I didn’t understand, but it was hard not to feel scared.
At school, we had drills where we had to hide under our desks. Last year and the year before, the whole school watched a film in the gym that showed how we should protect ourselves from a nuclear blast. In the film, a character called Bert the Turtle survived by hiding in his shell. It was goofy, and we made fun of it at recess, singing the theme song. “There was a turtle by the name of Bert, and Bert the Turtle was very alert…” Still, sometimes when a plane flew overhead I would look up at it and wonder if that was the plane that was going to drop a bomb. It seemed like it could happen anytime.
Even though seeing Dad work on the shelter was frightening, I was glad we were going to be ready if the Russians really did drop a nuclear bomb. After I finished my homework, I went outside and watched him carrying cases of water and canned food down the narrow ladder. “Can I help?”
He nodded. “Sure you can.” He stuck his hand into his pocket, pulled out a folded pamphlet and handed it to me.
“Eleven Steps to Survival?” I read out loud.
“Read it,” he told me. “I don’t want to frighten you, but we need to be prepared. Same as we are for fires or any other emergency. It explains what might happen if there is a nuclear attack.”
I flipped through the pages, trying to skim the words without letting them sink in too deeply. Blast wave…heat flash…grave danger to life…radioactive particles…They were words you couldn’t let yourself think about too much or you’d go crazy. “I already know all this stuff,” I said. “I meant, can I help with the shelter?”
“Not right now, Jack.”
“Dad…come on. Please?”
He sighed like I was asking him to raise my allowance instead of offering to help. “Okay. Why don’t you walk up to Tony’s and pick up a few supplies? Say, two bags of cookies. Big bags. And we need another six cans of evaporated milk.”
“Is this to go in the shelter?”
“Yup. There’s a checklist in here.” He held out his hand and I gave the pamphlet back. He flipped through it. “Fourteen days of supplies. You should choose a few toys to put down there.”
I stared. “Toys?” I wasn’t six years old anymore.
“Something to do. Something to pass the time.”
“Um, I guess I could find a couple of books.”
“Great.” He turned away from me and headed toward the steep ladder. “I’m building some shelves down there,” he told me. “For the supplies.”
“Can I see?”
“Go to Tony’s. I’ll show you when you get back.”
It sure seemed like Dad didn’t want me around.
Tony was listening to the radio, like always. He shook his head when he saw me. “Crazy times, Jack. What can I do for you?”
He was wearing a blue-and-white pinstripe shirt, the fabric straining against its buttons where it stretched over his belly. Black hairs poked out through the gaps. I looked away quickly. “I need some milk. Canned milk.” I picked up a big bag of Oreos and a box of Vanilla Snaps. “And some cookies. Dad’s fixing up our fallout shelter.” Too late, I remembered I wasn’t supposed to tell people about it. Dad didn’t want the whole neighborhood banging on the door when we only had space and food for our family.
All Tony said was, “No candy for you today?”
I shook my head. On the radio, a reporter was talking about Kennedy. I picked up the cans of milk and put them on the counter beside the cookies. “That’s it.”
Tony took my money and handed me back some change. “You take care now.”
I ran all the way home, my bag bouncing against my leg with the weight of the canned milk, my heart thumping. What if I wasn’t at home when the bomb got dropped? What if I was at school? If the bomb was dropped in Ottawa, say, or in New York, how long would it take for the fallout to get here?
I didn’t want to wait crouched under my desk like Bert the Turtle.
Dad was in the shelter when I got back. I could hear him hammering, a steady thump, thump coming from underground.
I backed carefully down the ladder. “Dad?”
“Hi, Jack. Careful—watch those planks.”
I stepped over the wood planks piled on the concrete floor. “Wow. You’ve done a lot.”
“Mmm-hmm.”
I looked around. The shelter was small and dim, lit only by the pale shaft of sun slanting in through the open hatch. Dad had put in a set of wooden shelves along one wall. I put the canned milk and cookies down on the floor beside them.
“The beds will go here,” Dad said, gesturing to where he’d chalked lines on the floor and wall opposite the shelves. “Bunks. Your mother and I here, you up above.”
“Doesn’t leave much floor space,” I said.
He grunted. “Not supposed to be luxurious, Jack. Supposed to keep us alive.”
I couldn’t imagine being locked in here, waiting, knowing that most of our friends and neighbors would be dead or dying, wondering who had survived. Wondering if anyone would be there when we emerged. The shelter felt like a grave to me. All I wanted was to climb back up the ladder into the daylight. “Um, I should go,” I said. “Lots of homework.” And I climbed, my heart thumping, palms slippery-wet on the wooden ladder.
Once I was back in the house, I didn’t feel much better. The closed bedroom door kept tugging at me. I knew Mom didn’t want to see me, or anyone else for that matter. Don’t bother your mother, Dad was always telling me. As if I didn’t know that. Still, sometimes I’d find myself standing by her door, listening for any signs of life. Sometimes I wanted to burst in and scream at her to get up, get out of bed, and pay some attention to me for a change.
