Under the Apple Tree Read online

  “I mean, this is America. You can’t punish a guy before he’s proved guilty.”

  Tutlow pointed around the room.

  “How guilty can you get?” he asked.

  “He still deserves his day in court,” said Artie.

  “Don’t worry, he’ll get one all right. Then they’ll hang him from the highest cottonwood.”

  “You’re thinking of cowboy stuff, not spies.”

  “Have you got a yellow streak down your back or something?”

  “You dope!”

  Artie shoved Tutlow backward and he fell against the shelves, knocking over teacups, glasses, and bowls, some of them shattering as they fell to the floor.

  “Now you’ve gone and done it,” said Tutlow.

  “Now we really gotta scram,” Artie said.

  “Not till I light this.”

  “Then he’ll know somebody was here on purpose,” Artie argued. “He might just think the broken stuff was an accident.”

  “We want him to know, dopey. Then we can watch his behavior. If he goes to the cops or the FBI, he might be okay, but if he just vamooses that’ll prove he’s a dirty spy.”

  In the face of Tutlow’s relentless logic, and his own fear of being caught in the act, Artie gave up.

  “Okay, hurry up and light the stupid thing,” he said, moving from one foot to another like he had St. Vitus’s Dance.

  Tutlow lit the stink bomb, tossed it into a corner, and he and Artie charged out of there like a couple of madmen.

  The next day, Wu Sing’s laundry was closed, and the day after that, there was a sign on the door that said “Gone to Clean the Axis.” The rumor was that he volunteered to be a spy for the U.S. Army. Tutlow thought the truth was Wu Sing had realized someone was on to his dirty game, and he had probably fled across the country to some secret spot off the coast of California where he was picked up at night by a Jap submarine and taken home to Tokyo to report on the War Effort in Birney, Illinois. Artie hoped that was true. He worried about Wu Sing never having his day in court, so he’d at least have learned all about the American Way.

  4

  Dear Roy,

  Everything is fine here on the Home Front. In fact this Front has been real busy lately, and me and this guy Warren Tutlow have done some secret kind of work that I’m afraid to even write down on V-mail, but I’ll tell you all about it when the War is over. Right now I’ll just give you a hint: someone posing as another kind of person right here in Birney was discovered by me and Tutlow and has flown the coop. Due to this, Birney is more purely red, white and blue, and alot less yellow, if you get what I mean.

  Shirley Colby is pining away for you but keeping a stiff upper lip, even though she misses you like crazy. I try to help keep her morale up, and she’s coming to supper with us on Sunday for her eighteenth birthday. Mom baked a pineapple upside-down cake, and Dad used up all the rest of the Red Stamps in our ration book just so we could have steak. I got Shirley this really neat present, a record that is real great by the Andrews Sisters called “Don’t Sit Under the Apple Tree.” Maybe you’ve already heard it a million times, but I never know what hits you guys get to hear out there. Do you get “The Hit Parade”? If you want, I could send you a list of the Top Ten Hits every week, but maybe you’d rather not if you can’t get to hear them. Just let me know.

  Notre Dame has a great team this year with a real tall skinny guy named Angelo Bertelli at quarterback, passing like crazy from this new formation which is called the “T Formation” which has so far baffled the opponents of the Fighting Irish. To tell you the truth, I don’t like it as well as the old “Shifting Box” formation invented by Knute Rockne. In the “T” the backfield doesn’t get to dance around before the play, so I hope it just turns out to be a flash in the pan. I figure when the other teams get used to it they will learn how to stop it cold and the Irish will go back to the good old “Shifting Box.”

  Well, that’s all the important stuff for now and I see I am running out of V-mail so I’ll just say “Keep ’em flying,” and “Don’t let the bedbugs bite!”

  Your brother,

  Artie Garber

  Artie looked over the letter again, making sure there wasn’t any stuff he should censor, then folded the lightweight paper, licked the flaps, and sealed up the neat, single piece of paper that served as its own envelope in a V-mail letter.

