Cherry Blossom Baseball Read Free Page B

be such a great pitcher but such a terrible hitter?”
    I ’m not closing my eyes, Michiko thought, I’m just blinking hard. She repositioned herself, determined to make a hit.
    Clarence pitched again. This time Michiko slammed a hard grounder.
    George watched it roll past him.
    â€œThat thing in your hand is called a mitt,” Clarence yelled at him.
    George ran after the ball, picked it up, and walked to the plate. “My turn at bat,” he said, grabbing it out of her hand. “Where did you get this bat, anyway? It looks stolen.”
    Michiko handed him the bat and went into the field. In a short while, her family would be out of this town for good. She couldn’t wait to get away from all these suspicions and bad feelings.

Chapter 3

    FINAL PLANS
    I want you to sit down with me sometime this week to help me with a budget,” Michiko’s mother said to Sadie as she took some potatoes from the burlap bag under the sink.
    â€œWe can do it now if you want,” Sadie said. She sat flipping through a stack of Hollywood Star magazines she had taken from the drugstore rack. “No need for me to hurry home; Kaz won’t be back for a few days.”
    â€œWhere has he gone?” Michiko asked, putting her little brother Hiro into his highchair. At one time not very long ago, no one could leave the camp. Now that the rules had changed, people were flying off in all directions looking for work, but not to the other side of the mountains, toward the coast.
    â€œA meeting, Miss Nosy,” Sadie said.
    â€œWhat kind of meeting?” Michiko asked, but no sooner had the words flown out of her mouth than she knew she would be reprimanded for being rude. “I’m sorry,” she said as her mother turned to give her a cold stare.
    Eiko dried her hands on her apron. She handed Hiro a small piece of raw potato as she came to the table. “Is it to do with you-know-what?”
    Sadie nodded.
    How Michiko hated those three little words. Every time she heard them, it meant they had discussed something that she was not to know about. If she asked, she was rude. If she eavesdropped, she was yancha . How was she ever supposed to know out what was going on in her own family?
    â€œThings will be fine,” Eiko said as she patted her sister’s hand. “They won’t take him.”
    Michiko frowned. That’s the first time I’ve ever heard anyone hope that someone wouldn’t get a job. What kind of job can it be?
    â€œThings can’t get any worse,” Sadie said. “We will both be out of work once they shut the camp and close the schools for good.”
    â€œWhy doesn’t he just work at the drugstore?” Michiko said. “He could take Dad’s place.”
    â€œBecause, Little Miss Fix-it,” her aunt said, “Kaz’s college education would be wasted in this ghost town.” She put her hands to her head. “Our mother moved from a bamboo hut to a cold water flat to living quarters above her own shop. I’ve gone from my own apartment to a rented hotel room. I should have a house by now.”
    â€œWhich is exactly why I am making a budget,” Eiko said. “I plan to save every penny I can for a home. Sam is going to make fifty-one dollars a week. We have no rent to pay. I figure twenty dollars for food and thirty for everything else. The salary I make as housekeeper at the new place can go into the bank. It will be a crunch, but worth it. What do you think?”
    Michiko heard her father’s footsteps on the stairs just as the delivery truck out front started up. He came into the kitchen holding a brown paper bag. “Did I hear the word ‘crunch’?” He held up the bag and shook it. “Guess what I’ve got?”
    â€œDid the peanut man come?” Michiko asked, leaping from her chair. Her father had said at breakfast that a man was coming by to fill the vending machine that had come by