Born to Fly

by Michael Ferrari

  Mr. Lashley looked suddenly interested. “What picture?”

  Kenji mumbled, knowing full well they would never believe it. “Of the submarine we saw.”

  “Submarine?” The DA dropped his jaw, like a circus clown would if he was pretending to be shocked.

  Mr. Wylie snorted, struggling to contain his laughter. It was like one of Farley’s dumb fart noises in school. It wasn’t really funny, but when one person started laughing, it was contagious. The rest of the spectators heard Mr. Wylie’s snort and started to scoff and snicker.

  Judge Dickens pounded his gavel. “Mr. Wylie, you are begging for a contempt citation.”

  Mr. Wylie cleared his throat and tried to put on a serious expression. “It won’t happen again, Your Honor.”

  The DA approached the jury, jingling the change in his pocket like he wouldn’t have believed Kenji in a million years. “Where is this ‘picture’ of a submarine?”

  “Well…” Kenji lowered his head. “The factory blew up before we got a chance to take it.”

  “Of course it did.” Mr. Lashley grinned. “No further questions, Your Honor.”

  Then Kenji jumped to his feet. “But it was in the bay! Bird and I saw it. It knocked over our rowboat!”

  Mr. Lashley called out louder, this time sounding out each word like a kindergarten teacher repeating something for the tenth time, “No. Further. Questions. Your Honor.”

  Kenji cried out, “He didn’t do it. He didn’t kill Mr. Peck. Ask Bird. She knows who did it!”

  Oh no! Why’d he have to say that?

  “That’s enough, son,” the judge said, growing angrier. “Your testimony is finished.”

  The crowd grew unruly. Once again all their eyes turned to me. I felt a chill, and I knew that somewhere, somehow, in that courtroom, the man in black was watching me right then.

  The judge pounded his gavel again and checked his watch. “This trial will reconvene the day after tomorrow, after the July Fourth holiday.”

  Mom took hold of me. “Bird. What is Kenji talking about?”

  “I don’t know,” I said, hoping like crazy she couldn’t tell I was lying.

  Terrified, I grabbed Kenji as he walked past and pulled him into a corner. I shook him. “I told you not to say anything until my dad comes home.”

  “It’ll be too late,” Kenji pleaded. “My uncle needs your help now.”

  From the back of the crowd, Farley shot us an angry look, and I knew things were only gonna get worse from there on in.

  The next night, I was lying awake in my bed holding a small American flag as the last of the July Fourth fireworks exploded in the Widow Gorman’s backyard down the hill. After years of saying “H, E, double-L, no!” the Widow Gorman had finally let the town use her cornfield for the show. But even though I knew Dad was off somewhere fighting for our freedom, I didn’t feel much like going to the fireworks that year. And with Kenji staying at our house and the trial and everything, Mom had figured it would be best if we just watched them from home. Mom had made sandwiches and potato salad, but I didn’t eat much. Not because it wasn’t good. I just had too much on my mind.

  What was I going to say at the trial? The man in black had said that if I told them about him, he’d hurt my family. No one would believe me anyway. What was the point? But if I didn’t tell them, then Kenji would look like a fool and a liar. And it’d be Farley’s word against Kenji’s and Uncle Tomo’s. There didn’t seem to be any way out. Unless…

  Maybe they wouldn’t call me to the stand? Why would they bother? They had laughed at Kenji when he told them about the sub and the picture. Who wants to hear the crackpot ramblings of a weirdo kid like me who memorizes fighter plane manuals and sees sea monsters and submarines? Yeah, what was I worrying about? They probably wouldn’t even call me to the stand.

  So instead of thinking about the trial and Kenji, and my dad, and the man in black, I decided to distract myself into falling asleep by dreaming up ways to smother my snoring sister Margaret. She sounded like a congested water buffalo.

  Then I heard: “Shhh!” “Stop flapping your trap.” It was several boys’ voices whispering outside my window. I couldn’t catch all of what they were saying, but the loudest one kept stuttering, like you-know-who. “Gimme that. You want them to hear you, s-s-s-stupid?”

  Before I could get out of bed and to the window, there was the crackle of a match and the next thing I knew, one of our upstairs windows shattered like someone had thrown a brick through it.

