“Move,” he said.
The corner of Billy’s mouth curled so slightly you could barely see it.
Keet yanked the planks aside and stepped down into the hole. Other than the centipedes, all that was down there were a few boxes of canned food, two chairs, a couple of cots to sit on, and ten gallons of water.
Keet shined the light around. “What’s in these box—”
He froze. Centipedes were crawling up his pants and oozing up over his bare feet. He shrieked and came flying out, dropping the flashlight.
“Get them off me!” he screamed, slapping at his pants. “Ahh! Ahh!”
Billy and me backed off, trying so hard not to laugh.
Chip and Dwight scurried away, not wanting to get stung.
“They’re crawling up my leg!” Keet yelled. He ripped off his pants, batting at three centipedes making their way up to his blue and white striped boxers.
I tried to control my face.
He slapped the last one off and glared at us. “You sick animals!”
He searched his pants, then put them back on and lunged toward us, his eyes bulging with rage. He took a swing at me, but I jerked my head back. He swung again, hitting my shoulder. Then Billy was on him. They fell to the grass.
Red started leaping around and yapping, making a terrible racket, thinking it was a game.
Dwight shoved me down, then came at me with his fist cocked. I moved and his knuckles hit grass. Chip went for Billy and grabbed him from behind, holding his arms back. Keet jumped up and was about to drive the hammer of his fist into Billy’s face when he saw the Davises’ gardener, Charlie, running down the slope with a shovel held up like a baseball bat. Chip let go of Billy and backed off with his hands up. “Dwight,” he said.
Dwight looked over his shoulder and rolled off me, stood and backed away.
Charlie tossed me the shovel, grabbed Keet by the back of his pants, and yanked him away from Billy, strong as a bull. “Nuff!” he snapped. “Nobody going beef in my yard!”
Keet tumbled back, then leaped up ready to go at it with Charlie, but he was smart enough to change his mind.
“Go home,” Charlie said. “Go back your place.”
“You’re going to be sorry you stepped into this, old man,” Keet spat. “I’m going to get you fired.”
Charlie said, “You do that, boy, but for right now you jus’ get out of this yard.”
“All right, no problem, but I’ll be back to watch them kick your sorry self back to the dump you came from.”
Charlie glared at him.
Keet came up to me, eyes burning. “I know what you’re planning to do with your pappy’s boat, fish boy,” he growled. “I ain’t stupid. But you are.” He jabbed a finger into my chest.
Charlie put his big hand on Keet’s shoulder. “Time to go.”
Keet shrugged him off, his eyes still pinned on me. “Get this clear, you so much as touch that boat and I’ll get you arrested. This is war, now. You hear me? And you Japs started it, not us. There is no way anyone in his right mind is letting you use that boat against us again, so nail this into your brain: you mess with that boat, you messing with me, because I’m going to take you down. Count on it.”
That did it.
The boat was coming up.
A couple of weeks later Rico was limping around school without his crutches. He said his okole still hurt, like if you just got a shot in it at the doctor’s. He was shuffling like an old man, but he still had his usual stick match in his mouth, a toothpick with a red tip, so I knew he felt better if he was thinking about being cool.
Mose, as usual, had the sleeves of his shirt rolled up to show off his muscles. “We go sit in the shade,” he said. “Too hot.”
We sat in the dirt, leaning back against the side of the building. Rico winced as he gingerly lowered himself, trying to squint and look tough, which made me laugh. He would do anything to keep from looking sissy. I had to admire him, though. Sitting on a shot-up okole was pretty manly.
Funny thing was, I was feeling manly too. Or maybe it was anger. Two things had collided in my mind—Papa’s boat and Keet Wilson. It was kind of like when we got bombed. One day you’re sitting around minding your own business, and the next you got a war on your hands.
That was me and Keet.
His father never really liked or trusted my family, for some reason, but he pretty much left us alone. But for Keet to threaten me about Papa’s boat was going too far, just like he went too far that day in the jungle when he tried to take the katana from me. The more nasty he got, the more stubborn I got. He even made me angry enough to consider breaking my promise to Papa.
