House of the Red Fish (6 page)

“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.”