Read Kiss River for Free Online Page A

it’s not the first to go down. Not by a long shot. The sign at the post office says, Loose Lips Might Sink Ships. That means we should be quiet about anything we know about the merchant ships traveling along the coastline, because you never know who might be spying right next to you. That seems silly to me, because I know nearly everyone around here. A stranger would stand out, especially a German stranger. Krauts, some people call them. I heard Daddy call them that once, when he didn’t think I was listening. It shocked me to hear him say that, because he and Mama are always after me not to see myself as any better than anyone else. When Mama heard one of the boys at Trager’s call Mr. Sato “slant-eyes,” she threatened to wash his mouth out with soap.
    None of us ever saw a Japanese person before Mr. Sato came here a year or so ago. His son was married to a girl from here and they lived with Mr. Sato in Chicago. When the son died a year ago, the girl, whose name I don’t remember, wanted to move back here, and she brought Mr. Sato with her, since he’s crippled in a wheelchair and couldn’t live alone. They live in a house on the sound, across the island from me. I have to go right past his house on my way to school, and I used to see him out fishing. He would sit in his wheelchair on the deck that hangs right out over the water from their house, with the fishing pole in his hand. I used to wave to him because I felt sorry for him, and he’d always wave back. Everyone calls him slant-eyes behind his back and the kids make fun of him. No one is very friendly to him, and after Pearl Harbor, I’d be surprised if anyone talks to him at all. I never see him outside these days. He might be scared to go out and I don’t really blame him. He looks like a harmless old man, though, tiny, gray-haired and sort of shriveled up in his wheelchair. I wouldn’t know he still lives inthat house if I didn’t hear other people whispering about him, saying how they don’t like having a Jap for a neighbor.
    Anyhow, I got off my topic again. Mrs. Cady is always after me about that. She says, “You write real well, but you jump around too much.” Glad she’s not reading this!
    Back to the burning ship. So those Germans are killing us right outside our back door now. Their sneaky U-boats come up from under the water and attack, just like a shark. When I watched that black smudge growing out to sea, I wondered if someone’s loose lips might have gotten word to the U-boats out there somehow.
    I have not seen a U-boat myself, although I keep looking for one. When I’m cleaning up in the lantern room, or after school when I come home, I go up there and stare at the water with the binoculars, looking for one of the German subs. I’m not sure what to look for, exactly. Would a periscope be too small for me to see? That sounds like it would be fun to have. A periscope. To see what was happening someplace you weren’t. You could see people, but they couldn’t see you. Without a doubt, that’s what happened out there this morning. Some American ship filled with hardworking men got spied with a U-boat’s periscope, and then bam! The Germans torpedoed them. This is the first I’ve seen this close up, and I don’t want to see another. It was as if, when I saw that smoke, all the fun went out of me. I was suddenly as sour and dead inside as some of the grown-ups I know, and I didn’t like the feeling.
    There is one good thing and one thing only that I like about this war: it’s brung the Coast Guard boys to the Outer Banks. They’ve taken over the life-saving stations, and each one of them is more handsome than the next. They are from all parts of the country, and hearing all their different accents makes me want to get out of North Carolina and see the world. I’ve been to Elizabeth City and Manteo and even once to Norfolk, but that’s it. Mama keeps an eye on me when they’re around. I can feel her watching every move I make,