“You run along,” Mom said. “I can clean up the kitchen. Get two dimes out of my pocketbook, and scoot.”
Ellie put on her jacket, knotted a headscarf under her chin, and trudged out the door. As the wind shoved her along the sidewalk, Ellie thought about the good old days. Sitting in the balcony with the other sixth graders, throwing peanuts and popcorn at the little kids downstairs. Scattering when the usher came up to check. Victoria Gandeck had been just another kid in her class, not her new sworn enemy. And Stan had been her best friend, not Victoria’s. The good old days.
Last Saturday.
Kids streamed past Ellie towards the theatre, eager to get out of the cold. Others crowded into Green’s for a supply of movie snacks. No one in their right mind would eat the stale candy from the Liberty’s vending machine. Bridget Flaherty and some of the sixth-grade girls stood in the ticket line, swinging their sacks of Green’s popcorn, peanuts and candy. Even though they had been in the same class since kindergarten, Ellie didn’t know them very well. She hadn’t needed to.
Inside the warm theatre, Ellie breathed in the fragrance of stale popcorn, dusty stage drapes, and sweaty wool jackets.
Sal and her pals huddled in the lobby, looking bored. Ellie knew they were really looking for boys. She sidled over. Maybe they wouldn’t notice if she followed them in.
No such luck.
“Get lost,” Sal muttered, giving Ellie a nudge. Hmm. Looked to Ellie like Sal had stuffed her brassiere with socks again.
“Am-scray, kid,” added a blonde with a lot of lipstick. “That’s pig Latin for ‘hit the road’. You’re making us look bad.”
“You don’t need me to look bad,” Ellie retorted, and sauntered away as if it didn’t matter. Only it did. A lot.
Ellie found a seat in the middle of a row towards the back. After tripping over a dozen pairs of feet, she discovered a coat across it. Ellie tossed it to the third-grade boy in the next seat.
“Hey, I was saving,” the boy protested.
“Tough toenails,” said Ellie, squirming out of her jacket. She settled into the worn plush seat and waited for the lights to go down. Nothing could bother her here. Not arithmetic, not war, and certainly not Stanley Kozelle and Victoria Gandeck.
Plock. Something hit Ellie in the back of her head. Plock. She put her hand to her collar. Peanuts. Plock. Plock. More peanuts.
“Hey, Ellie,” Victoria shouted over the hubbub. “Bombs over Tokyo, Ellie. Nice seat there with the third graders. Is that your boyfriend?”
Ellie slumped to avoid the peanut bombs.
Plock. Plock. Plock.
Two cartoons, a Three Stooges short, a newsreel, a reminder to buy war bonds, and a main feature later, Ellie emerged from the theatre, squinting in the sun. She picked a peanut shell from a braid as Victoria charged past her.
“Everybody meet at Green’s,” she shouted. “They’ve got new comic books.”
Ellie set off in the opposite direction, towards Millionaire’s Row. She knew real millionaires like the Mellons and Heinzes didn’t live there; they lived across the river, in Shadyside. But the houses on the Row were the biggest in Ellie’s neighbourhood. These homes belonged to older people, with adult children – if anyone from there had ever gone to her school, they had graduated long ago. The only Row resident Ellie knew personally was Dr. Atkinson, whose office was in his house. Yep, there it was, a pink Spanish-looking house with a tile roof, and a Lincoln Zephyr in the driveway.
Ellie enjoyed looking at the big houses. Two-storey fieldstones with porches and turrets and balconies. Manicured yards, not a stray leaf in sight. Big, shiny Packards and Lincolns in the driveways, ration stickers plastered to the windshields. “C” stickers, the best kind. No gas rationing for doctors and judges and other “essential war workers”, as the Rationing Board called them.
Windows glowed with lamplight as the sun dipped behind the treetops. Ellie watched the scenes inside, like a different movie at every house. In a redbrick, a maid poured from a silver teapot as two elderly women held up china cups. A little girl with Shirley Temple curls pounded out a jerky little tune at a grand piano. Ellie decided she was a visiting granddaughter.
Big cement lions guarded her favourite house. Ellie paused on the sidewalk to admire them. Then, discovering a hole in the boxwood hedge, she wedged herself in so she could get a closer look inside.
