Born to Fly Page 9

  I nodded. “That’s why I screamed.” It was kind of the truth.

  “Why the heck didn’t you tell me?”

  “I… couldn’t.” It wasn’t much of an explanation, but he seemed to accept it for the time being.

  “Anyway. After that, they roped off our apartment like it was some crime scene and said I’d have to find another place to stay.”

  He started to shake a little. Suddenly all the toughness I’d seen when he whacked that home run against Farley seemed to melt away. Now he looked as scared as I felt inside. I put my hand on Kenji’s shoulder and he started to cry.

  After supper I offered to help Mom with the dishes, and when I started, Kenji slipped out onto the porch. He’d been real quiet all through the meal and had eaten hardly anything, not even my mom’s chocolate pudding.

  After a little while Mom nudged me. “Go on. I can finish these,” she said.

  I dried my hands off and went outside.

  The night was dark, with just a tiny sliver of moon to light the sky. Kenji seemed to be someplace far away, gazing out across our backyard. He looked lost, like the Widow Gorman did whenever someone mentioned her son, Charlie.

  I sat down next to Kenji. “I’m really sorry about your uncle Tomo,” I said.

  Kenji turned toward me. “What happened last night, Bird? Can you finger the mug who really killed Mr. Peck?”

  “I… I can’t tell you,” I said.

  “Why not?”

  “I just can’t.” The last thing he needed was the man in black coming after him, too.

  He looked at me, kind of hurt. “I thought we were friends.”

  “We are.” I wished I could tell him the truth. That I was only trying to protect him and everybody else from the real killer. And that he was probably the best friend I’d ever had. Even better than Wendy. I wished I could tell him that I thought he was ten times tougher than Farley Peck and as good a dancer as Fred Astaire any day of the week. But those were the kinds of things, like telling obnoxious Margaret that I loved her, that never seemed to find their way out of my mouth.

  “Baloney,” he said. “You think my uncle did it. Just because he’s Japanese.”

  “No, I don’t,” I told him. “But I can’t say anything. Not until my dad comes home.” That was the plan I’d come up with while lying in bed the night before.

  “Can’t you do anything without your dad?” Kenji said.

  “He’ll be home on leave in July,” I said, with hope. “My dad will know what to do.” I figured that as long as I kept my mouth shut, everyone would be safe until then.

  Kenji kicked the porch post in frustration. “I wish my parents could come home.”

  I didn’t know what to say. There was a long silence. Nothing but crickets and bullfrogs chirping and croaking at each other. Then I finally got it.

  “Your parents aren’t really dead, are they?” I asked.

  He shook his head like he was sick of pretending. “They’re in a prison camp in California.”

  “Prison?” I would have never guessed that in a million years. “For what?”

  “Being Japanese,” he said matter-of-factly

  “I don’t believe it.”

  “Believe it,” he said.

  Just then, at the end of the driveway, Lieutenant Peppel and Margaret pulled up on the lieutenant’s motor scooter.

  I lowered my voice a little. “Kenji. This is America.”

  “Not if you look like me,” Kenji said.

  I assumed he was telling the truth, but I still didn’t understand. How could they put his parents in jail just because they were Japanese? We watched Margaret and the lieutenant climb off the motor scooter and then steal a kiss good night. It felt funny, as if we shouldn’t have been looking, and Kenji scooted away from me a little like he was afraid I might try and smooch him or something. I shrugged it off and wondered out loud about his parents.

  “It’s not fair,” I said. “Just because you’re a little different.”

  “What do you mean, different?” Kenji said, suddenly angry. “I’m no different than you.”

  I thought it over. “Yeah. I guess it’s kind of like me wanting to be a fighter pilot.”

  But Kenji looked at me like I just didn’t get it. “It’s not like that at all.”

  A night wind shook the trees. After a while I got the courage to ask him, “How did you sneak out? Of the prison camp, I mean?”

