The Sky We Shared, page 1
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are
either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously,
and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead,
business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2022 by Shirley Reva Vernick
Jacket art copyright © 2022 Jonathan Bartlett
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced,
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Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file with the Library of Congress
Names: Vernick, Shirley Reva, author.
Title: The Sky We Shared / Shirley Reva Vernick.
Description: First edition. | New York, NY : Cinco Puntos Press, an imprint of Lee & Low Books Inc.,
[2022] | Audience: Grades 7-9. |
Summary: Set during WWII and told in alternating voices, Nellie, a young Oregonian and survivor of a
balloon bomb sent over by the Japanese, strives to understand how the war has torn her community apart
and created prejudice against Japanese-Americans, while across the ocean, as part of her nationalist duty,
Tamiko helps create the balloon bombs, but in her struggle to survive hunger and starvation, Tamiko
muddles her way through her anger against the United States for the war.
Identifiers: LCCN 2021004893 | ISBN 9781947627529 (cloth) | ISBN 9781947627536 (paperback) |
ISBN 9781947627543 (ebook)
Subjects: CYAC: World War, 1939-1945—United States—Fiction. | World War, 1939-1945—Japan—
Fiction. | Toleration—Fiction. | Friendship—Fiction. | Grief—Fiction.
Classification: LCC PZ7.V5974 Fall 2022 | DDC [Fic]—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021004893
For Mikio, Esther, and Mark Tajima
1
Nellie Doud
April 29, 1945
Bly, Oregon
I lie on my back in the front yard, spyglass in hand. Not that I’m spying on anyone. Why would I want to look into someone’s window when I can look at the whole universe? Besides, everyone has their blackout shades pulled.
I squint into the eyepiece and pick out the Big and Little Dippers, the Lion, Hydra, the Twins—I always start with the constellations—then turn to the gibbous moon and the Dog Star. It’s late but it’s a clear, warm night, the downy grass soft on my neck, the scent of lilacs and charcoal in the air, crickets chirping. A bullfrog croaks. I could stay right here all night, even if Mother does say it’s an unseemly thing for a girl going on fifteen years old to do.
My pa taught me about the sky. He’d be stretched out right alongside me tonight if he weren’t in the service. The army has him posted in the Aleutian Islands, which I’d never heard of before, but now I know they’re part of Alaska. I worry about Pa up there, but not as much as I used to. After all, we routed the Japanese from the Aleutians two whole years ago. Now the posters say Alaska is a “death trap for the Jap.” Good.
No, I’m not as worried anymore, but I miss him as much as ever. Maybe more than ever. Of all the people in my family, he’s my person, my kindred soul. He’s the one who loves the sky as much as I do, who I can tell my secrets to, who makes this house, this town, feel like home. The Aleutians might need him now, but that’s not where he belongs, not really.
A movement low in the sky catches my eye. I turn my glass in that direction. Something is there, all right. It’s darting, dropping, white and round. A falling star! Like a fairy light in a twinkling sky. I wish Pa were here to watch it with me. He’d know how magical it is.
Just as it shoots out of sight, a big furry dog knocks the spyglass out of my hand and slurps my face. Joey Cooper’s dog!
“Hello, Poppy.” I sit up and scratch behind her long ears. “You must like the lemon ice on my lips.”
Across the street, a screen door screeches open and someone—it has to be Joey—steps out and whistles. Joey Cooper, the boy who’s a year ahead of me, one dirt road across from me, and a world away.
It wasn’t always that way. We used to be friends, really good friends. Best friends, as a matter of fact. I used to hope it might turn into something more than that, but then the war pulled Joey away from me. Him and Pa both.
He puts his fingers in his mouth to whistle.
“She’s right here.” I stand up but keep a tight hold on her.
Come talk to me, Joey.
“C’mon, girl,” he calls a couple of times. She doesn’t come, so he heads past the white oak in his yard, down his dirt driveway, across the road to where I stand.
I let go of Poppy’s collar at the last minute.
“Hey, Nellie. Guess I got the dumbest mutt in town.” In the moon’s glow, his gray eyes are silver, his sandy hair gold.
“She’s a good dog.” I finger-comb my dark bangs. “I didn’t see you at school today.”
“Yeah, I had to help my uncle with the cows again.” He pats Poppy’s flank. “Tomorrow too. And Saturday.”
The old Joey would laugh off the extra work. He’d say that there’s no udder place quite like a farm, or something like that. He’d have me laughing too. But this Joey sounds sad. He’s been sad for months now, ever since Bly got a new star, its very own. Not a winking white star in the sky. A cloth one, yellow, hanging in the Coopers’ front window, letting everyone know that Joey’s brother Peter was killed in action.
It happened in December. December was already dark in Bly. The blackout meant no outdoor Christmas lights. Rationing meant not enough sugar or butter for baking cookies, and no metal or rubber for children’s toy airplanes and cars. That wasn’t so bad. The real darkness was the terrible word about Hitler’s surprise attacks in Europe, how fast the Nazis were advancing, how many of our soldiers died, including Peter Cooper. Killed in action. Gone forever.