Don’t fight and shame this family!
I would bring that boat up first for Papa, then for me. To get beaten down by a fool like Keet Wilson was something I could not accept.
If I had to fight, I would fight.
Sorry, Papa.
Don’t fight, Papa’s words blared in my head. I covered my ears. Then realized where I was and took them away.
Mose, Rico, Billy, and I sat silently for a few minutes, watching the ants crawl in the dirt. Mose was right, it was hot. The back of my shirt was sticking to me.
“Hey, Mose,” I said. “How long can you hold your breath?”
“Why? You going fut?”
“No, really. Two minutes? More?”
He shrugged. “Maybe. What you talking about?”
I knocked Billy’s arm with the back of my hand. “Me and Billy are going to bring up a sunken boat.”
“What?” Billy said.
“My father’s sampan. We were hoping you and Rico could help us.”
Billy snorted. “I told you, we need heavy equipment, and maybe you forgot to check, but we just don’t happen to have any salvage cranes hanging around.”
“It’s not impossible,” I said.
Then I told Mose and Rico what Keet Wilson said—if I mess with the boat, then I’m messing with him. “What would you do? Bow down and say, Yessir, master sir, you know best, whatever you say, you got it“?
“That punk like die,” Rico said. “Stupit haole.”
“He said he’d get me arrested,” I added.
“You think he can?”
I shrugged.
“We could arrest him,” Rico said, the stick match bouncing in his mouth. “Make our own police force for getting stupits off the streets. Or maybe we could join up with those VVV guys and get them to help us deal with that punk.”
Mose frowned at him. “You gotta be Japanese for be one VVV, you idiot.”
“For Tomi, I going be Japanese.”
“Thanks, Rico,” I said.
“Anyway,” Billy added, “those VVV guys all joined up with the Four Hundred Forty-second Regimental Combat Team. The army finally let them in.”
“No kidding,” Rico said. “That’s good.”
Mose looked at me. “So what’s your plan?”
“I don’t have one … yet.”
Billy shook his head.
“After school, we go check out the boat,” Mose said, then gave me a toothy grin.
“You’re all nuts,” Billy said. “You don’t know what you’re even talking about.”
Mose wagged his eyebrows.
Nobody had better friends than me.
We took the trail through the trees out to the vast dirt patch. Out in the canal the Taiyo Maru and other sampans looked like busted tree stumps in a flood. I imagined carrying a bucket of water, and how heavy it would be. Just one bucket. The Taiyo Maru sat under a million buckets. Billy was right. We’d need heavy equipment.
But I couldn’t give it up. Not now. Not ever. If I did, it would be like letting my small family fall apart, day by day, until there was nothing left but dust where our old life had been.
Stop thinking! I kept telling myself. Just do it, bring it up and make it work again for when Papa comes home, because he is coming home. He is coming home. And so is Grampa Joji.
I glanced
toward Diamond Head, then back over toward Honolulu. No one else was around, no kids playing in the dirt, no fishermen casting off the rocks for mullet.
“Gee, Tomi,” Rico said. “That ain’t no small boat. What we can do with only four guys?”
Mose whistled, low. “Billy, your daddy got a crane down his office?”
Billy humphed. “That would do it.”
I took off my shirt and pants, down to my white boxer BVDs. “Well … no time like now to get started, ah? Mr. Ramos said if you got a lot of homework you take it one bite at a time, like how you would eat an elephant, right?”
“You eat elephants?” Rico said.
Mose laughed and hooked his thumb toward Rico. “He’s serious.”
Rico scowled.
Billy eased down to sit and watch from the rocks at the edge of the canal. “This I got to see.”
“Whatchoo going do, Tomi?” Rico asked.
“First thing I need to know is how the hull is. If it has a big hole in it, then we probably don’t have much of a chance to fix it up. But if it only has a small hole, maybe we can.”
Mose and Rico joined Billy on the rocks.
“Go,” Mose said. “We wait for you.”
