American Triumph: 1939-1945: 4 STORIES IN 1

by Susan Martins Miller, Norma Jean Lutz, Bonnie Hinman

  “You do that. We want to see another string of A-pluses just like last year.”

  Mandy watched a moment as Lora deftly ran the iron over the skirt, smoothing out all the wrinkles. She wanted to tell her sister that this year was nothing like last year. Her family shouldn’t look for the A-pluses from her. She wanted to tell Lora all about the wretched girls in the Golden Ring and about her lie to Miss LaFayette about the torn book. And about the plight of poor Helga. But she didn’t. She turned and went up to her room.

  They were all at the train station to see Mark off. All but Dad, who couldn’t get off work. Mark was headed for San Diego for his basic training, then off to who knew where. His parents and sister were at the station already, and his mother couldn’t stop crying. Lora clung to him. When the conductor called the final “All aboard,” Mark almost had to tear himself away from her.

  Steam hissed out in a cloud from beneath the wheels as the train began to move. At first the train moved slowly, and then the pistons pumped louder as it picked up speed. The whistle sounded a long, loud blast that hurt Mandy’s ears. Mark opened the window and hung halfway out, waving and waving. They all waved back until the entire train was gone and an awful silence filled the air.

  Back home, Lora went up to her room and shut the door. Not even Caroline could go in. Mother said they were to leave Lora alone. “She’ll come out when she’s ready,” Mama said.

  Mandy knew that feeling. She wished she, too, could shut herself in her room and never come out again.

  CHAPTER 7

  Back to the Fairfax

  October was soggy with rain and heavy with dreary skies. Mandy thought if she had to wear her red boots to school one more day, she’d just die. She hated wearing boots. And she hated staying inside at recess. Staying in at recess meant she couldn’t escape the snooty Golden Ring, who seemed to gather power as the school year progressed.

  Mama tried to talk her into eating a hot lunch in the lunchroom, but Mandy insisted she wanted to walk the twins home. In truth, she wanted to stay away from Queen Anne School just as much as she possibly could.

  If the wretched weather wasn’t enough, the first report cards were handed out. The sight of Bs and B-minuses on her card nearly made her sick. Mama’s reaction was even worse. An awful look of disappointment came over her mother’s face as she gazed at the card.

  “Mandy, what happened to your As?” she asked.

  “John got Bs on his card,” she said in defense. “Why aren’t you upset with him?”

  Mama leveled a look at Mandy that made her want to melt away. “John’s Bs are an improvement from the Cs he’d been making last year.”

  Mandy studied her shoe tops as she struggled with the shame and confusion. In order to avoid trouble in class, she had to disappoint her mother. Which was worse? She wasn’t really sure.

  “Fourth grade is lots harder than third,” she said. But that wasn’t true. None of it was really hard for her.

  “I expect to see you spending more time on homework this next six weeks,” Mama ordered.

  All Mandy could do was nod her agreement.

  A welcome break in the wet weather came the first week of November. Mandy was thankful to be out on the playground again for recess, away from the other kids. She huddled with her coat around her, reading another book in the Elsie Dinsmoor series. Even though the sun was out, the air was chilly. Midway through recess, she was distracted by shouts coming from another part of the playground. It was Helga again, only this time the boys were tormenting her.

  She could hear them saying something about a circus. Putting her finger in her place in the book, she looked over at the commotion. They were playing circus, it seemed, and they’d set up a long two-by-four to serve as the tightrope.

  “And here we have my pet bear,” one of the boys shouted. Someone had looped a long piece of twine around Helga’s neck. “Come on, bruin,” the boy said. “Show the folks how you can walk the high wire.”

  Helga stepped up on the two-by-four, but her awkward, clumsy feet simply could not maneuver that board. As she slipped off again and again, the crowd of boys roared with laughter. Why was she allowing them to do that? Why wasn’t she yelling at them?

  “Roly, poly, big brown bear,” they chanted through their laughter. “Roly, poly, big brown bear.”