  Actually, he had already “censored” some of the news by not putting into the letter that Shirley had refused to go to college in the fall after graduating from high school in June, but instead got a job after Labor Day as ticket girl at the Strand. Artie was pretty sure Roy wouldn’t mind about Shirley staying home and keeping the fires burning for him instead of running off to college (she probably wrote him that anyway), but he didn’t know if Roy would like the idea of her having a job, especially one where she sat in the lighted cubicle of the Strand Theatre ticket booth right on Main Street where everyone could pass by and look at how pretty she was every night except Sunday. Artie would never keep a secret from Roy, except when he was out there fighting and it might be bad for his morale. Artie had to be real careful about that, because sometimes the very thing he thought would boost a person’s morale just boomeranged. Like when Shirley came over for her birthday.

  After supper Artie cranked up the big Victrola in the living room and put on the birthday present he’d got for Shirley. The Andrews Sisters were really neat, and Artie loved how they belted out “Don’t Sit Under the Apple Tree.” It reminded him he was supposed to make sure Shirley didn’t sit under any apple trees with any other guys than Roy, but he couldn’t imagine she’d do that anyway.

  Artie was glad he had already mailed the letter to Roy reporting on Shirley’s stiff upper lip, because by the time the song was over both of her lips were quivering, and tears were rolling down her cheeks.

  “It’s not supposed to make you feel bad,” Artie said, feeling discombobulated. “It’s supposed to boost your morale.”

  “I guess I’m not a very good patriot,” Shirley said.

  “No, don’t say that!” Artie shouted.

  “What’s going on in there?” his mother called from the kitchen. She and his Dad were doing the dishes and wouldn’t let Shirley help because it was her birthday, and Artie knew anyway they liked to do it by themselves so they could horse around and nuzzle each other.

  “Nothing!” Artie yelled toward the kitchen, and then he sat down on the davenport next to Shirley. She had taken out one of her dainty little hankies with rosebuds stitched around the edge and she turned her face away from Artie as she pressed it to her nose and made a delicate, ladylike little honk.

  “Listen, Shirley, I got something to show you that really will boost your morale; just sit tight and I’ll be right back, okay?”

  Shirley nodded and Artie rushed up the stairs to his room. He could hear his Mom and Dad singing “Don’t Sit Under the Apple Tree,” using the same fast rhythm as the Andrews Sisters and belting out the “No—No—No!” like sixty. He hoped it didn’t make Shirley feel worse.

  Except for her nose being kind of pink she looked just fine when Artie charged back downstairs, carrying his own newly begun War Scrapbook. He sat down next to Shirley and started flipping madly through the scrapbook to one of the last pages that had things in it. There was a clipping he had torn out from a Newsweek magazine in Damon’s Drugs, which he figured was not too terrible to do because if he had bought the thing he wouldn’t have been able to buy a new Defense Stamp that week, and anyway he figured this story wouldn’t matter much to most people, if they didn’t have brothers in the South Pacific who had girl friends back home in Birney. Artie pointed his finger at the clipping he meant and shoved the scrapbook over on Shirley’s lap. He read it again as she was reading it herself. It was written by a war correspondent out there who reported: “Maybe there are some beautiful natives somewhere in the South Pacific, but if so the Japs have occupied them. The only ones I have seen have been blacker than black
. The first white girl I see back in the States who smiles at me, I am strictly going to crumple from hunger.”

  Shirley’s cheeks got as pink as her nose.

  “Well,” she said, “I hope he doesn’t crumple when he sees me.”

  “Not old Roy,” Artie said. “Anyway, you don’t have to worry about him sitting under the apple tree out in Eniwetok or any of them.”

  “Coconut tree,” said Shirley.

  “Huh?”

  “I don’t think they have any apple trees out there.”

  “Oh. Well, then he won’t be sitting under the coconut tree. With anyone else.”

  “It’s a shame, really,” Shirley said, looking as far away as the Solomon Islands.

  “What is?”

  “Roy, and all those boys, in their prime. Without any girls.”

  “But they got the War,” Artie said.

  “Yes. That’s what we’ve all got.”

  “You make it sound like the measles or something,” Artie said.

  Shirley turned toward him and smiled.

  “You’re sweet,” she said. “You really do keep my morale up.”

