Prints in the Sand: My Journey with Nanea

As soon as I decide to tell Mrs. Lin about the notes and Lieutenant Foster, the words tumble out of my mouth. Mrs. Lin is shocked to think the soldier who stayed with us could be a spy. And after we took him in and gave him a place to sleep. She clucks her tongue. No one can be trusted during a war.

Nanea quickly tries to tell Mrs. Lin to not tell anyone. We don’t have any proof. Mrs. Lin agrees and says we should be careful. She leaves, but instead of going back to her own home, she crosses the street. Nanea whispers she’s going to see Mrs. Santos. If Mrs. Lin tells her what we said, then everyone will know.

And I’m worried, too. What if we’re wrong about Lieutenant Foster?

We haven’t even finished our breakfast when there’s a loud knock at the door. Wondering aloud who it could be, Mrs. Mitchell wipes her hands on a dish towel and hurries out of the kitchen. She reappears several minutes later with Gene and Lily in tow. Lily refuses to meet our eyes, and Gene looks thoroughly miserable. In a crisp voice, Mrs. Mitchell instructs Gene to repeat for us whatever he just told her.

Gene says he’s heard a rumor about a young soldier who is a spy and is passing coded messages hidden inside origami. My throat closes around a mouthful of egg, and beside me Nanea shifts uneasily. Gene says he knows for certain the rumor is false.

Gene takes a big sigh and says that’s because he and Lily wrote those notes. Lily looks as sick as I suddenly feel. After a pause, she admits that after the Nancy Drew mystery and the Sherlock Holmes movie, she assumed we’d know the notes were from her.

Shaking her head, Nanea murmurs that we had no idea. And poor Lieutenant Foster! Just then, Mary Lou strolls into the kitchen asking to know what happened to Lieutenant Foster, and Mrs. Mitchell explains that Nanea accused him of spying. The pineapple juice nearly slips from Mary Lou’s hands as she demands how Nanea could do that to a man serving our country. What if someone treated David the same way? Nanea’s face falls, and mine does, too. What if someone accused Dad of spying and he was arrested for a crime he didn’t commit?

Mrs. Mitchell reminds us tersely that we are not living out some make-believe adventure. We are fighting an actual war that involves actual people, and being careless with the truth carries actual consequences. My eyes burn with tears I know will spill the moment I risk a glance at Nanea. Mrs. Mitchell adds, more softly, that we owe Lieutenant Foster an apology, and he’ll be back for lunch soon. We will get our chance to apologize then.

Nanea and I sit in the living room until we hear the squeak from Lieutenant Foster’s bike chain. The moment he steps through the door, we launch into our apology, trading off as we explain what we did and how sorry we feel. He waves it off warmly, glad nothing got out of hand, and teases that between the two of us we clearly have quite the imagination.

Emboldened by Lieutenant Foster’s kindness, I bring up something still bothering me. Did he go somewhere last night? We heard him slip out past curfew. He laughs and asks if that’s why we suspected him. Without waiting for an answer, he explains that on nights when he can’t sleep due to worry, sitting outside to talk to the man in the moon helps settle his mind. He never wandered past the porch steps. Nanea apologizes again, and I echo her, though nothing about his kindness quiets the nagging sense that we made a serious mistake.

As soon as he trails Mrs. Mitchell into the kitchen, Nanea admits our imaginations truly got away from us. I agree, wishing we had put them toward helping instead of harming someone. Nanea mulls that over, and her expression brightens with inspiration. Maybe we can fold fresh origami cranes and scatter them around the neighborhood, each hiding a message in a code simple enough for anyone to crack, urging people to stop spreading rumors.

Clever as the plan sounds, it also sounds like lots of work, and everything that just happened with Lieutenant Foster has left me unexpectedly homesick. Missing Dad more than ever, I find myself wondering whether it might be time to head home instead.