Buy me some peanuts and Cracker Jacks.
I don’t care if I never get back.
Then instead of being embarrassed, Mandy joined in until they were all laughing so hard they had tears in their eyes.
As they boarded the bus, Mandy made sure Peter sat between them. Without her sisters along, it was almost like having Peter all to herself. She didn’t mind that as they bounced along, John and Peter talked on and on about Rainiers’ players and the details of how they’d won the pennant last spring. Sitting there in the bus with the warm sun streaming in on her face, a warm glow of peace and contentment started at the top of her head and trickled all the way to her toes. She could have ridden that bus forever.
Since the ballpark was south of Yesler Way, the Mikimoto boys would catch another bus and meet them at the front gate. The gates hadn’t opened when they stepped off the bus, but a noisy, happy crowd had already gathered.
“How’ll we find Baiko and Dayu in all these people?” John asked.
“We’ll find them,” Peter promised. “Just as long as they wait by the gate, we’ll find them.” He closed his big hand over Mandy’s. “Let’s just make sure we don’t get separated from one another.”
Mandy felt safe and secure with Peter holding onto her.
“If we don’t see them by the time we get to the turnstile,” Peter said, “we’ll just step aside and wait a few minutes.”
As soon as the gates opened, the crowd moved quickly. When they approached the turnstiles, the boys were waiting for them.
“Wow,” John said. “You must have camped here all night.”
Baiko grinned. “Dayu here was determined we’d be the first ones in line.”
Peter chuckled at their exuberance. “Come on, troops.” He waved them forward like a scout leader. “Let’s go to the ball game.”
Mandy could not remember a more wonderful day. She laughed and cheered and booed and shouted at the umpires right along with the boys. They downed hot dogs on soggy buns and ate boxes of sweet Cracker Jacks and drank ice-cold Nehi soda pop from drippy wet bottles. The dust in the air made John have one good coughing fit, but it didn’t last long, and he seemed to be okay. If he coughed too much, they’d have to go home. Mandy wouldn’t have liked that at all.
The Rainiers were strutting their stuff in this first home game of the season. By the top of the seventh, they were leading, seven to three. The boys were ready to take a trip to the rest room.
“You going with them?” Peter asked Mandy.
“Guess I better.” She stood up and stretched her legs.
Peter tipped up his bottle of Nehi, draining the last, then said, “I’ll stay here and fill you in on what happens.”
“Great,” John said. “Come on. I’ll lead the way.”
They filed down the stairs to the lower level. The boys went one way, and Mandy went the other. “Promise you’ll wait for me right here,” she said.
“Promise,” Dayu told her.
She sure didn’t want to have to find their seats by herself.
A few minutes later, when she came out of the cool, dark rest room area, Mandy squinted against the sunshine. Shading her eyes, she saw the boys standing at the stairs. They’d stationed themselves where they could watch the game and wait for her. As she moved toward them, she felt someone grab her arm.
“Hey, you,” said a boy’s voice.
Yanking her arm free, she whirled around to see two boys from John’s class at school. One was Alex Brown, who had a curly mop of sandy hair. The other, Jim Hendricks, was a little shorter and dark complexioned.
“You’re John McMichael’s sister, right?” Alex asked, leaning toward her.
She nodded. These were the boys John played baseball with every recess. But they looked angry. “If you want to talk to him, he’s right there.” She pointed down the walkway toward John.
“We see him,” Jim said through clenched teeth. “Him and his two Jap buddies.”
Mandy bit her lip and stood stone-still, although she wanted to run away as fast as she could.
“We didn’t know he was a Jap lover.” Alex clenched and unclenched his fists. “He never told us his little secret.”
Jim bumped her arm. “You tell him for us. Tell him we know. And tell him he’d better watch out. We’re out to teach him a lesson.”
They turned and walked away.
