The Rose Sisters' Island Adventure

by Linda R. Mills

  She walked over and picked it up to give me a closer look. “Oh, this belonged to the little girl who lived here before you. This was her room. She kept gecko eggs in it until they hatched.”

  Are you kidding me? I thought to myself. Leaping lizard . . . literally. No way am I going to stay in a room with gecko eggs.

  “That is so cool,” exclaimed Carol as she entered the room.

  “Well, why don’t you take this room then, since you like the cage so much? We older girls will take the bedroom next door. You’re the youngest so you get the smallest room. I’ll go tell Mom it’s all decided.”

  “Carol is getting her own room? How come?” Susie had overheard part of our conversations.

  I grabbed her arm, dragged her out of the room, and whispered, “Because there used to be gecko eggs in there so that room will probably have geckos crawling all over the walls. You want them dropping on you while you sleep?”

  Susie’s eyes widened. “No way, she can have that room.”

  That night, it had not cooled down at all. It sure was hot and humid on this island. But both Susie and I pulled our top sheets up over our heads so only our noses stuck out for breathing. The length of each of our single beds was against a bedroom wall. No way were we going to have a gecko fall on us while we were sleeping!

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Life in Paradise

  September 1958

  IT TOOK US ONLY A couple of weeks to get used to life on Kwaj. By the time school started, we knew our way around the island. And the heat didn’t seem so bad either. We discovered that there was a seawater swimming pool on the windward side of the base, just a couple of blocks from our house. It was free, and we could go anytime. There were lifeguards on duty, which was a good thing because Mom did not know how to swim.

  The monthly refrigerator ship had come in recently, so there were fresh eggs and vegetables in the commissary. There was only one kind of ice cream that they brought to the island. It was in five gallon containers, and Daddy usually bought a container of chocolate for our freezer. We never had fresh milk though. It was always the icky canned milk. Susie plugged her nose every time she had to drink a glass of it.

  “When we get back to the States, I am never ever going to drink anything but fresh whole milk again,” Sue declared. “This stuff is terrible with a capital T.”

  Canned milk wasn’t the only thing different from what we had been used to. We had discovered a lot of differences between Kwaj and the States.

  It didn’t rain much, so there were ditches along the sides of the airfield to help catch rainwater, and we had a rain barrel next to our house. We used that water to wash our hair or put in the water tank of the toilet. There was a brick in that tank too so that it took up some of the space and didn’t use as much water when it refilled. I learned to take Jackson showers because we had to conserve water.

  Daddy explained it to us the first time. “When you get in the shower, turn on the water and get wet all over. Then turn off the water, soap up, and scrub all over your body. When you have finished all your scrubbing, turn the water back on only long enough to get rinsed off. We can’t let the water just run the whole time. Every one of us has to do our part to conserve the water on the island so we don’t run out.”

  We didn’t have a TV. Nobody did because there was no television station here on the island. We were out in the middle of the Pacific. There were no nearby stations either. There was one radio station that broadcasted just on the base, but somehow they had all the latest records to play like “Charlie Brown, he’s a clown, that Charlie Brown.”

  Because it was so hot, everyone wore shorts. Even the Navy dress uniforms for the men had shorts, not long pants. In school, we were allowed to wear shorts. That never would have happened back at my old school. There we had to wear dresses or skirts and blouses and saddle shoes. Our shoes on Kwaj were called go-aheads because you couldn’t walk backwards in them. You had to “go ahead.” In the States, we had called them flip flops, but I think go-aheads made more sense.

  When we went to church on Sundays, we didn’t have to cover our heads with a hat or veil like we used to do. It was just too hot. So as long as we had a headband in our hair that counted as having our heads covered. The church building on Kwaj was different, too. The Protestants and the Catholics shared the same building. It didn’t have any walls, either; just a few poles held up a large thatched roof. And no pews, just rows of chairs and some floor fans that worked overtime trying to keep the air cool. We did have an organ in the back though, and when the Peace family moved here right after school started, Mrs. Peace became our organist. She played great songs.

