Willow Run (11 page)

But Grandpa wasn't here to make it seem less scary. He was home, weeding his garden. I glanced down over the step, but his seeds weren't growing. Maybe they'd all washed out in the rain the other day.

I leaned over farther. I knew that spot by heart, the five stones I had laid against the wall of the house so they'd be out of the way, the faint ridges in the earth where I had planted the seeds.
Grow,
I told them,
grow
.

At the curb Mr. Tucker opened the front door of the
car. “Let's go, Harley,” he called. “Got a long way to drive before dark.”

Mrs. Tucker locked the apartment and dropped the key back into the mail slot in the door. She leaned her head against the wall for just an instant, then came down the path. “I'll never forget this place,” she said. “It was a hard time, a terrible time.” She bit her lip. “Tell your mom and dad I'm praying for them, and praying for your brother.”

I crossed the lawn and she hugged me there on the front path. “I hope you'll go home soon, Meggie.” She touched my shoulder, shaking her head. “This war has done something to every single one of us.”

“Harlan!” Mr. Tucker called again.

“I'm coming, aren't I?” Harlan said, but he didn't get up from my stoop.

I hesitated, then went back to him.

“Listen, Meggie,” he said. “I've got to go. Just give this to Arnold the Spy.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a dollar bill.

I had seen it before, creased and old: his uncle Leo's hardware-store dollar.

“Tell him it's the best thing I ever had.” Harlan's eyes filled as he looked down at it. He unfolded it. “Look. My uncle's initials in pencil.
L.T.
I did that so they'd always be there.”

I put my hands behind my back. “Don't do it, Harlan.” I could hardly talk.

Mr. Tucker tapped the horn now, a short, warning sound, and Harlan grabbed my elbow. “I thought I had a year to pay him back, even two years. But there's no time left.” He opened my curled fingers and put the dollar bill in my hand. “Tell him my uncle was a hero. Leo Tucker.”

I watched him zigzag across the grass, calling back over his shoulder. “Tell him to take good care of it,” he called. “It's all I have left of my uncle.”

“I will.” I took a step after him, wondering how I would ever do that.

Harlan slid into the car, giving Kennis a little punch. “You have to take up all the room?” He rolled down the window and stuck out his head. “If Eddie doesn't come back, maybe you'll get some money from the government, enough to buy a hardware store of your own.”

“Harlan!” I heard Mrs. Tucker say.

“You could come to Detroit,” he yelled, his voice almost lost beneath the sound of the motor as Mr. Tucker pulled away. “We could be partners.”

“He's coming back,” I yelled, my voice loud in my ears. “Don't you worry about that.”

The apartment door opened on the other side of me. “Good luck,” Ronnelle called, and Lulu waved both hands.

And Patches came running. “Good luck, Harlan.”

And there was Mom out on the step, ready for work, going across the lawn to say goodbye.

The Tuckers drove down the street then, the motor not catching right somehow, the muffler banging as they turned the corner.

I went back inside and sat on the foldout couch in the living room, tightening my fist around Harlan's dollar bill.

It was almost time for Mom to go to work. She rushed around hanging socks and underwear on a line across the kitchen. “Oh, Meggie,” she said. “Last year this time we were in Rockaway sweeping the sand off the front steps.” Her mouth quivered. “I'd be putting on a second cup of coffee for Grandpa. How I miss him.”

She arched her back. “Can you imagine, I spend my days helping to put huge bombers together…almost like sewing up a skirt on the machine at home.”

I thought of Terry, Harlan's friend, the man who was shorter than I was, working inside the wings.

After Mom left I could see a puddle of soapy water in front of the washing machine, and drips across the floor from
the laundry. The wringer was hardly working, but Dad had said it was just for the duration anyway.

The duration again.

I found the mop and swished it back and forth, making shiny arcs across the red linoleum. The sun slanted through the window onto the floor, drying it quickly; the clock tick-clicked up over the stove, and it almost seemed that the faucet dripped out Arnold's name.

I went into my room and sat on the edge of the bed, the springs creaking. I must have awakened Dad in the other bedroom. “Are you all right in there, Meggie?” he called, his voice thick with sleep.

