No Surrender Soldier Read Online Free Page B

skillet on the back burner of the gas stove.
    “Why do I have to stay home? I didn’t do anyt’ing.” I slid my feet in my zoris, determined to go to Tumon with my parents. I was hoping I’d see Daphne there. She’d told me Friday night after Catechism that her nana was taking her shopping in Agana for school clothes, and then they’d have lunch at the Chamorro Café in Tumon. I was planning to get our lunch that afternoon and maybe run into her.
    “Kiko, please.” Nana twisted her wedding ring. It was a wonder after twenty-eight years being married she hadn’t rubbed it smooth. “We been over this already. Officer Perez said Tatan can’t go to Tumon beach no more. We’re lucky that tourist didn’t press charges.”
    “I don’t know why he can’t go. Nobody got killed.”
    “Kiko! Officer Perez said the man had to go to the hospital for stitches. It’s costing us plenty mullah for the hospital bill.”
    “It was only a scratch.”
    Tata crumpled his newspaper. “Enough!” he bellowed. “That man could have been seriously hurt.”
    I shoved my hands into my jam pockets. “But it’s the last day of vacation.” The last day I’d get a chance to see Daphne alone. “We go to church tomorrow, then back to school Monday.” It was as if by telling me that she was going to the café, Daphne wanted me to come talk to her. I can’t do that at church or school. I get tongue-tied. If I don’t go, she’ll think I don’t like her. She’ll feel like a fool and not have anything to do with me.
    “Kiko,” Nana spoke in barely a whisper. “Please. We need you stay here and watch Tatan.” I stared at her rubbing the rose on her ring. Tata had made the ring from a bent spoon he found in the rubble of the Governor’s Palace after it got bombed during World War II. When she worried, Nana rubbed her ring like old women fingered rosaries during novenas. “And try not to argue with him.”
    Tata put his hand on my back. He didn’t hug me anymore, so his hand felt warm, yet heavy. “Son, we’re sorry. But we need you to be a man about this.”
    I shifted my shoulders away from his hand. That sounded too much like what Sammy had said to me the summer before he left for the air force.
Toughen up. Be a man.
Then Sammy would wrestle me down and tease me about my puny biceps. Well, they weren’t puny any more. But the words sounded strange coming from my tata’s mouth. He usually gave in to me, being the baby in the family.
    My parents picked up their metal lunch boxes and left. I stared into space, feeling bummed out about the whole thing, wondering what I could do to salvage the end of Christmas break. It was certain I wouldn’t be seeing Daphne until church.
    Tata poked his head back in the house. “Remember, no going into the boonies. Keep Tatan out of there, too.” My dog, Bobo, tried to nudge through the opening but Tata wouldn’t let him in.
    “And how am I supposed to do that? Eh? If he has a mind to—”
    “Just do as I say,” Tata interrupted. “Our neighbors lost two chickens and they’re worried a straggler’s living back there.”
    “A straggler…” I muttered. Stragglers are what we call Japanese soldiers who never surrendered after World War II. As far as I was concerned, my parents used fear of stragglers as an excuse, like some people use the boogeyman, when they didn’t want me to go into the boonies. I shook my head. “No straggler would last that long.”
    Tata let go of the screen door and it slammed. “Don’t argue with me. I’m late for work.”
    I kicked off my zoris, flinging them across the kitchen. One sandal landed on the counter. I didn’t even bother to pick it up.
    Through the screen door I watched my parents hurry to their rusted out 1961 Datsun. Tatan was already in the driver’s seat.
    “Ready to go?” Tatan asked. “Where’s Kiko? We late.”
    Tata chucked his chin at Tatan. I knew that look, it meant,
He’s your tata, Rosie, you handle