Dan Wakefield - Under the Apple Tree - A Novel

“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.

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.