I almost hated Annie for dying. I knew it wasn’t her fault, but if it weren’t for her, Mom would be her old self. Playing board games with me, laughing at my stupid jokes, putting on records and dancing with Dad in the living room. It would’ve been easier if Annie had been born dead—if we’d never had those months of getting to know her. Or if she’d never been born at all. What was the point in her being alive if she was just going to die anyway?
Eleven
On Sunday, the Millers called and invited me to come over for lunch when they got home from church. I could tell it was Mrs. Miller’s idea, not Allan’s, but Dad accepted without even asking me if I wanted to go. I walked over at noon, wishing I could go to the woods and look for Kate instead.
Mrs. Miller said we could watch their new television while we ate. It was nice of her, but all that niceness made me nervous. Even Mr. Miller patted me awkwardly on the back before sitting down on the couch beside Allan. Allan made a point of telling me he was glad I came over because it meant he was allowed to skip his piano practice.
His mom brought our food into the living room: hot meals in tinfoil trays. Having a color tv wasn’t nearly as great as I’d thought it would be, since it turned out that the broadcast was in black-and-white anyway. Everything on television was about the president. Kennedy, I mean, not the new one. Someone had been arrested for the shooting—Lee Harvey Oswald, a small, narrow-faced man with dark hair above a high forehead. Allan said that he was probably a Communist, but Mr. Miller said we didn’t know that for sure.
It was still hard to believe that Kennedy was actually dead. I took a mouthful of mashed potato and wondered if Mrs. Miller would start crying again. Then I wondered if my own mother was as upset as Allan’s mother was. I couldn’t imagine it. After all, it wasn’t as if we knew Kennedy personally.
They were showing a picture of the White House, and the reporter was talking about the president’s body being moved to the Capitol rotunda. “Tomorrow there will be a final hour for the public to pay their respects to the president before the president leaves Capitol Hill for the last time,” he said. “The last soldier—” He broke off in midsentence,
as if he was listening to someone or something, then started talking again. “We are now switching to Dallas, where they are about to move Lee Oswald and where there is a scuffle in the police station…”
“Why do you think he did it?” I wondered out loud. “I mean, do you think he is crazy or something?”
Mrs. Miller shook her head and shushed me. “They’re taking him to jail.”
“Isn’t he in jail already?”
She gestured at the screen. “Police station. Shh. Listen.”
The screen was filled with men, all shoulder to shoulder, crowded together: grey-suited men jostling and pushing in front of the news cameras.
“Where is he?” Allan said. “Where’s Oswald?” His dinner tray was balanced on his lap, and he held his fork halfway to his mouth, a lump of steak dangling precariously from its tines.
The camera swung around and people moved in front of it. I couldn’t tell what was going on. “He’s shot…he’s been shot. Oswald has been shot,” the reporter said.
“My God.” Mrs. Miller’s hands flew to her mouth.
The reporter seemed as confused as we were, and it was hard to tell what was going on. Bodies moved here and there—reporters, police—and someone said something about pandemonium, and someone asked someone else if Oswald had been shot, and someone said he’d heard a gunshot and that Oswald had clutched his stomach.
“Did he just get murdered?” Allan’s eyes were wide. “On television?”
Mr. and Mrs. Miller both looked at us as if they had just remembered we were there. “I think you two have seen enough,” Mr. Miller said firmly. “You two go play outside.”
“But Dad!”
“Go on. Now.” On the screen, the confusion continued.
“Fine,” Allan said. “Go ahead and make us miss the most exciting thing ever.”
“Allan.” Mrs. Miller frowned. “Listen to your father.”
Mr. Miller shook his head. His eyes were glued to the screen, and he’d already forgotten us. As we trudged as slowly as possible toward the door, I could hear him muttering to himself. “Madness. Madness. What is the world coming to?”
We shrugged on our winter coats and headed outside. It had turned into winter overnight, the sky a heavy leaden grey, a thin frost still lingering on the grass. I took a deep breath and felt the air crackle in my nostrils. I should probably have been upset about seeing—well, almost seeing—someone killed, but it didn’t feel very real. Besides, that man had shot the president, so it was hard to feel too bad about him being dead.
“I can’t believe they won’t let us watch it,” Allan said.
“Well, we saw the best part anyway,” I said.
Allan buried his hands in his pockets. “They probably would’ve let me watch it if you weren’t there.”
“I doubt it,” I said.
He gave me a knowing look. “They worry about you. You know, mentally. Because of your mother.”
“Allan?” I said. “Go to hell.”
His mouth dropped open and hung there, fish-like. “Did you just say what I thought you said? Because I’ve been a good friend to you. In your, your—your time of need.”
I felt like shaking him. “You know what?” I said. “I’m tired of listening to you repeating everything your mother says.” For some reason I remembered the girl in my tree house. Kate. “I’m going for a walk,” I said abruptly.
“Where are you going?”
“None of your beeswax,” I said. Allan didn’t know about my tree house or about Kate, and I wasn’t going to tell him.
Twelve
She probably won’t be there, I told myself as I walked. Sunday afternoon…she was probably at home with her family, or with other friends. Though maybe she hadn’t had time to make too many friends yet, since they’d just moved here.
But when I got close enough, I could see a flash of red high up in my tree.