  “Shoot,” said Artie, looking down at his shoes and burning with pride.

  Just then his Mom and Dad came in, holding hands, and Artie grabbed the scrapbook off Shirley’s lap and slammed it shut. He didn’t want his folks to know he’d been showing Shirley the article about the guys not having any white girls to sit under trees with in the South Pacific. They might think he was being too sexy.

  “Are we interrupting anything?” his Mom asked.

  Artie scooted away from Shirley to the other side of the davenport, feeling his cheeks get hot.

  “Heck, no,” he said. “I was just showing Shirley some stuff about the War.”

  Mom winked at Shirley.

  “He never shows us anything,” she said.

  “It’s the age,” Dad said, sinking into his easy chair and looking philosophical. Mom sat in the rocker, and gently started swaying back and forth.

  “Artie was keeping my morale up,” Shirley said. “He always does.”

  “So you like being a wage slave?” Dad asked Shirley.

  “She’s a ticket girl, Joe,” Mom corrected.

  “It’s wonderful for taking my mind off,” Shirley said. “And I’m going to save money. I opened a savings at the Federal.”

  “Shouldn’t you just Buy Bonds?” Artie asked.

  “A savings is a fine thing,” Dad said. “The rainy day always comes.”

  “Or a sunny one,” Shirley said. “Like when Roy gets home.”

  “What about college?” Mom asked.

  “I’ll wait till Roy gets back. So we can both go together.”

  Dad looked real surprised.

  “Roy wants to go to college now?”

  “Oh, yes!” Shirley said.

  “I always knew he would,” Mom said.

  Dad sighed.

  “It took a war,” he said.

  Mom smiled at Shirley.

  “And the right girl,” she said.

  Shirley looked down at her lap, modestly.

  “How do your folks feel about it?” Dad asked her.

  “I’m afraid they don’t understand. They think I should go right now. But they can’t make me. You can’t make someone study and learn if their heart isn’t in it. It’s not like washing dishes.”

  “Hats off!” Mom said.

  “Now, Dottie, we mustn’t take sides,” Dad said. “Against Shirley’s folks.”

  “It’s a free country,” Mom said.

  “Sure,” Artie put his two cents in. “That’s what Roy and the boys are fighting for.”

  “We didn’t like it when the Colbys told Roy he couldn’t give Shirley an engagement ring,” said Dad. “It works both ways.”

  “‘The truth shall make you free,’” Mom quoted.

  “The Colbys have rights, too,” Dad said.

  “I think I better be going now,” Shirley said, and stood up. “Thank you for the scrumptious meal.”

  Artie hurried to get Shirley’s record off the Victrola and put it back in the jacket. Dad beat him to getting Shirley’s coat, and got to be the one to help her on with it.

  “Thanks for the wonderful record, Artie,” she said. “Will I see you at the Strand sometime soon? Or don’t you go to the movies anymore?”

  “I was wondering that myself,” Mom said.

  “I been too busy,” Artie said, looking down at the rug.

  “Never knew you to be too busy for the movies,” his Dad said.

  Artie felt like scramming up the stairs, but he knew he should just act natural about this so he didn’t give away his secret strategy.

  “Sweet Rosie O’Grady is on till Wednesday,” Shirley said. “It’s beautiful, in color and everything.”

  “Wouldn’t mind taking that in myself,” Dad said.

  Mom poked him.

  “I bet you wouldn’t.”

  Dad put his arm around Mom and squeezed.

  “We’ll all go,” he said. “How about it, son?”

  “I’m pretty tied up till Wednesday,” he said.

  “You don’t like Betty Grable anymore?” Dad asked. “Better take the boy’s temperature, see if he’s normal.”

  “Come on, Dad,” Artie said, feeling his ears get red.

  Shirley started to say something and then she looked at Artie and her expression changed, like she’d just thought of something else.

  “Well, I didn’t mean to be drumming up business for the Strand,” she said, smiling. “After all, there’s more to life than movies, especially nowadays. Personally, I want to start practicing up on some of your recipes, Mrs. Garber, like that wonderful kidney bean casserole we had tonight.”

