Dash

by Kirby Larson

  Mitsi leaned against the picket fence. Mrs. Bowker had a point. Seattle winters could be discouraging. A person needed a flicker of light, of color, of hope. Like a garden. Or a friend.

  “What kind of flowers are you going to plant?” she asked.

  “Oh, crocus and daffodils and tulips.” Mrs. Bowker waved her arm like an orchestra conductor. “And later on, peonies and roses and gladiolus.”

  Mitsi thought of the beautiful gardens Uncle Shig planted along the borders of his strawberry fields. “It must be hard to wait,” she said.

  “Oh, very hard.” Tears glimmered in Mrs. Bowker’s brown eyes. “But that’s what life is all about. Doing winter’s work in hopes of summer’s flowers.”

  Mitsi shifted her hands on the pickets.

  Mrs. Bowker shook herself a bit. “My husband was the gardener in our family. Sometimes, I miss him so much.” She scraped mud off her shovel. “Well, I’m going to head in now. See you tomorrow, dear.”

  At home, Mitsi changed out of her school clothes before presenting Dash with his Milk-Bone valentine. While he crunched away, she opened her mailbox and rummaged through the small pile of cards. She counted: five. Five. And not one was addressed in Mags’s big loopy hand, or Judy’s tidy upright penmanship. She’d been silly to expect peek-a-boo cards from them; that was little-kid stuff. But she thought they would at least give her some kind of card.

  Loneliness wrapped around her like a snake. She never, ever dreamed that her friends would desert her like this. How was she going to make it through the rest of the year? The rest of her life?

  She peeled open the envelope from Miss Wyatt. The card inside showed an artist standing at an easel. It said, Picture me happy that you’re my valentine. Mitsi set it on her dresser before opening the rest. There was one that wasn’t signed, probably from Hudson Young — he was kind of scatterbrained — along with cards from Kenji and Grace, and Cindy Cotrell. A preacher’s kid, Cindy was nice to everyone.

  His treat devoured, Dash snuffled at her pockets. “All gone,” she said. She pulled him onto her lap. “Well, at least I got five.”

  Dash snuffled.

  “I know.” Mitsi scratched behind his ears. “I’m being selfish. Poor Mrs. Bowker didn’t get even one card.” Dash stretched out his neck and closed his eyes. Mitsi hit his ticklish spot and his leg began to thump. “And she seemed so sad about her husband.”

  She gave Dash a pat, then set him back on the floor. “I’ve got an idea.” Dash followed her to her desk and curled up at her feet. “Let’s plant a garden of our own.” Placing paper and her new chalk pastels on the desk in front of her, Mitsi tried to remember the flowers Mrs. Bowker had mentioned. She slid out the purple pastel, dabbing it against the lower edge of the paper, for a splash of early-blooming crocuses. She added a dash of yellow for daffodils, and some orange tulips like the ones Uncle Shig grew. She pressed her lips together, sweeping her hand across the paper, again and again. A zigzag of red. A spiral of pink. Thin, short slashes of green, green grass.

  “There!” She held the picture out for Dash to admire. “What do you think?” He sniffed, then sneezed. “Gee, thanks.” Mitsi studied the picture for a few minutes. She added a bit more green and then, in the bottom right-hand corner, drew a small red heart. Under that, she signed her name.

  “Mom, can I take this to Mrs. Bowker?” Mitsi held up the picture.

  “That’s beautiful, honey.” Mom wrapped a loaf of warm bread in a tea towel. “Here, take this, too.” Mitsi rolled her picture into a scroll and tied it with one of her hair ribbons. Dash was snoring away in her bedroom, so she decided to let him sleep. She tucked the scroll inside her coat to keep it dry and ran all the way.

  Mitsi handed Mrs. Bowker the picture when she opened the door. “I made something for you. Mom did, too.” She presented the loaf of bread.

  “This looks like the makings of afternoon tea,” said Mrs. Bowker. “Come on in. Make yourself at home.” She stepped toward the kitchen. “I’ll be right back.”

  Mitsi hadn’t been inside Mrs. Bowker’s house before. A typewriter, its roller loaded with a piece of yellowed paper, peeked out from behind a stair-stepped pile of books. Over on the piano, ragged stacks of sheet music teetered on the verge of an avalanche. Mitsi would have been grounded if her room ever looked like this. She carefully moved a pile of seed catalogs to make room to sit on the davenport.