CHAPTER 12
John’s Fight
Tears burned in Mandy’s eyes as she stood there a moment. How could people be so hateful and mean? Those two boys sounded like the girls in the Golden Ring. She had no idea if she were going to tell John, or if she did, how and when she would do it.
For now, it was important to pretend nothing had happened. That would be hard because she was shaking from head to toe. John still hadn’t seen her, so she slipped back into the rest room, splashed cold water on her face, and dried off on the linen towel, pulling it around and around until she found a clean place. Then she stopped and took a deep breath.
“Brother,” John said when she stepped up beside them. “I wondered if you were gonna take all day.”
“Yeah, we were about ready to send Dayu in to get you,” Baiko said. They all giggled, Mandy included.
The Rainiers won their game, and Mandy tried to keep on cheering as she’d done before, but for her, the afternoon was spoiled. She couldn’t stop thinking about the boys’ threats. What were they planning to do to John?
Her silence at supper wasn’t noticed. The twins were going on and on about the bears, elephants, and lions they’d seen. Ben could barely eat for demonstrating the roar of a lion. He even showed them how the elephants sucked peanuts up through their trunks. Mama kept telling him to calm down, but her warnings didn’t faze him.
John described the winning home run, which was slammed with the bases loaded, bringing all the runners safely into home plate. Even Caroline had had a great day with her little charges and enjoyed telling stories of how cute and well behaved they were.
Meanwhile, Mandy was plotting a moment when she could privately tell John what had happened. After she and Caroline finished washing and drying the supper dishes, she went to her room to try to study for the quiz contest. She fluffed the pillows and propped herself up in her bed. On her lap was a fifth-grade language book that Miss LaFayette had let her borrow out of the library. Mandy was determined to learn the parts of speech and be able to identify them in sentences, but it was hard to keep her mind on her work. From down in the living room, she could hear the beginning of Hit Parade coming on the radio.
Just then, John passed by her door with Peter’s small Silvertone radio in his hands, the electrical cord trailing behind him.
“John!” she called out.
He stopped and stuck his head in the door. “Yeah?”
“Where’re you going?”
“Peter said I could borrow his radio tonight. He’s gone riding with some of his friends. I’m going to listen to the programs I like, not the boring old Hit Parade.” He paused a minute. “Hey, want to take time out from your brain-strain to join me?”
She put aside the book and hopped up. “I’d love to.” She could learn the parts of speech Sunday afternoon.
He set the radio on his bedside table and got down on his hands and knees to locate the outlet.
“Rinso Blue gets your clothes white!” came the loud voice from the radio. John grabbed the dial to turn it down. “Don’t need it that loud,” he said with a grin.
As he was turning the dial from station to station, Mandy sat down on the rug beside him. “Did I tell you I saw two of your friends at the ball game?”
He turned around to look at her, a strange expression on his face. “You didn’t say anything about it. Who’d you see?”
“Alex Brown and Jim Hendricks.”
John swallowed hard. The radio was still giving out static since the station wasn’t tuned in clearly. “Did they see me?”
She nodded.
“And?”
“They called you a Jap lover.”
He turned back to the radio and busied himself with the dial. All of a sudden, the sounds of breaking glass and a police siren blared from the radio, followed by a burglar alarm, machine guns rat-a-tat-tatting, and tires squealing. They both jumped. It was the beginning of Gangbusters. John grabbed the knob to turn it down a little.
When he acted as though he were totally engrossed in the Gangbusters show, she added, “They said something else, John.”
“Yeah?” He wouldn’t look at her.
“They said they were going to teach you a lesson.”
“Don’t worry,” he said. “I can take care of myself.”
His voice didn’t sound too sure. Mandy suddenly felt sorry for him. He, too, had tried to fit in at Queen Anne, and now this. She could tell he didn’t want to talk about it anymore, so she sat with him, and they listened to all their favorite programs until time to go to bed.
