by Teresa Funke
that shows soldiers boarding a transport ship, so she said to watch for it carefully.
The newsreel starts with that booming voice of the commentator. Newsreel commentators always have booming voices. Janie and I have scooted to the edge of our seats and are staring intently at the flickering images. Even Mother is leaning forward, her hands resting carefully in her lap. After only a minute, we get to the clip.
“There it is,” Janie shouts.
“Was it him, Mother? Was it Frederick?”
Mother’s face is screwed up in concentration. “It’s hard to say, Helen. It went by so fast. But it certainly did look like him.”
I hear a strange sound, almost like a muffled gasp, and from the corner of my eye I see someone rise and walk quickly up the dark aisle. I turn just as a woman is disappearing through the heavy curtain leading to the lobby. I wonder if it could be Mrs. Osthoff, if just this once she has left her house, to see her son. I tell Mother I’m going to the bathroom, and I hurry up the aisle, but the lobby is empty and so is the street outside. Whoever it was, she was moving pretty fast.
We watch the feature Yankee Doodle Dandy. Mother cries a couple of times. She always cries in movies, especially the sentimental ones. Jimmy Cagney is one of my favorite actors and the show is so good that I almost forget about Frederick, but when we step outside, Mrs. Fuller is waiting anxiously by the curb. She says she’s come to offer Mother a ride home, but I think she just wants to know what Mother thought. The whole town is starting to buzz about Frederick.
“I believe it was him,” Mother says. “It was strange to see him looking so scruffy and tired. Frederick was always so careful about his appearance. Such a handsome boy. Seeing him walking up the plank toward that transport ship made it all seem so final, didn’t it? It’s still so hard to picture these boys as soldiers.”
Mrs. Fuller doesn’t give Mother’s comment a second thought. “Imagine that,” is all she says. “A boy from our own little town showing up in a newsreel. It’s quite exciting, don’t you think?”
Mother mumbles something in response and turns to ask if Janie and I want a ride home, but I tell her no. It’s Saturday night and there’s no early morning train to catch tomorrow. Janie and I are heading out toward the lake.
“Fine,” she says. “But be home by dark.”
Janie and I lock arms and sing “Yankee Doodle” in our best Jimmy Cagney voices as we dance off down Main Street. It rained while we were in the movie theater, cooling things off and lifting the humiditya bit, which should help my hair. The more humid the air, the more unruly my hair becomes. This time last summer, I got a permanent, but it made my hair as bushy as a squirrel’s tail. I was so embarrassed I barely left my house for a week. My hair is certainly not my best feature, and I’m smoothing it down now as we head toward the edge of town, trying to make it behave.
“I think I saw Mrs. Osthoff in the theater,” I say.
“Crazy Mrs. Osthoff!”
“Mother says she isn’t crazy. She’s just sad because she lost her family.”
“Hal says she eats cats.”
“Why on earth would he say that?”
“Because so many cats go missing in this neighborhood.”
“That’s more likely the Watson’s dog,” I say. “Grandpa says he’s a menace and should be shot.”
“Well, if she doesn’t eat cats, what does she eat? She never leaves that house, so where does she get her food?”
“She has a garden,” I say. “And the delivery boy brings her groceries once a week. He leaves them on the back porch. I’ve seen him do it.”
“And where does she get the money to pay for those?”
I stop to consider this for a minute. “I don’t know. I suppose her husband must have left her some.”
“Did he? Or is she making her money some other way?”
I stop Janie with a hand on her arm. “What way?”
“I don’t know. Maybe selling information to Hitler. She’s German you know.”
“So just because she’s German, you think she’s a spy?”
“Could be. There are spies all over this country. That’s why they tell us not to talk about what we make at the factory. You never know who might be listening. I heard they arrested a German man over in LaSalle the other day, less than a mile from Westclox. They confiscated his gun, his typewriter and his camera. They took him and his whole family into custody.”
We start to walk again, and I think about Mrs. Osthoff rushing out of that theater, her son’s face still fresh on her mind, and I feel a funny urge to defend her. All she’s ever wanted is to be left alone, and everyone did just that until the war came along, this war that is changing everything. “She’s not a spy,” I insist. “My own grandmother is German and no one is accusing her of anything.”