  “I didn’t sneak out. After Pearl Harbor, stuff started to happen. Someone threw a brick through our window. Then they cut up a bunch of my dad’s fishing nets. So my parents packed me up and shipped me away to some friends of theirs in St. Louis. Like their lousy record player, or that stupid camera. When they heard that only Japanese on the West Coast would have to go to camps, they had me sent here to Geneseo, to my uncle.”

  “Why didn’t they come, too?”

  “’Cause they cared more about losing their house and fishing boat than they did about me, that’s why.”

  “You lost your house?”

  “That’s what my uncle said. When President Roosevelt signed the executive order, they had two days to sell everything they owned. All my stuff—toys, comics, movie posters—it’s all gone.”

  “You must miss your parents.”

  He rubbed his eyes, then looked away. “Not much.”

  “Have you heard from them?” I asked.

  “They’ve written. I guess.”

  Then I remembered. “Those cut-open letters on your uncle’s shelf?”

  “The government opened them. I’m not gonna read them. Ever.”

  Behind us, from inside the kitchen, Mom started singing along with a wartime love song on the radio. I had never realized it, but she had a really pretty voice.

  “I’m sure they didn’t want to send you away,” I told him. “Maybe they did it to protect you?”

  “If you loved someone, would you send them away?” he asked.

  I tried to imagine being sent to prison with my family. If I could have saved my dad from prison, would I have had the guts to send him away?

  “Only if I loved them a real lot,” I said.

  The next day was Sunday. With a little begging and pleading, I convinced Mom to take Kenji along with us to church. I knew God was busy with the war, listening to prayers for all the soldiers and stuff like that. Father Krauss had explained that God answered every prayer, only sometimes the answer was no, or not yet. So I wasn’t expecting any miracles. But it made me feel better, telling my troubles to someone. And next to Dad, God was the best listener I knew.

  We were a little late, thanks to Margaret and her hair, and as we approached the chapel I could hear Father Krauss addressing the congregation from the pulpit. His voice was strong and deep. I always loved the way it echoed like it was floating just above your head.

  “Jesus said to the crowd that had gathered, ‘Happy are the kind and merciful, for they shall be shown mercy’”

  As we climbed up the church steps, my mind drifted off to thoughts about Dad and how much easier it would have been to walk in behind him right then.

  The vestibule door creaked open and Father Krauss seemed pleasantly surprised to see us walking down the aisle. But as soon as all the parishioners saw Kenji, a wave of whispering and gossip washed through the crowd.

  Father Krauss ignored the mumbling and carried on. “And Jesus said, ‘Happy are those who are persecuted because they are good, for the Kingdom of Heaven is theirs.’”

  I took hold of Kenji’s hand and we found our way to a half-filled pew near the front. I whispered to Mr. and Mrs. Lashley, “Excuse me, could you slide down?”

  When they turned to see me with Kenji, they snatched up Minnie’s hand and shuffled to another pew in disgust. As Mom, Margaret, and Alvin filed in next to us, all the people in the surrounding pews moved to other areas like we had some sort of disease.

  Then Father Krauss got a stern look in his eye. The same kind of look he gave me when I called Fr
eddie Brooks “fatso” after he stole my place in line for Communion. Father Krauss shut his Bible kind of loudly and everyone got real quiet. His eyes scanned the whole congregation, and when he finally spoke, his voice penetrated everyone.

  “And he said, ‘Happy are the just, for they shall be judged fairly’ The Book of Exodus reminds us all, ‘Never falsely charge a stranger with evil; for remember, you yourselves were strangers in the land of Egypt.’” He smiled at me and Kenji. Bowed his head. “And that, brothers and sisters, is the word of the Lord.”

  It was another month or so before Uncle Tomo’s trial started, on July 3. I had never actually been inside the Geneseo courthouse before. It was just a redbrick building with some pretty white pillars out front, but there was something about it that made you feel like you had better tell the truth inside or the walls would know you were lying.

  From the front steps, a crowd of townspeople and strangers spilled out of the packed entryway Mom, Alvin, Margaret, and I squeezed by. There were supposed to be some newspapermen here who’d come up all the way from New York City. A bunch of the local paperboys were all trying to impress them by loudly hawking the local headline: JAP SABOTEUR GOES ON TRIAL.