  Mandy closed her eyes to shut out the ugly scene. Where were the teachers? They should stop this cruelty. And why didn’t Helga’s parents come to the school and stand up for her?

  When Mandy opened her eyes again, she saw that John was right in the midst of all the rowdies. And he was laughing! When school let out that afternoon, she was determined to ask him about it. She couldn’t believe he would do such a cruel thing.

  John looked ashamed when she brought it up later, but he said, “I was only watching them. I sure didn’t put that twine around her neck. And the game wasn’t my idea.”

  He glanced over at her as they walked along. “Tell me, do you think I could have stopped them?”

  She shook her head. Of course she didn’t think that. If he could have stopped the game of circus, then she could have stopped the girls from putting Helga’s clothes in the shower that day. She wanted to tell him that he should have walked away. But what good would that have done? It was so confusing. She didn’t know what the answers were for poor Helga.

  “Helga isn’t what really bothers me, anyway,” John was saying.

  At first she wasn’t really listening. Then it hit her that John was trying to tell her something. Something important. “Something else is bothering you?” she asked.

  John paused a minute. “The guys I’m friends with, they say bad things about the Japanese. Alex Brown said the other day that he hates all Japs. He said his father calls them the Yellow Peril and that we shouldn’t trust any of them.”

  She waited for him to go on. When he didn’t, she said, “A lot of people are saying those things these days.” During the times they’d stayed indoors for recess, Mandy heard Elizabeth Barrington say that her father was a member of the America First Committee. He believed that all foreigners were a threat to the nation.

  “Whenever I hear them talk like that and I don’t tell them I disagree, I feel I’ve let Baiko and Dayu down.” His pace slowed a little more. “It’s an awful feeling.”

  Mandy was surprised that John was also struggling with problems. “I know what,” she said. “Let’s ask Mama if we can take the bus to Yesler Way on Saturday. Maybe we can spend time with Baiko and Dayu. That’d be fun, wouldn’t it?”

  John’s face brightened a little. “That would be fun. We’ll have to get our work done early, though, or Mama won’t let us go.”

  “We can do it,” she assured him. Having John tell her about his dilemma made her feel a little better about her own problems.

  After Mama gave permission for them to go to the Fairfax on Saturday, the twins begged to go along. But Mama said a flat no. Mandy was glad. It would be just her and John.

  Saturday was overcast, but the rain seemed to be holding off. They boarded the new “trackless trolley,” the electric buses that needed no tracks. Unlike the old trolleys, the buses were connected to overhead wires by a long rod. The trackless trolleys were great because they could go places the old trolleys never could.

  John had phoned the evening before to be sure Baiko and Dayu could spend the day with them. The Mikimoto boys had to finish their work quickly as well. And they had far more chores at the hotel than John and Mandy did at home. There was always sweeping and cleaning to do.

  Mr. Mikimoto was busy at the hotel desk, and Mrs. Mikimoto was changing linens, so there was no one around to tell them to sit down in the kitchen and slowly sip a cup of tea from a handleless cup. Hideko and the boys met them at the door. Gentle Hideko invited them to come and see how Mittens was growing.

  “She follows Hideko everywhere,” Dayu said. “Father says Hideko and Mittens are closer than the little McMichael twins.”

  John
laughed. “That’s mighty close.”

  Mandy agreed. She couldn’t imagine Susan and Ben not being together.

  Hideko showed them how Mittens would curl around her neck like a little gray-and-white collar. “She rides there as I go about my work.” Hideko reached up to stroke the soft fur. “She likes to be with me.”

  Mandy wished she could have a kitten of her own. But a kitten at the McMichael household would belong to everyone and not just to her.

  “Let’s go to the vacant lot,” John said. “That’s what we came for.”

  They quickly pulled on their jackets and ran out the back door that led into the alley. As they made their way down the alley, they passed warehouses and small manufacturing plants, some of which had windowpanes broken out.

  Mandy pointed to them and asked, “What happened there?”

  “Angry Seattle citizens,” Baiko told her.

  “What does that mean?” John asked.