  Another good thing about the Peaces was that they had three kids, and the oldest girl, Jeannie, was in sixth grade with me. Her brother, Tom, was in second grade, and Elizabeth was in kindergarten. Mom and Dad and Mr. and Mrs. Peace became good friends right away.

  Mr. Peace was from North Dakota, and Mrs. Peace was from St. Paul, Minnesota, which might have explained why Mrs. Peace and Mom always stopped to chat after church services and were always the last to leave while we kids hung out by the pickups waiting for them. That Minnesota goodbye thing was in full force with Mom and Mrs. Peace.

  Our families did a lot of stuff together like cookouts and playing bridge which was fine with me because Jeannie was my best friend. We were the same height, but she had short reddish brown hair and tons of freckles. She was always in a good mood and up for adventures.

  She and I thought sixth grade was okay. Our teacher was Miss Wong, and she was Japanese. She was very short and slender with coal black hair and always said nice things to us about our work and how we acted.

  I liked geography and math the best. We were always learning about new places and looking at the globe to see how far away those places were from Kwaj. That reminded me that we had a lot of ocean around us. I had hoped we never experienced a tidal wave. We would be goners for sure.

  Every week we went to the swimming pool for lessons as part of our school lessons. How neat was that? Susie, Carol, and I were learning to swim.

  They were pretty good and even won some of the races. I would have rather just played near the shallow end and practiced my handstands under water.

  My sisters were good divers, too, and made fun of me when I jumped off the diving board holding my nose and my ponytail would fly up in the air.

  Jeannie never laughed at me and didn’t have that problem because she always wore a bathing cap to keep her hair dry.

  Many of the natives from a neighboring island called Ebeye, pronounced E-buy, came to work on Kwaj every day. Daddy arranged for one of the Marshallese ladies to clean our house each week. Her name was Luwagun. She was as short as me. Her skin was the dark brown color of a dried coconut hull, and her face was weathered and wrinkled.

  I didn’t know how old she was, but she was a grandma. She giggled when Daddy introduced her to us, and her grin showed some missing teeth.

  She nodded and said, “Yokwe yok.”

  “That’s hello in Marshallese, girls,” Dad translated.

  Mom and Dad showed Luwagun around. Dad knew only a little bit of Japanese and Marshallese. He used that and lots of hand gestures to explain what she would need to do each week.

  She did more nodding and said, “Hi, Hi Papasan. Okay do.”

  When she left that first day, Mom said, “John, I feel guilty having a maid doing chores I usually do. It doesn’t seem right.”

  “Actually, Honey, the Navy encourages us to find jobs for the natives. It is a big help to their income and Ebeye’s economy. Besides, she will be a big help since you have a new job.”

  That school year, Mom worked at the base library while we went to school. She used to be a secretary before we were born, but she had never worked at a job since then until that one. She left work at four o’clock, so when school dismissed at two-thirty, we walked home and sometimes Jeannie came with us. Most days, we turned on the radio, called in requests, and w
aited to hear the announcer say them over the radio. Susie had a boy she liked named John, so she usually grabbed the phone first to dedicate the song, Venus, to him.

  If one of us tried to grab the phone away, started to argue over a card game, or told each other what to do with our voices raised, Luwagun would waddle into the room with her face all serious and say, “Noooo, noooo. Papasan no like. Girls no fight.”

  She looked so worried and upset, we would burst into laughter and hug her.

  “It’s okay, Luwagun. We are just kidding,” Susie reassured her. “Don’t worry.”

  “You good girls,” she smiled and patted our cheeks on her way back to the kitchen.

  One of the best things that has happened to me this year was that I got to take hula lessons. Susie’s best friend was Kanahni. Kanahni’s mom was my hula teacher.

  She was from Hawaii, and married to one of the Navy officers there. I loved everything about the hula. I learned all the basic steps; how to keep my feet flat to the ground, my shoulders straight, and my arms up. Kahnani’s mom said that every movement of the hands helped tell a story in the dance.

  I have already learned the dances to “Lovely Hula Hands” and “I Want to Go Back to My Little Grass Shack in Hawaii.” In a month the feathered gourds and bamboo sticks we ordered from Hawaii would arrive, and then I would learn more dances that used those. A couple of the songs on the record we used were in Polynesian, and I learned the words to those songs.

