. Gen wonders why the doctor sent her there. He rescues a girl from bullies who call her a vulture. He learns that this is because her father collects dead victims of Hiroshima to take to the ABCC in order to make a living. Corrupt doctors get a kickback when they send people to the ABCC in the form of free medicine that they can sell at high prices. Gen sees boys fishing out skulls from the river and polishing them up to sell to the ABCC. At first he finds it sacreligious, but then decides the Americans deserve to be haunted, and any way to make money and survive at their expense is justified. He tries to make amends to the skulls by chanting prayers so they can go to heaven. He teaches the other children how to catch shrimp, as his mother lies seemingly at the point of death. Volume 6: Writing the Truth The Hiroshima orphans put on a show of their misery to American soldiers to sell skulls of victims. They sell out, and look forward to buying lots of food, but a pickpocket robs them on the train. To their surprise, huge bags of food are thrown off the train they got off of once they discovered the theft. It's blackmarket food that wouldn't get through a checkpoint. They try to sneak some for themselves by stuffing smaller amounts to simulate a baby and pregnancy, but get caught. It turns out, however, that the police eat black-market rice too, since it's impossible to survive otherwise, and the orphans are able to escape them. No word comes from oldest brother Koji, who