The entire day was gone, and she hadn’t studied at all. April 19 was drawing closer and closer. She wasn’t sure if she was ready for the contest. How was she to know if she’d studied enough? At least the other kids had experienced the contest before. But to her it was all brand new.
In the night, she heard John coughing and heard Mama getting up with him. Mandy had heard Mama say once that his coughing always got worse when John became excited or upset. Mandy was sure John was upset over what she’d told him.
The sermon the next morning at church was taken from the Sermon on the Mount. When Pastor Martin talked about doing good to those who persecute you, Mandy thought about all the persecution against the Japanese in Baiko and Dayu’s neighborhood. She thought of the persecution she’d received at school and the way Helga was treated. Even John’s friends were mad at him simply because he was friends with two Japanese boys.
She didn’t understand how you could always do good to people who said mean things to you. But then, Pastor Martin reminded them that Jesus knows that no one is capable of keeping all the instructions in the Bible.
“It was never God’s plan for us to be good in and of ourselves,” Pastor told his congregation. “That’s why Jesus came and died. When we ask Jesus into our hearts, He not only brings the gift of salvation but also equips us to follow His example and His instructions.”
Mandy glanced over at John to see if he was listening. He was playing tic-tac-toe with Ben on the border of his Sunday school paper. It seemed to her that he really should be paying attention. This was pretty important stuff.
That night Mandy prayed for Jesus to help her be good to the girls in the Golden Ring and to help John be good to the boys who were angry at him.
Monday afternoon, Mandy was on the playground during recess and saw John sitting on top of the jungle gym all by himself. The ball game was going on without him. She wanted to go to him and tell him she knew how he felt, but that would only make it worse. He wouldn’t want the boys to think he needed a girl to help him out.
Mandy was determined to stick close by John as they walked to and from school each day so she could see that nothing happened to him. For two days nothing happened at all. John was a little more glum than usual, but at least no one tried to hurt him. She was beginning to think Alex and Jim had made empty threats—that is, until Wednesday afternoon.
Mandy had stayed behind a minute to get another study book from Miss LaFayette. By the time she got outside, John was way ahead of her. As she was hurrying to catch up with him, she saw Alex and Jim step out in front of him on the sidewalk. Fear crawled over her in prickly waves. She wished Pastor Martin would appear to tell John how to be good to those bullies. She slowed down and tried to sneak around through front yards, crouching behind privet hedges.
When she came up to them, she heard Jim saying something like, “What do you have to say for yourself, Jap lover?”
“If I were you, I sure wouldn’t be seen in public with them,” Alex added.
“We don’t like Jap lovers, do we, Alex?”
“No sir, Jack. We don’t like ‘em one little bit.”
Peering through the hedge, Mandy could see they were moving closer to John. She didn’t know whether to scream for help or run home to get Mama. Just then, Alex grabbed John’s arms, and Jim reared back his fist for a hard punch.
A scream froze in Mandy’s throat as she saw John convulse into a heavy coughing spasm. Then he went limp.
CHAPTER 13
Jujitsu
Lay him flat,” Mandy yelled as she jumped out from behind the hedge.
“We didn’t do anything! Honest!” Alex said. His eyes were wide.
“Lay him out flat on his back,” she ordered again. John’s wheezing was punctuated by spasms of coughing. His face was growing redder by the minute.
The two did as she said, and then they started to slip away. She stood up and glared at them. “Oh, no, you don’t. You’re both going to help me get him to the house. After he’s rested a minute, that is.”
“Not me,” Jim said.
“Grab him and help,” Alex ordered. “This was all your idea in the first place.”
Mandy made them wait until John’s breathing was back to normal. She’d seen Mama do the same thing plenty of times. Then she had them hook his arms over their shoulders. John just sort of stumbled along. When they were almost to the house, John realized what was going on. He shook the boys loose, and they took off like scared rabbits.
John turned to Mandy with a pained look. “You better not tell Mama a word of this,” he warned.
“You can trust me.” She helped him the rest of the way up the walk. Mama met them at the door.
