13. Call to Action

Thursday, October 16, 1941

The Bean

8:39 A.M.

Cade had to literally fight Andrew for the stool that he was presiding over victoriously. Zach had simply given up trying to get Cade to abdicate his self-proclaimed throne—it was too much futile effort wasted. The boys made more of a deal out of the stool than was necessary, but it is the only one at the counter that has a seat cushion—albeit a dilapidated seat cushion, but still, the fact remained.

“Y’know, a real gentleman would give that seat up to a lady,” Camille said pointedly as she settled herself on the rough wooden one. Cade shrugged carelessly.

“Good thing we don’t have any of those present,” he told her monotonously, tapping on the counter. The Bean was the on-campus café of sorts and ever since their first year it had become a sort of refuge for the three. They were there so often that they had become excellent friends with the owner, Ernie, who tended to humor them, finding them rather charming as far as young idiots go.

“How’s it going, rapscallions?” The boys had once upon a time challenged Ernie to come up with different words to describe them rather than the usual ‘hoodlums’ or other synonyms of the sort. The man behind the counter accepted it with readiness and ever since, he hadn’t let them down.

“New one,” Andrew appreciated with a nod. Ernie smiled with his eyes over his thick glasses.

“Camille, how are you, love?” Ernie greeted Camille differently considering she was not part of the ‘rapscallion’ breed. She smiled brightly, answering that she had been fine and this is Mae Kido, my new roommate. “Well, Mae, welcome to The Bean. We have everything except coffee.”

The Bean used to be famous for its coffee but the machine broke and Ernie either never had a chance to replace it or he really didn’t care all that much about it. The lack of coffee didn’t hurt business at all, though, so Ernie never saw it as a priority. Mae smiled warmly and Ernie immediately decided that he liked this girl.

“Can I have a muffin?” she asked, kicking her legs a bit underneath the counter. Ernie slapped the counter jovially.

“One muffin coming right up.” He disappeared through the swinging doors for a minute before returning with a selection of blueberry, chocolate chip, cinnamon, chocolate, banana nut and corn muffins. Overwhelming for your first time at The Bean, really, but Ernie really liked to make the first impression. Mae selected chocolate chip and began munching as Cade picked up the paper, quirking an eyebrow at one of the side column articles.

“Check it out,” he said, nudging Zach. Zach’s mouth was attractively full and a comparison between him and a chipmunk could easily have been made but Cade ignored the opportunity for the more pressing matter. “Japanese gave us friendship medals.”

“Oh yeah?” Zach asked, spewing bits of the cinnamon muffin that he snagged in Cade’s face. Cade nodded, swatting absently at the crumbs freckling his cheeks. “Y’figure this means we’re closer to the war being over?”

“We’re not really in the war, though,” Andrew said. “Not officially.”

“We’re close enough,” Zach interjected, waving a hand in dismissal. “Charlie Fitzgerald’s brother, y’know? Got sent over to England because they need more troops.”

“Really?” Camille asked. “No wonder why he was acting pretty distant in study hall. I tried to talk to him in the courtyard, he barely said two words.”

“Yeah, he just got the letter this morning,” Cade confirmed. “I saw that too.”

Camille let out a low whistle. “I know F.D.R’s really trying to avoid it, though.”

“Maybe this thing with Japan will help out a little,” Mae said hopefully.

“Do you have family there still?” Andrew asked, leaning across the counter. She nodded.

“A cousin in Tokyo, but my brother and I were born here,” she informed. “So it’s not like I’m a Japanese citizen.”

“You have a brother?” Cade inquired lazily, picking at a knot in the wooden counter.

“Yeah, Jonathan.”

“Not a very Japanese name,” Zach noted. Mae shrugged.

“Neither is mine. I think my parents did that on purpose, though. I figure they just think that…we’re American. We don’t need names that are ridiculously complicated and hard to pronounce. Our last name’s enough,” she explained, taking another bite out of her snack. Zach rumpled his hair and vaguely remembered how he didn’t even bother to recognize the fact that Mae was Japanese in the first place until about ten minutes into their conversation.

“Well, that’s enough of that,” Ernie broke in, deciding that it was too early in the morning for a heavy topic like that. “You three have class next period, don’t you?” he directed at the three boys. They all nodded in unison.

“English.”

“Gravy’s class.”

“My fiancé’s teaching endeavor.”

“Right.” He turned to Camille. “What about you?”

“AP Bio,” Camille answered. “Mr. Adams won’t really care, we’re learning about…something or other, I dunno, it’s really not that important.”

“I swear, you’ve been hanging out with them too long,” Ernie mumbled, half-amused, half-resigned. “And what about you, Mae?”

“Study hall,” she said, relieved that she actually had a free period so early in the day.

“Just want to take an inventory of who I’m going to be talking to when you all decide to aimlessly walk out of here about thirty minutes into the next period,” he said, wiping the counter. “Do you have the notebook, then?”

