“That must be Grandma,” Rina’s mom said. “You kids do something for a while, but don’t go away. We’ll be getting ready to go to the reunion soon.”
She opened the door, and Rina’s grandma stumbled into the kitchen, her arms piled high with a large cardboard box and two plastic containers of samosas.
“Good morning, everyone!” Rina’s grandma said as she set the things down on the kitchen counter.
“What’s in the box?” Julie asked, popping up under her grandma’s arm. “Is it a present?”
“No, no,” Rina’s grandma laughed. “It’s just old photographs and things.”
“Oh,” Julie said, her smile disappearing. “I guess I’ll go watch TV, then. Bye.”
Normally, Rina and Shannon would have exchanged a look over Julie’s behavior, but this morning things were different.
“I guess we should go get ready,” Rina said, getting up from the table. She headed out of the room without looking at Shannon. Shannon followed her to their bedroom, not sure if Rina wanted her to come. But where else did she have to go?
Shannon tried to look busy, refolding and rearranging her clothes. She wanted to ask Rina what she was going to wear to the reunion, but Rina had her back to Shannon, and Shannon didn’t want to be the first to break the silence. She looked back down at her clothes. This was not how she had imagined spending her last morning with Rina. She pulled out a yellow top and matching shorts and put them on. Then she glanced over at Rina.
Their eyes met. They both scowled and looked away.
Shannon sat down on the bed with a sigh and reached to the dresser top for her hairbrush. It wasn’t there.
“Where’s my brush?” she blurted out.
“I didn’t take it, if that’s what you think!” Rina snapped.
“Well, I put it right here, and now it’s gone. It didn’t walk away on its own, did it?”
“Maybe your cooties carried it away!” Rina said.
Shannon was stunned. She stared at Rina until Rina looked away.
At that moment, a muffled giggle came from under Shannon’s bed. Rina’s head snapped around. She marched over, bent down and flung up the bottom edge of the covers.
“Julie! Get out of there!” she demanded.
Julie wiggled out from under the bed. She was holding Shannon’s brush.
“Cooties!” she repeated with a snort of laughter. “Maybe cooties took it!”
Shannon stepped forward and snatched her brush from Julie.
“Hey! You hurt my hand,” Julie protested.
“Watch what you’re doing,” Rina warned.
“I didn’t hurt her,” Shannon snapped. “She’s just being a brat!”
“Don’t call my sister names!”
“Yeah!” Julie said, stretching her body up as tall as she could. “If you’re mean, you can’t come to the reunion with us.”
“Fine!” Shannon said, the words bursting out of her. “I don’t want to go. I wish I’d never come to this house at all!”
She glared at Rina. Rina glared back.
“Girls.” Rina’s grandma stood in the doorway. She looked at them for a moment. “Rina and Shannon, would you come out here for a minute? I want to show you something.”
“What about me?” Julie asked.
“You get changed for the reunion,” Rina’s grandma said. She ushered the other two girls into the living room. Shannon’s stomach tightened as she followed Rina.
Rina’s grandma sat down on the couch behind a coffee table scattered with old black-and-white photographs. The cardboard box they had come in sat on the floor.
Shannon waited for Rina’s grandma to begin a lecture on fighting or at least ask them what was going on. Instead, she reached out and picked up one of the photographs.
“Here’s a picture you might find interesting,” she said.
“What is it?” Rina asked, sitting down on the couch beside her grandma.
“Come on, dear.” Rina’s grandma smiled at Shannon and patted the couch seat on her other side. Shannon sat, glad that the older woman was between her and Rina. She took a deep breath and tried to focus on the photograph.
The photo that Rina’s grandma was holding showed a group of children standing in front of a wooden building. Underneath the photo was written Paldi School, 1941.
“That girl looks like Rina,” Shannon said, pointing at a girl in the front row. The girl had the same bright smile as Rina, but her hair was pulled back from her face as if it were long and tied at the back in a ponytail or a braid. Like all the girls, she was wearing a dress — or maybe it was a skirt. Of course, it couldn’t be Rina. These pictures were so old.