  “You can do that one blindfolded,” Mom said, “and I’ll show you how any afternoon in a jiffy if you promise to call me ‘Dot’ from now on.”

  “Why, thank you—Dot.”

  Mom suddenly reached out and hugged Shirley and then everyone said good night and Dad drove her home. Just before going, Shirley gave Artie a special smile.

  He knew darn well she could tell he’d been embarrassed about the Betty Grable stuff and she’d changed the subject to the kidney bean casserole just to help him out of his fix.

  That’s what he called a real friend, and a girl his own big brother would be lucky to come home to.

  Part of Artie’s plan to stay pure and not spill his seed anymore until he was married and was doing it to have kids was to stay clear of any sexy movies like the one about Princess Tahia that got him in so much trouble at Cho-Ko-Mo-Ko. The only movies he had seen since his talk with Chief Pops Hagedorn were Frankenstein Meets the Wolfman and My Friend Flicka. He figured he was pretty safe from getting sexed up by a couple of ugly monsters, or Roddy McDowall and a horse. By the same reasoning, he knew he would just be asking for it if he went to see Betty Grable in Sweet Rosie O’Grady. He had seen a picture of Betty Grable dressed up as Sweet Rosie in an article about the movie in one of the magazines at Damon’s Drugs, and that was enough warning. Sweet Rosie looked like some kind of chorus girl with this terrific sexy costume, and he knew the movie would show her dancing and shaking her boobs and her behind around and twinkling her long, shapely legs in arousing rhythms.

  Artie told his parents he couldn’t go with them to see Betty Grable on account of he had extra homework in Science and had to stay home to do it. He figured that was true in a way, since his effort to keep from spilling his seed until he got married in ten or so years was, he felt, a true “scientific experiment.”

  “I thought you didn’t like Science,” his mother said suspiciously.

  “I don’t, and I’m not any good in it, which is why I have to work extra hard at it,” Artie explained.

  His mother reached over and pulled down the lower lid of his right eye, squinting at it.

  “What the heck are you doing?” Artie asked, pulling away from her.

  “Are your eyes bot
hering you? Sometimes going to the movies hurts your eyes, and it may mean you need glasses.”

  “I don’t need any glasses!” Artie shouted.

  “Simmer down, son,” his father said, and then smiled and took Mom’s arm. “Boy just doesn’t appreciate the finer things of life yet, like Betty Grable’s gams.”

  Mom poked Dad with her finger right in the midsection.

  “I’ll gam you,” she said, and they both nuzzled each other and giggled.

  “Mush,” Artie said beneath his breath, and hightailed it up to his room before they got going on him again about the movies.

  5

  Now that Artie didn’t go to movies anymore unless they were about horses or monsters or other stuff he knew wouldn’t get him sexed up, he didn’t have any ordinary way of running into Shirley. He missed her not being in high school, when he could go by and wait for her at cheerleader practice and walk home with her talking of life and Roy, and singing sad songs in the late blue afternoon. He missed her, and he figured she must miss—well, his company at least, if not exactly him as a person. He thought she must be lonely without anything to do all day but practice her cooking, knit sweaters and socks for Roy, and roll bandages for the Red Cross once a week with the mothers, sisters, and wives of the Town’s servicemen.

  The only way Artie could see her was simply to walk on over to Pine Street and ring her doorbell, but the truth was he dreaded the idea of Shirley’s mother coming to the door. He had a pretty good idea that Mrs. Colby hated his guts, just because he was Roy’s brother. Actually, a person like Marcelline Colby probably didn’t “hate your guts” because she was too high-falutin; she probably just sort of despised you, but it pretty much amounted to the same thing. A couple of times when he walked Shirley home she invited him in for hot chocolate or something afterward, but Mrs. Colby would be there huffing around with her nose in the air and making you feel like you were some kind of escaped convict, so Artie just made excuses and said his goodbyes on the sidewalk.

  It really was chicken to let a stuck-up old bat scare you out of doing what you wanted to do, especially when you knew it was the right thing, and in fact was helping the War Effort by keeping up the morale of a girl who was keeping up the morale of a fighting man, so Artie just got up his gumption and set out for Pine Street one day after school.