by Kirby Larson
The circle fell apart.
She stamped a rubber-booted foot. “Now, get on home. Before I call your mothers.”
The boy who’d gotten the clop stood there a minute, rubbing his head. “Aww, let’s get out of here, guys.” He ambled down the street, with the others hot on his heels.
The old lady leaned her broom against the fence. “Hooligans.” She wiped off the sketch pad with a flowered apron that was tied over her coat. “Let it dry, then put it under something heavy. That will iron out most of the wrinkles.” She stepped closer, holding it out to Mitsi. “Oh, my. Look at your knee.”
Mitsi didn’t want to look. She wanted to get home. “It’s okay.” She took the pad.
The lady gathered up the rest of the books and papers. Mitsi brushed off her book bag and held it open. The lady dropped everything inside, then bent over to pick up a few soggy scraps of Mitsi’s report.
“Dogs.” She smiled, looking at the title. “I love them but don’t have one.”
“I do.” Mitsi latched the straps on her book bag. “Dash.”
“Good name for a dog.” The lady nodded. “Speaking of names, mine is Mrs. Bowker.”
Mitsi told Mrs. Bowker her name, too.
“Well, isn’t that pretty? Suits you to a T.” Mrs. Bowker patted Mitsi’s arm. “You’d best get on home before your mother worries.” She picked up her broom again. “I’ll watch while you walk the rest of the way.”
Mitsi clutched her book bag. “Thank you.”
Mrs. Bowker was right. The papers would dry. And putting them under something heavy would smooth out the wrinkles. Mitsi had done that before.
But wrinkles like Judy and Mags and looking like the enemy? She had no idea how to iron those out.
Ted had his paper route, Pop had work, and Mom was in bed with a terrible cold. “I wouldn’t ask you.” Mom nibbled at the umeboshi, pickled sour plum, that Obaachan fed them whenever they got sick. “But it’s the last day to register.”
So there Mitsi was, sitting on a city bus next to her grandmother. She rested against the window, head jiggling along with the bus’s vibrations. As it turned left at Jackson, leaving Nihonmachi to bump north on 2nd Avenue, Mitsi saw more and more white faces. A drugstore near the Smith Tower wore a big sign in its front window: WE DON’T SERVE JAPS. She turned away and leaned into Obaachan’s wool coat. Breathed deeply of her grandmother’s warm rosewater scent. After a few more blocks, at Union Street, Mitsi pulled the cord, and the driver stopped. Obaachan held her cane in one hand and her pocketbook in the other. Mitsi helped her off the bus and into the post office, where they followed the signs down to the Registration Room in the basement.
Right after Christmas, they’d had to turn in their cameras and radios. Mitsi had been so sad to see the old Gloritone go. No more Blondie or Gasoline Alley or Lone Ranger radio shows after school. Now there was this new rule about Alien Registration. Anybody born in Germany, Italy, or Japan had to get a card that said they weren’t American. Mitsi didn’t know what happened if you didn’t get the card. Maybe the FBI would come take you away. Like Mr. Iseri. The morning after Pearl Harbor, three men in dark suits and fedoras had escorted him down his front steps and into a big sedan parked in front of Mitsi’s house.
Mom said it was all a big mistake. Mr. Iseri had traveled to Japan the year before, hoping to sell Washington apples. But the FBI thought he was mixed up in being a spy or something and arrested him. He and a bunch of other men from Nihonmachi had been sent to a place called Fort Missoula. So far, Mrs. Iseri had heard from him only once, a letter that looked like a piece of Swiss cheese because of all the places where the censors had razored out what he’d written.
After Mr. Iseri was taken away, every time Pop went to a church meeting at night, Mitsi had nightmares, imagining what might happen if someone made a mistake about him. What if the FBI thought the deacons of the Baptist church were helping the emperor? What if Pop got arrested like Mr. Iseri and the others? Got sent away? Thank goodness he had never, ever been to Japan.
But Obaachan was born there. And lived there until she was sixteen, when Grandfather saw a photograph of her and decided they should get married. They didn’t even know each other! He sent for her and she’d been in Seattle ever since. Mitsi wasn’t sure how many years it had been, but it was a long, long time. Obaachan would never do anything to help Japan. She was a Rainiers fan, wasn’t she? Loving baseball was as all-American as you could get.
