by Kirby Larson
When the recess bell rang, Grace asked if Mitsi wanted to play jacks. “Sure.” Mitsi shrugged. “I guess.”
They set up their game on the far side of the play yard, away from the other kids. They flipped to see who’d go first. Grace won.
“I hope we’re at the same camp.” Grace tossed her jacks.
“Me, too,” Mitsi said, though she wasn’t sure. Grace was bossy. And she didn’t like books.
Grace scooped up a jack with her right hand and let the ball bounce again, flipping the caught jack to her left hand.
“I went to camp once,” Grace continued. “Church camp. We roasted marshmallows and went canoeing and did arts and crafts. I made a lanyard.”
Mitsi nodded politely.
“So do you think this camp will be like that?” Grace looked at Mitsi, letting the ball bounce twice.
Mitsi didn’t want to talk about the camp anymore. She didn’t even want to play jacks. She wanted to go over to the swings and sit on the one between Judy and Mags like she used to. The swing Patty was in. And she wanted to race with her friends, pumping their legs hard, to see who could get the highest. She wouldn’t care if she lost. She just wanted to be over there, soaring through the air with her best friends.
“Do you?” Grace asked again. The bell saved Mitsi from having to answer.
While they were in line to go back into the classroom, Kenji tapped Mitsi on the shoulder. “Me and Grace are leaving tomorrow,” he said. “Are you?”
She shook her head. “No. Friday.” Instead of hanging paper cones of flowers on her neighbors’ doorknobs on May Day morning, she’d be on a bus, heading to Camp Harmony.
“What are you going to do about Dash?” he asked.
“What do you mean?” Mags butted in. “What’s wrong with Dash?”
Mitsi didn’t answer her. Why should she? “I wrote a letter,” she told Kenji. “Maybe they’ll let me take him.”
Kenji gave her a hopeful smile. “You’re a good writer,” he said. “Maybe they will.”
Mitsi thought about Kenji and Grace as she walked to school the next morning. They were on their way to Camp Harmony, or maybe Pinedale, at that very moment. She wondered what they were feeling. Maybe scared — even Grace. Mitsi sure was. The camps sounded like big places. Pop said there’d be nearly ten thousand people at Camp Harmony alone. She might not even see Kenji or Grace if they were there. Might not see them ever again.
She was thinking so hard about Kenji and Grace, and about going to camp, that she thought she was dreaming when she reached the meet-up bench and saw someone there.
“I thought I might have missed you.” Mags held out an envelope with Mitsi’s name written in that big loopy penmanship on the front. “This is for you. It’s the letter I wrote in class.”
Mitsi didn’t reach for it. “How come you didn’t disguise your handwriting this time?”
“This time?” Mags looked genuinely puzzled. Mitsi never realized what a good actress she was. Then Mags’s face changed. She knew that Mitsi knew.
“You can keep that one.” Mitsi started walking again.
“Mitsi!” Mags called after her. “Please wait.”
But Mitsi didn’t wait. And Mags didn’t try to catch up.
It was a day for envelopes. Another one sat in the middle of the kitchen table when Mitsi got home from school. Pop was still at Uncle Shig’s, and Mom was helping Mrs. Iseri. Only Obaachan was home.
“Tea,” she announced, reaching for her special tin. Mitsi sat at the kitchen table, turning the envelope around and around. Dash plunked himself at her feet, sniffing hopefully from time to time. Finally, the kettle whistled and the tea was steeped and ready to drink. Obaachan served it in the gold-rimmed teacups she’d bought with Green Stamps. After they’d both had a sip, Obaachan patted Mitsi’s hand. “Now read.”
For a moment, Mitsi wondered if she should wait for Mom and Pop. But she had to know General DeWitt’s answer. She ripped open the envelope.
The paper inside was fancy, but the words weren’t.
Dear Miss Kashino:
We all must make sacrifices in times of war. I regret that we cannot allow pets in the camps.
Yours very truly,
General John L. DeWitt
“It’s not fair!” Mitsi threw the letter on the floor. Dash whined, pawing at her legs so she’d pull him up on her lap. A tear dripped on the table. Mitsi wiped it away, then pushed at Dash’s legs. Pushed him away. “Down.” It wasn’t his fault, but she was mad. Too mad to be nice to anyone, even Dash. Another tear dripped on her leg.