“What happened?” she demanded.
“Just a little coughing spell on the way home,” Mandy told her.
Mama shook her head. “You were overdoing again, weren’t you, John? I’ve told you again and again not to overdo. And we have no more of Mrs. Mikimoto’s herbal tea.”
She helped John into the living room and made him lie down on the couch. “Mandy, I’ll call Mrs. Mikimoto, and you take the bus to go get it, just in case John has another attack in the night.”
When Mama got off the phone, she said, “The boys will meet you in front of Walgreen’s Drugstore at Fifth and Virginia.”
Mandy knew that was right in the middle of downtown.
“She insisted that you not make the trip all the way to the Fairfax by yourself. And,” Mama added, handing her money for the remedy, “make sure the boys take the money.”
Mandy dropped the money into her pocket. She knew she could have made the trip to the hotel by herself. But Mrs. Mikimoto was so very polite.
She hurried to the bus stop and waited for the bus that said “Downtown” and “International District.” As she stepped up in the front door, she saw Alex and Jim get on in the rear. She hurried and sat down, acting as though she hadn’t noticed. So, the two scared rabbits hadn’t run very far at all. How odd that they were on the same bus going the same direction. Were they following her? And if so, why?
Perhaps she shouldn’t get off at the Walgreen’s, after all. She’d get off a block sooner. But she’d never been downtown all by herself before. She didn’t want to get lost.
While she was trying to figure out what to do, she saw Walgreen’s Drugstore just down the street. And there were the Mikimoto brothers standing outside waiting for her. If she were Margo Lane on the Green Hornet, she’d know something terribly clever to do to get Jim and Alex off her trail. But she was just plain old Mandy McMichael, and she had no idea what to do.
When the bus stopped in front of Walgreen’s, she stood up and got off. Glancing back, she saw Alex and Jim getting off as well. They were following her.
She ran up to Baiko and Dayu. Pushing the money into Dayu’s hand, she grabbed the sack and blurted out, “Those two boys tried to beat up John. They followed me.”
Just then, Alex yelled at them, “You Japs need to learn to stay in your own neighborhood.”
“Quick,” Baiko said to his brother. “To the alley!”
They dashed between the buildings with Mandy on their heels. Baiko went to the left, Dayu to the right. Mandy jumped behind Baiko. He was the bigger one.
She realized Jim and Alex weren’t too smart when they both came running together right into the trap. Baiko grabbed one and Dayu the other. The Mikimoto boys were accomplished in jujitsu, having studied it for years. Before they knew what hit them, Jim and Alex were on their backs in the dirty alley.
“Come on, Mandy,” Baiko said, grabbing her arm. “Let’s get you to the bus stop.”
“Will they be all right?” she asked, looking back over her shoulder at the bewildered boys.
“We were gentle,” Dayu assured her.
Stopping a moment, she called back to Jim and Alex, “My brother learned jujitsu from these boys. He’d have used it on you if he hadn’t had a coughing attack.”
Baiko chuckled as he hurried her back out to Fifth Street. “That’s not really true,” he said. “We taught John only a few moves.”
“Close enough,” she said, glancing back to see if they were still following.
Dayu saw her looking. “Don’t worry, Mandy. They won’t want another helping of that treatment anytime soon.”
The bus for Queen Anne Hill was pulling up. The boys took her right up to the door. Mandy noticed the bus driver frown as he looked at the two Japanese boys.
If he only knew, she thought as she found her seat. Waving goodbye to her friends, she sat back and finally breathed a big sigh of relief. Wait until she told John what happened.
When she got home, John was asleep. After he awoke later that evening, Mama made sure he drank a big cup of the herbal tea, which he said tasted “worse than terrible.” Then she insisted he go to bed early. That gave Mandy the opportunity to slip into his room and tell him the whole story.
American Triumph: 1939-1945: 4 STORIES IN 1 Page 19