Cherry Blossom Baseball (8 page)

ESCAPE

T
he
gladioli fields were now just row upon row of twisted brown spikes. Michiko's father had told her bulbs couldn't be left in the ground over the winter. After digging them out, he and Mr. Palumbo would braid the leaves and hang them in the barn.

Michiko's shiny dark pigtails swung back and forth across the wide blue straps of her new overalls as she walked to the village to buy stamps. She had hoped she would finally get to live in a city of tall buildings and department stores, but all the village had to offer was a hardware store, drug store, grocery store, and school. It was no different than the ghost town.

Allen's Pharmacy had both Canadian and American flags in the window. Inside, Michiko spotted the familiar things from their drugstore: tooth paste, soap, talcum powder, and red rubber hot water bottles. She grimaced at the large bottles of cod liver oil but noticed they sold giant chocolate bars and big bags of popcorn already popped. They had greeting cards, wrapping paper, and something called hair spray. There was even a cooler full of popsicles and little cardboard cups of ice cream. When the brass bell above the shop door tinkled, Michiko remembered how much she liked the friendly chatter of their customers at her father's drug store, with all their bits and pieces of news.

She stood in line reading the handwritten signs posted on the cash register.
Bed Sitting Room $30.00
made her think how good it would be to have her aunt and uncle rent it.

“Hello, Millie.” A familiar, unwelcome voice broke into her thoughts.

Michiko pretended not to hear Carolyn, even though she could feel the girl's warm breath on her neck. She moved her gaze to the ground, noticing the spotless white toes of the girl's majorette boots. Her own brown leatherwork boots, even though they were brand new, felt out of place beside those snub-nosed boots with their perfect tassels.

“I said
hello
,” Carolyn said, with a nudge of her elbow. Her voice was friendly, as if there wouldn't be a confrontation, but Michiko knew it wouldn't last. She'd learned that much from George King. “I guess your thoughts are elsewhere,” Carolyn said with a smile. “I suppose your father is away fighting with the rest of the soldiers.”

Michiko felt her face grow hot as the person in front of her turned to look.

“Is he fighting for Japan or Canada?” Carolyn asked. “Remind me, what side is he on?”

Michiko took a breath and faced the girl. “My father has no side.”

“What do you mean he has no side?” Carolyn said in a voice she made loud enough for all customers in the store to hear. “Everyone has to take a side when there is fighting.”

There were nods from the people who stood around listening.

“He should be off fighting,” Carolyn said. “Everyone else is.”

Michiko's throat tightened as she moved forward in line.

Billy stepped out from one of the aisles. “That's not true, Carolyn,” he said. “Someone has to stay home for the country.”

Carolyn turned her back on him and continued. “So if your father didn't go off to war, what exactly did he stay home to do …” she paused, looked at Billy and said, “… for the country?”

Michiko felt like a tadpole in a glass jar. She turned to Carolyn and took a deep breath. “My dad built roads,” she blurted out.

“How do you build a road?” Carolyn let out a large, horse-like snort. “A road isn't made out of wood and bricks, like a house.”

“He had to use dynamite to blast through the mountains,” Michiko said in a voice she hoped was as loud as Carolyn's.

“Wow,” Billy said. “I didn't know that. That's just as dangerous as being in the war.”

Carolyn gave the boy a look of disdain. “I think your father went to work in the mountains just to avoid getting killed, like all the really, really, brave men.” She made it sound as if getting killed was the only way to prove bravery.

“And what is
your
father doing, Carolyn?” Billy asked. “Is he out fighting?”

Carolyn turned on her heel and marched out the door.

Billy took Michiko by the elbow and led her away from the counter after she'd paid for her stamps. “They don't call her Carolyn the Creep for nothing.”

Michiko nodded. “I guess your dad didn't go to war either.”

“My dad,” Billy replied, “says it makes him mad listening to all the talk about the men overseas doing their part. He's doing his part, too, but no one seems to think that way.”

