Cherry Blossom Baseball by Jennifer Maruno

two-run homer he clubbed?”
    Michiko nodded with a grin. Her father had hopped around the kitchen like a chicken that day. She began to recognize the area and decided she better get off at Billy’s farm. Even though Hitch a ride to save gasoline was written on the chalkboard at school, her parents wouldn’t be pleased to see her hop off the back of a truck.
    I t would be best if no one found out.

Chapter 11

    MAIL
    I nstead of putting her name on the list for the Knitting Club, Michiko had accidently signed up for the Pen Pal Club. Once a week, this small group of girls was to gather to write to the Canadian soldiers, sailors, and airmen overseas. She sat with the end of her pencil in her mouth listening to the teacher’s instructions.
    Miss McIntosh peered over top of the tiny wire glasses perched on the end of her nose and announced, “Mail from home boosts a serviceman’s morale. Our letters must be full of cheerful news. We will start by composing a group letter. Everyone will then copy it and send it out as their introductory letter.”
    â€œDo we put on our name and address?” a girl asked.
    â€œFirst name only,” the teacher replied. “The mail will be sent to their headquarters and forwarded from there. They will use the address of the school to write back or your own if you wish.”
    â€œWhat about stamps?” someone else asked.
    â€œWe will provide them for you.”
    Michiko made her copy of the group-composed letter in her notebook.
    â€œAfter receiving a response, you can write your own letters to better suit the sender,” Miss McIntosh said as she handed out boxes of greeting cards and stationery. “What you don’t finish today you can continue at home. Sign the Christmas card and enclose a copy of the letter in each.” She handed Michiko a box. “Don’t forget to bring the boxes back for parcels.”
    At home, Michiko finished wishing the seven servicemen on her list Merry Christmas and Happy New Year and enclosed a copy of the letter. She sealed the last card and then moved to her bedroom window.
    In the house behind them, Mr. Palumbo sat at the table reading a letter with his small stump of a pipe clenched between his teeth. Mrs. Palumbo walked past the kitchen window in her floral apron and headscarf, waving her hands about her head. She talked a lot, but Michiko never understood a word she said.
    â€œDid you get our mail yet?” her mother asked as she popped her head in the doorway. She switched on Michiko’s desk lamp, moved to her side, and then glanced out Michiko’s bedroom window. “That woman does nothing but complain,” she said.
    â€œHow do you know?” Michiko asked. “She doesn’t speak English.”
    â€œI can tell what she is saying by the way she uses her hands and her eyes.” Her mother pulled the curtains shut, giving the room a warm, dusky glow.
    Michiko lifted her coat from the hook by the door. Outside, the smell of smoke from her father’s bonfire drifted through the cold air. All the brown leaves of the gladioli bulbs had been removed and were now being burned. She had watched her father clean the corms with a little wooden brush. Michiko thought they looked like large, flat, hairy chestnuts lying in their long, thin boxes of sawdust. Hundreds and hundreds of bulbs would wait out the winter on their specially built shelves in Mr. Downey’s barn.
    Right now her father would be sitting at the long wooden table in the barn writing out the names of the different kinds of flowers in his private notebook. People expected him to know which kinds they were talking about when they called to place an order. With forty-seven and a half acres of flowers, there was a lot to remember. Sometimes he worked late into the night making small sketches and Japanese symbols next to bulbs with names like American Beauty, Friendship, and Snow Prince.
    Her mother would often take