Читать книгу Cherry Blossom Winter - Jennifer Maruno - Страница 5

THE SECRET

Michiko waited at the top of the landing while Kiko removed her shoes. It took time to loosen the laces in the thick piece of brown leather that rode their shoes like a saddle. Both of them desperately wanted a pair of black patent Mary Janes from the catalogue.

Kiko slipped her feet into a pair of woven-grass slippers on the landing.

“Can Kiko stay for lunch?” Michiko asked. Her mother stood with her back to them, stirring a pot at the stove.

“Hello, Mrs. Minagawa,” Kiko said in a quiet voice. “If there’s not enough, I understand.”

“We have enough,” Michiko’s mother said as she added slivers of mushroom to the tiny bits of chopped meat cooking in shoyu. “You are welcome to stay.” Steam rose from the rice pot simmering on the stove. Its butter-like smell filled the kitchen.

“Can we help?” Kiko asked.

Michiko groaned. Kiko was always trying to please her mother.

“You can help me by taking Hiro outside for some fresh air,” Eiko told them. “I can work faster if I don’t have to keep an eye on him.”

Geechan sat at the kitchen table, wrapping twine around the pegs. Soon Michiko’s Uncle Ted would come to help them dig a garden. Ted was the first member of the Minagawa family to arrive in this town. He used to build boats, but the government sent him there to build little wooden houses instead. When they moved to the apartment, Ted filled the farmhouse with bunks. All the single men lived there now and they called it the Bachelor House.

Even though the town still wore a bleak winter look, the trees along the main street had a haze of new growth. Michiko hoped they could plant flowers. Fresh flowers would bring a smile to her mother’s face. She loved to watch her mother use her short sharp scissors. After clipping a bloom, she would wind it with wire and stick it into a cluster of pins at the bottom of a vase.

Michiko, Kiko, and Hiro stepped off the wooden walkway in front of the drugstore onto Main Street, which ran from the mountains to the lake.

Two streets divided Main Street into three parts. Church Street crossed at the top, where houses surrounded the little white steeple church. These small frame houses with narrow windows were different from the ones in Vancouver. There weren’t any shingled sides or verandahs with pillars.

Maple Street crossed Main in the middle. This block held the butcher shop and the drugstore where Michiko lived. Across the street was the Hardware Store School.

The Mounted Police office, the General Store, the Hall, and a few empty stores were at the lower end of town. Boards covered many of the upper windows and piles of dirty snow and dead leaves hung about the doorways. The post office was inside the General Store. Across from the General Store, huge wooden steps led to the Grand Hotel’s waterfront.

The national flag stirred lightly in the breeze above the hotel, the only three-storey building in town. On the street level, beneath the wide wooden verandah, were dim hotel offices. The entrance hall off the verandah led into a long hall with rooms on either side. These were the classrooms for high school students. The top floor bedrooms housed the women teachers. Michiko’s Aunt Sadie was one of the teachers at the Hotel High School.

Michiko and Kiko walked Hiro down the street to the baseball field. It was really just the vacant lot beside the hotel, but the kids used it as a playground. A large pond sat in the middle.

Halfway across the field, Kiko turned to the Mounted Police station and stuck out her tongue. Michiko raised her eyebrows. “Why did you do that?”

“Because,” Kiko answered, “those Mounties are going to make us move again.”

“When?” Michiko asked. She tried not to think about what had happened to her father because whenever she did she got scared.

“Who knows?” Kiko responded. “All I know is my father is calling a meeting.”

“Is that your secret?” Michiko asked as Hiro broke away from their hands and ran across the field. “That there will be a meeting?”

“No.” Kiko giggled. “This is something fun, not something pol-it-i-cal.”

Michiko had to smile at the way Kiko dragged out every one of the syllables. It was an imitation of her father’s way of speaking.

Hiro picked up a stick and gave one of the small puddles a poke. The ice made the stick bend and snap. Hiro discarded the stick and picked up a small rock. He threw the rock into the middle of the puddle, making a spiderweb crack. The girls joined him, breaking the ice with their heels. The strong stench of mud made them plug their noses.

Hiro investigated another slab of ice. He picked up a rock and threw it down. Michiko saw him frown when it bounced and skidded away. This gave her an idea.

“Hiro,” she called out, “we can slide the rocks.”

With the inside of her foot, Michiko shot the rock at him. Then she moved her legs apart.

“Shoot it in between my legs,” she said.

“He shoots, he scores!” a tall boy called out as he walked toward them. He had a nose full of freckles and bright blue-green eyes with lashes that were almost invisible. Tufts of golden hair stuck out from his green toque.

Kiko clutched Michiko’s arm as he approached. Her eyes filled with anxiety.

“Hi, Clarence,” Michiko said to the tall lanky boy. She wasn’t surprised to see him. He often walked into town along the railroad tracks. Michiko gave him a big smile.

Hiro grinned and put his arms up in the air when the boy approached. Clarence picked him up and swung him around. “You should be playing baseball,” he said putting him down.

Clarence searched the ground for a thick stick. He showed Hiro how to toss a rock in the air and hit it. Hiro gave it a swipe but missed.

Michiko turned to Kiko. “This is Clarence,” she said. Clarence was the only kid in town who made friends with her when she arrived. “Clarence, this is Kiko Sagara.”

“Where are you going?” Kiko asked.

“Your place,” Clarence responded. “Ma sent me out for soap.” His face puckered, making all his freckles mash together. “She’s dragged out the tin tub and is making everyone take a bath, now that the weather is nice.”

“My father will be happy to sell you soap,” Michiko told him. “You’ll be the one person who doesn’t want soya sauce.”

“Doesn’t your house have a bathtub?” Kiko asked as she looked him up and down. “I thought everyone in town had a bathtub.”

Michiko knew that Clarence lived in a small wooden house with a corrugated iron roof and a little grey shed out back for a toilet, like the houses in the orchard. She was grateful she no longer had to follow the hard-packed path to the outhouse they had to use on the farm. She remembered what it was like sitting on the cold porcelain seat, fighting off spiders.

Clarence shook his head. “I don’t live in town.”

“Me neither,” said Kiko. “Our tub is so small you can only put one foot in at a time.”

Michiko changed the subject. She couldn’t help feeling guilty that she had a toilet with a pull handle, bathtub, and plenty of hot water. “What we need,” she said, “is a swim. Then we can all get clean at the same time.”

“That’s so funny you said that,” Kiko said, clapping her hands together. “That’s my secret. The men in the orchard are going to build an ofuro!”