Caged Eagles Read Online Free PDF Page B

tea,” I answered.
    â€œI know,” she said apologetically, “but Mother said I should tell you it’s made.”
    â€œWhat I’d like is a coffee or even a soda.”
    â€œThere’s none of either on board,” Midori said.
    â€œNo surprise there. If I wanted a good cup of coffee, the only place I could get one would be up at the base.”
    There was always a big urn of coffee on in the mess hall at the military base. And since I’d often worked right there in the kitchen, a steaming-hot cup of strong, black coffee was never more than a few feet away. I closed my eyes and I could almost smell it.
    â€œDo you miss working at the base?” Midori asked.
    Her question surprised me. Nobody talked much about what had happened to us, including me having to stop working at the base.
    I shrugged. “The work wasn’t that hard … so, sure, I guess I miss it.”
    â€œAnd Jed.”
    â€œJed?” I asked.
    â€œYou miss him too, right?”
    â€œI just saw him,” I said, being careful not to say just how recently we’d been together. It had been only ten hours earlier. In the middle of the night.
    Jed and I had met at a spot between our two villages. From there, under cover of darkness, we’d snuck by the guards and gone to the base. We were there because of the base’s mascot, Eddie the eagle. He was a full-grown bald eagle who had been found injured in the forest and been brought back to the base months earlier. He lived chained to the flagpole in the center of the parade ground. He was cared for — a vet looked at his injuries, and he was fed and everything, mostly by Jed and his mother, and sometimes by me — but he was still a prisoner. So Jed and I had snuck onto the base to where Eddie sat on his little house. We cut him loose and then watched as he flew away. We hoped his injuries had healed enough to let him survive in the wild. Either way, though, free to live or die in the wild was better than alive and chained to a flagpole.
    â€œBut you’re going to miss him,” she continued.
    â€œOf course, I’ll miss him,” I said abruptly. Why was she trying to make this harder?
    â€œDo you think Jed will miss you?” she asked.
    â€œWhat do you think?” I snapped.
    â€œI guess Jed will miss lots of things.”
    â€œWhat has he got to miss?” I demanded. “It’s not like he had to give up his home or school, or leave his village, or …” I looked at Midori and suddenly remembered her feelings about Jed. “And I’m sure he’ll miss other people as well.”
    Her expression brightened noticeably. Of course, Midori had known Jed all her life, and she’d always liked him. But over the last year or so it had been increasingly obvious that more than just liking him, she had a crush on Jed. She was always laughing at his jokes — and they weren’t even very funny — or asking about him, or hanging around us. It had gotten embarrassing for both me and Jed. He liked her — the way he liked my whole family — but there was no way he was going to be serious about some kid who was three years younger.
    â€œAre you going to write letters to him?” Midori asked.
    â€œYeah … why?” I asked hesitantly. I hoped she wasn’t going to ask to write to him too. I wondered what Jed would think about that … but, even worse, I knew what our father would think.
    Father had also noticed the way Midori had been acting toward Jed and put his foot down. He was like all the Japanese. He didn’t believe that people should marry outside of their kind. Japanese should marry Japanese, whites should marry other whites, and Indians other Indians.
    â€œWhen you write to him —”
    â€œI’ll say ‘hi’ from you,” I interrupted, hoping that would be enough to make her happy.
    â€œI guess that would be okay,” she said