San Francisco Boy

by Lois Lenski

  “I will tell you a secret,” said Georgie in a low whisper. “I tell this to only a few of my best friends. We go under the pier to fish. That is the best place. That is our secret. You will not tell other people?”

  “No,” said Felix. “I will keep your secret. I will not even tell my little brothers. They have not sense enough to keep a secret.”

  “You want me to show you the place under the pier where we go?” asked Georgie.

  “Yes,” said Felix. “But first I will give my little brothers their lunch and tell them to go for a walk. I will give each of them ten cents to spend for ice cream. While they are gone, you can show me.”

  Felix gave Frankie and Freddie sandwiches and money, and they ran off happily. They were not interested in fishing and were glad to explore.

  “Come back here in half an hour,” said Felix sternly. Hastily he ate his own sandwich and apple. Georgie gave him an extra spear to use.

  “Try and see if you can do it,” said Georgie. “With a little practice, it will come easy.”

  Felix followed the Costelli boys still farther out on the pier. A chilly wind had come up and it began to be cold in spite of the bright sun. The whole bay was rough with whitecaps. The boys came to an opening in the dock where they climbed down a crude ladder. Below, double planks were laid across heavy beams, the substructure of the pier itself. It was high tide and the choppy waves came almost up to the planks.

  Georgie and Joey showed no fear of the rough water so close beneath them. Felix was not afraid either, but he was cold without a jacket. How wonderful to be with boys who loved fishing and the water as he did! The three boys crouched on the planks, spears in hand, waiting for fish to come.

  After a time Georgie became restless and started for a new location. He walked the planks as if he were walking a tight rope.

  “Are you ever afraid, Georgie,” asked Felix.

  “No,” said Georgie. “I just balance myself and walk real fast!”

  “Did you ever fall in?” asked Felix.

  “No, but Joey did once,” said Georgie. “We were getting rock cods at low tide under the pier. They came out from under the rocks and Joey grabbed them and put them in a sack. Then all at once he slipped on a wet rock and went in water up to his waist. He had to sit on the pier to get his clothes dry. Lucky it was a hot day in summer.”

  Felix and Joey laughed. Then Joey pointed and cried, “Look!”

  All three boys stared. There, about ten feet away, they saw a sea lion rising on top of the water. It came up for about five seconds, then dove back down. Georgie came closer holding his spear firmly with his two hands, hoping to spear it. The sea lion rose once or twice more, then it was gone.

  “That’s better than those tame ones out in the tank on the street,” said Felix.

  “Gee, I wish I could spear a sea lion once,” said Georgie. “I’ve only caught one perch today. For perch, summer is best. Sometimes we catch many, and sometimes none at all.”

  Felix smiled. “Fisherman’s luck!” he said. Suddenly he remembered his younger brothers and his responsibility. “Is it half an hour?” he asked, glancing at Joey’s wrist watch. “Have my brothers been gone half an hour?”

  “More than that,” said Joey. “It’s a quarter after two already.”

  “Aw—let them take care of themselves,” said Georgie. “Stay and fish with us. I will teach you everything I know—”

  “No, I must go,” said Felix. “My younger brothers haven’t much sense and they might get into trouble. I have to keep an eye on them.” He hesitated, hating to leave, then he asked, “Could I come and fish with you some other time, Georgie?”

  “Sure, sure,” said Georgie, grinning, “any time you want. You be my partner, we catch lots of fish and sell it to people I know—to houses and to stores. Maybe you sell yours in Chinatown, eh?”

  “I know Mr. Ben Lum,” said Felix, “in the Yet Sang Fish Shop on Grant Avenue.”

  “Good, good!” said Georgie. “You come back again, any time. We come fishing every Saturday, and Sunday after church, and holidays. We come early about seven o’clock and we stay till three or four o’clock, and go home when we get tired. Get yourself a pole and line and hooks and some little sandbags, and I will let you use my bells and nets and all kinds of things.”