Rina’s grandma smiled.
“That was me,” she said. “When I was the same age as you two.”
She pointed at another face in the picture. The girl had short dark hair and a shy smile.
“That was my best friend, Mitsu,” she said.
“She doesn’t look East Indian,” Rina commented.
“Oh no.” Rina’s grandma laughed. “My family came from India. Her family came from Japan. Both our dads worked in the Paldi sawmill.”
“I didn’t know any Japanese people lived in Paldi,” Rina said.
“Oh yes. There were East Indians, Japanese, Chinese, English and others too back then. We all played together.”
Shannon wanted to stay back on the couch where she didn’t have to look at Rina, but the photographs drew her and she leaned forward.
“What was it like in Paldi?” she asked
“It was a great place for us kids,” Rina’s grandma said, with a distant smile. “Mitsu and I did all kinds of things together.”
“Are you still friends now?” Rina asked.
Rina’s grandma’s smile faded.
“No,” she said softly. “Something happened.”
Shannon wondered what it could have been, but she didn’t think she should ask. Rina, however, didn’t hesitate.
“What?” Rina demanded. “What happened?”
Rina’s grandma was quiet for a moment.
“Well, the war was on,” she began. “But that wasn’t where the trouble started.”
Shannon inched a little closer to Rina’s grandma. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Rina do the same. They settled in to hear the story.
Chapter Four
Jas and Mitsu
It was the beginning of April, 1942. We poured out the front door of the Paldi school, so happy that spring was here. Mitsu and I ran ahead of the others down the wooden steps. I even remember how the air smelled — sweet from new growing things mixed with the tang of fresh-cut cedar, wood smoke and diesel from the sawmill.
I didn’t usually pay attention to the smells and sounds of the mill — the steady throb and squeals or the splashes of logs being dumped into the holding pond by the railroad tracks. The sounds were there all the time — except after eleven each night and when there was a holiday or an accident. But everything seemed to stand out that day.
At the bottom of the stairs, Mitsu got ahead of me.
“Race you!” she called.
“Hey, that’s cheating!” I complained, but Mitsu didn’t stop.
Even though Mitsu was smaller than I was and had shorter legs, she was fast. I had to run hard to catch up. My long braid flew out behind me, and my school bag bumped against my leg. Our feet made a noise like drums on the wooden boardwalk.
I had almost caught Mitsu when my skirt flapped and caught around my knees. I lost my balance.
“Ahh!” I called out as I fell off the boardwalk and landed with a splash in the muddy road.
Mitsu turned back to see if I was all right.
I stood up, mud dripping down my clothes.
Mitsu started to laugh. She laughed so hard that she had to hold onto her stomach.
“It’s not funny!” I said, frowning at her. Then I looked down at myself and held up my muddy hands to reach for her. “I’m a creature from the mud swamp!” I said
in a deep monster voice. She squealed and jumped out of my way, and I started laughing, too.
After that, we walked the rest of the way to my house, talking and joking.
“We better go to the back door,” I said. “Maybe I can get changed before my mom sees us.”
As we stepped inside, Mitsu became shy and quiet. She was always like that around my parents.
“Come on,” I whispered.
“Jasminder, is that you?” My mom came into the kitchen. She was wearing a white hand-knit sweater over her blue kameej, which is like a long shirt worn with loose, matching pants called sulwar. She was carrying my baby brother, Nanjo.
“Ah, Mitsu. It is good to see you,” she said, smiling. Her English had a heavy East Indian accent.
“Nice to see you, Mrs. Mohan,” Mitsu said in a small voice. She dipped her head politely, then looked shyly away.
“Can I go to Mitsu’s for supper?” I asked.
My mom looked at me and frowned.
“Ay key kitta?” she said, which is Punjabi for “What did you do?” I knew she was mad, because she was forgetting to speak English in front of Mitsu.