“Sure,” I managed to get out. I ran my fingers over the bedspread. Judy or Jiggs had chewed on the little balls of chenille and I could see the sheet underneath. Harlan's dollar was there, under the pillow.

I had to give it to Arnold, give him my allowance, and tell him…

Tell a spy.

I slid out the dollar and patted my pocket to be sure I had Grandpa's medal in there for courage; then I tiptoed out so I wouldn't wake Dad. It was time to find the
SUNDAE, MONDAY, AND ALWAYS
truck.

The truck wasn't on our block or the next. I was about to give up when I saw it ahead of me, slowly turning the corner.

By the time I reached the end of the street, Arnold the Spy was chaining the truck to a tree halfway down the block.

I could have called out; I could have run after him. I didn't, though. I stood there thinking about the scratches on the running board and what he was going to say.

He put the key underneath the back fender. For a spy he certainly wasn't very smart. I followed him as he walked away, wondering where he was going.

He crossed the street, and halfway down I crossed after him. He went a long way and I kept myself almost a whole block in back of him. And then the streets came to an end, and there was the field Dad had shown me, and I could see Arnold was going to that house across the field, and if I didn't call him it would be too late. He'd be inside with the door closed and I'd never have the courage to knock.

“Arnold,” I called, my voice with that rusty sound again. He stopped ahead of me and turned.

I walked toward him slowly, taking baby steps, until I couldn't make myself go any closer. “Do you know Harlan Tucker?” I couldn't look at his face; I stared down at the Queen Anne's lace and buttercups in the field in front of me.

He raised one shoulder. “Dirty-looking kid? The one who wears the World's Fair pickle?”

“That's what I want to talk to you about.” I reached into my pocket, feeling the grosgrain ribbon and Grandpa's medal under my fingers. I held it tight.

“A World's Fair pickle?” He took a few steps closer to me, and I wondered if I should run, so I put up one hand, almost like a policeman, and he stopped.

“Something else,” I said. “And something about me, too.”

Someone was calling him from the house. I looked up. “You have a mother?”

He glanced over his shoulder and waved. “Of course I have a mother.”

“We took your ice cream,” I said. “Lots of ice cream.” And then all of it was spilling out, words tumbling one over another: my allowance, and Uncle Leo's dollar bill, the only thing Harlan had left of him.

“You wrote the note about the key,” he said.

I nodded.

“I thought so. You were always writing things.…”

“You watched.…”

“I see everything,” he said.

I looked up at him, surprised to see that his face had rearranged itself. It was round, and acne marks dotted his cheeks. He didn't look angry or even like a spy.

And then I realized I had said it aloud, gasped it aloud through my crying. “You don't look like a spy.”

“Spies don't look like spies,” he said. “They look like ordinary people.”

But then he took a step backward, and I could see the red come into his face. “I'm not a spy.” He raised his hand to his mouth, and his fingers weren't quite steady. “But I'm a coward.”

I turned the corner to see Dad standing on the front step. “Meggie,” he called, and I went toward him, still thinking of Arnold. Arnold with tears spilling down over those acne marks on his cheeks.

I had wanted to run away from him, but I hadn't. The whole time we talked I had kept one hand in my pocket, clutching Grandpa's medal so hard it made dented crescents in my palm.

“Where have you been?” Dad said now. “Mom is home, we're both waiting.” He pushed up his glasses so he looked like an owl. “And you have mail again, Meggie.”

I looked up at him quickly, but he shook his head. Not Eddie, then.

Mom was in the kitchen. The wash on the line was dry now, and she was sorting socks, dark ones for Dad, stripes and plain for me. And on the table was a letter in a pale blue envelope and a package addressed to me.

“Like Christmas.” Mom rolled the socks into balls and piled them into neat mounds on the table.

I didn't know which to open first, so I slit open the blue envelope with neat slanted handwriting and circles instead of dots over the
i’
s. “It's from Virginia Tooey.”

Mom glanced at Dad. “I never thought of Virginia,” she said. “I should have written. If only I had thought …” She broke off and went to the counter to begin a Spam loaf. “Poor Virginia. What did she say?”

I opened the letter:
“Dear Meggie, I'm so glad you wrote to me. I know about Eddie. All of Rockaway does, every single one praying for him. But I want to tell you something, Meggie. I know he's coming home. Just believe it. He promised me. Love, Virginia.”