The Registration Room reminded Mitsi of Ted’s old ant farm, but crawling with humans instead of ants. And humid and stuffy from all the people in their damp wool coats. Noisy, too. All around her whirled snippets of German, Italian, and Japanese. Lots and lots of Japanese. She led Obaachan to the end of the nearest line and they waited. And waited. And waited. Finally, it was their turn.
The man behind the desk asked for Obaachan’s photographs. “You have three, right?” He didn’t even look up.
Mitsi didn’t know the Japanese word for photographs. She didn’t know much Japanese at all. She held her hands up around her face, like a frame.
Obaachan’s face wrinkled in confusion.
“Look,” said the man, “I gotta lot of people behind you. Snap it up.”
Mitsi pointed to the pocketbook. “May I open it?”
Obaachan nodded. Mitsi looked inside and found an envelope with three photographs. With a grunt, the man took them. Then he machine-gunned questions at Obaachan — When were you born? Where? How tall are you? What do you weigh? Mitsi translated and he wrote down the answers on a paper in front of him: March 9, 1859. Okayama, Japan. Five feet. Eighty-eight pounds. Then he grunted again. Without even asking, he reached over and grabbed Obaachan’s right hand. He pressed her index finger onto a big black ink pad, then onto a small square on a green card. Obaachan stared straight ahead, as if this was happening to someone else. Her lips were a straight line, like the obi, the sash, on her kimono.
Mitsi swallowed hard, trying to wash away the bad taste in her mouth. In the movies, the only people who got fingerprinted were criminals. Not grandmothers.
“Next.” The man motioned for Mitsi and Obaachan to move out of the way.
Obaachan opened her pocketbook again and took out a handkerchief. She wiped at the ink on her finger, but the black smudge lingered.
“It will wash off,” Mitsi assured her, even though she didn’t know if that was true. She pushed open the door to step outside. The cool air was a relief. Mitsi breathed deep.
“Ice cream?” Obaachan pointed her cane toward Woolworth’s, across the street.
Mitsi flashed back on that sign she’d seen from the bus. But there was no such sign in the Woolworth’s window. “Okay.” They waited for traffic to pass, then crossed. Mitsi reached to open the door for Obaachan, but it opened on its own. Someone was coming out.
Mitsi froze. It was Patty Tibbets, with her mother.
“Well, hello, Mitsi.” Mrs. Tibbets smiled. Too bad none of her niceness ever rubbed off on Patty. “On an outing with your grandmother? How lovely!”
Mitsi nodded. Obaachan returned Mrs. Tibbets’s greeting with a bow. “Lubly,” she repeated.
Patty snickered. Quietly. Mrs. Tibbets didn’t react.
Mitsi felt her cheeks go hot to hear her grandmother’s funny English through Patty’s ears. And to see the way she tapped her cane when she walked. And that black mark on her finger.
Mrs. Tibbets said good-bye, and they were gone. But Patty’s snicker lingered. Stiffly, Mitsi followed Obaachan to the counter, where they took two empty stools. Obaachan ordered a dish of strawberry ice cream for each of them.
“Good?” Obaachan watched Mitsi take the first taste.
“Good,” she lied. Mitsi didn’t taste the strawberries. Only shame.
Dash jumped on the bed and snuggled against Mitsi’s back, tucking his neck over hers. Mitsi breathed in his warm coppery scent. He was a soft, furry blanket of love, keeping her warm and safe. Usually, he helped her forget her p
roblems. Reading helped, too. But she’d been staring at the pages of Caddie Woodlawn since they’d gotten back from the post office, and all she could see in front of her eyes was a green card with a black fingerprint. And Patty’s smirk.
Mitsi shifted to her back. Dash snuffled and readjusted, curling up at her side. Patty. If she were an animal, she’d be a rat. All squinty eyed, and sneaky. “Maybe I should sic you on her.” Dash caught a rat once, at Uncle Shig’s farm. He’d chased it under the chicken coop, dragged it out, and dispatched it with a couple of hard shakes. Uncle Shig had been so happy to have the rat gone, he’d given Dash a bone as a reward.
“A real rat is one thing. A human rat is another.” Mitsi looked into Dash’s eyes, trying to imagine what would happen if she turned him loose on Patty. He licked her chin. “That’s probably what you’d do, isn’t it? Give her a kiss.” She scratched behind his ears. “You’re so ferocious.”