  Susie and Carol didn’t want to take hula lessons so they climbed trees with Kahnani while I danced. They even called themselves The Three Monkeys, and they made a clubhouse in one of the palm trees. But I loved, loved, loved the hula.

  Our Christmas was different that year. There weren’t any evergreen pine trees in the tropics so we didn’t have a Christmas tree to put up or any decorations. Mom had packed our nativity set to bring along so we put that out on the lanai. We cut out paper snowflakes to hang in the windows and made paper chains to drape from the ceiling.

  Mom and Daddy said we could each pick only one gift to order from the Sears catalogue for Christmas. It had to be shipped all the way to Kwaj, and that was very expensive. We had to order so many weeks ahead of time that by the time we opened our present Christmas morning, we had almost forgotten what we ordered so it was a surprise.

  I received a nurse’s kit. Susie ordered a transfer truck that had little cars that rode on top of it, and Carol got a farm set. We had hung three of Daddy’s socks from the edge of the dining room table. On Christmas morning we each found an orange, hair barrettes, and some pieces of candy in them.

  We gave Mom and Daddy the cards we had made for them in school, and handkerchiefs we had bought for them at the PX. Mom’s handkerchief had a little blue flower embroidered on it.

  We had sung Christmas carols at midnight services the night before, so it still seemed like Christmas. It wasn’t like we were expecting snow or anything. We hadn’t had that for Christmases in California either. Some years Daddy had been at sea for Christmas, so this year on Kwaj was a great Christmas because all five of us were together.

  Daddy brought home a surprise a few weeks before. A sweet black cat with white spots on her face and paws. She was wandering around the ship’s department so he brought her home. She was very curious, always poking her nose into closets, cabinets, boxes and toys so we named her Snoopy. She liked to sleep in Carol’s room on the cool tile floor. It wasn’t long before she began to act strangely.

  Mom finally said, “I think I know what is going on with Snoopy. She is going to have kittens.”

  “Yippee,” I shouted. “Can we keep them?”

  “No, dear. But we will find good homes for all of them. First we need to fix a soft place for her to have her kittens.”

  So Daddy found a cardboard box from the commissary, and cut the top off. Mom gave us an old towel to fold and place in the bottom so Snoopy would be comfortable. We placed it in the corner of Carol’s room, and added a few of Snoopy’s rubber toys. But she never seemed very interested.

  “Come on, Snoopy, come try out your new bed. It’s so soft,” Carol pleaded.

  “Just leave her alone. She’ll try it when she’s ready,” Daddy said. And a few days later, we spotted Snoopy napping in the new box.

  “Shhh, don’t jinx it,” Carol said.

  One day, when we got home from church, we headed to our rooms to change into our play clothes and heard a shout from Carol’s room.

  “What’s wrong,” cried Mom as we all rushed into Carol’s room.

  “That!” She pointed to her bed.

  There in the middle of her bed lay Snoopy and her five new kittens.

  “I guess she thought your bed was softer than hers, Carol.” Dad laughed.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Summer Fun

  May 1959

  “SCHOOL’S ALMOST OVER,” SIGHED JEANNIE. “What are we going to do?”

  “I wish we could earn some money,” I said.

  “What could two eleven-year-olds do?”

  “Hey, I’ll be twelve in July! I know. Let’s start a babysitting club. Maybe Mom would pay me to take care of Susie and Carol and keep them entertained this summer when she’s at the library.”

  “And I could ask Mom if she would let Tom and Elizabeth be in the club, too,” Jeannie added.

  “What activities could we do? Let’s each make a list.”

  I went to my bedroom and grabbed paper and a couple of pencils. Jeannie was sprawled out on the couch, and I sat on the floor by her feet. We both worked on our list for a minute.

  “Okay, read yours, Jeannie.”

  “Collect seashells on the lagoon beach, go to the pool, ride our bikes to the school playground, draw pictures, go to the library and maybe we could even do a story time with them.”

  “Those are great ideas.” I nodded and smiled.

