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just to keep the general’s wife’s feet warm so the general can go about his business of giving numbered juice to the kids at Sacred Heart School. Sewing just so both boys can stand there in front of Father to fi nd out there’s no possible way Father will ever forgive them for being heathens, even if there were some reason they wanted Father’s forgiveness, which right now, they do not.
Right now both Sonny and Amiq are determined as hell to be the meanest heathens ever, burrowing down into their own dark hides.
Waiting for their time to come.
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PART III
When the Time Comes
1962–1963
Giant chunks of blue green ice drift in the water around us, alive with icy breath.
Along the shore, patches of gray green tundra fl oat off into the mist, as distant as dreams.
When the fl ash of light comes, it’s sharp as a punch, brighter than any sun we’ve ever seen.
And then it’s gone,
and it’s just us, skimming across the smooth black sea, silent as spirits,
pitching our tent in the midnight sun and eating duck soup until our bellies get warm and we dare to ask:
“What about that light?”
Uncle looks down, his face lit like a dark sun in the glow of the fi re.
“Light?”
And all we ever know about that light is that it’s something we aren’t supposed
to talk about, aren’t supposed to remember, but we do.
Maybe it was part of an old story, a story that starts with a nuclear fl ash too bright to
believe, a fl ash that changes
everything.
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Coupons and Bomb Shelters
DECEMBER 1962
CHICKIE
—
If somebody presses the button, the world is going to blow up, and that’s a fact. Th
e Russians have enough atomic bombs
aimed at us to blow our side of the world right off the map, and we have enough bombs aimed at them to destroy their side, too. All it takes is for one person on one side to press the button. Th
e button is red, and it doesn’t matter who presses
it fi rst, because as soon as it gets pressed, the bombs will keep fl ying until the whole world is blown to smithereens.
Th
is is true, and everybody knows it. We practice for the bomb in class by ducking under our desks and putting our heads between our knees, which if you ask me is stupid. What good would it do to have your head between your knees if a bomb blows you up?
Father Flanagan has brought an old magazine story to class with a big picture of an atomic missile on one page. Below that is a photo of President Kennedy, smiling, just like in the portrait we have of him that hangs in the hallway near the 139
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gym. Evelyn thinks President Kennedy is cute. Th
at’s Evelyn
for you.
Father tells Junior to read.
Junior is not a loud reader, but I hear him say it clear: “I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the Earth. . . .”
Junior looks up. “Father?” he says. But Father doesn’t hear him. Father is looking right at me. “What do you think, Chickie? Will the president achieve his goal? Will we beat the Russians to the moon?”
“Alan Shepard already went up into space,” I say. “We’ll beat the Russians for sure.”
Bunna, sitting right behind me, snorts. I turn around and glare at him. Who needs some stupid boy pig-snorting down their neck all the time? Father nods and looks at Bunna.
“Bunna?”
“It’s too late, Father,” Bunna says. “Th
e Eskimos already
beat everybody. Th
ere’s an Iñupiaq shaman who went to the
moon a long time ago.” He leans forward when he says it, drawing out the words like he’s trying to make sure I hear them.
“You know, when I was a boy growing up in Boston, my mother used to tell me stories about the man in the moon,”
Father says. “When you look at the moon, you can even see his face, can’t you?”
Bunna looks at me and makes his eyes go naku, which makes him look even goofi er than normal. I turn around.
Boys are so stupid sometimes.
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C O U P O N S A N D B O M B S H E L T E R S / C h i c k i e But I know about the Iñupiaq shaman who went to the moon. I heard Aaka Mae’s brother tell about it one time.
Swede says it’s just a story, all right, but there are some things Swede does not understand.
“Of course, if President Kennedy succeeds, the man in the moon story will take on a new meaning, won’t it?” Father says.
“If President Kennedy gets a man to the moon, that shaman’s house will have an American fl ag on it,” Bunna whispers.
His words tickle the back of my neck and make me itch.
“Why do we need a man on the moon?” Evelyn asks.
“We gotta have somewhere to go after the bomb drops,”
Amiq says.
Evelyn looks bombstruck.
“What’s wrong with bomb shelters?” Michael O’Shay
asks.
Everything, I think. Bomb shelters give me the creeps.
Somewhere down south in the lower 48 there were two newlyweds who spent their entire honeymoon in a bomb shelter. We saw the pictures in Life magazine. President Kennedy has one, too, I heard. A great big bomb shelter for him and Jackie and Caroline and John-John.
Th
at honeymoon bomb shelter was six feet wide and four-teen feet long, which is barely bigger than a coffi n, and it was
so hot, the newlyweds spent most of their honeymoon taking Noxzema sponge baths to cool off .