  Inside, the district attorney, Mr. Lashley, combed his hair and straightened his tie. He was Minnie’s dad—something she had to mention at least once a day. In church and around town, he and Mrs. Lashley pretty much always pretended like we were invisible, except when he needed Dad to fix his stupid car. I looked at him and wondered why he hadn’t had to go and fight the war. Two bits says he was probably scared, like Farley’s dad.

  Mr. Lashley winked at the reporters in the gallery. Then he turned to Uncle Tomo’s lawyer, Mr. Wylie, and they laughed like schoolmates about something while Kenji was sworn in. Mr. Wylie was the public defender. Mom told me that meant he was the lawyer who the government hired because Uncle Tomo couldn’t find anybody willing to defend him. It was kind of screwy, because if Uncle Tomo’s lawyer worked for the government, and the district attorney worked for the government, and the judge worked for the government, who was on Uncle Tomo’s side?

  Mr. Wylie was a little younger than Mr. Lashley, but he looked about ten years older on account of his hair—or rather, his lack of it. The little bit of hair he did have started on one side and draped over to the other, sort of like a Christmas ribbon on a bowling ball. It was hard to believe that the balding, shiny-headed Mr. Wylie and the poufy-haired Mrs. Lashley were actually brother and sister.

  Judge Dickens sat at his raised desk, twirling his wispy gray eyebrows and fanning himself to keep cool. He was a big man, with a stomach-rattling grumble of a voice that he liked to show off by singing “Good King Wenceslas” every year at the Christmas pageant. I was always a little afraid of him when he dressed up as Santa Claus, but Dad said he had honest eyes.

  Kenji’s uncle Tomo sat with the deputy directly behind him. Not more than ten feet away, I saw Farley Peck, looking meaner than I had ever seen him before. I guess he had a good reason, for once. After all, somebody had killed his dad. But he was just too dumb—as usual—to see that they had the wrong guy. I squeezed into the front row of spectators with Mom, Margaret, Alvin, and Agent Barson.

  After a lot of talking and announcements about “case number something or other” and “the State versus Fujita this and that,” District Attorney Lashley and Mr. Wylie made their opening statements. Mr. Lashley’s was a lot louder and longer and more boring. When it was the public defender’s turn, Mr. Wylie just stood up and said that Mr. Tomo might have had motive and opportunity, but the DA still had to prove he was guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.

  It was late in the afternoon by the time the DA called his first witness: “FBI Special Agent Barson.”

  Agent Barson walked up and sat in that chair with the low fence around it. Mr. Lashley asked Agent Barson a lot of technical-sounding questions about the factory, and about the chemicals that are used to make bombs, and about the explosives that the agent and Deputy Steyer had found in Uncle Tomo’s apartment. Then Mr. Lashley was done. He nodded and politely turned the questioning over to Mr. Wylie, who asked just one question.

  “Agent Barson, Mr. Fujita explained to you that he makes fireworks to sell for the Fourth of July celebration. Aren’t the explosives you found simply the materials used for fireworks?”

  Agent Barson thought about it for a moment. Then he said firmly, “Not unless you wanted to level half of Main Street.”

  Funny thing was, Mr. Wylie didn’t seem that surprised. He just straightened his tie and said, “Thank you.”

  It was then, when Judge Dickens excused Agent Barson and Mr. Lashley stood up and called his next witness, that I got a sick feeling in my stomach.

  “Farley Peck,” the DA said.

  That awful name sounded even worse when a grown-up said it in court. What did Farley know about Uncle Tomo? Nothing. Whatever he was up to, I was darn sure it meant trouble for Kenji, his uncle, and me. When Farley walked past, he made sure to step on my foot.

  “Ow,” I said under my breath.

  Farley sat down in the witness box, the area with the wooden fence around it. There’s something not right about having a fence indoors. It looked like the same kind of fence they used to hold the prizewinning hog in at the county fair. And Farley was still wearing his stupid overalls! In court, in front of the newspapermen and everybody. What was wrong with him? Didn’t he know you’re supposed to dress up when you’re in court in front of the judge? All the ladies in town would have blamed his sloppy appearance on his mom, only they couldn’t ’cause she had left Farley’s dad and run off with some shoe salesman who came through town four years ago.