“I fell in the road,” I explained.
“Go!” She pointed toward my bedroom. “Change those clothes. Then you can help me cut some vegetables.”
“Aw, Mata, can’t Pritam do it?” Pritam was my older sister.
“She’s at the hall, helping with the packages for the Red Cross drive.”
“But, Mitsu . . .”
“Help me first. Then you can go to Mitsu’s.”
Once I had changed into a clean skirt, blouse and sweater, and a pile of carrots and potatoes had been cut, Mitsu and I set out.
We walked along the gray boardwalk past the rows of small wooden houses. Two boys from school ran past us. One of them, Peter, had bright red hair. He flicked my braid as he brushed by.
“Hey!” I shouted. I hated it when he did that. I wanted to chase after them, but Mitsu held my arm.
“Just ignore them,” she said.
“Oh, all right.” I didn’t want them to get away with it, but maybe it would bug them more if we ignored them.
At the end of the street, we turned the corner toward Mitsu’s house. Up ahead, the two boys were standing, leaning off the boardwalk over the road. Peter was poking a stick down into the mud, and they didn’t look up when we walked by.
“Remember, ignore them,” Mitsu said again. Then she leaned past me and gave Peter a push.
He lost his balance and stepped off into the mud.
“Hey! What did you do that for?” Peter shouted, spinning around to face his friend.
“I didn’t do it! It was Jas!” said the other boy.
I was so surprised, I didn’t say anything.“Come on!” Mitsu grabbed my sleeve, and we started to run.
“I’ll get you Jasminder Mohan!” Peter yelled as he climbed back up to the boardwalk, waving the stick. As we looked back, a big clod of mud dripped off the end of the stick and landed on his jacket. With a whoop of anger, the boys thundered after us down the boardwalk.
We reached Mitsu’s house and burst through the front door, gasping for breath. We slammed it shut behind us, leaned against it and began to laugh. The boys’ shouts still reached us from the street.
Chapter Five
Supper
Mitsu and I took off our shoes and left them by the front door, as we always did at Mitsu’s house.
“I’m home!” Mitsu called in English, then in Japanese, “Tadaima kaerimashita!”
Mitsu’s mother came to meet us. She was small and had soft black hair rolled back around her kind, round face. She wore a pale blue dress and had a white lace-edged apron tied around her waist.
“Okaerinasai!” she greeted us, smiling. “Welcome home! Welcome, Jasminder!”
“Hello, Mrs. Takashima,” I said politely.
“I’m glad you’ve come to join us, Jasminder,” said Mitsu’s mother. “Perhaps you girls would like to help set the table.”
We followed her into the kitchen. On the stove, vegetables were frying in a wok, and a pot of fragrant rice was steaming on the back burner. I guessed that a second covered pot contained miso soup. Mitsu’s mother went to the stove. Mitsu took five white plates out of the wall cupboard and handed them to me.
“Is Tom going to be here?” I asked as we set the plates onto the blue-and-white tablecloth. Tom was Mitsu’s older brother.
“I think so,” Mitsu answered. She began placing a matching rice bowl and a pair of chopsticks beside each plate. “Why do you ask?”
“I was just wondering.”
“You don’t have a crush on him, do you?” Mitsu teased.
“No!” I changed the subject. “Hey, that was a dirty trick you played, you know.”
“What trick?”
“On the way here. Pushing Peter so he thought I did it.”
“Oh. That was funny, wasn’t it?”
“I guess so,” I said.
Just then, the front door opened and the house filled with noise and movement as Mitsu’s father and Tom came in.
“They flew right over!” Tom was saying. “Three Bolingbroke bombers!”
“They must have been on their way to the base at Pat Bay,” Mr. Takashima said.
“All Tom cares about is airplanes,” Mitsu whispered.
At supper, we all sat around the table.
“You better get Jasminder a fork,” Tom teased. “Or she’ll end up with more food on the floor than in her mouth.”