Andrew nodded and pulled it out of his school bag, handing it to Ernie. The dilapidated pages are full of listed excuses ranging from believable to outrageously creative. Over the years they had decided to compile the excuses, sometimes rating them and noting teacher’s reactions in the margins. There were scribbles and lines and dates and tallies and every other pen impression imaginable on that notebook. Ernie thumbed through the pages and stopped, glancing up at Zach with an unimpressed arched eyebrow.

“I can’t come to class because I’m throwing a funeral for my mouse?”

“Brave soul,” Zach replied solemnly.

“Who did you use that on?”

“Gravy.”

“Did she believe you?”

“She made me write a ten page paper on the mouse and include a eulogy,” Zach recalled, scratching his head. “Yeah, don’t use that one for a while.”

Ernie made a noise that sounds like ‘mm’ in the back of his throat.

X-X-X

“Your birthday’s coming up soon, Fletch,” Andrew reminded Cade, nudging him.

“No way, really?” he asked. Andrew rolled his eyes.

“Are we doing the usual?” Zach questioned.

“Why do you even bother asking that?” Andrew wondered aloud. “The day’s probably going to unfold like this: We sing to Fletch all day in between classes and as a wakeup call; we hang posters in the hallways in honor; we invite everyone to a party in the courtyard; the party will get shut down; we wrap it up by presenting Fletch with a homemade cake and after we’re done doing that, we’ll take two bites of the cake, decide that it tastes like bologna for whatever reason and go down to the kitchens after hours to get another one.”

It was the same thing every year. And no matter what type of cake they tried to make it always ends up being bologna-flavored.

Everyone had their quirks.

“Halloween’s coming up first, though,” Cade reminded the pair of them. “What are we doing for that?”

“Well, releasing bats in the hallways is going to be pretty difficult to top,” Zach admitted, tapping his chin thoughtfully, reminiscing on the previous year’s shenanigan.

“I’ve actually thought of this before,” Andrew said. “And I came up with a pretty damn good plan. If I was to say so myself.”’

“Let’s hear it, then.”

X-X-X

Sherry braided and unbraided and braided and unbraided her long blonde hair, so irritatingly bored. She had nothing to do in study hall and she possessed no trace of motivation that would incline her to do her homework at all anyway. It had been pushed aside carelessly, sitting at the furthest edge of the wood.

“So Jack is stupid,” Corelleen said, coming up to her and slamming her books down on the table in such a manner that it caused Mrs. Payne, the abnormally short librarian, to come over and give her a lecture. Corelleen looked too distracted to care, really, so Mrs. Payne gave her the reader’s digest version of the speech before going back to her high topped desk.

“Why is Jack stupid?” Sherry asked. Jack Barranger was Corelleen’s new catch of the month. He was already out of school and working at a factory for a decent amount of pay—enough to be considered an actual job instead of just a go-between until he can find something better. Sherry figured that the thing that mostly attracted Corelleen to Jack was the fact that he seemed so utterly mature when you talked to him, but to Sherry it was a bit odd. She preferred for her boyfriends to have at least a little bit of youthfulness to them.

“He’s enlisting.”

Sherry stopped mid-braid. “What?”

“Yeah.” Corelleen’s annoyance, Sherry knew now, was the only emotion that she could possibly express right now because more than anything, Corelleen didn’t want to worry. “Like I said. Stupid.”

“You can’t blame him for that, Cor,” Sherry said gently. “Some people just have to do what they have to do.”

“But why does he have to go?” she whined in a small voice. “Charlie’s brother’s already gone. Why can’t it just be him?”

“Probably because that’s not the way things work out,” Sherry told her. “Charlie said that his brother said something like it was his duty to help out.”

There was a small pause in the conversation while Corelleen worked on chewing a hole through her bottom lip.

“It’s not fair.”

“No, it’s not,” Sherry agreed.

Corelleen picked at her nails—a nervous habit. “It’s not our war. We don’t have anything to do with it. Why does he have to go?”

Sherry’s eyes graced her friend who, she knew, was about to cry. “Cor, I promise you that Jack’ll be okay. He might not even have to fight. Where is he even going?”

“I dunno. Some place in Hawaii,” Corelleen said to her lap. “Once they’re done training him, I mean.”

“Navy?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, Hawaii’s nice,” Sherry said, trying desperately to find the positives. “And when we get on break for Christmas you can go there and visit him.”

She bit her lip, trying to keep this in mind. “I guess,” she agreed quietly.

“Right. And they’re not sending him to England like Charlie’s brother,” Sherry pointed out. “So, you know, that’s good too.”

“I guess,” she agreed again.

“And I mean, didn’t you see today’s paper? The thing with Japan’ll probably blow over soon anyway,” Sherry encouraged.

“I guess.”