  “Here’s mine.”

  I stood and looked over the list for a minute before I started to read aloud.

  “Make our own lunches and snacks and have picnics, take rides on the jitney, go to the commissary, visit the radio station, write letters to relatives . . . but we’ll have to help Elizabeth with that one, and make decorations for Fourth of July. What do you think?”

  Jeannie jumped up and hugged me.

  “I think this will work. Let’s both ask our moms tonight and then get together tomorrow to make our plans if they say yes,” Jeannie said as she headed for home.

  Mom and Mrs. Peace thought it was a good idea, and both quickly agreed so the Kwajalein Babysitters Club was soon official. Sue and Carol were not crazy about having Jeannie and I in charge, but they didn’t want to miss out on all the fun so they agreed to cooperate.

  We used our list to keep everyone busy. In the mornings, we did inside things like draw, play cards, or do jigsaw puzzles. Then around ten o’clock, we all piled in the kitchen to make sandwiches and pack fruit, chips, and Shasta pop to take with us for our daily outing. Some days we rode our bikes up to the playground. We piled onto the merry-go-round, and pushed it faster and faster until we almost fell off, or somebody threatened to be sick. Some days we biked over to the lagoon. The water was so blue and peaceful there. We wandered along the smooth beach wading in the shallow water searching for seashells. We always found lots of cowries and monkeyface shells. Some of them we gave to Luwagun. She added them to fans and belts she created from palm leaves. She gave each of us a belt.

  If we got too hot, we walked to a bus stop and let everyone ride on the one jitney that noisily traveled around and around the one main road on the island. Sometimes the engine made so much noise I wasn’t sure if it could make it home. As we rode, we passed the ship’s department. We would wave to the sailors working on the wharf loading and unloading cargo and repairing small boats. Sometimes we would even catch a glimpse of Dad, and he would smile and wave back.

  As the jitney made its way down the road, we could always spot the three tallest trees at the center of the is
land. They had been the only three trees left standing after a World War II battle on the island. All the other trees that had grown on Kwaj after that were only a few years old and not as tall as those three.

  Every once in a while, we would let the group get off at the commissary or the PX at the midpoint of the base to buy ice cream cones, but only if Dad had given us extra money to get a treat that day. We ended up at the pool every afternoon. The saltwater pool was on the windward side of the island. It wasn’t safe to swim on the beach on that side with its sharp coral reefs and choppy high waves so we used the pool instead. At the pool, Jeannie and I stayed in the shallow end playing with the younger kids while Susie and Carol swam laps to practice their strokes.

  One week we had a bit of excitement to our routine. We were in our house that morning when we heard sirens and lots of shouting in back of the house. I walked to the kitchen back door and opened it. In the backyard behind ours, there was a rescue truck and several men in uniform all gathered together. When one of the men spotted me, he shouted.

  “Little girl, get back inside. It’s not safe. Don’t come out until I tell you.”

  By that time, Jeannie and the rest of the kids were packed into the kitchen, too.

  “What’s going on?” Jeannie asked.

  “I don’t know. There’s a bunch of men out there and something sticking up out of the ground in the Rivers’ backyard. We have to stay inside.”

  About that time, Dad came into the house from the lanai and shouted to us. “Come on kids. Let’s get in the truck. You’re all going down to the ship’s department with me for a while. Come on. Let’s hurry.” He was calm, but I heard a little worry in his voice.

  That night, when we were back in our house and eating supper, Daddy explained what had happened that day.

  “Mrs. Rivers was hanging out her laundry, and her son was playing in the backyard. He was using his toy dump truck to move the ground from one spot to another. All of a sudden, he had hit something metal and started used his hands to uncover more of it to see what was there. His mom glanced over and screamed for him to get away from it. She called the base commander, who sent the bomb squad out. It was a torpedo left over from World War II during the Battle of Kwajalein that had been launched toward the island, buried into the sand and never exploded. Over the years, the wind had blown the coral dust that covered it away and it became closer to the surface until it was discovered today. We were never in danger. Once the men removed it and examined it, they saw that it was a dud. It wouldn’t have ever exploded.”