  “I thought you might prefer Ovaltine to tea.” Nudging a couple of National Geographics out of the way, Mrs. Bowker set a pink chintz china cup on the coffee table in front of Mitsi.

  Mitsi scooted to the edge of the davenport. “It’s my favorite.” Mrs. Bowker produced a green glass plate layered with thick slices of Mom’s bread spread with butter and some kind of delicious-looking ruby-red jam.

  Mrs. Bowker took the chair across from Mitsi, brushing more magazines to the floor. She picked up the scroll. “Shall I open this now?”

  Mitsi squirmed. What if Mrs. Bowker thought the picture was dumb? “Oh, you can wait.” She licked a blob of jam off her thumb.

  But Mrs. Bowker was already untying the ribbon, unrolling the scroll. “Why, this is lovely. Lovely.” Her smile melted her wrinkles away. “I’ll go over to Higo tomorrow and get a frame. I know right where I’ll hang it.”

  Mitsi hid her grin behind her cup. “Where?”

  Mrs. Bowker pointed to a spot above the fireplace mantel. “There, of course! Where I can see it every evening.” She carefully rerolled the picture into a scroll. “Ted is not the only magician at your house,” she said. “You work magic, too. With your art.”

  “Really?” Mitsi turned the chintz cup around in her hands. She’d never thought about her art like that before.

  “Absolutely.” Mrs. Bowker tapped the scroll against her palm. “I smell spring when I look at this. Imagine spring! In February.”

  Her words warmed Mitsi all the way home.

  Mitsi figured that if she could conjure up a garden on paper, she could use her art to work magic with her friends. She spent a whole week making autograph books for Mags and Judy. They weren’t store-bought like Patty’s, but Mitsi thought they were just as nice. And not babyish like those peek-a-boo cards. She’d stitched the pages on Mom’s Singer machine, sewing a red cover for Mags, yellow for Judy. She’d been so excited to find a scrap of fabric in Mom’s sewing basket that almost matched Judy’s blonde curls.

  When she got to school, Mitsi slipped the two books out of her bag. She peeked into the classroom. Miss Wyatt was nowhere in sight. All clear.

  Behind her, kids shuffled around in the cloakroom. She’d have to hurry! Mags’s desk was a pigpen. Mitsi moved aside a math book, rearranging a jumble of old spelling tests to make room. When she picked up the last test, she froze.

  A stack of notes. Those notes. The classroom floor turned to quicksand. Mitsi grabbed a chair to steady herself.

  “Mitsi?” Miss Wyatt stood in the doorway. “Are you all right, dear? You look a little peaked.”

  Mitsi turned to her own desk, shoving the autograph books deep inside. She hadn’t gotten a note or a picture in a while, but she’d thought they’d been from Patty. Patty! Never Mags.

  “I might be coming down with something,” she said.

  Mitsi remembered the worst cartoon. It showed a Japanese man with bugged eyes behind round glasses. His huge teeth were sharpened to fangs, dripping blood. Had Mags really cut that out of the newspaper? Put it in Mitsi’s desk? Had she written that note with the big red dot above the words You’re a zero, like the planes? Or the one that said I’d like to slap your Jap face? All of them written left-handed or something, so Mitsi wouldn’t recognize the writing. And she hadn’t. She hadn’t.

  She fell into her seat, almost feeling guilty for thinking that the note writer had been Patty. Almost.

  Miss Wyatt came over and put her hand on Mitsi’s forehead. “You do feel a little warm. Would you like to go to the nurse?” She handed Mitsi a handkerchief.

  M
itsi couldn’t dirty her teacher’s hanky. She wiped her tears away with the heels of her hands. “No. No, thank you.”

  Her classmates began filing in, taking their seats. Miss Wyatt gave Mitsi another questioning look. “Are you sure?” she whispered.

  Mitsi nodded. What if the nurse sent her home? That would be one more thing for Mom and Pop to worry about. And they didn’t need one more thing to worry about. Not after the latest news. Pop had worked at the electric company since before Ted was born. His boss, Mr. Adams, had given him a promotion last year. Mr. Adams liked Pop. He took him fishing on his boat. And he always gave them a ham at Christmas. Pop said it wasn’t Mr. Adams’s fault that he got fired. And it wasn’t just Pop; there were about a dozen men. All fired because their names were Kashino, or Ikeda, or Yamada.