The warm water had a faint swampy stink. It was brown, but clear enough to see. Just rusty water.
The Taiyo Maru was only ten feet from shore. I swam over and stood on the deck, about three feet down. Slimy moss had grown on the wood, making it slippery under my bare feet.
I jumped off and dove under to look for holes in the hull. It was darker down there; I needed goggles to see. I’d borrow some from Charlie, who had spear-fishing gear.
I came up for air and went down again. It took a while, but I ran my hands over almost every inch of the wood hull. Grampa was right, there was a hole, chopped from the inside out. But it was small. It could be fixed. Probably.
That was good.
Still, this hulk full of water must weigh ten tons. Man, I thought, gliding back to the surface. I was a lunatic to think I had a chance.
When I popped up, Billy, Mose, and Rico were sitting stone still with Keet Wilson, Chip and Dwight, and three other guys standing around them with sticks in their hands.
I swam over the deck and stood on it.
Keet crossed his arms and studied me, shaking his head slightly. “Help me understand this,” he said. “I mean, didn’t we talk about not messing around here? We did, right?”
I glared back.
Big man, I thought … when you got an army standing behind you.
Probably they were sons of BMTC guys. Where else would Keet find someone to back him up over one Japanese kid like me? They probably all went to his same school. But most guys I knew who went there—like Billy’s brother— would never allow themselves to be dragged into something like this. Or else maybe these guys didn’t go there and just liked trouble. A guy with Keet’s brains could tell them anything and they’d believe it. Funny how he could be so smart and so dumb at the same time.
“You come on up out of that water,” Keet said, leaning on his stick, which was a jagged, snapped-off tree branch. “We aren’t going to let you do this. You must know that by now. Right?”
I stayed where I was.
Keet tapped his thumb on the end of the stick. The smaller limbs were sharpened to points.
Mose stood and stretched, as if nothing were behind him but the sun and a few lazy flies. He yawned, then took off his shirt and pants and, in his BVDs, jumped into the water. “Where do we start?” he said, swimming out to me.
Keet’s eyes narrowed.
Then Rico creaked up.
Then Billy.
Keet shoved Billy from behind. “You Jap-loving traitor.”
Billy and Rico jumped into the water with their clothes on, swam out to the boat. I grinned at Keet. I shouldn’t have, but I couldn’t help it.
Keet spat and stabbed his stick into my pants, then beat them into the dirt. He grabbed up our shirts and pants and tossed them into the water.
His six boy-soldiers stood motionless behind him, smirking.
Slowly, they all backed off and left, Keet mumbling something at us. As scared as I was of them, they weren’t what I was thinking about.
“Rico, get out! This could be sewer water. It could infect your wound. Clean it good when you get home.”
“What wound?” he said.
But we all got out and pulled on our wet clothes.
Sundown had colored the sky red.
Time to get home.
On a Friday night a couple of weeks later, I was awakened by someone whispering my name outside our screen door. I checked the clock in the murky light: 10:30, a half hour past military curfew.
“Tomi.”
Billy? I got up and crept toward the door.
Mama was stirring, trying not to disturb Kimi, asleep on the floor nearby. Ever since blackout started over a year ago, we’d lived in that one room and the kitchen, though sometimes I slept in my room.
“Who is it, Tomi?” Mama said.
I squinted into the night through our screen door. “Who’s there?”
“It’s me—Billy. You got to come with me, Tomi—all of you.”
I could barely make him out, standing just beyond where the goat’s rope could stretch. Little Bruiser was planted a foot in front of him, barring his way. A shadow in a shadow. On a moonless night in this blackout, the islands were as dark as tar. “We can’t go out now. It’s curfew.”
“We found your grandfather!”
I froze, stunned. “Grampa?”
Behind me Mama gasped. I could hear her scrambling to her feet. “Billy-kun,” Mama called. “Come inside.”
“I can’t,” he said. “The goat.”
Mama went out on the porch and called into the night. “Shoo!”