“You are a brave girl,” said Obaachan. “To write a general!” She patted Mitsi’s hand. “Brave, brave girl.”
Mitsi didn’t feel one bit brave. She felt used up and dry like an old piece of bubble gum. Dash whined. She scooted the chair back and patted her lap. “Come on, Dash. I’m sorry.”
He jumped up and she squeezed him close, his wispy fur brushing her cheek as he nibbled her ear. She squeezed him even tighter. He was her best friend. Really her only friend. How was she ever going to let him go? And who would take care of him until she could get back? Those questions pricked at her heart until it was a flat tire, ka-thumping in her chest.
Mom and Pop were as sad as she was about the letter. Ted kicked the door frame. “We’ll find him a good home,” Mom promised.
“Not a home!” Mitsi cried. “Just a place to stay.”
Mom made a dozen telephone calls. But no one could take a dog.
“We’ll try again tomorrow,” Pop said as he tucked Mitsi into bed.
“Tomorrow’s the only day we have!” Mitsi fingered the frayed hem of her blanket. “What if we don’t find a place?”
“We will.” Pop kissed her forehead. “We will. Now try to get some sleep.”
Dash started out on the floor, at the foot of Mitsi’s bed, as always. But after a while, he hopped up next to her. Mitsi wrapped him in a hug. When he fell asleep and began to twitch in his dreams, she rested her hand on his side. “Good dog,” she whispered. “Good dog.” He relaxed.
“We’ll find something,” she said. “With someone who really loves dogs.” As she said those words, a tiny idea popped into her head. An idea so perfect that it was hard to fall asleep. But, finally, with Dash snoring next to her, she did.
First thing in the morning, Mitsi ran through the neighborhood, to the house with the white picket fence. She unlatched the gate, hurrying up to the front door. Mrs. Bowker answered her knocking, and invited her inside right away when Mitsi told her about the letter.
“I am so proud of you for trying,” Mrs. Bowker said. “And so sorry the general said no.”
Mitsi thought she had cried out all her tears, but a couple more leaked out. “Mom says it might be for the best. What if people could bring pets, and someone brought a dog that didn’t like Dash? What if they got into a fight and Dash got hurt?” Mitsi rubbed her nose.
“Oh, my lands, yes. That would be bad.” A tear leaked out of Mrs. Bowker’s eye, too. “Very bad.”
They sat together in the warm, messy kitchen that smelled of cinnamon and those other good things Mitsi never could identify.
Mom had said it was too much to ask. Pop agreed. But Mitsi had to. She studied the black and white squares on Mrs. Bowker’s kitchen floor. There was no other choice except Uncle Shig’s neighbor, who didn’t like dogs one bit. Not even a fluff of love like Dash.
Mitsi took a deep breath. “I was wondering if you could keep Dash. Only for a little while.” That last part was sort of a fib. Nobody had any idea how long they’d be gone. But Mitsi hoped it wouldn’t be long.
She glued her eyes to the tabletop. The room percolated with all kinds of noises she hadn’t noticed earlier: the coffee pot gurgling on the stove, the soft hiss of the lightbulb overhead, a creak from under her feet.
“Mitsi.” Mrs. Bowker cleared her throat.
Mitsi squeezed her eyes closed. She squeezed her fingers together, too, in a prayer.
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br /> Mrs. Bowker said her name again. And then Mitsi felt a warm hand on top of her two hands. Mitsi opened her eyes. She looked up.
“I would be honored to take care of Dash. Thank you for asking me.” Mrs. Bowker sat back in her chair and held her arms open. Mitsi flew into the hug and started crying all over again. When they were both pretty soggy, Mitsi reached into her dungarees pocket and pulled out a small wad of dollar bills. “This is to help pay for his food.”
Mrs. Bowker looked at the money. “Tell you what,” she said. “How about if we trade dog food for work? My knees aren’t getting any younger and I’m going to need lots of help in the garden.”
“Mom said I had to, if you said yes.” Mitsi held out the money again. “Besides, what if we’re gone for, for longer than we think?”
“I’ll keep careful track. I promise,” said Mrs. Bowker. “And I’ll make you work off every penny I spend on Dash. Is that a deal?”
“Are you sure?”
“I’m sure.”
That night, Mitsi held Dash’s leash in one hand and pulled her wagon with the other. It was loaded up with a blanket and toys and dog dishes and food. A flat of strawberry plants for Mrs. Bowker’s garden teetered on top of everything else. Pop had brought them from Uncle Shig’s. Mitsi moved slowly, partly so nothing would fall out. But mostly because she wanted this walk to last as long as possible.