For a moment there was silence. Then Mom turned from the sink. “It's the first time,” she said, “the first one who has given me hope.” She raised both hands almost the way the choir in church did on Sundays.
“All of Rockaway praying
.
”

Have hope
. That's what Grandpa would say.

Haf hope
. Mom came to the table. She leaned over to take the letter from me and held it up to her face. “I believe it,” she said.
“I have to believe it.” She put her arms around me. “And you, Meggie, writing to her. How grown-up you've become this summer.”

I sat there with Dad across the table, nodding at me and smiling a little. He reached out to reread the letter as Mom went back to the counter. He cleared his throat. “I like Virginia Tooey, I really do.”

We listened to Mom stirring the wooden mixing spoon against the bowl. She began to hum the pilot song Ronnelle was always singing: “Coming In on a Wing and a Prayer.” It was the first time I had heard her sing since the soldiers had come to tell us Eddie was missing.

I reached for the package next. I knew what it was even before I saw Lily's large handwriting on the front. I unwrapped it slowly, telling Mom and Dad that I had asked for Eddie's picture, and when the last piece of paper fell away, there was his face.

As I looked at it, it was as if something happened inside my head; things rearranged themselves the way they had with Arnold; the look of Eddie slid together in my mind like a puzzle I had just finished. I could see him so clearly it was as if he were standing right there in front of me.

Not the Eddie in the picture, who was a little fuzzy, but Eddie himself now, Eddie yodeling, dancing down the front step, Eddie swinging me around once on my birthday.

I closed my eyes so I'd never forget again.

Mom came back to the table, wiping her hands on her apron. “He's coming home someday,” she said.

Dad reached out and covered my hand. “Good, Meggie, so good that you asked for the picture.” He propped it up against the napkin holder on the table and stared at it, nodding. “With Eddie smiling at us here, it almost seems as if we're a family again.”

“If only …” Mom broke off and went back to the counter.

I knew she was thinking the same thing I was. I rolled up the string and folded the wrapping paper into a square. If only Grandpa were there in the kitchen to feel the way we did, that Eddie would come home someday.

When everything was cleared away, I realized there was another envelope underneath, an official-looking letter with its row of stamps and the bold black return address:
Hot-O Soup Company, Battle Creek, Michigan
.

Mom and Dad watched me. “We hid it underneath for you, Meggie,” Dad said. “It could be a great surprise.”

“I wonder …” My heart began to thump. I tore it open and began to read:
“Dear Miss Dillon, You have won an honorable mention in our soup contest. We are delighted to send you this certificate and five dollars. Your entry warmed our hearts as our soup does for the soldiers, sailors, and marines who are fighting for us overseas.”

I had won something at last.

“Oh, Meggie,” Mom said. “Won't Grandpa be happy when he hears about this?”

All those contests Grandpa and I had entered. We were going to see the sights in New York City with our first winnings, and now he wasn't even here.

“What did you say to win this?” Dad asked.

I blinked. “I don't know. I wrote so many.…”

In celebration, Mom opened a jar of the strawberry jam that hadn't broken the first day. We slathered it on toast and ate it with the Spam loaf, looking at Eddie's picture with my brand-new five-dollar bill propped up in front of it.

And then we realized how late it was: time for Dad to go to work, and for Mom and me to go to bed. I wondered if Harlan had gotten home yet. I wondered where Eddie was.

I knelt on the floor in my bedroom, reaching under the mattress to feel Eddie's envelope, and pulled it out.

I held it up to my face the way Mom had held Virginia Tooey's letter, but I didn't open it.
Just believe it. He's coming home
. And then I put it back under the mattress.

I lay in bed and tapped on the wall to talk to Patches. She was half asleep, but I told her about Harlan with the dollar bill. I didn't tell her about the rest of it, though. It was all too much to think about.

“Harlan wasn't such a bad kid after all,” she said, and her voice trailed off.

I was still wide awake and remembered Grandpa's seeds
and the little salad garden I had planted outdoors. It wasn't as dark in the bedroom tonight as most nights. The kitchen window reflected a piece of the moon so it spilled out onto the linoleum floor. Just this morning, I told myself, none of the seeds had begun to grow. Not one. But somehow tonight might be different.
Have to have hope
.