  Felix hated to go but he had to. When he climbed up the ladder, he saw no one. Even the parked car was gone. Where were the boys? And wasn’t it time for Mei Gwen to be back? Where did that girl take her?

  “The boys have run away again,” said Felix to himself.

  He started out on what seemed like a hopeless search. He went back to the lagoon where the Angelina was tied up. He watched men working on two fishing boats in drydock. They were scraping and painting the bottoms of the boats. He saw Old Tony still mending his nets.

  “Where are my brothers?” he asked. “Have you seen them?”

  Tony understood. He pointed to a group of boys at the far end of the wharf, in front of a large restaurant. Felix went over. The boys were crowding around a little fellow who held something in his hand. Felix bent over and saw a tiny dried sea horse. The American boys were very excited. They had probably never seen one before.

  “Aw, nuts!” said the little fellow on the ground. “We eat them. We eat them alive and we eat their dried bony skeletons too! Sea horses keep us healthy. You ought to come to Chinatown and see.”

  Felix listened in astonishment, for the voice sounded familiar. He looked more closely—it was Frankie. What wild tales was Frankie telling? Felix thought of Father. Was this the best way for a small Chinese boy to represent his race?

  “Frankie!” cried Felix, sternly. “Get up and come here.”

  Frankie got up and hung his head.

  “Tell the boys that’s not true—all you’ve been saying,” said Felix.

  “But the herb doctor does use dried sea horses for medicine, said Frankie. “I heard Grandmother say so. And we do eat lots of things that Americans don’t eat—pressed ducks and frogs and eels and snails …”

  “Frankie! Come with me,” said Felix.

  Frankie handed the dried sea horse to a boy standing near. “Here, take it,” he said. “You can eat it to make you healthy!”

  The American boys laughed and went on their way. Frankie followed his older brother sheepishly.

  “Where’s Freddie?” asked Felix.

  “I don’t know,” said Frankie. “He ran away and left me.”

  They were passing Romano’s Restaurant, one of the famous eating places in San Francisco. The large plate-glass windows faced the busy harbor where the fishing boats lay at anchor. Inside, the tables were covered with white tablecloths and many people were eating. Felix and Frankie looked inside.

  “Look!” cried Frankie suddenly. “There’s Freddie.”

  “Where?” asked Felix.

  “In there, sitting at that table, eating!” cried Frankie.

  Felix could not believe his eyes. There, inside, sat Freddie at a table with two gentlemen and two ladies, people he had never seen before, strangers—Americans. They were all talking and laughing gaily. Freddie, with his mouth full, was trying to talk, too. Freddie was using knife, fork and spoon as if he had never seen chopsticks in all his life.

  Suddenly Freddie saw his two brothers outside the window. His eyes fell. He dropped his fork, spoke to his new friends and quickly left the table. The next minute he was on the sidewalk beside his brothers.

  Felix looked at him severely. “Younger Brother, how did you get in there?” he asked.

  “I … I … I was hungry,” explained Freddie. “After I ate my sandwich, I was still hungry. Those crabs the men were cooking on the sidewalk made me more hungry. To see those people eating in the restaurant and to smell all that good food made me still more hungry …”

  “But how did you get in?” asked Felix.

  “I put my face close up to the window,” said Freddie. “I wanted to see what that man was eating. It was a gre
at big boiled crab! The man saw me and he came out and gave me a crab leg to eat. That made me still MORE hungry. He offered me money, but I would not take it. I told him I do not take money from strangers. So he said, ‘Come in and I’ll buy you a good meal for once in your life,’ and I went. That’s how I got in.”

  “He thought you were starving, I suppose,” said Felix. “Did you tell him you get plenty to eat at home and that your father is head-cook at the Lotus Garden Restaurant in Chinatown and that you can get all you want to eat there any time you want it?”

  “No, I didn’t,” said Freddie. “I never thought of that.”

  “Some day I hope you will get some sense,” said Felix. “Go in and thank the gentleman. Tell him you must now go home with your elder brother.”