Mrs. Bowker asked for help getting Dash settled in. “Should we put his bed by the stove?” she asked.
“Well, it would be warm there,” Mitsi answered. She couldn’t expect Mrs. Bowker to let Dash sleep in her bedroom. But she hated to think of him by himself. Especially tonight.
“Where does he sleep at your house?” Mrs. Bowker asked.
Mitsi decided to be honest. “In my room. On the floor, at the foot of the bed.”
“Well then, that’s where he’ll sleep here.” Mrs. Bowker put Dash’s bed in her room. At the foot of her bed.
“Sometimes he sleeps with me,” Mitsi confessed. Would that make her change her mind?
Mrs. Bowker looked a bit surprised. “Does he snore?”
“Sometimes.” Mitsi held her breath.
Mrs. Bowker smiled. “Well, so did my husband. It’ll be like old times.”
Mitsi let her breath out again. It was going to be fine. Dash was going to be fine. She hid his yellow ball in the magazine rack for a morning game of hide-and-seek. She put the bag of kibble and the box of Milk-Bones in Mrs. Bowker’s pantry.
“Here’s the last thing.” Mitsi held out Dash’s leash.
“Not quite.” Mrs. Bowker took out her Brownie camera.
Mitsi wrapped her arms around Dash. She inhaled as deeply as she could so she wouldn’t forget his smell.
Mrs. Bowker held the camera up to her eye, peering through the viewfinder. “Say ‘cheese.’ ”
It was a good thing it was only a camera, not an X-ray machine, or all Mrs. Bowker would see was Mitsi’s heart, broken into a billion kibble-size bits.
Her room echoed. Mitsi felt like she was sleeping in a gymnasium. Or a cemetery. All the furniture, including the beds, was gone, so they were sleeping on the floor, wrapped up in blankets. She snugged the blankets tighter around her and reached for Dash. But when her arms only gathered up air, she picked up her makeshift bed and carried it from her bedroom to the front room with Mom and Pop. Under the blanket of their breathing, she was finally able to go to sleep.
They got up in the dark morning hours, like they used to when they went fishing at Point No Point on Uncle Shig’s boat. Mitsi couldn’t stop yawning as she buttoned her blouse. Pop toasted bread on a fork over the stove and they spread it with the last of the homemade strawberry jam. After Mitsi and Ted drained their glasses of milk, Mom washed and dried them and carefully added them to Pop’s big suitcase. She did the same with the grown-ups’ coffee mugs, but she left the percolator on the stove top. No room in any of the bags for that.
When she was ready to go, Mitsi sat on the front steps, Chubby Bear under one arm, playing with the cardboard tag pinned to her coat. She’d worn a tag like this when she’d gone off to kindergarten. That tag had said MY NAME IS MITSI KASHINO. I AM IN MISS STEAD’S CLASS. It was a friendly tag. Not like this one. This one had a number on it. That was all. Number 11817. The same number was pinned on Pop’s coat, Mom’s coat, Ted’s, and even Obaachan’s. It was their family number. No Kashino family. Just 11817.
Mr. Adams pulled into their driveway. In their car. He’d offered to take them to the assembly point. “He said it was the least he could do,” Mitsi overheard Pop tell Mom. “He feels real bad about the whole thing.”
“He’s a good man,” Mom had said, which was true. Even so, it was hard to see him behind the wheel, where Pop should be sitting.
Mr. Adams jumped out of the car. “Let me help you, Junko.” He took the brown suitcase from Mom.
“Thank you.” She gripped the house key tight in her other hand.
“Time to go.” Pop took one step off the porch. “Time to say good-bye.”
The light from the rising sun caught Mom’s face as she glanced over at Pop. Mitsi remembered the time when she was about three and had seen a photo from Mom’s high school graduation. “That’s my mommy,” she’d told Obaachan. “She’s so pretty.”
Mom was pretty. As beautiful as that actress that played Scarlett O’Hara in Gone with the Wind. And as brave, too. Now Mom smiled at Pop. “Not good-bye. See you later. Right?”
Pop nodded.
