Korea. Who'd have thought I'd travel all that way around the world, just to shoot and get shot at? It was something else. In the woods, the trees had made drifts out of the pine needles. It smelled like Christmas.

  “Junior, what's your real name?” Lieutenant Smith asked me.

  “Derby, sir. But I don't like it.”

  We'd finally pulled out our weapons. I worked to clear my rifle of pine needles, clucked my tongue at the sticky sap that'd found its way onto my barrel. Nothing that would stop the firing action, but messy nonetheless.

  “What about you, sir?”

  “John. John Smith. Nothing to be remembered by. Not like Derby.”

  I grinned. “I won't be remembered by Derby, sir. It was my father's name. And he used it all up.”

  “Oh yeah? Famous in his own right?”

  “In his circles, yeah. The first black man to preach in a white church in Tuscaloosa, Alabama.”

  “You don't say?”

  I paused. Lieutenant Smith was white. It was the first time the army had allowed mixed platoons. Ten years before World War Two, I would have never met Lieutenant Smith. And if I had, I wouldn't have spoken first, or even looked him in the eye. Times had changed. Lying on the soft mattress of Korean pine, I tried to think up a joke about strange bedfellows, and came up short. Then sniper fire rang out in the branches over our heads.

  “You a racist, Lieutenant Smith?”

  “Are you?”

  I thought about it and said, “I don't think so. I pretty much like or hate on a personal basis.”

  Lieutenant Smith snorted. “So you're a selective racist?”

  “Race isn't the issue. It's integrity,” I said definitively.

  Smith smiled at me. “Now, that sounds like the son of a preacher.”

  I smiled back. “Amen.”

  That's when the enemy came through the trees. Smith stood up, shouting, and the ground fighting began.

  I killed three men that day, all of them with yellow skin, desperate eyes and Russian rifles. Miraculously, Lieutenant Smith and I both survived.

  “What are you thinking about?” Smith asked me as we loaded into the caravan and drove the last few miles to camp.

  “Pros and cons, sir, pros and cons.”

  “Meaning?”

  “The best thing about this war is you and me right now. Talking at our ease like we might have always done. The worst thing is, I have to kill men for the privilege.”

  Smith hung his head a little lower. “First kill, Junior?”

  “No, sir. First friendly conversation with a white man.”

  Smith broke into a grin. “Ain't life a witch?”

  “Not really, sir.” I smiled back. “Not today.”

  But the day wasn't over. And the three miles to camp were longer than we could have known.

  The caravan came to a halt two miles from camp. A bridge that had been there that morning was gone. The stream was shallow, but the banks were too steep for driving.

  “We've got to go around the long way, sir,” the driver said. “It'll take a couple of hours, or you can walk it.”

  A couple of hours was more than us men wanted to give. So we jumped down from the truck and forded the stream without trouble, guns over our heads, pants wet to the knees.

  Lieutenant Smith told us to head west and fan out.

  So I followed the others into the trees.

  Not more than half a mile along, I heard voices and dropped to the ground. I could just picture my mother asking me, “Derby Elias White, what in tarnation have you gotten yourself into?”

  Lying on my back against a shallow hillside, hoping the soldiers on the other side of the rise were American and not Chinese, I stretched my ears as far as they would go. Somebody was speaking, and it wasn't English.

  I lay there, covered in dust the exact color of cinnamon. Funny what you remember at a time like that. “Spread out, fan out,” the lieutenant had said. That's how men got lost. That's how I ended up with the Red Army marching right on top of me.

  Night fell with me hugging that hillside and my stomach growling loud enough to sound the alarm.

  “I have got to eat,” I told myself. Eat now, march later.

  So I slid off my hillside and made it to the tree line, watching my back every step of the way. Someone could be hiding behind the next bush, asleep on the bed of pine needles in front of me, who knew? An hour had passed on my watch by the time I came across an abandoned farm.

  The gate to the cattle paddock was broken open. The chicken coop had been half burned by a fallen lantern. The shack that served as a farmhouse was empty as a shell. I took shelter in the woodpile, where I could get back to the woods quickly and have a good view of the yard.

  The moon was full, and everything was deep blue and hard to see. My stomach was growling fit to wake the dead.