  Felix and Frankie watched Freddie shake hands with the two gentlemen and two ladies at the table. They watched him make a polite bow and say goodbye. When he came outside again, Felix said briefly, “It is time to go home.”

  Felix knew it would be hard to explain this to Father and Mother. He had heard Father say that a generation before, when they were young, Chinese children had little opportunity or none to make friends outside their own race. Mother remembered the first time she ever saw a Caucasian face and how it frightened her—the protruding nose, the blue eyes so deeply set, the skin so pale and white. Mother could not get used to the fact that her children made friends of Americans and strangers so easily. What would she say when she heard that Freddie had eaten with them in a big expensive restaurant?

  The boys walked solemnly along the street, thinking. They had not gone far, when Mei Gwen came running up behind them.

  “Oh, I was almost lost!” she cried. “I could not find you anywhere. I looked on the Hyde Street pier and all the other piers for you. Dina hunted too—until she had to go home. What did you do? Where have you been?”

  “We had a good time,” said Felix with a smile. That seemed to cover everything. “What did you do?”

  “Dina took me home with her,” said Mei Gwen, bursting with enthusiasm, “and we ate spaghetti with Italian gravy. Her mother makes fogaccia, a sweet cake with raisins in it. And there’s another kind, torta, and it’s got spinach and lots of funny things in it, but it’s good …”

  What! More eating with strangers—Italians this time, thought Felix, smiling. How could he explain all this?

  “Dina likes to sing,” Mei Gwen went on, “and her father wants her to be a great singer and sing in Italian opera. Her grandmother sits and cries about the olive groves in Italy. She’s as bad as Grandmother Yee—she came from Italy forty years ago and she’s still homesick. Why do old people cry to go back to the place where they were born?”

  All the way back to Chinatown in the cable car, Mei Gwen talked about her new-found friends. But Felix treasured the thought of Georgie and Joey inside his heart, and said nothing.

  CHAPTER IX

  A Day of Trouble

  “I know where there’s a haunted house,” said Roger. “It’s spooky.”

  “Where?” asked Felix.

  “Up on Clay Street, on that little mountain there,” said Roger. “On that empty lot behind the trees, way up high.”

  Roger and Felix were delivering papers on Stockton Street. Sammy Hong and Ronnie Chow had joined them.

  “How do you know it’s haunted?” asked Felix.

  Sammy answered. “Some of the windows are broken,” he said, “and the door is always blowing back and forth in the wind. Once I threw a ball in—Bang! It knocked something over inside and made another door slam. Something screeched and let out a terrible groan.”

  “Maybe the hinges needed oiling,” said Ronnie.

  “I bet Felix would be afraid to go inside,” said Sammy. He looked at Roger and Ronnie and winked.

  “Right back of it,” said Roger, “there’s a big high apartment building with zigzag steps that go up and up. Halfway up you come to the Drop Dead Place.…”

  “Bet Felix would be afraid to jump off the Drop Dead Place,” said Sammy.

  “Let’s show it to Felix,” said Ronnie. “If he don’t want to drop off, we could give him a shove.” The boys laughed.

  “Can’t go now,” said Roger in a businesslike tone. “We have to take these papers around.”

  “Let Felix finish the route,” said Sammy.

  “No, I’ll go with him,” said Roger. “We’re partners. We’ll meet you back at this corner in fifteen minutes.”

  Felix said nothing. He and Roger walked on down the street and into several buildings, leaving papers for customers. Felix trusted Roger but was uncertain about Sammy and Ronnie. For so long the boys had kept him feeling an outsider. Now he was determined to do whatever they said, even visit a haunted house. He knew Sammy was just trying to scare him. He would show Sammy he was no coward. A haunted house! What a joke!

  In a short time Felix and Roger came back to the corner and met the other two boys. Ronnie had his soapbox scooter with him and Sammy had roller skates. Ronnie’s scooter was a beauty. It had an aerial in front, a grinning face painted on the box, and roller-skate wheels underneath. Ronnie had made it himself.

  “Let’s coast downhill,” said Felix.

  “No,” said Sammy. “We’re going to the haunted house like we said.”