  “Hey! Come back here!” I hollered at three or four shadowy figures running into the darkness.

  “For gosh sakes, Bird. Who’re you yelling at?” Margaret joined me at the window. But they were gone.

  Then, as we leaned out our window, we both noticed the orange flickering coming from Alvin’s window.

  “Fire!” Margaret shouted.

  But her voice was drowned out by a rapid-fire flurry of BANG! and POP! that sounded like bombs and gunshots.

  We raced into Alvin’s room just as the curtains caught fire. A string of firecrackers exploded and danced among the flames on the floor. The smoke was already making it hard to see and breathe. Poor little Alvin was cocooned in his blanket, screaming, “Mommy, Mommy!” Kenji dragged him out from under the covers.

  “Watch out for the broken glass!” I warned him. Kenji threw my little brother over his shoulder like a carpet roll and dodged the glass splinters as Margaret shoved the three of us out the door. She stayed behind, trying to smother the flames with a blanket.

  “Is everyone all right?” Mom yelled as she collided with us in the hall.

  Kenji and I nodded, coughing. Mom uncovered Alvin, kissed him, and grabbed me hard, by the shoulders. “Take Alvin and Kenji downstairs, now!”

  The last thing I saw before running down the stairs was Mom and Margaret ripping Alvin’s choo-choo-train curtains down and using his blanket to try and smother the flames that had already engulfed the German cuckoo clock that used to be Grandpa McGill’s.

  The thing was, I’d always hated that cuckoo clock. It never kept the right time and always got stuck cuckooing, over and over, every Saturday morning until Dad would silence it with a screwdriver. But it was strange to see my house on fire. Even the things I used to hate about it were suddenly the things I wanted desperately to save. Two hours after the fire started, I sat wrapped in a blanket on our front lawn, staring at the upstairs of our wonderful, drafty yellow farmhouse, which was now stained black from the fire. Principal Hartwig and the other volunteer firemen, along with Lieutenant Peppel’s squadron from the base, had formed a bucket line and managed to put out the fire. Margaret rocked Alvin and sang to him softly, trying to get him to fall back asleep.

  Mom and Deputy Steyer packed Kenji’s stuff into the police car. Kenji sat in the backseat looking pale and pretty scared. I was scared, too. Someone had tried to burn our house down. I couldn’t prove it, of course, but I knew it was Farley.

  “It’ll be safer for everyone with Kenji at the station,” said the deputy.

  “But Dad will be home next week,” I protested to Mom. Maybe it didn’t make sense, but the truth was, I felt safer having Kenji around. He was the only person on my side.

  Mom knelt down by me. “Bird. Remember our deal? Wouldn’t you say this qualifies as trouble?”

  I shrugged. “I guess so.”

  “Not to mention, your father would never forgive me if I let anything happen to you.”

  “It’s really for the best, Mrs. McGill,” Deputy Steyer said.

  I tried to believe them. But making Kenji go was like letting the bad guys win. It wasn’t Kenji’s fault we were at war, any more than it was Farley’s or Father Krauss’s or Mr. Ramponi’s. Was I the only one who could see that?

  The next day was the hottest day of the summer. All the lady jurors fanned themselves with their straw hats while the men broke down and loosened their ties and shirt collars. Kenji had to sit up front with Deputy Steyer.

  I
made sure we got there late so that Mom and I would have to sit in the balcony. After the excitement of the fire, Mom had decided it would be best for Margaret to stay home with Alvin until the trial was over.

  Judge Dickens called the court to order. “Your next witness, prosecutor?”

  I held my breath and doubled-crossed my fingers, just like when I didn’t want Mrs. Simmons to call me to the blackboard.

  “Tomo Fu-jita.” It worked!

  Uncle Tomo got up slowly and walked to the stand. He looked small, and old, and I could tell he was uncomfortable with all the people staring at him. There was something different about the way the DA questioned Uncle Tomo, too. Mr. Lashley didn’t even bother trying to be polite to Uncle Tomo, as he had with the other witnesses. He started out asking Uncle Tomo the same simple questions over and over. It was like he was talking to a child and trying to catch him in a lie.

  Then, all of a sudden, the DA just blurted out, “Mr. Fu-jita. Why did you kill Mr. Peck?”