“That’s different. She doesn’t act German, and she was born right here in America. Not like Mrs. Osthoff. They say she doesn’t even speak English.”
“She speaks a little,” I say.
“How do you know? Have you heard her?”
I haven’t, of course. The only sounds I’ve ever heard from Mrs. Osthoff are those horrible screams and those long, low moans. Just thinking of them makes me shudder.
We’re approaching Mr. Rodriguez’s pool hall. He was a schoolmate of Mother’s, and she says he’s a good man, that his pool hall is not like most, but not even that sways Grandma Kate. She absolutely forbids me to set foot in any pool hall, even his. “It’s no place for a young lady,” she says. Janie’s mother obviously doesn’t agree. Janie’s been allowed to hang out there since she was thirteen. Janie knows I can’t go in, but she tells me she’s going to stop for a minute anyway.
“Maxine got a new pair of saddle shoes and I want to see them quick.”
“Come on, Janie. They’re just shoes. What’s the difference?”
“Oh honestly, Helen. You don’t know a thing about fashion.”
Janie bounds up the steps into the pool hall, tossing her head as she enters so her blond ponytail swishes attractively. Janie’s hair is her best feature, high humidity or none, and she uses it to her advantage. I plop down on the second step to pout. I could follow Janie inside, of course. I’m not such a goody two-shoes that I always do what I’m told, but Hayden’s Valley is a very small town, and word would get back to Grandma for sure. Mr. Rodriguez himself might tell her, and since Janie will only be in there for a minute, it’s not worth the risk.
The clouds are still heavy and low, and I hope it won’t rain again. I’m looking at my own worn shoes, wondering if we’ll be able to afford a new pair before school starts. Just then I hear some boys come around the building from the left. They stop on the other side of the rhododendron bush that grows at the foot of the steps. I can’t see them, but I recognize their voices. One is Hal. The other two are his best friends, Jack and Richie.
“I’ll be seventeen on Tuesday,” Hal is saying. “That’s plenty old to fight.”
“Ah, Hal. Your ma’ll never let you sign up,” Richie says. “You know that.”
“Well, she don’t have to.”
“You can’t sign up at seventeen without a parent’s permission,” Jack says.
“That’s why nobody’s gonna know I’m seventeen. I’m gonna hitch a ride to Peoria. No one will recognize me there.”
“But you gotta have proof,” Jack says.
“Nah, I got that all figured out. All you need’s a Bible to prove your age. You know how people write in their Bibles the dates when their kin are born or die? You just tell the recruiter you lost your birth certificate and show him the family Bible instead.”
“But your ma already wrote your correct date in,” Richie says.
“Don’t be so thick, Rich. I won’t take our real Bible. I’ll buy myself a new one and fill it in.”
“That’ll never work,” Jack says.
“It sure will. I heard of a guy who did it.”
There’s silence while the boys consider what Hal’s proposing. I
realize I’ve been holding my breath, and I let it out softly. I slip down a step so I can hear better over the rowdy sounds from the pool hall. Jack lets out a long, low whistle.
“Ah, heck, Hal, this is big,” Richie says.
“You should come with me,” Hal says.
“Nah. My dad would skin me alive, runnin’ off like that. I’ll be eighteen in six months anyway.”
“You should have someone else fill in that Bible,” Jack suggests. “So’s it don’t look like your handwritin’.”
“Good idea,” Hal says, and just then I realize they are moving. I stand up and try to make it look like I was just coming down the stairs, but Hal knows me too well. His eyes narrow, and he takes me by the wrist and pulls me back around the bush.
“What’d you hear, Lanie?”
“Nothing.”
“You’re such a bad liar, Helen. Tell me what you heard.”
“I heard you telling your friends you’re gonna run away and join up. Hal, do you know how stupid that is?”
“It ain’t stupid. It’s what I want.”
“But you could get killed!”
“Lots of fellas are gettin’ killed while I just sit here. I’m one of the best shots in the Valley. I can take care of myself.” He pushes his glasses up, and that reminds me of something.
“Aha! That’s why you can’t sign up,” I tell him. “You’re nearly blind without your glasses. You’ll never pass the eye exam.”
He smirks at me and drops my wrist. “Oh I’ll pass all right,” he says. “I memorized the eye chart, and I been practicing how to say it so it don’t sound memorized.