Caged Eagles by Eric Walters Read Free Book Online Page A

father.
    â€œYou have to be patient,” one of the others, an older man named Tanaka, said quietly.
    â€œI’m tired of being patient!” he snapped angrily.
    â€œPatience is for old women! I want to know what they have planned for us next!”
    â€œMind your words,” Mr. Tanaka said angrily. “You’re so young you still have eggshell stuck to your bottom!”
    The man’s face flashed with anger as the others laughed at the joke made at his expense. He looked like he was going to say something, but thought better of it. Young people had no right to speak disrespectfully to their elders. Still, I wanted to know the same thing — what now?
    â€œWe all want to know the next step,” my father interjected, breaking the uncomfortable silence. “But getting angry, especially at each other, will not help.” Although the words were said quietly, they were said in that tone of voice that I knew meant business.
    The younger man opened his mouth like he was going to blurt something out, but again thought better of it. “Yes,” he said softly, looking down at the ground.
    â€œWe’re all upset,” Mr. Tanaka added. “We all want to know the answer to the question you’ve asked. But we must wait.”
    The group became silent. I imagined that each man was thinking about the possible answers — what was going to be happening to us and how long we’d have to wait to find out. They started talking in Japanese, discussing the weather and what sort of day it was going to be. I listened in for a while. The younger man, the one who had been so angry, spoke Japanese, but not very well. He continually threw in English words, or the wrong endings to words. Lots of Japanese his age didn’t speak Japanese that well. My Japanese was better than his.
    My parents, like most Japanese parents, insisted that we all spoke Japanese in the home. But I guess because I was in a village where everyone was Japanese, we also spoke it when we were outside, talking to the neighbors or playing with the other kids.
    Not that my Japanese was perfect. Sometimes I found myself having to work harder to understand things when the older Japanese spoke. It wasn’t just the dialect, or the words, but the way they put those words together.
    Two of the men dropped their cigarette butts to the ground and stubbed them out with their boots. They immediately lit up two more cigarettes. A cigarette was offered to my father, which he declined. He didn’t smoke. I decided I’d wait a few minutes, to be polite, and then head back to the boat. There was nobody here who knew anything, and I’d only come out so eagerly hoping somebody had some information.
    The Japanese are big on things like waiting, being patient and accepting fate. I’m no good at any of those things. Maybe my blood is Japanese, but I guess having only breathed Canadian air in my lungs my whole life has made me as impatient as any other Canadian. I hate waiting. I think I’d rather get bad news and at least know than wait around hoping things will turn out. At least once you know, you can stop worrying and get on with doing. After all, how much worse could it get?
    I’d started to slowly sidle away when my attention was caught by the sound and sight of a large, gray truck, an army truck. It had appeared from behind a warehouse, its engine rumbling, black smoke bellowing out of twin smokestacks over the cab. The engine protested noisily as it ground through the gears to slow down before passing through the gate that marked the entry point through the high wire fence that ringed the wharf.
    I recognized the type of truck — it was nicknamed a butter box because it was used to transport supplies. It then clicked on me that its arrival, undoubtedly with a large quantity of supplies, meant only one of two possibilities: either we were being restocked to continue our journey elsewhere by boat, or we would