  I was trying to keep it quiet when something moved in the farmyard. I set my service rifle at the ready. Whatever was moving was low to the ground. So I squint a little harder and see it was a chicken.

  Just a regular old chicken, scratching in the yard.

  So I relax a little and get to thinking, Maybe that bird laid some eggs somewhere nearby. Or better yet, maybe the farmhouse had a kitchen. I just needed a fire, some frying oil and a little flour. . . .

  I was going to make me some Southern-style deep-fried chicken. Now, I had to come up with a plan first. See, if you shoot at a bird, you could miss, or worse, fill it up with bullets and bile. No, an eating bird has to be caught by hand.

  So I hid my rifle in the woodpile, where I could grab it quickly if I needed to but nobody walking by would see it right away. Then I sized up the chicken scratching around in the dirt. I crouched down low, tightened the strap on my helmet and spat in both hands. Just like on my grandma's farm. Just. Like. It.

  And I dove at the bird.

  Only, someone else did too. I screamed, I was so surprised. The chicken shrieked and ran. I grabbed for my pistol but it wasn't there, and my rifle was too far away.

  So I look up to see what I'm facing. And it's another soldier. Chinese, helmetless. Gunless. Dirty and tired. Just like me. Hungry, too. Caught diving for a chicken, just like me.

  I raised my hands, but not too high, so he'd know I was backing off but not surrendering. He looked around and I did too. We were alone. Then this Chinese fellow raised his hands a little too.

  “No gun,” I said, but the poor man was too scared to speak.

  We looked like we were praying in a country church, both of us on our knees like that in the middle of the yard. And then we hear a clucking, and lo and behold it's the chicken, come back to scratch in the dirt.

  Now, the both of us sit there staring at that chicken. My stomach growled, and his did too. That was all the conversation we needed. With barely a nod, in perfect unison, we dove for that bird and caught it.

  So we start cheering and clapping each other on the back. The guy lets go of the bird long enough for me to wring its neck.

  “Shu,” the Chinese fellow said, and pointed to the water pump across the yard. Turns out the farm had a kitchen after all. Not more than a tripod over a fire pit, and an old blackened pot, but it was enough. We spent half the night, two men without a single common word between them, boiling water to scald the chicken and pluck its feathers.

  When it was done, the other guy pulled out a knife and divided the bird in two. I found a clay jar of oil, and the other fellow came up with small sack of either cornmeal or flour.

  He brings them over to me by the fire and says something I can't follow. But I figure it's simple enough. So I mime a few things, and he nods and starts cutting up the chicken into pieces.

  Now, I was wishing we had some salt to season the meat. And I didn't speak Chinese, but I did have a few words of Korean because we had a Korean fellow who helped us out in the kitchen sometimes back at camp.

  So I turned to the guy and tried it out: “Sogum?”

  This fellow stared at me for a good long time, and I'm thinking I've gone and made a mistake and offended him. Then the guy smiled and went outside. I sat there hoping he wasn't coming back with a gun or the rest of his platoon. My rifle was still outside. I was thinking about grabbing that chicken and running.

  But my guy came back and this time he had a small bag with him. He pulled out an even smaller cloth bag and tossed it to me. I didn't know it then, but it was ginger. At the time, I was saying, “No, no. We need salt, sogum,” but he insisted.

  Then he reached back into his bag and came up with a little brown bottle.

  “Jiang you,” he said, and opened the bottle. He shook a couple of drops of brown liquid onto his finger and tasted it. “Jiang you.” He held it out to me. It took a minute, but I tasted it. It was soy sauce, and I figured it would do just fine.

  With water from my own canteen, he washed out my helmet, and I made a batter with the flour. Meanwhile, the other fellow dumped soy sauce on the chicken parts and heated the oil in the pot on the fire. It took a good long while, and by the time we were done, it was sunrise, but there was a batch of almost authentic Southern fried chicken served on a straw mat in Korea that day.

  The Chinese fellow seemed to like it. He nodded and ate three pieces. I must've had three or four. I remember that man wrapped the last piece carefully in a piece of cloth.

  Then we put out the fire and waited until the oil had cooled. It sure would've been wrong to burn down the place that had given us shelter.