  “Those are Japanese-owned businesses. Like Father was telling you the other day, some people think we’re responsible for what the Japanese are doing in China. So they just get mad at all of us.”

  Mandy shook her head. “That’s not right.”

  Dayu looked over at her, his dark eyes sad. “It’s scary, too.”

  The vacant lot was filled with some of the old friends they used to play with in the neighborhood. A game of kickball was already going, and the four easily joined in. After they tired of kickball, they chose sides and played Red Rover.

  For Red Rover, they created two parallel lines by holding hands tightly. One team would cry out, “Red Rover, Red Rover, send Baiko right over.” At that, Baiko would run as fast as he could into the line, trying to break it at its weakest point. If he broke through, he went back to his own side. If he was unable to break through, he had to join the opposite side. It hurt awful when someone hit your wrist hard, but everyone was a good sport. When the game was over, they all had sore wrists and cold noses.

  It was time to go back to the hotel, grab a snack and then head to the movies together. It was just like old times.

  “What’s playing?” Mandy asked as they wolfed down peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.

  “The Wizard of Oz,” Baiko mumbled around his sticky mouthful of sandwich.

  “Have you seen it?” Dayu asked.

  Mandy shook her head. “We haven’t gone to the movies much since we moved. There’s a theater in the neighborhood, but it’s not right down the street like it is here.”

  “That’s too bad.” Baiko’s tone made it sound like the most terrible catastrophe imaginable. And to him, it was. Both boys loved the movies.

  After washing down their sandwiches with tumblers of iced Kool-Aid, they were out the door again. This time they ran out the front entrance and down the stairs.

  “Do you have enough money for candy?” Baiko asked. He jingled change in his pocket. “Or shall we get popcorn at the theater?”

  “Let’s do both,” John suggested. “Let’s get Milk Duds at the drugstore and share them, then get two boxes of popcorn at the show and share them.”

  Baiko laughed. “What a great plan. Come on. I’ll race you.”

  The four of them ran laughing and panting all the way up Jackson Street to the corner drugstore, where they purchased the Milk Duds. In the middle of the next block was the Palace Theater.

  Mandy loved the first warm rush of the popcorn aroma that met her as she followed the boys inside the lobby. How she wished the Palace was in their new neighborhood. Here she had first seen great shows like The Little Colonel, starring Shirley Temple, and some great Roy Rogers movies. The Palace was a very special place.

  After paying their nickels for boxes of popcorn, they filed into the darkened theater and found seats near the front. The place was already packed with noisy kids.

  “We’ll have the popcorn first,” Dayu said, “and save the Milk Duds ‘til last.”

  As he spoke, the screen lit up and it was time for Movietone News. The newsreel told about the new Pan Am Airways plane that was making regular commercial flights to Europe. The plane was called the Dixie Clipper. People were flying over the Atlantic like they used to take a steamer, only the planes were much faster.

  A sports clip showed the fall college football teams in heated games, with cheerleaders in their full skirts leading rousing cheers.

  The scene changed then to Poland, where cameras scanned bombed-out shells of what were once buildings and stores and homes. The sudden takeover of Poland was called a blitzkrieg, which meant “lightning war.” That’s how fast the Nazi army could move. Mandy shivered at the gruesome sights.

  The scene changed again, and the narrator said, “The Japs show no signs of letting up their militaristic aggression in China.” His tone made the word Jap sound as terrible as the word Nazis.

  The scenes showed Japanese soldiers attacking the Chinese island of Hainan. “The strategy of the Japs,” said the booming voice, “appears to be to leapfrog from China to the South China Sea. Will they then make a move to take over the entire Pacific?”

  Mandy ached inside for Baiko, Dayu, and the other Japanese kids in the theater. How awful it must be for them to see their own countrymen fighting, killing, and dying.

  The afternoon, which had started out being like old times and had been so much fun, was suddenly spoiled.

  No matter how much she wanted it, life would never again be like old times.