Mitsi couldn’t watch her mother slide the key into the lock. How many times had she turned that big brass knob after school, eager to ask permission to go over to Judy or Mags’s house? How many times had she run down those seven steps to greet Pop when he’d come home from work? How many times had Dash been waiting on the other side of that door, his tail wagging sixty miles a minute, as if Mitsi were the best thing he’d ever seen in his whole doggy life, better even than a T-bone steak?
With that final click of the lock, Mitsi felt as though they were shutting the door to a life they’d never know again.
“It’s okay, Mits.” Ted handed her a hanky. She hadn’t realized she was crying. “I’ve got a new trick I’m going to show you on our way to camp.”
Mitsi blew her nose. Ted could saw a lady in half and then conjure up a rhino wearing a polka-dot swimsuit, but that still wouldn’t take her mind off their lonely, empty house. Or Dash.
“That’s it, then.” Mom dropped the house keys into her pocketbook with a clunk, not a jingle. She took Obaachan’s arm. “Come, Mother.”
Mr. Adams closed the trunk and hurried around to open the door for them. Ted and Mitsi squeezed into the backseat with Mom and Obaachan. Pop sat up front with Mr. Adams, who drove slowly down the street, both hands tight on the steering wheel.
Mrs. Bowker stood in her yard, holding Dash, waving his paw at them as they passed. “Good-bye,” she called. “God bless.”
Mr. Adams honk-honked the horn. Mitsi pressed the flat of her hand to the glass. Her voice didn’t work to call out good-bye in return. She pivoted away from the window and leaned against the seat.
She had spent hours tracing the little corded edges that divided this very seat into thirds. She’d often pretended she was helping Pop steer by turning the knob on the handle that rolled the window up and down. This car had taken them for picnics to Alki Beach and to pick strawberries at Uncle Shig’s farm in Bellevue. It had even taken Mitsi to the hospital when she’d had her tonsils out. And she couldn’t forget all the hours snuggled up against Obaachan, dreaming away the long drive to visit Auntie Nobuko and Uncle Hiroshi in Spokane. Those had all been good rides in Pop’s car.
This was not a good ride. It wasn’t even Pop’s car anymore; that’s what Pop said when Mr. Adams offered to let him drive. Today, they were going someplace worse than the doctor’s office. Mitsi’s arm still ached from the shots she’d had to get. She didn’t even know what they all were for. Her whole family had waited in a l
ong line that snaked up Main Street and into Dr. Suzuki’s office.
“I don’t even think you’d need this many shots if you were going to the tropics,” one man in line had grumbled. “What kind of place are they sending us to?”
“Camp Harmony.” Another man spit on the street. “What a joke. There’s no harmony there. I heard people are sleeping in horse stalls.” He started to say something else, but his wife gave him the stink eye.
“Little pitchers, big ears,” she said.
The man nodded, scratching the back of his neck. He smiled at Mitsi but didn’t say anything more.
Mitsi had thought Camp Harmony couldn’t be too bad if there were horses. But at Judy’s horse camp, she’d slept with the other campers, not her horse. This man probably didn’t know what he was talking about. Mitsi had passed the rest of the time waiting in the long line, woolgathering about the kind of horse she’d like to ride. Not a black one, like Judy’s. A palomino — yes, that’s what she’d ride. She daydreamed about Quicksilver — that’s what she’d name him — until Dr. Suzuki’s nurse jabbed her in the arm. Three times. Same arm. Lucky for her, it was her left.
She rubbed her sore arm now and turned back to the window, spotted with raindrops. The drops tumbled down the glass, crisscrossing each other to form a blurry screen. But Mitsi could still see every empty storefront. A padlocked chain bolted shut the front doors at Higo. A pair of two-by-fours were nailed in an X across the entrance to Cheeky’s café. Nearly every store in Nihonmachi was closed.
The rain came down harder. Mr. Adams switched on the wipers. Good riddance. Good riddance. Good riddance, they taunted as they swept back and forth across the windshield.
At the corner of 8th and Lane, Mr. Adams braked to a stop and killed the engine. Soldiers in olive drab uniforms patrolled back and forth. Carrying guns. Calling out orders. Shivering, Mitsi grabbed Ted’s coat sleeve. Mr. Adams and Pop unloaded the trunk. After the last bag was out, Mr. Adams offered his hand. “Good luck to you, Kash.” They shook and then Pop picked up his two suitcases. Mr. Adams fumbled a white handkerchief from his pocket and wiped his eyes. “I wish —”