That’s why the whole thing with the rat had been so surprising to Mitsi. Dash would never hurt a soul. Not even someone who deserved it. Like Patty. If Judy and Mags had heard her make fun of Obaachan, they would’ve dropped her like a hot biscuit. Obaachan had taught Judy how to knit so she could earn her Brownie badge for home arts. And how many times had she folded origami animals to match the stories Mags made up? “I have three grandmas,” Mags told people. “Grandma Dot, Grandma Millie, and Obaachan.”
Mitsi heard the back door slam, then sounds of Ted banging around in his bedroom on the other side of the wall. He bounded into her room. “Want to see my new magic trick?” He waved a fan of cards at her.
“You forgot to knock.”
Ted rapped on Mitsi’s forehead. “There.”
She shoved his hand away. “Very funny.” She picked up her book again.
“Come on. Let me do the trick,” he begged. “It’s really nifty.”
“Where’d you get a new one? I thought you were broke.”
“I won the subscription contest.” He grinned. “I signed up the most new subscribers in a month. Even got that new lady, Mrs. Bowker.” Ted leaned against the desk. “It was kind of funny. She knew we had a dog named Dash.” He shrugged. “And we haven’t even met her before.”
Mitsi traced the pattern in her chenille bedspread, eyes down. She didn’t want Ted to know what happened that day. He might tell Mom or Pop. Or, worse, go after those boys himself. She thought as fast as she could. “Well, Mom said she’d met her at the grocery store. Maybe she told her.” At least the first part of Mitsi’s answer was true. “So, what’s this big new trick?” She leaned forward, acting really interested.
“Take a gander at these cards.” The fan Ted held out contained a black 3, 5, 7, and 10, with a red queen between the 5 and the 7. “Got ’em?”
She nodded.
Ted flipped the fan around and handed her a paper clip. “Clip this on the queen.”
“Piece of cake.” She slid the paper clip over the middle card.
“Are you sure?” He waggled his eyebrows like Groucho Marx.
How dumb did he think she was? The queen was in the middle. “I’m sure.”
Ted waved his hand over the fan and, with a flourish, turned the cards to face her.
She’d paper-clipped the 3, not the queen, even though it was still in the middle.
“Not so easy!” Ted flapped the fan under her nose.
She grabbed the cards from him. “How’d you do that?”
“Magicians never reveal their secrets.” He grabbed the cards back. “Let’s just say, things aren’t always as they seem.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah.” Mitsi waved him away. Sometimes, Ted was pretty full of himself. “If you’re such a good magician, why don’t you make yourself disappear?”
“If I did, you’d have to set the table tonight.” He sauntered out of the room.
Mitsi hurled her book after him. “It’d be worth it!”
Dash climbed into her lap. “Brothers!” She stroked Dash’s head. “Be thankful you don’t have one.”
Ted thought he was the cat’s meow, tricking her like that. All that “things are not always as they seem” mumbo jumbo. He’d seen too many Houdini movies. “Magic.” She fluffed the fur between Dash’s ears and pushed him off her lap. If Ted really wanted to do a good trick, he would turn Mags and Judy back into her best friends.
She walked across the room to pick up poor old Caddie Woodlawn. Things aren’t always as they seem. She took hold of the book, then jerked upright. What if she was misreading what was going on with Mags and Judy, just like she’d misread where the queen was? Maybe they were confused, too, about Pearl Harbor and everything, and were just waiting for her to be the same old Mitsi. So they could be the same old Mags and Judy.
“I am so dense!” She tossed the book on her desk. “If I want things to be back to normal, I need to act like they are.” Dash pawed at her legs, begging to be picked up. She scooped him up and danced around the room. Valentine’s Day was right around the corner. She knew just what to do to win her friends back.
Patty Tibbets would have to find a new place to sit at lunchtime.
A new sign hung in the window of Wong’s Restaurant: CHINESE. It wasn’t the only one Mitsi saw as she walked to school. Maybe half a dozen windows had the same sign taped to the glass. It was all because some people couldn’t tell the difference between Chinese and Japanese. And it sure wasn’t good to be Japanese right now. Pop said Cheeky’s lunch crowd had dropped off to nothing. Cheeky made the best ten-don in Seattle, charging only seventy-five cents for a big bowl of shrimp and rice, but the downtown businessmen weren’t coming anymore. Pop said Cheeky might have to close the café.