  Uncle Tomo looked surprised. So did the judge and everyone else.

  “I not kill him. I not kill anyone.”

  “Why did you sabotage the factory?” the DA asked.

  “I not sabotage the factory.”

  “Where were you the night of the explosion?”

  Uncle Tomo paused. “I visit someone.”

  “Your accomplice?”

  “No. Makiko.”

  “And who or what is Ma-ki-ko?”

  “My wife.”

  “Really.” Mr. Lashley rolled his eyes for the jury. “Does your wife live in the woods?”

  “In cemetery. She die, on the boat to America.”

  I think that must have made Mr. Lashley a little uncomfortable, because he quickly changed the subject. “So, when you left the cemetery, is that when you ran into Farley Peck?”

  Uncle Tomo shook his head. “I never see boy. When factory explode, I run home to find my nephew.”

  “Mr. Fujita, why would this boy Farley, whose father was murdered, lie?”

  Because that’s what Farley does, I wanted to say. Everybody knew that. I’d known it since the first day of kindergarten, when Farley told me his dad used to be President of the United States.

  “Perhaps he want someone to blame,” Uncle Tomo said. “I understand this.”

  “You understand. How thoughtful of you.” That was when Mr. Lashley walked over to the evidence table. He unfolded a large flag. It was white, with a big bloodred circle in the center.

  “Do you recognize this, Mr. Fu-jita?”

  Everyone in the courtroom knew what it was.

  “It is flag of Japan,” Uncle Tomo said.

  That was when I saw Uncle Tomo’s attorney, Mr. Wylie, take a drink of water and wink at Mr. Lashley.

  “According to the police report, this flag was found in your home,” Mr. Lashley said. “Who does it belong to?”

  Uncle Tomo paused and looked over at the jury. He held his head up. “It is mine.” His answer set off grumbles throughout the gallery. Then Uncle Tomo added, “But I have American flag, too.”

  The DA scoffed, pretending he didn’t hear the last part.

  So he had a Japanese flag? So what? He grew up in Japan. His parents and grandparents lived in Japan. But he hadn’t been back there for years. If I moved to some faraway country, maybe I’d keep an American flag to remind me of my old country, too.

  “Mr. Fu-jita, how long have you lived in our country?”

  “I here twenty years.”

  “That’s a long time. Are you a citizen of this country?” asked the DA.

  “No.” Uncle Tomo got a sad look on his face. His head dropped a little. “Not allowed.”

  “Really?” Mr. Lashley smiled and shook his head like he was saying “shame on you” to a child. “And why is that?”

  “Japanese not allowed,” Uncle Tomo said. “Unless born here, like my nephew.”

  There was some mumbling of surprise in the crowd. In the row behind me in the balcony, Mr. Ramponi stood up. “That not right. I no born here. I become citizen.”

  Judge Dickens pounded his gavel. “Sit down, Mr. Ramponi. This is not a town meeting.”

  Uncle Tomo tried to explain. “I come from another country. Just like men who started America.”

  “You dare to compare yourself to the patriots who fought and died for this country?” The DA lurched toward the witness box. “Especially after what your people pulled at Pearl Harbor!”

  “Mr. Lashley—” The judge tried to slow him down, but Minnie’s dad was blowing smoke like a runaway train.

  “You have no loyalty to this country. You’d sell us out for thirty pieces of silver and a bowl of rice,” Mr. Lashley said, shaking his finger at Uncle Tomo. “And that’s exactly what you did when you killed Mr. Peck and blew up the factory, isn’t it? Isn’t it!”

  “Mr. Lashley, that’s enough!” Judge Dickens said.

  Mr. Lashley moved to the jury box. “Mr. Fu-jita. Just answer one simple question. Do you want the United States to win this war? Do you want the United States to defeat Japan?”

  The courtroom fell silent. For a long time, Uncle Tomo didn’t say anything. At last he shook his head, like he knew it was the wrong answer but it was the only one he could give. “No,” he said.

  “And that’s why you sabotaged our airplane factory, isn’t it!” barked the DA, inciting the crowd.

  Judge Dickens pounded his gavel some more, but the crowd had already started to taunt and jeer Uncle Tomo: “Traitor!” “Murderer!”