  CHAPTER 8

  Mandy Speaks Up

  Dad’s long hours at the Boeing plant were hard on the entire family. When the twins acted up and got into mischief, Mama used to say, “We’ll take care of this when your father gets home.” But now the twins were asleep before Dad arrived home.

  Every evening the twins seemed to get in some kind of scuffle. While they had once been the same size, Ben was now getting long-legged and could get the upper hand quickly. That sent Susan crying and wailing to Mama. Mandy had never known them to be so cranky and out of sorts. Mama said it was because they needed their daddy.

  Peter used to help with the little ones, but now he had all his homework to do when he came home from the Tydol station. And Lora was no help at all. As soon as supper was over, she disappeared to her room to write long letters to Mark and listen to “I’ll Never Smile Again” and “Red Sails in the Sunset.” Their family, it seemed to Mandy, was coming unraveled like the sleeves of Helga’s red cardigan sweater.

  Mandy was the one Mama often asked to play with the twins. “Will you keep them occupied until I get this done?” she’d ask.

  Without fail, Mama would say this just as Mandy was ready to sit down and get lost in a good book. If she had to change the clothes on the Shirley Temple doll one more time, she’d explode.

  “Why can’t Caroline watch the twins?” she’d say.

  “Because,” Caroline would answer in her know-it-all voice, “I’m helping Mama.”

  Mandy wanted to say, “I’ll help Mama and you play with the twins,” but she didn’t want to make things any harder for poor Mama. She looked pretty tired as it was.

  The wind off Elliott Bay had a bite to it as Mandy walked to school each morning. Brown construction-paper turkeys were taped up in the classroom windows. In their fourth-grade reader, they were reading stories about the Pilgrims and about Squanto, who had helped them through the first awful winter. Mandy thought about those brave people who made the journey across the ocean to a new world. Could those children have felt as lonely and empty as she did on this Thanksgiving?

  When Lora first announced she planned to spend Thanksgiving Day with Mark’s family, Mandy was crestfallen. How could her sister even think of leaving them on such a special day? But Mama came to the rescue.

  “Our house is big enough,” she said to Lora. “Invite them to come have Thanksgiving with us.”

  At that, Lora’s eyes lit up—something that didn’t happen much lately. That is, unless the postman brought her a letter from Mark.

  Wha
t an odd Thanksgiving it was, to have guests who were practically strangers in the house. Mother warned the twins to behave themselves, and they did for a time. But before the pumpkin pie was served, Dad had to take them upstairs and give them a real talking-to. That helped some.

  It seemed a shame that Dad was gone so much; then when he was home, he had to scold them. Later, Susan called Dad an old meanie. Only Mandy heard.

  “Dad is not an old meanie,” Mandy told her little sister. “And if you’d behave, he wouldn’t have to scold you so much.”

  But Susan was too busy pouting to listen. She really could have won a Shirley Temple look-alike contest with that lower lip stuck out.

  Mark’s parents and sister were nice people. His sister, Betty, worked at the telephone company as a phone operator, and she and Lora were becoming good friends. Still, it just wasn’t the same as being with the Mikimotos.

  When the second report cards came out, Mandy took her turn at being scolded by Dad.

  “I didn’t tell your father the first time,” Mama said to her. “I was giving you a chance to bring these grades up.” She shook her head in dismay as she studied the card in her hand. “Now I’m afraid I have no choice. I’ll have to discuss this matter with him.”

  So on Saturday morning, when she was usually listening to Let’s Pretend on the radio, Mandy was in Mama and Dad’s bedroom, receiving her scolding. She wanted to agree with Susan—Dad was an old meanie.

  Why would they get upset with her for bringing home a card full of Bs? Well, there was one C in spelling. Perhaps she’d lost track of how many words she’d intentionally missed. She’d have to be more careful next time.

  Neither parent asked her what the problem was. Or even if there was a problem. All they did was demand that she work harder and get her grades up.

  Dad said, “Mandy, your mother and I know you can do better than this. It’s important to do your best in everything you do. You understand that, don’t you?”

  She nodded, but she really didn’t understand at all.