If there were any bomb shelters in Alaska, they wouldn’t be hot at all; they’d be frozen solid, like ice cellars. I’ve been in 141
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ice cellars before, too. Some of them are big as houses, but I sure wouldn’t want to live in one.
In fact, the idea of being buried alive in the earth makes me feel dizzy, like somebody big is sitting on my chest. I think I’d rather take my chances with the bomb.
“All right girls and boys, it’s time for lunch,” Father says.
Kids are shoving books into their desks, and Junior is looking at me. “Th
ey’re still talking about blowing up bombs
in Point Hope,” he whispers.
Blowing up bombs in Point Hope? Th
at’s right next to
Kotzebue!
“Look.” He has a newspaper, a small one. Th
e headline on
the front page says “Project Chariot still on. ”
“What?”
“Project Chariot, that’s what they call it. More bombs than at Hiroshima.”
Junior is still whispering, and I don’t know why. If it were me, I’d be hollering. But that’s Junior for you.
“Father?” I say. But Father is already out the door.
Me, Evelyn, Rose, and Donna are in the library because we’re supposed to do a paper on the race to the moon. Instead, we’re listening to Evelyn r
ead “Can Th
is Marriage Be Saved?” from
the Ladies’ Home Journal and laughing at the way she reads it, her voice all high-pitched and girly-girly. Evelyn likes to read that kind of stuff because Evelyn is totally boy crazy. I’m not exactly sure when this happened, but if you ask me, it’s boring.
Bunna’s sitting one table over from us, trying to pretend 142
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C O U P O N S A N D B O M B S H E L T E R S / C h i c k i e he’s completely absorbed in some book, which is totally silly, because Bunna is not a reader. He might have the others fooled, but I am not fooled at all: Bunna is eavesdropping.
He keeps glancing over at us sideways every few seconds, and whenever our eyes meet, he looks down quick at his book, trying to act like he doesn’t see me, which makes me mad.
I pick up a copy of Life magazine and start fl ipping through it to hide the fact that Bunna is really bothering me.
“Okay, so now here’s Jan’s side of the story,” Evelyn trills.
Bunna grins at his book in a way that makes me want to tell Evelyn to shut up, for crying out loud.
“I don’t know why Bill always thinks I’m threatening to leave him,” Evelyn reads, making her voice sound like she’s about to cry. “I wish he’d understand that I need to take care of my mother, too. It doesn’t mean I don’t love him. My mother is 73 years old, and she needs my help, but Bill doesn’t understand. He says it’s either him or her. . . .”
“Th
at doesn’t even make sense,” Rose says.
“You know how white people are,” Evelyn says.
Th
en she looks at me and says, “Oops, sorry, Chickie.”
I slug her hard anyhow, and Evelyn leans over toward Donna and says, “Help me Donna, I been attacked by a mean White Woman. ”
Bunna hunches down lower into his book, and you can tell he’s trying hard not to laugh out loud. Th
is makes me so
mad, I want to walk right over there and punch him, too, but I restrain myself.
I’m beginning to blush, anyhow, so I grab that Life 143
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magazine and start to study it page by page, ignoring stupid squawking Bunna as hard as I can. Th
ere’s a double-paged
spread of Elvis Presley, big as life, swaggering across the stage in a pair of tight white pants. I lay it out fl at on the table, which works to change the subject, fast.
“Mmmmm,” Rose sighs. “Elvis!”
“Th
e way he moves his hips,” Evelyn moans.
Th
ey have forgotten all about Bunna, sitting there next to us. Now he’s looking as embarrassed as I was, which makes me smile.
“Sister Sarah says that’s devil music,” Donna says.
“Looks like an angel to me,” Evelyn says.
Rose says, “Every boy looks like an angel to you, Evelyn.”
Evelyn smiles. “Elvis, he got Indian blood. Bet you didn’t know that.”
“Oooooh, Evie,” I say, rolling my voice for Bunna’s benefi t. “Could be he’s your cousin.”
“Kissing cousins, maybe.” Evelyn raises her eyebrows in a way that makes it look like she’s saying certain things without actually saying them.
“Eeew! Th
at’s yucky,” I say, slapping the magazine shut.
Why does Evelyn always have to fi nd a way to talk about boys and kissing? And other things.
On the back cover of Life magazine there’s a picture of a pink convertible fi lled with big-chested blond girls in shorts.
Th
e one sitting up on the trunk of the car is holding a big armload of Betty Crocker cake mixes.
“I want one of those,” Evelyn says.
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C O U P O N S A N D B O M B S H E L T E R S / C h i c k i e She’s talking about the car, of course.
“You want everything,” I say.
