The Boy in the Red Uniform

Charlie Brown's Discovery

Shanghai International Settlement, American Concession, 1940

One afternoon, when Charlie Brown came home from school, he was surprised to find Snoopy, the family's pet beagle-who always seemed to be the most intelligent of all the dogs in Shanghai-standing in front of his doghouse, pulling all his belongings out of the house and packing them in four suitcases, even the things he'd hidden at the very back that belonged to him and were nobody else's business, like his typewriter, swimsuit, toothbrush, pajamas and flying ace goggles.

"What are you doing?" he asked in as polite a tone as he could muster, for although he wasn't happy to come home and find his dog going through his own possessions, his mother had always told him that he was to treat Snoopy respectfully and not just imitate the way his sister Sally or his father spoke to him...especially his ever known quote. "Why can't I have a normal dog like everyone else?" For he was lucky to have a dog so strange and unusual.

Snoopy shook his head and pointed towards the entrance to the house behind him, where Charlie Brown's mother had just appeared. She was a tall woman with long red hair that she bundled into a sort of net behind her head, and she was twisting her hands together nervously as if there was something she didn't want to have to say or something she didn't want to have to believe.

"Mom,"said Charlie Brown, marching towards her, "what's going on? Why is Snoopy packing?'

"He's going away," explained Mrs. Donna Brown.

"Going away?" he asked, running quickly through the events of the previous few days to consider whether he'd been particularly naughty or had used those words out loud that he wasn't allowed to use and was being sent away because of it. He couldn't think of anything though. In fact over the last few days he had behaved in a perfectly decent manner to everyone and couldn't remember causing any chaos at all. "Why?" he asked then. "What has he done?"

Donna had walked into her own bedroom by then but Linus van Pelt, a resident of the Brown's "halfway house", was in there, sitting on the floor, sucking his thumb and holding his blue security blanket. She sighed and threw her hands in the air in frustration before marching back to the staircase, followed by Charlie Brown, who wasn't going to let the matter drop without an explanation.

"Mom," he insisted. 'What's going on? Is he going to war?"

"Come downstairs with me," said Mrs. Brown, leading the way towards the large dining room where several guests from the other concessions had been to dinner the week before. "We'll talk down there."

Charlie ran downstairs and even passed her out on the staircase so that he was waiting in the dining room when she arrived. He looked at her without saying anything for a moment and thought to himself that she couldn't have applied her make-up correctly that morning because the rims of her eyes were more red than usual, like his own after he'd been causing chaos and got into trouble and ended up crying.

"Now, you don't have to worry, Charlie," said Mrs. Brown, sitting down in the chair where she would usually sit. "In fact if anything it's going to be a great experience."

"What is?" he asked. "Is he being sent away?'

"No, not just Snoopy," she said, looking as if she might smile for a moment but thinking better of it. "But all the other parents in the concession. I'm sure all four of us will be happy, having Schroeder, Shermy, Violet, Patty, Pepperment Patty, Freida, Marcie and all the other children over to live with us until they return."

Charlie Brown thought about this and frowned. He wasn't particularly bothered if Lucy, Linus' older sister and also resident of the "halfway house" was being sent away because she was a world class wench and caused nothing but trouble for him. But it seemed a little unfair that they all had to live with him, let alone turn his home into a boarding house.