Michiko left the drugstore aware of the contemptuous stares from Carolyn and her girlfriends standing across the street. Carolyn pried the cardboard lid from her ice cream cup, licked it, and tossed it on the ground. She said something to her friends before she dug in with her wooden spoon, and they all laughed.

Michiko decided she would wait on a bench in the harbour until they left rather than attempt to walk past them. As she approached the parking lot, she spotted Naggie lounging in front of his grocery truck. She sat down amid the smell of the fishing boats tied up at the pier and listened to the slap of the waves. The breeze ruffled her hair as the seagulls engaged in their own arguments overhead.

But instead of leaving, Carolyn and the girls moved toward her.

The down on the back of Michiko's neck rose. She walked to the back of Naggie's truck and peeked around to see if they were really heading her way.

“Hey, Millie,” Carolyn's voice called out as they approached. “You visiting Chinky-Chinky-Chinaman?”

Michiko mounted the steps, went inside the truck, and held her breath.

Carolyn strode across the parking lot and called out, “Hey, Millie, where are you? I want to tell you something.”

N
o, you don't,
Michiko thought.
You want to make fun of me, like you always do, and you probably want to pinch me.
The marks on her arm after their last confrontation at school had only just gone away. She pulled her ball cap from the back pocket of her overalls, stuffed her braids underneath, and crouched beside the stack of rice bags at the back. All she had to do was sit and wait for them to go away.

The girls moved along the gravel lot to the side of the truck.

“What you girls want to buy?” Naggie asked them as he followed them to the back.

“Nothing from you,” Carolyn snapped. There was a burst of giggles from the other girls. “We're looking for someone.”

“No one here but me,” Naggie said. He lifted his set of steps and placed them inside.

J
ust go away
, Michiko thought as Naggie shut the door. She waited a few more minutes to make sure they had gone and stood to leave, but Naggie had started the engine. The shelves shook, the goods rattled, and the truck lurched forward.

Michiko fell backward onto a sack of rice. She picked herself up, but the truck turned a corner and she fell sideways. She scrambled to her feet and grabbed on to the wooden shelves to steady herself as the truck picked up speed.
This can't be happening
. Michiko knew she had to get the truck to stop before it went too far, but how? She looked about in desperation.

Holding on to the shelves for support, Michiko reached for a bucket and an iron skillet. She made her way to the small counter Naggie used for weighing and packing. Bracing herself against the counter, she pounded them together. The truck slowed down for a moment.

Michiko waited.

The truck sped up.

This time Michiko pounded the bucket and stomped her feet.

The truck slowed down and swerved to one side. Michiko prayed Naggie was pulling over, but she didn't dare wait for the truck to come to a complete stop. If he found her in the back, he would turn around and drive her home. That would end in trouble. She would have to make a jump for it before he got out of the cab. She stumbled toward the door.

Her kick broke the rickety latch and the door swung open with a bang. Michiko watched the road move away from her, the grassy lawns to each side a blur. Taking a deep breath, she moved on to the rickety tailgate, clinging to the other door. She could feel the truck slowing down.
Now or never,
she thought as the truck came to a rolling stop.

Michiko leapt to the side of the road, stumbled, and fell. She picked herself up, ran to a large, thick tree and hid behind it. It seemed to take forever before the engine started up again, but she dared not look until she heard it moving down the road, its wooden door tied with a long piece of frayed rope.

She brushed the gravel from her hands and the knees of her brand new overalls. Wherever she was, she had a long trudge ahead of her. All she had to do was figure out which way to go.

The chestnut tree Michiko hid behind was one of many that formed a huge avenue of trees on either side of a long drive. She walked until she came to a high, ornamental, wrought-iron fence. The gate, with a pattern of leaves, branches, and apples, stood open. The perfect green lawns before her were empty, except for a solitary robin bouncing through the grass. Michiko watched him cock his head to one side and fix his bright yellow eye on her.