  “Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God?” the bailiff asked.

  Farley shrugged. “Sure.”

  “Just say, ‘I do,’ son,” Judge Dickens told him.

  “I do, son,” Farley said. Everybody laughed at that, and that made Farley scowl.

  “Now, son, where were you on the night of the explosion?” District Attorney Lashley asked.

  “I was walking out of the woods. I had just brought some food to my daddy.”

  “You mean your father, Ben Peck, who had been living in the woods?”

  “Yep.”

  “What happened to your father?”

  That was when Farley stood up and pointed straight at Uncle Tomo. “He killed him.”

  “That’s a lie!” Kenji jumped up and hollered.

  “Silence!” the judge said. You could see that Kenji’s outburst made him mad. “Young man, you will sit down and keep silent, or you will be forced to leave. I will not have my courtroom turned into a circus.” He nodded at Mr. Lashley. “You may continue, prosecutor.”

  “Son, did you see him kill your father?” Mr. Lashley touched Farley’s shoulder like you would if you thought someone was gonna cry, only this was more like he was pretending he thought Farley was gonna cry. Like he was acting.

  But Farley shucked away his hand anyway. “I seen him running away from the factory and into the woods just before the factory blew up. Next day, they found my daddy with a knife in his back. That’s how I know that Jap done it.”

  “He’s lying!” Kenji burst out. “He wasn’t even in the woods that night. We would have seen him.”

  “We?” Mr. Lashley said.

  “Shut up, Kenji,” I shushed him. But it was too late. The lawyers went up and talked with the judge for about ten minutes. When they were done, Farley was dismissed and a new witness was called to the stand.

  “Kenji Fujita.”

  Kenji got up. He looked at me. I shook my head. He turned around and marched to the witness box.

  The bailiff held up the Bible. “Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God?”

  Kenji nodded. “I do.”

  He was so short you could barely see him over the fence of the witness box, so after they swore hi
m in, they had him sit on a briefcase. Then the district attorney approached with his first question. “Ken-ji, huh? Exactly what kind of name is that?”

  “I don’t know. My name?” Kenji looked puzzled.

  “Behave yourself, prosecutor,” said Judge Dickens.

  “Was there some sort of objection, Your Honor?” Mr. Lashley asked real innocently, like he didn’t know what the judge was talking about.

  “No objection from me,” Mr. Wylie answered.

  “Well, there ought to be,” the judge barked. Then he looked sternly at Mr. Wylie. “Listen to me, Felix. Either you defend this man properly, or I’ll call a mistrial faster than you can say William Jennings Bryan.”

  Mr. Wylie straightened his strand of hair. “Of course, Your Honor.”

  “Now get on with it,” Judge Dickens said.

  District Attorney Lashley started over. “Thank you, Your Honor. Now Ken-ji, your uncle, Mr. Fujita, keeps explosives in the house, doesn’t he?”

  “Just fireworks,” Kenji said.

  “Just fireworks. Uh-huh. What were you doing when the explosion occurred at the Warhawk engine factory?”

  I bit my lip and shook my head again at Kenji. He paused a second, then blurted out, “We had just shot off some flares by the bay.”

  “We,” again? Oh no! He’s done it now.

  “You mean, you and your uncle?” Mr. Lashley asked.

  Kenji looked at me. “No. Me and a friend.”

  “Oh. Do you mean Bird McGill?” Mr. Lashley trumpeted.

  Suddenly it felt like everyone’s eyes had pounced on me. I wanted to crawl under my chair. It was even worse than that time in the third-grade spelling bee finals when I ended Mississippi with a y. Mom turned to me, too, but I just looked down at my shoes.

  “Do you mean Bird McGill?” the DA repeated.

  “I guess so,” Kenji answered.

  “So you and Bird were playing with your uncle’s explosives?” the DA said with a smirk.

  “No. Just some flares. You know, Roman candles. We needed enough light… to take a picture.”