The Sound of Life and Everything (11 page)

16

Mama didn't ask us why we'd brought home a
dead fish, just fried it up and served it to me and Takuma for dinner. He wolfed it down as if it were the best thing he'd ever eaten, though, of course, that wasn't true. Mama's meat loaf had won a ribbon at the fair for three years running, and she'd already made him that.

When I left for school the following morning, I was surprised to find that Theo was waiting for me by our fence.

“Good morning, Theodore,” I said as I breezed through the gate. Mama said that courtesy was the only thing that neutralized scoundrels and conniving kin, and right now, he was both.

“Is that your way of sayin' you don't want to walk to school?” he asked as he hurried after me. “Because if you don't want my company, the least you could do is say so.”

I whirled around. “
You
were the one who stormed off yesterday!”

He knotted his arms across his chest. “And
you
were the one who ruined my afternoon up at the pond.”

Theo stormed off once again, Lone Ranger lunch box swinging viciously. I would have let him make his exit if we'd been headed opposite ways, but I had no choice but to follow.

“I've said it once,” I said as I hurried to catch up, “and I'll say it again if it'll make you act less stupid. I'm sorry we scared away your fish.” I folded my arms across my chest. “But I'm not gonna apologize for bringin' Takuma to the pond.”

At least that made him stop. “The pond is
our
spot, Ella Mae—yours and mine, Robby's and Daniel's. You had no right to bring a stranger there . . . least of all a Japanese one.”

“He ain't a stranger!” I insisted. “His name's Takuma, and he's our guest.”

“Where'd he come from?” Theo asked.

“I already told you. From a lab.”

Theo looked away. “I didn't think that you were serious.”

“Well, of course I was!” I said. “Do you really think I'd lie about something that important?”

“Well, no,” Theo admitted. “But I never thought that you'd make friends with a bona fide Jap, either.”

I opened my mouth to answer, then snapped it shut again. He made it sound like being friends with Takuma was a bad thing, but Takuma wasn't bad, just different. Or were bad and different the same thing?

“He doesn't belong here,” Theo said. “He's not the same as we are, and deep down, I think you know that.”

He made another exit, and this time, I let him go. Theo might have thought that he knew what I believed, but how could he know that when I didn't even know myself?

• • •

As soon as I got home, I told Mama about our conversation. I expected Theo's words to plant the same seeds of doubt in Mama's head, but she easily dismissed them. If Takuma didn't fit in with the rest of us, it was only because he'd never had an American upbringing, and bringing up Americans was one of Mama's specialties.

We were halfway through our dinner of waffles and pork links when Mama cleared her throat. Waiting for Daddy to get full on processed pork and maple syrup must have been part of her plan.

“It's time to make a change,” she said.

Daddy looked up from his newspaper for the first time in a week. “It took longer than I thought it would, but you've finally come to your senses.” He wadded up the
Times
and checked his watch. “If we leave for Pasadena in the next ten or fifteen minutes, I can still make it back in time for
Break the Bank.
”

Mama shook her head. “That wasn't what I meant.”

He considered that, then shrugged. “You can take him back yourself if you really feel that strongly.”

Mama clenched her teeth. “I don't want to take him
back.
I want to take him to school.”

Daddy's jaw actually dropped. I lost my grip on my utensils. I'd been about to gobble down my last bite of waffle, but Mama's unforeseen announcement had nearly knocked me flat. It seemed like Mama had just told me that St. Jude wasn't ready for the answers we'd been getting. If they hadn't been ready then, what made them ready now?

Mama fiddled with her napkin. “I know you probably think I'm crazy, but I've given this a lot of thought. What's done is done, and we can't change it. But we
can
give this boy a life, a better life than the one he's had.”

“He had a life!” Daddy replied, tightening his grip on his butter knife.

Mama's eyes darkened. “No, Jed, he had a number in some awful man's experiment, and that's no life at all.”

Takuma had been eating pork links like they were about to be rationed, but Mama's words made him miss a beat. He didn't look up from his plate, but he did put down his utensils. He'd probably been listening all along, but now he wasn't trying to hide it.

“He had a purpose,” Daddy said, “and we should let him get back to it before he can do any more damage.”

“What damage?” Mama asked.

Instead of answering, he aimed his fork in the direction of his dealership. “I've sold Greg Leavitt a new Ford every other year for the last twenty, but after you steamrollered his wife at that department store she runs, he's probably never going to buy another car from me again if I can't somehow convince him that that boy doesn't belong to us.”

“Well, if he doesn't belong to us, who does he belong to?” Mama asked.

“That crazy scientist!” he said, smacking the only bare spot on the table. The dishes rattled ominously. “We shouldn't have to be responsible for another man's mistake!”

His words nearly bowled me over. I thought Mama had said she couldn't trust him with the truth. When had she broken our pact? The surprises just kept coming.

I must have made a face, because Mama ducked her head. “Don't give me that look, Ella Mae. It's not like
you
haven't told anyone.” A single tear spilled down her cheek. “And for the record, I don't think we're responsible for Dr. Franks's mistake so much as the life that it produced. He can rant and rave, but I won't let him have Takuma. If some crazy German scientist brought my boy back to life, I'd hope that
someone
would look after him.”

