Chapter 7

CHAPTER 7 THE NEXT MORNING DECEMBER 7, 1941 8:05A.M. Danny lay in his bed, listening to the morning birds sing outside his window. The Carmella was leaving in two hours. He was all ready for the trip. He had packed a small

bag. He had written the note to leave for Ma. And he had the entire plan laid out in his head. Stowing away on the Carmella would be easy — one of Earl's guys did it once when he was younger: stowed away to Cuba to track down an old girlfriend. You had to be smart about it — dress nice, wash up, pretend you were visiting some passengers. Then, when the bell rang for all the visitors to leave, you had to find a good hiding place, like a storage closet, or a lifeboat, if you could sneak in without someone seeing you. Anywhere you could stay out of sight for at least a day, until the ship was far out to sea. After that, if you got caught, there wasn't much the crew could do. They wouldn't toss Danny overboard. He'd already figured out his sob story: He was an orphan, trying to get back to New York to be with his cousin Finn. He might even mention the name Earl Gasky. People had heard of Earl, even outside of New York. Danny heard that he was even friends with some guys in the FBI. Earl could get people to do all kinds of things, even give a kid a ride across the Pacific.

The trip would get trickier when the boat docked in San Francisco. Danny would have to slip away before the police got there. He'd have to get himself to the freight train yards. Riding freight cars wasn't so easy. Danny had heard bad stories about the "yard bulls," the guards who searched the sidings for train jumpers. They'd beat you up and then toss you through the doorway of the police station. But none of this scared Danny. So what was he doing still in bed? He should have gone to the Honolulu port right after Ma left for work at 7:00. But he couldn't bring himself to leave. All night, he'd been hearing Mrs. Sudo's voice in his head. Your mother is lucky to have a boy like you. A boy like Danny. What kind of boy was he? A boy who didn't turn his back on his best friend. But did that mean he was a boy who would leave his ma?

All these weeks he'd been thinking about doing what was right for Finn, but now he couldn't stop thinking about Ma. What would she do when she discovered that Danny was gone? He couldn't even imagine it, how frantic she'd be. All night he'd been tossing in his bed, feeling torn in two. He was lying there, his thoughts seesawing back and forth, when a familiar voice rang out. "Danny! Danny, come!" Aki was outside again. Now his plans would really be messed up! Danny climbed out of bed. He quickly dressed and went to the door. Aki was standing there by himself. "Aki," he said. "What are you doing here?" The kid wasn't wearing his crazy monkey grin. His face looked dead serious. He pointed up to the sky and said in a soft and scared voice, "Airplanes."