  When the oil was cool, we went outside. I washed my helmet at the water pump and slung it on again, still wet, but safer than going without one.

  We stood in the yard for a minute and I thought about shaking hands with him, but it didn't seem right. We might've been killing each other come tomorrow.

  Well, he must've agreed, because he waved to me quickly and walked back into the trees. I watched him for a moment, then went in the opposite direction, toward the wood-pile. I picked up my rifle and walked back toward camp. It was a long walk, but the chicken helped. It certainly did.

  17

  Ana feels like giving her grandfather a kiss. Everyone nods appreciatively after the story, and if they didn't have a piece of chicken before, they all have one now.

  “This is delicious,” Mrs. Conrad says to Ana's mom.

  “Thank you.” Ana's mom nods. “Would you like to try the lion's head? It's a family favorite.” She holds up the dish.

  “Oh . . . I don't eat tofu,” Mrs. Conrad whispers. She flashes a coy look across the table to Chelsea's dad. He clears his throat and wipes his mouth of fried chicken crumbs.

  “I know what you mean. My ex-wife was a vegetarian. I think that's one of the reasons we split up.”

  “Gross,” Chelsea whispers to Ana. “They're flirting.”

  “No, they're not,” Ana replies.

  “Well, there is no tofu in this,” Ana's mom says. “Just ground pork and vegetables. But I'll be glad to bring you something else. We've got the second course coming out soon.” Ana smiles. Her mother's explanation is so smooth you'd never guess that the dinner almost got canceled.

  Mrs. Conrad blushes. “Oh no, it's delicious. I'm fine. Thank you.” She smiles nervously, then looks at Chelsea's dad and tosses her hair.

  “See?” Chelsea insists.

  Ana winces. “Amanda Conrad's so gonna be your new sister.”

  “This is your fault.”

  Ana shrugs innocently.

  “So, Ana, tell everyone about your graduation present,” Nai Nai calls from across the table.

  A cold spike of adrenaline shoots through Ana's body. “Oh, right.” Under the table, Chelsea digs a hand into her thigh. “Ow! Um . . . I mean, yeah, I'm really lucky. My grandparents are taking me on two trips. Uh, Nai Nai and Ye Ye are taking me to Taiwan, and Grandma and Grandpa White found this great cruise thing. Down the Mississippi. With music. It's a music cruise. It's gonna be great.”

  The Tabatas and Chelsea's family look at her a little oddly. Ana's smile is plastered onto her face so wide her cheeks hurt. She avoids looking at her parents. Nai Nai breaks into a proud smile. “Ana hasn't been to Taiwan since she was a baby. So really it will be her first time.”

  “Sounds awesome,” Jamie says.

  “Yeah, awesome,” Chelsea chimes in.

  Amanda Conrad giggles and whispers something in Jamie's ear. Ana glares at her, but Nai Nai is talking again.

  “Ana is a very lucky girl, very smart. We are so proud of her.”

  “Yes, very proud,” Grandma White says suddenly. Ana blushes. She looks to her mom for help. Her mother clears her throat.

  “I'm sure we're all proud of our graduates,” she says equitably.

  “Yes, the children have acquitted themselves quite well today,” Mr. Tabata says. Jamie squirms under his father's heavy-handed back patting.

  “Education is so important,” Grandma White adds. “Derby and I are going to make sure Ana has every opportunity in life. And Sammy, too.”

  Ana starts to cringe. It can only get worse from here.

  On cue, Nai Nai steps up to the plate. “Yuan and I are going to give her a house one day.”

  “Really?” Mr. Tabata's eyes widen.

  “Real estate!” Mrs. Conrad exclaims. “What a good idea!” She pats Ana's mom on the shoulder admiringly.

  “It's very Asian, actually,” Mr. Tabata says. “To provide for your children in such a way. It ensures that they can provide for you when they are older.”

  Ana wants to crawl under the table. “No way am I taking care of Nai Nai,” she whispers to Chelsea.

  Chelsea giggles. “Maybe you can take care of Chuck,” she whispers back. Ana elbows her in the ribs.