I turned red, remembering the mess I’d made at New Year’s. In Paldi on New Year’s day, all the Japanese families had open house with lots of delicious food set out. Everyone came to visit. When I went with my family to the Takashimas’ house, I tried using chopsticks and accidentally dropped several pieces of sushi on the floor.
“Don’t be so clumsy!” my mother had hissed.
“It takes time to master anything new,” Mr. Takashima was saying kindly. He pushed his round wire glasses back up his nose and winked at me. “I know a certain young man who’s been having trouble with his math problems.”
It was Tom’s turn to redden, and I almost felt sorry for him. I tried to place my fingers around the smooth pointed chopsticks, but they slipped and twisted in my hand.
Mitsu’s mother placed a fork beside my plate.
“I think I’ll use a fork tonight, too,” Mitsu announced. I glanced at her gratefully.
After dinner, Mr. Takashima and Tom moved around the house, pulling heavy black blinds down over all the windows. My father and sister would be doing the same at our house. With the war on, we had a blackout every night so that if any enemy planes flew over, lights would not give away the location of towns.
Mitsu’s mother turned the radio on in the living room. An announcer’s voice crackled to life.
“Clearing weather unleashed wave after wave of Royal Air Force planes today in their virtually ceaseless offensive against the German-dominated continent.”
“An air battle!” Tom said.
“On the Burma front,” the deep radio voice continued. “Japanese forces attacked furiously, forcing a further withdrawal of the exhausted British line . . .”
Mr. Takashima sat down in an armchair beside the radio, shaking his head.
“This war is getting worse,” he said.
“Shh!” Mitsu’s mother said, gesturing toward us.
I met Mitsu’s eyes. Grown-ups always thought we were too young to know about the war. But we knew what was happening — at least we thought we did.
“Come on,” Mitsu whispered, tugging at my sleeve. “Who cares about the war, anyway?”
We retreated to Mitsu’s bedroom. The war was far away, nothing for us to worry about.
Chapter Six
The Gift
Mitsu had a room of her own, though it was smaller than the room I shared with my sister, Pritam. We sat down together on Mitsu’s bed, which had a frothy white bedspread covered with tiny pin
k flowers. The curtains in the window matched. I looked at the shelf beside the bed with its books, the shiny white ceramic cat and the stiff elegant doll that Mitsu’s great- grandmother had sent from Japan. As usual, my eyes went to the brand-new Eaton’s Beauty Doll with its glossy blond curls and pale blue matching jacket and dress that Mitsu’s mother had made for it.
“Can I hold her?” I asked
“Sure.”
I picked up the doll and noticed something that hadn’t been there the last time I visited Mitsu.
“What’s this?” I asked, hooking one finger under the doll’s red bead necklace. The beads looked too big for a real doll’s necklace. Each one had an orange center, like a small flame.
“I made it,” Mitsu said. Then she looked down at the floor.
“It’s for you,” she said.
“For me? Really?”
Mitsu nodded and reached out to undo the clasp behind the doll’s neck.
“It’s not really a necklace,” she explained. “It’s a bracelet.”
I put the doll back on its shelf and held out my left hand. Mitsu placed the bracelet around my wrist and did up the clasp.
“It’s great!” I said, smiling and moving my arm around so that the bracelet slid up and down, and the orange at the center of the beads flicked and danced. “I wish I had something to give you.”
“You’ve already given it to me,” Mitsu said.
“What?”
“Your friendship.”
We grinned at each other. Then Mitsu’s mother’s face appeared in the doorway.
“Excuse me, girls. Would you like to have a bath? Mitsu’s father and Tom have finished. The water is still nice and hot.”
“Yes, please!” I said. A bath at Mitsu’s was a real treat. At my house, we had to heat water on the kitchen stove, then fill a round steel tub that was set out on the kitchen floor. It was much different at Mitsu’s house.
Mrs. Takashima handed us each a bar of soap and a washcloth. Then I followed Mitsu to a door at the back of the house.
Reunion Page 2