LITMIR.BIZ

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light so pure it took my breath away. Black in the moonlight, the pine trees in the valley huddled together as if defending against the cold, while clusters of stars framed the jagged peaks like diamonds in a royal tiara. At the far end of the valley, a light burned in the window of a house half buried in the snow.

      “I bet it’s cold out there,” the Whizz said.

      “Yeah, Whizz, it’s definitely cold.”

      “Freezing cold?” When I didn’t answer, he said, “I bet nothing can live up there.” He pointed at a distant, snow-covered peak.

      “What about the ghosts?” I asked.

      “Ghosts?”

      Mom spoke up then. “The ones that will get you if you don’t go to sleep.”

      The Whizz took the hint. He drew a blanket to his throat and stretched out beside me. A few minutes later, he was asleep. For me, sleep was a long time coming. I couldn’t take my eyes off the vista outside our window. Every piece of it was foreign. The peaks of the Koolau Mountains on Oahu are covered with rain forest, not ice and snow, and they’re a full-time home to hundreds of species of birds. A thousand unnamed streams spill over cliffs to fall hundreds of feet to canopied pools choked with fish.

      You’re not going back, I told myself. You can only go forward.

      Forward toward what? I was thirteen years old. Growing up was challenge enough. Dad had instructed me to be strong. Fall down seven times, get up eight. Only there’s a difference between falling down and being knocked down.

      “Emiko.” Mom reached her hand out to take mine. “Come, sit by me.”

      Five minutes later I was asleep.

      Chapter 4

      Except for trips to the dining car and the bathroom, we remained in our little refuge all the way to Chicago. There wasn’t much to do, and the Whizz and I spent most of our time staring through the windows at the changing landscape. The mountains seemed to go on forever, but eventually we began to descend. The view, whenever the train rounded a curve that looked east, was entirely new.

      The landscape was as unlike the Sierra Nevada mountains as the mountains themselves were unlike Oahu. This was a land of flat earth, a vast prairie dusted by lacy snow and punctuated only by the occasional farm or ranch. Brown dots sprinkled over the grasslands grew larger as we dropped through the passes, eventually resolving into herds of cattle that turned to look at the strange monster we called a train. Vultures and hawks, their wings motionless, swept across cloudless skies in long, slow circles as they searched among the rocky outcroppings and spiny cactus for the day’s meal.

      “See that? See that? See that?”

      Beside himself, the Whizz bounced on the seat next to me. His index finger remained in constant motion, pointing at every jackrabbit that tore across the barren landscape, at abandoned ranches with their collapsed barns, at a lone antelope feeding on dried brush. A herd of bison drinking at a narrow stream sent him into a frenzy.

      “Look, look, look.”

      I might have joined him if Amos hadn’t brought us a newspaper every morning, and if the news hadn’t been so universally bad. It seemed those traitorous Japanese living on the West Coast had challenged their internment in court. In the opinion of the Omaha Journal-American, whether immigrants or citizens, adults or children, the Japanese were being treated leniently. In a more just world, they’d have been shipped back to Japan.

      Mom popped the Whizz’s bubble when she pulled out his arithmetic book and a pad, then put him to work on a set of multiplication problems. I staved off an assignment by sticking my nose in The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. Would the same book be assigned to the eighth-grade class at the Gardner Consolidated School? Was I wasting my time? I couldn’t know, but somehow the reading eased my fears. At least I was doing something.

      I noticed the farther east we went, the less attention we attracted. Attitudes appeared to change for the better as the desert gave way to a forest so dense we seemed to be traveling through a tunnel. Not all at once but gradually, a patchwork of scattered trees, then patches of woods around a pond or a stream, finally a dense forest packed with trees I’d never seen before. The train passed a lot more farms as well—enough to feed the glittering cities of the East Coast—and the towns were closer together and much larger as we chugged into Illinois.

      Over time, the cold took on a life of its own. The frigid temperatures followed us as if the train were towing the cold in its wake, and the windows we stared through were icy in the morning. Our compartment was heated, but we couldn’t hide forever. I knew the cold would be waiting, and it would serve as a constant reminder of our flight from home. I’d come to think of the journey as a flight, and of the Arrington family as fugitives who’d left everything behind, including our Japanese friends. In saving ourselves we’d abandoned them to their fate.

      Chicago presented the biggest surprise. We had to change trains, and that meant no more Amos to protect us. I remember Mom thanking him on the last day. She’d risen to bow formally, and for once I wasn’t embarrassed.

      “You’ve done us a great service,” she said, her speech as formal as her posture. “I know good deeds are their own reward, but I’ll remember you in my prayers. Thank you.”

      “Well, ma’am, you’re quite welcome. But if you don’t mind, I’m not all that big on bowin’. Bowin’ ain’t somethin’ most Americans do. Not since we got rid of King George.”

      He turned to go, but the Whizz stopped him with a question. “Is it always this cold out?”

      “Cold? It ain’t cold today. Fact we’re havin’ a warm spell. Temperature’s gonna most likely touch on fifty-five this afternoon.” Amos hesitated for a second. “Where you folks from?”

      “Hawaii.”

      Amos shook his head. “Time to adjust your attitude, son. You won’t be seein’ no palm trees for a long time.”

      We pulled into Union Station at one o’clock in the afternoon, four hours before our train to New York was scheduled to depart. Four hours out in the open after four days hidden behind a closed door? Not a happy prospect.

      “What do you think’s gonna happen?” the Whizz asked several times. “What do you think’s gonna happen to us?”

      In fact, nothing happened. Though scurrying passengers swirled around us—hundreds of them as we walked up the ramp—we didn’t draw more than a curious glance. I’d only begun to register the relief when we entered the main waiting room, and I stopped in my tracks. I was in the biggest, grandest room I’d ever seen, and I reacted as any young girl might. The ceiling was rounded like the inside of a barrel, and it had to be thirty feet above my head. Giant columns, more than a dozen of them, rose to support an intricately carved ledge. The marble floors were actually pink, something I’d never seen before. But most of all, the waiting room was enormous—big enough, I believe, to contain my old middle school on Oahu.

      I don’t know how long we stood there—even Mom was impressed—but the other passengers began to grumble as they flowed past us. We were blocking their way.

      Mom led us around and between the rows of benches to a framed map on the wall, with the words: THINGS TO DO IN CHICAGO. She searched the map for a moment, then traced a route between Union Station and Marshall Field’s department store, a walk of about a mile.

      “We need coats,” Mom told us. “And we have four hours to get them. Come, let’s go.”

      We rented a locker in the terminal and left our suitcases inside. Just as well, because if we’d taken them along, I would have emptied them to cover myself with every garment I owned. Chicago is called the Windy City, and it definitely lived up to its reputation that afternoon. The gusts sliced through our light clothing and pushed against our chests like restraining hands.

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