“I know,” she said to the bird, “it was a stupid thing to do.”

She made her way across the lawn toward the large stone building that sat well back from the road in the middle of sprawling green grounds. This huge Victorian building, with brick turrets and gables, had tall windows tucked tightly into the stone walls. Like a place one would read about in a storybook, it gave her a fairy tale sense of doom.

Beside the steps, someone was pruning the bushes. The young man in a white T-shirt and blue jeans looked up from his gardening in surprise. He locked his shears and pushed back his baseball cap to watch her approach. A shock of blond hair fell across eyes the colour of a summer sky.

“I know this is private property,” Michiko said to him. “I just need to know where I am.”

“How can you not know where you are?” he asked with a small smile as he pushed back his hair and straightened his hat.

“Umm,” Michiko said. “A friend dropped me off, but I guess at the wrong place.”

“You don't know this place?” The young man extended his arms, seeming to have difficulty believing she actually didn't know where she was.

Michiko shook her head. An enormous feeling of fear brimmed up inside her, and she didn't want to speak.

“Well,” he said, with a shrug, “you're on the grounds of Applegate School, the finest boys school in all of Canada.”

“Oh,” was all Michiko could say, because this information still didn't give her any idea as to how she was going to find her way home.

“Where were you headed?” the boy asked.

“Bronte Village,” Michiko said.

He opened his shears, preparing to return to work. “You've got a bit of a walk ahead of you,” he said as he snipped a dead branch from a bush. “Are you outside of the village or in the village itself?”

“Off the highway, just before the village.”

“And you're going to walk?”

Michiko shrugged
. What else can I do?
Then she remembered the change in her pocket. “I'll just catch the bus,” she said, trying to sound as if she knew what she was doing.

“The bus?” the boy said with a laugh. “With this shortage of gasoline, you could wait up to two hours. And if you get on, you'd have to stand for at least half an hour.” He shook his head from side to side. Then he looked at his watch. “If you want to wait a few minutes, you can catch a ride with me.”

Michiko pawed the grass with the toe of her boot. Her mother had told her again and again,
Never accept a ride with strangers.
She didn't know what to do.

“What's your name?” the boy asked.

W
hat is my name?
Michiko asked herself.
Who knows? Do I say Michiko or Millie?

“Mich—” she started to say as the horn of a truck sounded at the side of the road. Two men in a pickup truck waited at the gates.

“Well, Mitch,” the boy said, “my name is Eddie. If you don't mind sitting in the back of a truck, we can give you a lift.”

Michiko watched as he wheeled a lawnmower up to the pickup truck and lifted it into the back. “Are you coming or not?” he asked. “I got to get to ball practice.”

“You mean baseball?” Michiko ran to the back of the truck.

“No other kind of ball,” Eddie said, grabbing her hand to help her up. It was a new experience for her, touching the hand of an older boy, especially one this good-looking. She flushed at the sensation.

“Most of the boys in my grade are in army cadets,” Eddie said. “But I made the Ontario Summer League. We practice behind Bronte School.” He banged the side of the truck, and it started up. “You a baseball fan?”

Michiko nodded. “The radio at home was always on for the World Series.”

“That was one showdown,” he said. “Those Cardinals won over a hundred games.”

“And the Browns only got one homer the whole series,” she replied.

Eddie nodded. “Baseball would be a lot better if most of the players weren't overseas,” he said. “Look out, Hitler, the Yanks are coming, along with the Indians, the Red Sox, and the Tigers,” he yelled through cupped hands. He went quiet for a moment. “I hope Stan Musial doesn't enlist. Did you catch that two-run homer he clubbed?”

Michiko nodded with a grin. Her father had hopped around the kitchen like a chicken that day. She began to recognize the area and decided she better get off at Billy's farm. Even though
Hitch a ride to save gasoline
was written on the chalkboard at school, her parents wouldn't be pleased to see her hop off the back of a truck.

I
t would be best if no one found out.