I knocked on the Coopers’ door as soon as I heard the news. No one answered. Mother said I should give Joey some time, but Joey needed me. Or so I thought. We were best friends, after all. I tried again the next day—same thing.
Three days after the Coopers’ star appeared, Mother and I brought over a pie. We had to use potato flour, so it wasn’t very good. Joey was the one who answered our knock. He wore his brother’s high school ring, gold with a blue jewel, along with the sorriest face I’d ever seen.
Before I had a chance to say a word, he disappeared up the stairs, calling out, “More visitors, Ma.”
Mother and I went into the kitchen to find Mrs. Cooper slumped at the table and Poppy crouched underneath it. Mr. Cooper was milling around too. They discharged him from the army when the bad news came, because how much loss can one family take? Anyway, Mother offered “deepest condolences” and murmured, “He was a fine young man,” and Mrs. Cooper whispered back, “No funeral plans yet—we’re still hoping for Peter’s . . . remains.” After that, it was just silence.
What was Joey doing up in his room? What was he thinking about, and why wouldn’t he come down and talk to me? I had no idea then, none now. Since then, he just goes to school—early, because he has flag duty—and works for his uncle. No more hanging around. No more jokes. No more talking.
“You gonna be at the salvage drive Saturday?” Joey asks me out of nowhere, straddling Poppy. Joey works on all of Bly’s war effort projects, like helping run the fat collection station and picking milkweed pods to fill life jackets. We may only be a thousand strong in this one-blink town, but we do our part.
“Mm-hmm,” I answer. “I’ll be there.”
“Me too.” This is the most he’s said to me in all these months, the closest he has stood.
“Mrs. Flynn is donating the bumpers off her car,” I say. “She says it takes eighteen tons of metal to build one tank.” I bite my lip, wishing I could take my words back—because for all anyone knows, Peter died in a tank. “You working metals this time, or rubber?”
He shrugs, presses his lips together. “Wherever they need me. How about you?”
“Yeah. Wherever they tell me.”
Neither of us says anything.
“Guess I’ll see you then,” he says at last. “C’mon, Pops, time to head in.”
“Yeah. Bye.”
They go back across the dirt road, up the rutted driveway, into their house. It’s a start, I guess. We talked a little. We’ll see each other Saturday. That’s something, anyway.
When I hear Joey’s screen door slam shut, I lie back down in the tall grass and look up at the sky, hoping another star will fall. But none appears—and Joey doesn’t ask me to hold his hand, and Pa doesn’t come striding down the street. I fall asleep right there
I wake to the sound of Joey’s door squeaking open, only this time it doesn’t bang shut. He’s changed out of his white T-shirt into a black turtleneck. He walks fast down his driveway and up the road. Where is he going in such a hurry? Is he in some sort of trouble? Does he have a girlfriend?
He passes my yard and the yard next door. Six months ago, I wouldn’t have to wonder where Joey was going. He’d have told me. He’d have asked me to go with him.
I jump up, shoving my spyglass in my trouser pocket and trailing behind him. Walking on the grass so he can’t hear the sound of my feet, I follow him past half a dozen small houses and their oversize yards. Just past my friend Ruby’s, we make a right-hand turn onto Hitching Post Lane, where Fish Hole Creek burbles its song. My heart sinks when he turns left onto hilly Upland Way.
Upland is a little dead-end street with only three houses on it, and one of them belongs to Irene Kava, who sits next to me in school. I can’t stand Irene for a whole bunch of reasons. For one thing, she’s stuck-up. Her father is head of the logging works, and she thinks she’s better than everyone because she lives in a bigger house and has more stuff. For another thing, she’s as mean as they come. She once said something so awful to me that I can’t repeat it, and when Ruby overheard, she thought it was funny, so I had to be mad at her for a while too.
But the biggest reason I hate Irene is that her father had scarlet fever when he was young, and it left him with a weak heart. Which may not sound like a very good reason to hate someone, but it means her father will never get sent to war. He volunteers with the draft board instead, sitting behind a desk at the post office once every couple of months, signing up volunteers. Irene never has to worry about him getting shot or blown up or taken prisoner.
Joey turns into Irene’s driveway. “Noooo!” I mutter to myself. Irene can’t be Joey’s girlfriend.
I sneak forward, hide behind the hedges close by. He looks at the darkened house, glances up and down the street, pulls something out of his pocket. Did he bring her a gift? Is she going to sneak out for a midnight stroll with Joey Cooper? Will she have on a sparkly new bracelet or necklace when she gets back home? Well, I’m not going to stick around to find out.
I can’t leave yet, though. I’m too close—he might see me. I’ll have to wait until Irene comes down. But Irene doesn’t come down. After a few minutes, Joey heads up the driveway. He goes right past the house into the metal shed that stands off to the side. Is that where they’re meeting? Is she already in there, waiting for him?
I want to escape—but I’m like a moth spiraling into a hot lightbulb. If I hear Irene giggling in there, I’m going to throw up.
