RUTH was slumped in the doorway of her barracks when Tomi stopped on the way to the dining hall.
“I heard there’s a cook on the other side of the camp who makes Japanese food for breakfast. We ought to go there sometime,” Ruth said. “I’d give a quarter for just one bite of real Japanese food—that is, if I had a quarter.”
“You know what I miss?” Tomi asked. “Strawberry ice cream. We used to make our own with fresh strawberries and cream from Mr. Lawrence’s cows. We’d take turns turning the crank on the freezer. In the summer, we’d sit in the dark watching fireflies and eating ice cream.”
“There’s an ice cream parlor in Ellis. One of the Boy Scouts told me. Maybe in the summer, we can get passes to go there every day.”
“That would be wonderful.” Then Tomi remembered she had to hurry and grabbed Ruth’s hand. “Come on. I promised Mom I’d come back and take her to that class. If I don’t go with her, she might stay home. Mom doesn’t like standing up in front of people. At home, she never spoke out when she was with white ladies. But I told her that here, everybody’s Japanese.”
Ruth nodded. “Ditto. My mom’s shy, too. But she needs to get out. All she does is sit in the room and hold Ben’s toys. Do you think this will work?”
“We have to try.”
A couple of weeks before, when one of the women who taught at the camp saw the quilt Mrs. Hayashi was making with Mom’s help, she’d asked Mom if she would teach a class in quilting. Mom said no, thank you, she wasn’t good enough. That wasn’t the real reason, however. Mom could sew anything. She turned down the request because she didn’t want to get up in front of a group of women.
“You should, Mom. It’s so cold in the winter at Tallgrass that people need quilts. And you can teach them just the way you did Mrs. Hayashi,” Tomi told her.
“I couldn’t,” Mom said.
“That’s selfish,” Roy spoke up. He had been listening in. “What if we needed warm quilts and somebody refused to teach you how to make them?”
Mom frowned. She said she wouldn’t know any of the women in the class.
“You’ll know Mrs. Hayashi,” Tomi told her. “And me.”
“You would go?”
Tomi thought that over. She’d spoken too quickly. She didn’t want to sew with a bunch of women, but she’d go if it were necessary. She could always sneak out after Mom got started.
Now, the two girls ran down the street to the dining hall and joined the line waiting to get in. A girl from school motioned for the two girls to join her at the head of the line—“spacing” it was called. But Tomi knew that crowding in line was rude, so she shook her head, and she and Ruth waited their turn. It wasn’t long, and they gobbled their lunch of canned spaghetti and raced back to the barracks.
When Tomi reached the room, she found Mom sitting on one of the rough chairs that Roy had made, her back very straight. Her hands were at the sides of her face, however, and she looked as if something was wrong.
“Come on, Mom, we’re late. We’re picking up Mrs. Hayashi and Ruth. Mrs. Hayashi is scared to go. Can you imagine?” Tomi wondered if Ruth was telling Mrs. Hayashi that Mom was scared. “You know everybody,” Tomi said to reassure her mother.
“That doesn’t mean I can be a teacher.”
“Sure you can.”
Tomi wasn’t so sure, however. Mom had come a long way since leaving the farm, but she was a woman who disliked being the center of attention. Mom forced herself to complain to the officials about things in the camp that were wrong. But that was because she was concerned about Tomi and Hiro and Roy. She’d never before agreed to stand up before other women as a teacher.
“You said you’d do it. So shikata ga nai. It can’t be helped now.” Tomi took Mom’s hand. “Besides, you have to be there for Mrs. Hayashi. She won’t go if you don’t.”
Mom nodded, and Tomi smiled to herself, because she knew Mom would not let down a friend.
Mrs. Hayashi was even more ill at ease than Mom when she left her apartment. Both women looked their best, with hats, and Mrs. Hayashi wore high-heeled shoes and even gloves. Still, they reluctantly followed their daughters down the street to one of the barracks buildings that had been turned into classrooms. “Maybe no one will come,” Mom whispered to Mrs. Hayashi.
But the room was full of Japanese women who stood around a table talking. They were dressed up, too, as if this were an important occasion. When they saw Mom, they bowed and greeted her, some in English, some in Japanese. One woman had brought her daughter with her and said the girl could thread the needles.
Mom bowed back and said, “Hello. I am Mrs. Itano.” Then, her hands shaking a little, she opened her paper sack and took out her scissors, needle, thread, and bits of fabric. “Welcome to our first quilting class. I am your teacher.”
Tomi grinned at her. Mom was going to be all right.
Tomi watched as Mom told the ladies to take out the scraps of fabric they had brought. When Mom was busy examining the pieces, Tomi nodded at Ruth. They would slip away and play. But as she started for the door, she heard Mom’s voice. “Tomi, stay please. Take a seat. You are going to be my star pupil.”
Tomi sighed. She did not care about sewing, and she especially did not care about making quilts.
“We will each make a pieced quilt,” Mom said. The ladies leaned forward to hear her. “Piecing is mostly squares and triangles.” Mom held up a square of fabric and cut it on the diagonal, from upper right to lower left.
The ladies nodded their understanding.
Mom explained they would assemble the squares and triangles into a block. It would take many blocks to make a quilt.
“I don’t have so much material,” one lady complained.
Mom looked at the small stash of fabric the woman had brought, then glanced around the table. No one had enough for a quilt. She thought that over, then brightened. “I know. We will make one big quilt, all of us together.”
“Who will get the quilt?” Mrs. Hayashi asked.
“Maybe we draw straws,” another said.
“Yes,” Mom said. “But it doesn’t seem fair if we all work on the quilt and only one keeps it.”
“We could give it to the hospital,” Mrs. Hayashi suggested, and Mom nodded.
“I know,” Tomi spoke up. “We can have a raffle. The money will go to the war effort.”
The ladies smiled at each other and nodded. Mrs. Hayashi said, “It is a good idea. We can sell tickets for five cents. Maybe we will make enough money to buy a tank.”