At lunchtime, the Rowdies met outside the dining hall, recognizing each other with their special sign and language. I reported that Kay and I would not be attending Japanese school, but we could try eating together. So each of us begged our parents to allow us to sit together in the mess hall. Mother suggested that the girls join us at our table. Their mothers consented, except Mitzi.
We talked and giggled together as the “big“ girls did, while the meal line slowly moved forward. My mother picked out a table, and the five of us girls sat on the end, three on one side, and two on the other. We talked in our secret language, but the noise was so loud we couldn’t understand each other across the expanse of table. Mother was not sitting right beside us, but close enough to keep us orderly with a smile and a nod. Roger and Ronnie (my younger brothers) intentionally listened closely to our conversation. My older brother Bobby interrupted as often as possible. Talking across the table was so difficult we tried talking only to the Rowdy beside us. The ones across the table wanted to hear, too.
First, Ruth’s sister checked up on her for her mother; then Mariko‘s mother came to see how Mariko was behaving, stopping to talk with Mother in Japanese. They seemed to be talking about us. Hannah‘s mother was sitting at the table behind us so that she could watch her daughter’s every move. Each girl was informed that she had to check in with her family before she could leave the dining hall. Sitting together for meals was not as fun as expected!
When we got together at our bench after lunch, we found out that our parents were not going to let us eat together all the time. That Rowdy project was gone. But we could still spy. So we decided to disperse to find out what the older boys and girls were doing. Running on tiptoe around the barracks to the place we thought the boys used as their meeting place brought no results. The boys were all at their own homes, it seemed. And the big girls were, too! No spy project was available to the Rowdies, either. Disappointed, the Rowdies adjourned for the afternoon.