  After the Pledge of Allegiance, Miss Wyatt pointed to the spelling list on the blackboard. “Take out a piece of paper and begin writing your vocabulary sentences.” Mitsi opened her binder and began her ten sentences. Number one: “received.” I received an A on my essay. Number two: “revenge.” I took revenge on my enemy. Number three: “reverse.” My dad drove in reverse down the driveway.

  Mitsi stopped. Reread sentence number two. Then she pulled out another piece of paper and slipped it under her vocabulary sheet. Two could play at this game. As she put her pencil to the page, angry words bubbled out, water boiling over a saucepan. She knew Mags so well; it wasn’t hard to come up with a note that would jab her in every sore spot. When she was finished, Mitsi looked over what she’d written. It was just as mean and ugly as the notes Mags had written to her. I took revenge on my enemy.

  When they were dismissed for recess, Mitsi hung back a bit, shuffling oh-so-slowly, until all her classmates were out of the room. With Miss Wyatt’s back turned, Mitsi slipped over to Mags’s desk.

  Wait until Mags got a taste of her own medicine.

  Mitsi opened the desk lid with her right hand. The note was in her left. All she had to do was let it drop. Let it drop.

  Let it drop.

  Mitsi couldn’t do it. Pearl Harbor might have changed Mags, but not Mitsi. No matter what anyone thought, she was still the same girl she’d always been. The very same. It gave Mitsi a stomachache to think of being that kind of mean to another person. She couldn’t do it. Not even to Patty. Certainly not to Mags.

  Mitsi crumpled up the note and shoved it into her skirt pocket. Then she went outside, where Grace trounced her in a game of tetherball.

  For the next few days, Mitsi felt like one of those fish in Uncle Shig’s pond every winter. They were only dull orange shadows swimming under the ice. Mitsi went to school each day, stood for the pledge, carried a lunch tray, worked math problems on the chalkboard. But she didn’t feel anything. Not when Patty Tibbets made slanty eyes, or when the newspaper blared headlines like ARMY MAY HAVE TO MOVE BAINBRIDGE JAPS. Or when she found another mean note in her desk. The new Mitsi was too cold, too deep under the water for anything — or anyone — to touch her.

  Except for all those memories that swam around with the underwater Mitsi, bumping into her like hungry minnows. Memories of Mags helping her carry Dash the time he got a big thorn in his paw. Or of Mags waiting until a Sunday to see Pinocchio at the Atlas Theatre because Mitsi had Japanese school on Saturdays. And what about the time Mags spent her whole allowance on that special art eraser for Mitsi’s birthday? How did that Mags turn into the Mags of the mean notes? It was like a complicated story problem in math, one that Mitsi just couldn’t puzzle out.

  She climbed the front steps, pushing open the front door. “Mom?” She scuffed her saddle shoes across the linoleum floor. Maybe Mom could help her figure it out. She stepped through the doorway, into the kitchen. “Mom?”

  Mom waved at Mitsi to be quiet, pointing at the black receiver in her hand. “Uh-huh, uh-huh.” She turned her back to Mitsi, nodding as she spoke. It was another one of those whispery telephone conversations she had nearly every day. Mom shooed Mitsi out of the kitchen. Didn’t even let her get an after-school snack.

  Mitsi changed out of her school clothes, then clipped Dash’s leash to his collar for his afternoon walk. At least he was glad to see her. Dash led Mitsi up one street and around the next. He sniffed everything in sight, pausing to bark at Mrs. Kusakabe’s cat and to water the street signs on each corner.

  Lost in thought, Mitsi jumped when she heard someone call her name.

  “I wondered if I’d see you two today.” Mrs. Bowker rubbed her shoulder. “I’m getting too old for this.” A smudge of mud dotted her cheek. Mitsi rubbed at her own cheek, but Mrs. Bowker didn’t pick up on the message. Even though she was smiling, she looked tired. More wrinkled.

  Mitsi wound Dash’s leash around her hand. “Want some help?”

  “You might be sorry you asked!” Mrs. Bowker unlatched the gate and handed Mitsi a spare pair of gardening gloves. “Do you know which ones are weeds?”

  “I think so.” Mitsi undid Dash’s leash so he could run around in the yard. She pointed. “That one, that one, and that one.”

  Mrs. Bowker rubbed her cheek, making another smudge. “I should have known. Artists make good gardeners.”

  Mitsi tossed a handful of weeds toward a garden bucket. One dandelion went flying and Dash pounced, picking it up by the roots and shaking it back and forth, as if it were a rat. Dandelion puffs fluttered every which way.