Irene doesn’t giggle. She doesn’t make a peep. All I hear is . . . Well, I don’t know what it is. It sounds like scratching. Then it’s silent. Then more scratching. Then Joey comes out. Alone. He just stands there, facing the shed. More scratching.
And then I see it.
Fire! Flames creep from the back shed wall toward the front, getting fatter and brighter as they spread, like an advancing army.
Joey stares at the blaze, transfixed. It bewitches me, too, how the flames dart and twirl, crackling like Saturday-night popcorn on the stove, only louder. I can’t take my eyes off the fire . . . until I notice Mr. Kava marching across his front yard in his bathrobe and pajamas, carrying a baseball bat. Or maybe it’s a cane.
His bald head and ruddy face shine in the moonlight. He’s on the short side, but he’s broad and ramrod straight, looking more like a drill sergeant than the manager at the logging works. Could that be a rifle he’s carrying?
Joey is still hypnotized. Mr. Kava is about to turn the corner around his house. He’s going to see the shed, the fire—and Joey. Standing up, I pull my spyglass out of my pocket and throw it hard on the driveway. It clanks against the pavement and rolls away. I crouch back down.
Joey jerks to attention. “Wha—?”
He bolts, sprinting past the shed into the Kavas’ backyard. I squeeze my eyes shut. Stick to the fields, Joey. Don’t stop running until you’re back at your house.
I never should have closed my eyes, though, never should have taken them off Mr. Kava. The next thing I know, he pulls me up by my shirt collar and stands over me with his baseball bat and his furious eyes, grumbling, “A girl?” Then he grabs my arm and drags me across his driveway, past the shed, over to his front steps.
2
Tamiko Nakaoka
September 15, 1944
Shinji-cho village, near Kure City, Japan
Ancestors,
It’s a warm September afternoon in Shinji-cho. I feel you in the breeze as I walk home from school. The little boys on our crooked little road race around me, giggling and squealing, pretending to be fighter planes, their arms outstretched and heads bent. But still I can hear you in the wind—parents, grandparents, and all those who came before you, whispering welcome for my return.
The summer was long, now that summers are for working and not for resting. My older brother, Kyo, and I were sent to the rice paddies in the countryside to harvest food for our soldiers. It was difficult work, hunched over the rice stalks under the hot sun, but it had its good points. Well, it had one good point: We ate better than we do here.
Food is scarce here in Shinji-cho. The enemy is cutting off our shipments. What does get to our islands must go to our soldiers, of course. Still, even though our village has grown lean, I’m glad to be back home, out of the sweltering sun and onto my own futon.
To tell the truth, though, I’m already weary of school. Eguchi-sensei is a clever teacher, but really, what use do I have for biology, geography, and history classes? I weave these subjects right into my embroidery—red-crowned crane, snowy Mount Fuji, emerald sea dragon, sparkling butterfly.
Needle and thread are all I’m good at, all I’ll ever be good at. I’m almost fifteen now, after all. I don’t think I’ll wake up one morning and suddenly be a math whiz or a scientist. I wish I could be somewhere embroidering all day long. The theater perhaps. Yes, the theater, all costumes and spotlights and magic.
Last term, our class went to the Fantaji Theater in Kure City to see a play filled with ghosts, samurai, fair maidens, and demons. I fell in love with the dancing, the music, the incredible makeup, and the costumes. Especially the costumes. The theater! If I could bring my friend Suki with me so I wouldn’t get lonely, and if you’d come with me, ancestors, I’d move to the theater in an instant.
Shizue-san, my aunt, tells me to be careful what I wish for. But it’s a small wish—a sapling, not a tree—that will never come true anyway. Just a little wish—a raindrop, not a typhoon—with no hope of happening. Not now, anyway, not during war, and it’s such a long war. But someday perhaps luck will take me there, to the costume room, to the spotlights and the magic, where I hope to bring you pride.
~ Tamiko
When I hear the front door open, I quickly make the character for the dragon and slide my diary into my dresser drawer. Kyo is late getting home from the war rally tonight, so late that Shizue-san is already snoring on her futon.
“I am home, sister,” he says. Then he goes straight to his room to drop off his rucksack, while I get his bowl of moldy gray rice ready.
Kyo takes his place at the low table in the living room. His hair is windblown, his sharp cheekbones flushed. People say we look alike. I didn’t see it before—he was always lanky and I was always plump. He always moved gracefully, like a cat, and I always limped and clomped from my bout with polio. But now that we’re both gaunt from hunger, now that my cheekbones show too, now that I’ve cropped my hair, I must agree. We’re visibly family.
I put the bowl in front of him. “This is all we have. Again. Grayer than ever.”
“Hunger is the best spice,” he tells me, but that’s only a saying he has learned to parrot. There’s also a saying that you should eat until you’re eight out of ten parts full. That won’t be happening tonight.
While Kyo digs into the rice, I sit down opposite him, and that’s when I see. I see that he’s hungry for more than food. It’s right there in his eyes, the way they flash like swords. It’s there in his chopsticks, the way they click like boot steps. Soon he’ll be old enough to join the Imperial Army, and it makes me afraid.