Mitsi slowed her step as she approached the meet-up bench. She couldn’t help it; it was an old habit even though no one had been there since before Christmas break. That would change after today. Mitsi was sure of it.
She shifted her book bag to her other shoulder, careful of the valentine cards inside. Yesterday, she’d cut out thirty red construction-paper hearts, decorating them with bits of lace and paper doilies. There were two more valentines in her bag as well, peek-a-boo cards, with her photo tucked inside a special flap. She and Mags and Judy had been making these cards for one another since first grade, when all three of them wore big smiles with missing baby teeth. Mitsi had a page ready in her scrapbook for this year’s photos of her best friends.
At school, Miss Wyatt acted as though it was any old ordinary day, carrying on with spelling and reading and social studies. She even gave a pop quiz on long division! Mitsi thought she might burst if she had to wait one more minute. Finally, finally, Miss Wyatt set the chalk in the blackboard tray. “Shall we distribute our valentines?” she asked. “I’ll go first.”
Up and down the rows she walked, sliding a card through the decorated shoe box on each student’s desk.
When she reached the last seat in the last row, she clapped her hands. “All right, my little Cupids. Your turn!”
Kids popped up like exploding popcorn kernels, dashing around the room.
Roy Biddle hesitated next to Judy’s desk. Mitsi noticed he was holding an envelope behind his back. Patty noticed, too.
“Judy and Roy, sittin’ in a tree,” she sang.
Judy’s face turned as red as a licorice rope. Roy’s did, too. He shoved the envelope at her, then stomped away. “Mind your own beeswax,” he growled at Patty. She just snickered.
Mitsi delivered the last of her cards as the bell rang.
“Happy Valentine’s Day, class,” Miss Wyatt called out over the commotion. “And don’t forget the spelling test on Monday.”
In the cloakroom, Cindy Cotrell shook her box noisily. “There must be a million cards in here,” she said.
“I bet I have two million,” said Patty.
Mitsi’s mailbox felt awfully light. She peeked through the slot.
Roy pushed past Patty and she started in on him again. “First comes love, second comes marriage …”
“Can
it!” Roy whirled around, knocking Judy’s mailbox out of her hands. The lid popped off. Cards flew everywhere.
Mitsi hung back while Judy and Mags picked them up.
“I told you he liked you.” Patty scooped a handful of cards off the floor. Judy’s face deepened to another shade of red. Mags wrapped her arm around Judy’s shoulder, leaning in, whispering something.
“What is this?” Patty held up a small card.
Mitsi’s stomach clenched.
“A peek-a-boo card?” Patty wrinkled her nose as if she’d touched a slug. “Who would make such a baby thing?” She threw it down. “Come on, girls. Let’s go.” Mitsi’s card skittered across the floor.
Mitsi hid out in the cloakroom until everyone else was gone, then she picked up the peek-a-boo card and threw it in the trash. What had she been thinking? Outside, the wind whipped her hair around, and moisture dripped off her bangs. She brushed the wet away, then pushed the red umbrella open; it snapped. Turned inside out. Mitsi struggled to set it to rights.
But she felt inside out, too. She hadn’t thought the card would be babyish. She was just trying to get things back to normal. Back to Betsy, Tacy, and Tib.
A robin flew past, flapping its wings hard against the gusts. It was alone, too. Mitsi brushed at her wet face again, then ducked her head into the wind.
“Hello, neighbor!” Mrs. Bowker’s bright yellow slicker glistened with rain. She stomped a shovel blade into the ground, cutting a new garden bed. “Happy Valentine’s Day.”
Mitsi stopped. “Happy Valentine’s Day.”
“I’ll bet you’re eager to get home to look at all your cards.” Mrs. Bowker rested against the shovel handle. “I remember those days.” She chuckled. “Though I can’t remember the last time I got a valentine.”
Mitsi couldn’t imagine not even getting one card on Valentine’s Day.
Mrs. Bowker straightened up, rubbing her lower back. She sighed. “I hope all this work pays off. I keep trying to imagine this” — she nodded at the bare garden — “all abloom, but it’s hard to keep the faith in February.”