  Grandma White and Nai Nai are giving each other looks across the table, but they don't say anything. Apparently having dinner guests really does keep the peace. Ana tries to act nonchalant as she serves herself another scoop of rice.

  Mr. Tabata chuckles. “It's admirable that you are trying to raise your daughter as both Chinese and black.”

  “I am Chinese and black,” Ana says. Her parents give Mr. Tabata a questioning look.

  Mr. Tabata picks up his soup spoon. “Yes, yes, of course. James, why don't you tell them what we gave you today?”

  Jamie gives Ana an apologetic look that instantly makes her feel warm inside.

  “Oh, Jamie, what did you get?” Amanda looks like she'll explode if she doesn't find out. Ana rolls her eyes. Jamie sinks down a little in his seat.

  “Um . . . a car.”

  “What?” Ana says.

  “No way!” Chelsea exclaims.

  Amanda looks like she's going to pass out.

  “See, Dad?” Ana says.

  “But . . . you're too young to drive,” Ana's father tells her.

  “I'm too young to own a house, too.”

  Jamie clears his throat. “Well, I'll be old enough for a permit this winter, and I can take driver's ed next year. Until then, my mom can use it.” He looks embarrassed. “It's nothing fancy. But it's nice.”

  “Well, great,” Ana says. “Maybe you can show it to us sometime.”

  Jamie smiles at her and Ana remembers why she's here in the first place. “Yeah, that'd be cool.”

  “I wish I had a car,” Amanda says with a look at her mother. Her mom grins awkwardly.

  “You do, honey. It's our car.”

  “Yeah, right.” Amanda folds her arms and pouts. Ana gives Chelsea a look.

  “A car is a big responsibility for a child,” Ana's mother says to Mrs. Tabata.

  “I believe in teaching children responsibility while they're young,” Mr. Tabata responds for his wife. “That is what makes them excel. It's why James is the head of his class today. If you encourage second-rate, you get second-rate. I encourage the best.”

  Ana's heart pounds a little harder. Her mother's eyes narrow. So do Grandma White's.

  “As do we, Mr. Tabata,” her mother says. She glances at Ana as if to say, “Are you sure this boy is worth the trouble?” Ana shrugs back.

  “Well, first or second, I think they're both pretty wonderful,” Grandpa White says. “Just like the second course is going to be just as good as the first. Helen, what have we got coming next?”

  Ana's mom rises a little too quickly. “Daniel, weren't you going to stir-fry the mapo?”

  Ana's dad stands up. “Right away. Right away.” He disappears into the kitchen.

  Chelsea's dad says something that makes Mrs. Conrad laugh. Dina and Sammy are making faces at each other across the table.

  “Hey, want to see our garden?” Ana asks Jamie. It's like taking recess halfway through a test. Everyone gets up, moves around the backyard, breathes a little. Amanda Conrad tries to follow them, but Chelsea hangs back in the gateway to the side yard and blocks her.

  “I want to see the garden too,” Amanda says.

  “What garden?” Chelsea winks at Ana when Jamie's back is turned.

  “Sorry about my dad,” Jamie says once they are in the side yard staring at the tangle of mint and sage. “He can be kind of abrupt sometimes.”

  “No, no problem,” Ana says. “My family's no picnic either. They're driving me crazy.”

  Jamie laughs. “Yeah. Too bad they had to cancel the dance. At least then all we'd have to deal with would be teachers.”

  “No kidding,” Ana says.

  Her heartbeat is getting louder in her ears. Suddenly, she wishes she had changed into that sundress.

  “Sorry we didn't get to hear your speech.” Jamie takes a step toward her, his hands clasped behind his back. Ana feels her face grow warm.

  “Round two, everyone!” Grandpa White hollers out across the backyard. Ana straightens up. Right. Romance in a garden full of parents. A spicy scent drifts in over the bright smell of the mint. She clears her throat.

  “Sounds like the mapo's done. You should have some. It's really good.”

  They all move back to the table with its new steaming dishes. Ana reluctantly takes her seat a whole table-width away from Jamie.

  “This is delicious!” Mrs. Conrad exclaims, shoveling in a forkful of mapo dofu dripping with saucy ground pork tinged red by pepper and oil.