“Kate!” I called out.
No answer. I waited for a moment. Everything was still and quiet, and I could feel the chill of the cold ground through the thin soles of my sneakers. Kate wasn’t there. So what had I seen in the tree? I half walked, half ran to the tree and scrambled up, the slippery bark cold and damp under my bare fingers. And there it was: Kate’s red sweater, lying in a heap on the wooden planks.
It was all the excuse I needed. I picked it up, slithered back down the tree and started walking in the direction of the new houses over at Mohawk Meadows.
I stood in front of a big brick house, shifting from one foot to the other. I should have worn my boots: my shoes were soaked from the wet grass, and my toes ached from the cold.
There were six houses in the new development. I knew Kate lived in one of them, but I didn’t know which was hers. One looked empty, though, and another had a tricycle out in front. For some reasone, I thought Kate was an only child, so that left four.
I took a few steps toward the door of the nearest house, then stopped. Kate might think it was awfully strange for me to show up at her house. I was still standing there, sort of paralyzed with indecision, when the front door flew open and someone came bursting out.
Wild curly hair springing out from under a red wool hat, a puffy pink jacket, laced-up boots. Kate.
I waved tentatively.
“Hey! Jack? What are you doing here?” She bounded toward me. She moved like gravity was barely holding her down, like she had springs in her boots. “Did you come to see me?”
I had a big goofy grin on my face. “Yeah, sort of. I guess so. I mean, I found your sweater.”
“I’m always losing things. Mom says I’d lose my head if it wasn’t screwed onto my shoulders. My grandma made this sweater, you know. It’s my favorite.” She took it from me, making a face. “Ugh, it’s wet.”
“Uh, yeah. I’m sorry. It was in the tree…”
“I wasn’t blaming you, silly. Anyway, now I’m glad I left it behind. I was hoping I’d see you again.”
“You were?”
“Yes. I’ve been thinking about you.”
“You have? Why?” I thought about the last time I’d seen her, and how upset I was. I couldn’t have been very good company.
“You seemed so worried. What was wrong, anyway?” She stopped speaking and put her hand over her mouth. “Sorry. I shouldn’t have asked that. Bad habit. My mom says everything that comes into my head goes flying straight out my mouth. She says I should learn to think before I speak. Actually, she says I should just talk half the amount I do, and then I’d put my foot in my mouth only half as often.”
I waited for her to take a breath; then I jumped in quickly. “It’s fine. Really. I don’t mind.” It seemed to me that most people thought too much before they spoke. Adults especially. They weighed every word, decided what to share and what to keep secret. They presented information in such a tidy package that you couldn’t ever trust it was true.
Kate looked at me thoughtfully. “I was going to go for a walk. Do you want to come with me? Or did you want to come in? You could meet my parents. They’re just doing the crossword puzzle from yesterday’s paper. They’re both terrible at them. They’d probably like help.”
“Maybe later,” I said. “Let’s walk. There’s something I want to talk to you about. Something I want your help with.”
“Okay. Let’s go, then.”
Kate walked as fast as she talked. I had to jog a bit to stay beside her. She kept up a steady flow of chat, telling me about her old school and her new bedroom and asking me questions without waiting for answers. Which was just as well, as I was too out of breath to say much.
“Tree house?” she asked.
I nodded. “Sure.”
The woods were quiet and cold, and something about the quietness seemed to affect Kate, because she suddenly stopped talking and slowed h
er pace, walking beside me in silence. I kept thinking about the Millers. I hoped Allan wouldn’t tell his mom that I’d taken off. If Mrs. Miller called Dad, that’d be one more thing for him to be mad about. Maybe they’d assume I’d gone home.
It was only yesterday that I'd promised Mom I'd behave. I shoved my hands deep into my coat pockets and tried not to think about it. It wasn’t like I was doing anything wrong. Besides, Dad shouldn’t have accepted the invitation without asking me. I kept telling him I didn’t even like Allan.
We scrambled up the slippery trunk, me ahead of Kate. Once I was sitting on the smooth wood boards, I pulled the Guinness Book of Records out of my bag.
“Here,” I said, handing it to Kate. “I want to break a record.”
She took the book from me with her dark eyebrows raised. “To get your name in here? I mean, in the next one?”
“Yes. No.” I shook my head. “I don’t care about being in the book. As long as I break a record—that’s the important part.”
Kate flipped through the book. “Um, tallest mountain…”
“You need the section on human achievements.” I reached over and opened the book to the right spot.
“Wow.” She scanned the entries. “Pole squatting! Did you read this one?”
I’d read all of them, many times. “Yeah. Maurie Rose Kirby. The girl who sat on top of a pole for, like, two hundred days.”
“To protest being called a juvenile delinquent!”
“I know. Crazy, huh?”
“I think it’s great.” She turned a few pages. “Ooh. Gun running! And human cannonball!”
I frowned. “Not really options, Kate.”
“I suppose not.” She sounded regretful. “Wow,” she murmured. “This guy got the record for returning the most money. He found two hundred and forty thousand—”
I cut her off. “I know. Almost a quarter of a million dollars. Can you imagine?”
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