Prints in the Sand: My Journey with Nanea

“Gardening sounds fun!” I blurt. Anything beats dancing in front of Nanea and her whole family, and if Mele comes along, then gardening will be even better.

Before we head out, Nanea lifts her gas mask off a hook near the door, then ducks into the bedroom to grab David’s for me. Hers has a cheerful flowered pouch, but what she hands me looks nothing like that. Mine is bulky and unattractive, its eyeholes shaped like a bug’s, with a long tube dangling underneath that reminds me of an elephant’s snout. Just holding it makes my skin crawl.

I ask whether we’ll actually have to use them. Nanea shakes her head, telling me it’s only a precaution, since Japan once used poison gas in China. Having them is a good thing, but they do weigh a ton. She isn’t kidding. Walking to Mrs. Watson’s house, I switch mine from one hand to the other again and again, while Mele pauses at every pot, plant, and shrub she passes.

We find Mrs. Watson on her porch, past a trim white fence and a walkway made of stones. She resettles her glasses on her nose, straightens the scarf knotted over her gray hair, and brings us around to the backyard garden. Rows of green beans and carrots look familiar, but sprawling, leafy plants have swallowed up nearly everything else. According to her, the lima beans are the only crop managing to survive the dry spell, and she fans herself with one hand against the heat as she says it. She says she’ll get some lemonade while we begin weeding.

The moment Mrs. Watson is out of earshot, Nanea wrinkles her nose and announces that lima beans are absolutely the worst, and she’s hoping we won’t get sent home with a bagful. I laugh and point toward a tree at the yard’s edge, its branches loaded with huge green globes tucked among pointed leaves. These look like big lima beans. Nanea says they’re mangoes. I ask if we can eat one, and she says all that’d earn me is a stomachache. Once they’ve ripened into orangey-yellow and soft, then they’ll be delicious. Instead she passes me a green bean, and it snaps crisply between my teeth.

I offer to help pull weeds, and Nanea says that’d be great. Mrs. Watson’s plot is one of the largest Victory Gardens she has ever seen, and she gives away much of what grows here to her neighbors. According to Nanea’s grandmother, gardens like this one make up for everything families can’t buy during the war. Kneeling next to Nanea, I joke that lima beans, at least, are not about to run short around here.

That’s when a piercing siren erupts, jolting me from head to foot. I clap my hands over my ears and shout, demanding to know what’s happening, but Nanea has already dashed toward Mele, who is whining and pacing beneath the mango tree. Nanea turns toward me and shouts that it’s an air raid.

An air raid? My pulse pounds as I scan the sky for planes, for bombs, for anything more than the puffy white clouds overhead. At last Mrs. Watson’s voice breaks through, sharp and unmistakable. Get our gas masks.

Mrs. Watson steers us toward a tangle of sweet potato vines next to the garden and yanks open a hatch buried in the dirt, fastened with a latch like a door built straight into the ground. She orders us to get down the ladder fast. The inside is damp and pitch-black, and my knees wobble as I climb down.

From above, Nanea hands Mele down to me, and the dog scrambles to get back out of the hole. I hold on tight, even when Mele scratches my arm. When all three of us, plus Mele, are inside the hole, I admit under my breath to Nanea that I’m scared. Nanea says she is, too. Hopefully it’s only a drill.

Nanea presses her face into Mele’s fur, and relief drops me straight down onto the dirt floor at the mere word “drill” instead of something far worse. Mrs. Watson eases the roof back into place, so that only narrow beams of light slip in around the wooden hatch.

Nanea softly says that Mele dislikes this just as much as we do. Loud noises terrify her. The day the real bombing happened, Mele ran away in a panic, and Nanea was certain she had lost her for good.

Nanea asks me to guess where Mele was eventually found. I shake my head. Nanea answers she turned up in a dirt shelter much like this one. She had tumbled in and couldn’t climb back out, so Nanea had to haul her free herself. Mele lets out a soft whimper and settles her chin on Nanea’s arm.

I understand exactly how you feel, I think to myself. Stuck in this dim little dugout, I’d give anything to go home. My voice trembles as I ask how anyone can really be certain this is only a drill. Nanea shakes her head, admitting there’s no way to know for sure. That uncertainty is the scariest part of the whole thing.

Mrs. Watson sets a hand on my shoulder, reminding us they’ve already run through several drills, just to make sure everyone will know what to do if a bomb is ever dropped again. She feels certain we’re safe, and that it will all be over soon. Just as I’m settling down, something leaps across my foot, and I yelp and spring upright once more.

Nanea startles, too, before dissolving into laughter once she spots the culprit lurking in the shadows. It’s just an island toad. But it’s enormous one, almost the size of my own foot. I shudder from head to toe, trying to shake off the feel of its bumpy little feet, and that only sets Nanea off laughing harder. She insists I really can dance after all, and I join in the laughter for a moment, until yet another siren wails.

This time Mrs. Watson quickly assures us it’s only the all-clear signal, and she shoves the hatch open until sunlight pours down into our cramped dirt hole. I can’t tell who’s more eager to escape, me or Mele. Nanea tells me to go up the ladder first so she can pass Mele up afterward, and I scramble upward without hesitation, gladly abandoning the toad and whatever else might be lurking down there.

Once I’m standing back on the grass, something strikes me as strange. The whimpering hasn’t stopped, and it isn’t drifting up from the shelter anymore. It’s coming from elsewhere in the garden. Spinning around, I end up staring straight into a pair of frightened brown eyes, and they clearly don’t belong to Mele. There’s another dog.