Daddy relaxed a little. “I understand why you're upset,” he said as he reached for her hand. “But he won't replace the one we lost.”

Mama jerked out of his reach, but before she had a chance to answer, Takuma bolted to his feet. His face was red and splotchy, and as he bowed and mumbled “Are-ee-got-toe,” he backpedaled toward the door.

“What's wrong, Takuma?” Mama asked.

“Are-ee-got-toe,” he replied. He was less than a foot from the threshold.

When I realized what his intentions were, I yelled, “Takuma, stop!”

It surprised me when he did.

I stuck both hands on my hips. “What do you think you're doin'?”

“Go,” was all he said. He wouldn't meet my eyes.

It felt like an unseen hand reached into my chest and squeezed. Renegade tears spilled down my cheeks, but I paid them no heed. I'd thought that I was ready for life to go back to normal, but apparently, I wasn't ready for a life without Takuma. If Theo had planted seeds of doubt, Takuma had plucked them back out. I didn't want him to go away. What if someone awful found him? Or what if someone took him in and he forgot all about me?

“No, you can't go,” I croaked.

He dragged a hand under his nose, then sneaked a peek at Mama and Daddy. Daddy unfurled his newspaper with a vicious flick, but Mama smiled back.

“Stay,” she told Takuma. “It won't be like this forever.”

Takuma smiled shyly, then swiftly went back to his seat. After drying my cheeks off on a towel, I carefully went back to mine. Mama seemed so certain that things were going to get better. I only hoped she wasn't saying that to convince herself.

• • •

We left for school in the Studebaker bright and early Thursday morning, so I didn't get a chance to stick my tongue out at Theo, but that was probably just as well. I wasn't ready to see him again, not even through a window.

The mood in the car shifted from anxiety to anticipation, then back to anxiety. If Daddy had blown up at the mere mention of the word “school,” then what would Miss Shepherd do when we actually tried to enroll him? At least Mama had made sure that Takuma looked his very best. She'd found him a pair of pants and an old shirt that had been too big for Daniel, then slicked his hair back like James Dean's. A few bits had escaped the pound of Brylcreem she'd employed, but on the whole, he looked respectable (if a little out of style).

Still, I shifted awkwardly when we pulled up to the school. It was a vast, two-story building whose only match for age or size was the old adobe church. As I climbed out of the car, I felt a bit like Wyatt Earp as he'd scrambled off his horse at that ill-fated corral.

I sneaked a peek at Mama. “You think this is gonna work?”

“There's only one way to find out,” she said.

I tightened my grip on my lunch pail. “We
are
right, aren't we, Mama?”

She half smiled, half sighed. “I'm not sure of most things, sweetness, but I am sure of this.”

That was good enough for me. I linked elbows with Takuma, and Mama linked elbows with me. Their proximity gave me the confidence to march across the parking lot, but as soon as the door clanked shut behind us, my confidence drained out my toes.

I'd attended the St. Jude School for Boys and Girls for the last seven years, but I'd never been inside at such an early time of day. Somehow, I'd never noticed that the ceilings were two stories high or that it smelled faintly of Clorox, as if the janitor had just cleaned up someone's mess.

Takuma stuck to me like a dead bug stuck to flypaper, but I didn't mind. When he unlinked his elbow and draped his arm around my neck, I hesitated for a moment, then circled mine around his waist.

When we reached the office, Mama opened the door, then froze. Miss Shepherd had clearly spotted us, since she was gawking at Takuma like he was a three-headed sheep. But Miss Shepherd wasn't the only one. Mr. Lloyd was hovering behind her.

As his name implied, Mr. Lloyd was Walter's daddy, with a temperament to match. He must have become a principal because he liked being a bully.

“Good morning,” Mama said as she dragged us into the office.

Mr. Lloyd didn't respond, just stared at us over his coffee, which was frozen halfway to his mouth.

Miss Shepherd dropped her folders and grabbed the pen behind her ear. “Good morning, Mrs. Higbee. Is there something we can do for you?”

“Yes, ma'am,” Mama said. “I'd like to enroll a new student.”

Miss Shepherd's gaze darted to Takuma, then darted away. Mr. Lloyd jolted so violently that his coffee slopped out of his mug, instantly soaking through the pages of Miss Shepherd's steno pad.

Miss Shepherd plucked a form out of her desk. “Then I need his name and date of birth, and if you happen to have a transcript, we'd like a copy of that, too.”

When she tried to hand the form to Mama, Mr. Lloyd intercepted it. “Regrettably,” he said, setting his coffee on the steno pad, “the St. Jude School for Boys and Girls is quite full at the moment.”

Mama snatched the form out of his hands. “You must have an extra desk somewhere.”

Mr. Lloyd snatched it right back and tore it down the middle. “No,” he said, “we don't.”

Mama rolled her eyes. “He barely takes up any space.”

“And his English is improving every day,” I said. “In fact, just yesterday, he strung two whole words together!”

I decided not to mention that one of them was Japanese, but apparently, it wouldn't have mattered. Mr. Lloyd wasn't impressed.

“I'm sorry,” he said with a fake smile, “but with the new move-ins we've had lately, we simply don't have any room.”