The goat trotted off. Billy sprinted across the yard and up the steps. I held the door open. He burst in and stood just inside.
“You … you found Grampa Joji?” I managed to say. “You mean you found where they took him on the mainland?”
“No, he’s here, Tomi. He’s at Queen’s. They had him at a stockade on Kauai. He had a stroke. They couldn’t care for him there, so they sent him over by boat. My mom saw him come in. He was covered with mosquito bites.”
Grampa? Here?
“Queen’s Hospital?” I said.
“Yeah, where my mom works.”
“Oh, no, no,” Mama said. “Another stroke.”
“Mom says he’s not too bad,” Billy said. “He can talk, and he recognized her.”
“They’re letting him stay there?” I said. “Are they going to send him back? Is he under guard?”
“Slow down,” Billy said. “You can see for yourself. That’s why I’m here.”
“What do you mean?”
“Mom can get you in to see him.”
“Mama?” Kimi said, waking up.
“S’okay, Kimi. We just talking to Billy.” Mama bumped through the dark to the kitchen. “Billy-kun, you wait. I go get you some musubi to take to him.”
“No, Mrs. Nakaji. I’m supposed to bring you to my house, all three of you. Dad’s going to drive us to Queen’s so you can see him. Don’t worry about curfew. You’ll be with us. Mom is waiting at the hospital.”
“Oh, oh,” Mama sputtered. “Tomi, get Kimi ready.”
She hurried to her bedroom to change.
“Tomi,” Billy said. “Listen!”
My mind was racing. Grampa was here! My ojii-chan. Alive, and not on the mainland.
“Listen to me,” Billy said, shaking my shoulder. “Dad thinks he can get him released.”
My eyes locked on his.
“Bring him home, Tomi. Dad thinks we can bring him home.”
Riding to the hospital sometime near midnight in a totally blacked-out town was eerie. Mr. Davis had to crawl through the streets with headlights covered with black tape, and only one small crack of blue to show the road ahead. It was the law.
Billy sat up front with Mr. Davis.
Kimi sat between me and Mama in the back. I wondered if Mama might be holding her breath like I was, unable to think about anything but Grampa, hoping it was really true. We were going to see Ojii-chan!
We parked and got out at Queen’s. Huge monkeypod trees loomed in the starlight, and beyond, the black mass of the hospital pricked with small red lights. Mama hesitated, staring up at the massive building. She’d never been in a hospital.
“It’s okay, Hideko,” Mr. Davis said, gently taking Mama’s arm. “Come with me.”
Mama nodded, and we went in.
Seeing Mr. Davis put Mama at ease like that made me like him even more.
No police or soldiers stood guard outside the door to Grampa’s room, like I’d expected. Inside we found a small old man lost in bright-white sheets in a four-bed hospital room. One low light lit the room, the windows covered over with black paper. He was alone, the other three beds empty.
“Grampa!” Kimi cried, and ran over to him.
The rest of us inched in and stood in a clump at the foot of the bed. My breath caught when I saw him. It had been over a year. He looked shrunken, or maybe the bed just made it seem that way. He appeared to be asleep, white lotion spotting a zillion mosquito bites on his face and arms. A frown crept across Mr. Davis’s face. “They never should have taken him away from home,” he said softly.
Grampa stirred, then squinted one eye open.
Then the other. His mouth curved up when he recognized Kimi.
She grabbed his hand.
“Unnh,” he mumbled. “You more big.”
Kimi leaned down and rested her head on his shoulder. He patted her back.
I glanced at his ropy mosquito-ravaged brown arm lying on the clean white sheet. Once that arm had been like steel. I could almost feel again the unbearable pain that he could inflict on me by grabbing my wrist and twisting it in a special way—just so—and sending me to my knees. He was the bone crusher. I’d practiced that grip myself, over and over, until I’d gotten it down as good as that old coot.
“Now, now, give the poor man some breathing room,” Mrs. Davis said, rushing in. She put her hand on Mr. Davis’s arm, smiling across the bed at Kimi.
House of the Red Fish Page 4