  It did not take long to get there. A high grassy lot rose steeply behind some large billboards. On the Clay Street side, a long flight of wooden steps led up to a rickety house. A pile of wood and trash could be seen at the top.

  “Gee! They’re tearing it down,” said Roger.

  “Let’s go up and see,” said Sammy.

  Ronnie parked his scooter behind the billboard and the boys climbed the steps. Felix counted—there were fifty-six steps. At the top, they had to crawl over the fallen lumber.

  “Listen!” said Sammy. “I don’t hear any pounding. The workmen have gone away.”

  “They’ve left it to the spooks,” said Ronnie grinning. “Somebody died here and the ghost is still hanging around.”

  Sammy picked up a stick and threw it in an open window. It fell with a dull thud and made a loud echo. Ronnie and Roger began to throw stones in.

  “Felix, go in and chase the ghost out!” cried Sammy.

  Ronnie threw another stone. This time, a real screech resounded through the building. Ronnie turned white.

  “There’s someone in there,” he whispered. “It is haunted, after all. Gee, I’m scared!”

  It took a lot to scare Sammy. He turned now to Felix. “Go in, Felix, and chase the ghost out. You wanted to see if the house was haunted. Now’s your chance.”

  Felix looked about him uncertainly.

  “I’ll go in with you, Felix,” said Roger.

  “No, Roger,” said Felix. “I want to go by myself.”

  The three other boys stood back and watched Felix enter the open door. They waited, unsure of themselves and half-frightened. When they heard voices inside the house, they looked at each other in alarm. There was somebody in there, after all.

  “We’d better scram!” said Sammy, running toward the top of the steps.

  “Yes—scoot!” said Ronnie, running too.

  “You go,” said Roger. “I’ll wait here for Felix.”

  Sammy and Ronnie scrambled over the fallen lumber and down the steps. Soon Roger saw Felix coming out of the door, unharmed. With him was a small, gray-haired woman, wearing a straw hat with a feather. She held a hurt cat in her arms. Quickly she made her way around the lumber to the top of the stairs. She shook her fist at the two boys hurrying down. She scolded them for throwing stones at cats.

  “There are always cats in empty buildings,” she said. “They are looking for food. I climbed up all those stairs just to feed them. I hate to see animals go hungry.”

  Felix and Roger had often seen the Cat Lady feeding cats in the dark alleys of Chinatown. They helped her down the long flight of steps. At the bottom she found her shopping cart, thanked the boys, and went on her way. As so
on as she was out of sight, Sammy and Ronnie came back. They did not mention the haunted house.

  “Let’s coast down the hill,” said Sammy, putting on his roller skates.

  “Want to scoot down on my scooter, Felix?” asked Ronnie. He winked at Sammy. “You like steep hills, don’t you?”

  “I dare you to scoot all the way down to Grant Avenue without stopping once,” said Sammy.

  “O. K.,” said Felix quietly. He had made up his mind he would do everything they wanted him to do.

  The boys walked across the street on a green light. Felix took Ronnie’s scooter and started on down ahead with it. Sammy came behind on his skates, and Ronnie and Roger followed yelling.

  Felix went very fast, for the hill was steep. He zoomed along, going in and out among the people who were walking. Once he nearly skidded into a water plug. He passed the entrance to several alleys, avoided hitting a child in a stroller, and zipped across Powell Street on a green light just ahead of a cable car. On through the next block, passing the open lot back of the public school to Stockton Street he went. The boys came behind, cheering him on. Felix felt very proud of himself.

  The next block was not so easy, for there were more stores, with baskets and boxes of produce set out on the sidewalk. There were more people too, customers trying to make up their minds what to buy.

  “Watch out! There’s a cop!” called Roger behind.

  Felix heard, looked quickly around, wondering if the boys were fooling, or if Policeman Mike would catch him. That one backward glance was his undoing. Zoom! Right into the outdoor wall-shop at the corner of Grant Avenue he went, knocking baskets and benches over and scattering toys and souvenirs all over the street.