  “He looks very proud of himself for killing that weed.” Mrs. Bowker laughed.

  Mitsi pushed the trowel under a root. “You should see him with Pop’s socks!”

  Mrs. Bowker yanked up a handful of chickweed. “I can only imagine.”

  They worked quietly, while Dash — muzzle freckled with dirt, and rhododendron blossoms stuck to his fur — pranced around Mrs. Bowker’s yard, pouncing on this weed or that leaf.

  Mitsi finished one flower bed, then eased to a stand and shook out her legs. Now she understood why Pop took a long, hot bath when he got home last night. She could imagine what his muscles must feel like after crouching over in Uncle Shig’s strawberry fields, hour after hour. But Pop didn’t complain.

  “You’ve certainly been a great help.” Mrs. Bowker emptied the weed bucket into the trash can. “Go ahead. Scoot. You probably have friends waiting for you.”

  “Not anymore,” Mitsi blurted out. She ducked her head and pulled up another weed.

  Mrs. Bowker cocked her head like Dash did sometimes. “A sweet girl like you?”

  Mitsi shook her head, biting her bottom lip. Mrs. Bowker wouldn’t understand. Her skin was the right color. Her name wasn’t Japanese. She never got mean notes.

  “Did you know I moved here from Montana?” Mrs. Bowker asked.

  “No.” Mitsi had never thought about Mrs. Bowker being from somewhere else. Only that she lived here now.

  “We — my husband and I — had an automobile dealership there.” She smiled, more wrinkles melting away. “My husband was a Dodge man, through and through. I was partial to Nashes myself.” Her eyes were looking at something over Mitsi’s head, far away. Several seconds passed before she spoke again. “In a small town like ours, you know everyone. Everyone.” She tightened her grip on the weed bucket handle. “That’s why it never should have happened.” Her voice got low and shaky.

  “What?” Mitsi rocked back on her heels.

  “It’s easy to blame the war. All the talk, getting people riled up. But that is no excuse. No excuse at all. God gave us brains to think for ourselves.” She tapped the bucket against her leg.

  The conversation was a knot that Mitsi was having a hard time untangling. But it seemed best not to interrupt. To let Mrs. Bowker tell her story.

  “The Schmidts were good customers. Good friends! How many times did I enjoy a little coffee klatch with Mrs. Schmidt?” Mrs. Bowker shook her head. “But the Great War came. With Germany. And suddenly, the Schmidts and everyone like them were our enemy. We weren’t part of it, my husband and I, but they were driven out of town.” A t
ear trickled down Mrs. Bowker’s cheek. She didn’t seem to notice. “How many years has it been? Twenty-five? And I am still ashamed. I never once defended them. Never once stood by them.” She drew in a ragged breath. “It was a bitter lesson to learn about myself.”

  Mitsi looked at her neighbor. “You’re nice,” she said. “You helped me with those boys that day.”

  Mrs. Bowker dropped the empty weed bucket. “Even the kindest of us is capable of cruelty. And I was cruel in not speaking up back then.” She peeled off her work gloves. “Let’s call it quits for the day, shall we?” Her voice was light and cheery, but her face was painted with sadness. “See you tomorrow?”

  Mitsi nodded. “See you tomorrow.” She clipped Dash’s leash back on and headed for home, turning Mrs. Bowker’s story over and over in her mind. It still made her sad after all these years, not helping her friends. Would Judy and Mags be sad, someday, about not standing up for Mitsi? Deep down, they were nice people, too, just like Mrs. Bowker.

  Dash tugged on his leash, tugging Mitsi out of her thoughts.

  “Hey, sis!” Ted loped down the street toward them. Dash jumped up on him as soon as he got within leash range.

  “Where are you going?”

  “Collecting.” Ted held up his subscription book.

  “Can I come?” Anything would be better than sitting at home with her thoughts, trying to tune out Mom’s whispered conversations. Mitsi didn’t think she could pretend to read one more page of Caddie Woodlawn.

  Ted grumbled, but he let them tag along. They headed over to Spruce Street, walking up eight blocks and then back down. One of Ted’s customers grumbled, saying something about “your kind,” as he paid his bill. The man at the very next house gave Ted a twenty-five-cent tip. “You’re the best paperboy I’ve ever had,” he told Ted. “I’ve never had to fish one paper off the roof!”

  Ted pocketed the tip.

  “How much longer?” Mitsi’s feet were itchy-hot inside her Keds.