  “Order. Order!” said the judge.

  Uncle Tomo seemed heartbroken. For a moment I thought he might even cry. But he didn’t. He just looked at Kenji across the room and said, “War is wrong. For every country.”

  I had lucked out. They hadn’t called me to the stand. Uncle Tomo’s testimony had gone badly, but they hadn’t shown one bit of proof that he’d killed Mr. Peck. As for the sabotage, the only witness was Farley, and you’d have to be a complete dope to believe anything he said. Everything was gonna be all right. Dad was coming home in a few days and he’d straighten it all out.

  I waited for Kenji outside the courthouse for twenty minutes, but he didn’t come out. Instead, it was Mr. Wylie who excused himself from talking to the reporters and approached me and my mom.

  “Mrs. McGill, I’m going to call Bird to the stand tomorrow.”

  “Why?” I protested. “I don’t know anything.”

  “The boy, Kenji, believes you do,” Mr. Wylie said.

  “Is that really necessary, Mr. Wylie?” my mom asked.

  “Probably not. But I’d be risking a mistrial if I didn’t pursue every possibility, no matter how ridiculous. We all want this thing over and done with as quickly as possible. Best thing for the town. I just wanted you to be prepared. See you tomorrow.”

  Once he was gone, Mom got real serious. “Bird. That man Mr. Fujita is on trial for his life. If you know something, you have to tell the truth.”

  I didn’t say anything.

  That night, Mom let me go visit Kenji in his room at the police station. It was really just the spare jail cell, but he had decorated it with his movie posters and stuff, so I guess it wasn’t so bad. The only other time I had ever been in the jail was in third grade, when we went on a field trip to the police station. That time, there was a man in the cell trying to sleep when we came in. He was curled up on the bench, facing the wall. It was like when you see the lions or monkeys at the zoo, and all the kids make animal sounds and toss peanuts to get them to react, but all the animals want to do is lie there and pretend they’re not being stared at all day. The kids kept bugging the man in jail, asking questions like “Do they let you go to the bathroom?” and “Why are you in jail? Did you kill someone?” The man finally got fed up and said it was because he got too drunk on Saturday night and punched somebody who kept asking him stupid questions.

  Kenji hadn’t gotten drunk or punched anybody, but there he was, in jail. It might have be
en, like the deputy said, to protect him, but any way you looked at it, he was still stuck in a cage like some animal at the zoo.

  “You have to tell them who you saw, Bird,” Kenji said.

  “Shhh,” I said. I looked through the cell bars and saw Deputy Steyer lift his head from his desk. I motioned for Kenji to lower his voice so the deputy couldn’t hear.

  “You don’t understand. I don’t know who it is,” I whispered.

  “But you know it wasn’t my uncle,” he said.

  “Yeah. But it’s more complicated than that,” I told him.

  “Can’t you tell your mom?” he asked.

  I shook my head. “She never believes me.”

  “Bird, if you don’t tell someone, they’re going to send him to jail,” Kenji said.

  I wracked my brain for some kind of solution. Even if I testified about the man in black, since I didn’t know who he was, there was no way to prove any of what I said. They might think I just made it up to help Kenji. And the man in black would know I squealed, and so he would have to kill my family. Any way you sliced it, I was still just an eleven-year-old girl who everyone thought was nuts.

  “I keep thinking, if somebody really smart, like the Green Hornet, was in this situation, what would he do?” I said.

  “He wouldn’t leave his best friend Kato hanging out to dry,” Kenji said.

  My eyes wandered to one of the movie posters on the wall. It showed Spencer Tracy as Father Flanagan in Boys Town. In the movie, Father Flanagan is a priest who is like a father to a bunch of troublemaking orphans who nobody else cares about. He looked so wise and knowing. All of a sudden it hit me. Maybe there was someone who would believe me.

  It was dark by the time I tiptoed into the church. There was no one around. Even the war widows had finished their rosaries and gone home. Father Krauss was extinguishing the last of the altar candles when he spotted me in the aisle.

  “Hello, Bird. I’ve been expecting you.”

  “You have?”

  “It’s about your testimony tomorrow, isn’t it?” he said confidently.

  I nodded. “How did you know, Father?”