Th
en I notice the small print under that picture. I lean down close and read it. “Hey, did you know you can earn a car with Betty Crocker coupons?”
Out of the side of my eye, I see Bunna straighten up suddenly.
“What’s Betty Crocker coupons?” Rose asks.
“Th
ey’re on the tops of the cake boxes,” Bunna says.
Evelyn scowls at Bunna.
“How many coupons?” Rose asks.
How in the heck does Bunna know about cake coupons?
Th
at’s what I want to ask.
“I think it says fi fty thousand,” I say. I have to squint hard at the small print, because I’m not wearing my new glasses. I’m not wearing my glasses because I think I look more sophisticated without them, and a person with freckles needs all the sophistication she can get.
“If you could aff ord to buy fi fty thousand cake mixes, you wouldn’t need to pay for a car with coupons,” Evelyn says.
Th
en she gives Bunna a look—an Indian warrior look.
“C’mon girls,” she says. “Let’s go.”
It was Bunna’s idea, all right, but Junior wrote it down. Th at’s
when we discovered that Junior knew how to write a really good letter. It was Father Flanagan who made it happen, of course. Father started making plans the minute Bunna burst into class.
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“Look here, Father, look at this!” Bunna is practically hollering, waving the letter like a white fl ag.
Father takes it and reads slowly, nodding his head. Th en
he looks at the picture of the blond girls with the cake boxes.
By the time he’s done looking back and forth from one to the other, he’s smiling.
“Th
is project would take a lot of work,” he says. “And we’ll need some students with fi rst-rate penmanship.”
I raise my hand right away. “I have great penmanship, Father,” I say. I’m not bragging. It’s true, and everybody knows it.
“So do I,” Bunna says.
Everyone laughs, of course, because everyone knows that Bunna’s handwriting is a train wreck.
But in the end we all wrote letters, good penmanship or no penmanship. We each wrote hundreds of letters, copying the same words over and over:
Dear Mrs.____________________,
I am a student at Sacred Heart School,
a parochial boarding school situated
in the heart of Alaska. Most of the
students here are Native Alaskan, and
many of us had never been outside our
home villages prior to coming to Sacred
Heart. Our school, Sacred Heart, is run
by the generous donations of God-fearing
citizens like yourself. We are currently
in desperate need of a bus to enable
us to enjoy the learning opportunities
and sports activities available to us
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M Y N A M E I S N O T E A S Y / C h i c k i e throughout our region. We have discovered
that if we save up enough Betty Crocker
coupons, we can earn a bus for our school.
We hope that you will be willing to save
coupons for us. . . .
Sincerely,
_____________________, Sacred Heart student
We wrote about 5,000 of those letters, sitting there in the library every day before dinner, writing and writing. Me and Bunna sat next to each other and got into some
sort of unspoken competition over it. I was faster than he was, which gave me endless satisfaction.
Sister’s the one who makes me late to the library one day—
she needed help in the laundry. But it’s Amiq, of course, who has to make an issue of it. He starts yapping the second I slide into my chair.
“Look here, Snowbird. Bunna’s winning,” he says.
I grab a piece of paper and start writing as fast as I can, slowly realizing that something is going on, something I can’t deny.
Bunna isn’t writing. He isn’t writing one little bit: he’s watching me and he isn’t even trying to hide it. I can see him, out of the side of my eye, just staring. I look up, very fi rmly, look him square in the eye. I fi gure I’m going to stare him down and make him feel about two feet tall, but he just grins right back at me, tall as ever.
“Where were you?” he says.
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Where was I? All of a sudden, I feel this fl uttering feeling in my stomach—I swear, just like in the songs—and just as suddenly I notice Bunna’s eyes. Bunna has these really, really soft brown eyes, the kind that make you feel warm and happy when you look into them. Chocolatey brown. His eyes are a sweet, chocolatey brown. I notice them for the fi rst time right then and there—and can’t for the life of me imagine how I failed to notice them before. All of a sudden I just have to stand up, quick, because two things have just occurred to me, two things that surprise me right down to the very tips of my toes: 1) Bunna likes me, and 2) Th
is does not bother me, not
one little bit.
“Laundry!” I blurt it out without even thinking. “I was doing laundry.” Th
en I get up and just about run out of that
room. I go as fast as I can, because Amiq is sprawled out at the table by the door, watching us, and I just know he’s going to say something to embarrass me, which he does.
“Hey, Snowbird. You’re blushing,” he says.
“Too much hot air in this place!” I snap, marching off with as much dignity as I can manage.
I hear Bunna laughing behind me, but I don’t mind at all because it’s a warm laugh, and I’m already out in the hall. And by now, I’m practically laughing, too.
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