Through the diamond-shaped windowpanes, she studied a man and woman in evening clothes, sitting in deep leather chairs. Maybe they were going someplace fancy, like the opera. The man wrote on a folded newspaper. A crossword puzzle? The woman stitched something in a needlework frame. Ellie gazed at the scene, enchanted.
Not that the people themselves were terribly interesting. To Ellie, the play of soft light from silk-shaded lamps, the unhurried movements of their hands, the elegant drape of their clothes seemed to be from another world, far away from Macken Street. She couldn’t imagine having time to sit and do almost nothing. And all dressed up, to boot!
Whish-rattle-rattle. “Dad-ratted chain!” squeaked a male voice.
Ellie startled out of her trance. At the kerb, a Western Union boy tinkered with the chain drooping from his bike gears. He was one of Sal’s high school pals, Fred Somebody. Ellie couldn’t remember his last name, just that he worked on the weekend. Chain back in place, he wiped his greasy hands on a hanky and mounted the bike. Ellie shivered, shrinking further into shrubbery. Western Union telegrams were almost always bad news. Holding her breath and crossing her fingers, she willed Fred away from the house.
But Fred steered up the circular drive of the lions’ house. He nudged the kickstand with his heel, then marched up the stone walk, his footsteps like whip cracks in the frosty air. For the first time, Ellie saw the service flag on the front door. Silk, with gold fringe and a single blue star.
Fred tugged at his jacket, squared his shoulders, and rang the doorbell. Ellie froze, not wanting to see, unable to go.
The massive door swung open, flag fluttering. Light spilled across the stone steps as a uniformed maid talked to Fred. He took off his cap and held up the telegram. The maid closed the door.
Fred must have come to the wrong house, Ellie thought with relief. But when she turned back to the window, she saw the maid enter the softly lit room and speak to the man and woman. For a long moment, they did not move. Pencil stilled in mid-air. Needle glinting in the soft light, hand trembling.
Slowly, the man rose and helped the woman to her feet. Ellie wasn’t sure they were even moving until they disappeared from view. The front door swung open, and there they stood, clutching each other, heads bowed.
Ellie scrambled out of the bushes and started running. She was halfway down the block when she heard the scream. No, not a scream – a howl.
She ran past the Packards and balconies and spotless yards. Back up Macken Street. Past the Liberty. Past Corsiglia’s market. Past St. Matthew’s, and down the street to Green’s.
Because there were worse things than sitting alone at the movies with peanut shells in your hair. Enemies worse than Victoria Gandeck. And sometimes you have to forgive people, even when you think they’re wrong. Ellie hoped Stan was still at Green’s.
She needed her best friend.
CHAPTER EIGHT
The bright blue days of October had given way to the battleship grey of November. With winter on the way, Ellie was happy that she was no longer going home at lunch to check the mail.
Sleet peppered the windows of Room Seven. The daily sandwich swap in Miss Granberry’s room was under way. Not that Ellie was swapping her peanut butter sandwich; she loved peanut butter. A good thing, since nowadays she made her own lunch.
“Anybody wanna trade?” Stan held up a sandwich, neatly wrapped in wax paper.
“Whatcha got?” asked Bridget, peering into her lunch sack.
Stan opened an end of the wax paper. “Cream cheese with olives. How ’bout you?”
“Tongue.” Bridget wrinkled her nose. Tongue
wasn’t rationed, so there was plenty to go around, which was about all you could say for it.
“Yuck,” Victoria said. Ellie didn’t think much of Victoria’s lunch either, salami on rye. Very smelly salami, at that.
“With horseradish?” Stan asked Bridget. She nodded. “Hand it over.” He tossed Bridget the wax paper packet, as she passed him her unwrapped slabs of rye, scraps of tongue dangling from the edges. Every day, Stan traded a perfectly good sandwich for something disgusting, like a string bean sandwich or tongue, and never ate his second one from home.
Jellyneck skittered into the room, rain dripping from his hedgehog hair.
“Gosh, why’d you go home?” Bridget asked, daintily nibbling her new sandwich. “It’s sleeting cats and dogs.”
Jellyneck’s sneakers squished as he headed for the cloakroom, ignoring the question.
“Oscar.” Miss Granberry looked up from her desk. “Drape your jacket across the radiator to dry.” Why had Ellie never noticed Jellyneck’s threadbare jacket elbows, the neatly mended rip in back? How many brothers had worn that jacket before him?
Jellyneck dropped into the seat behind Stan. Stan turned around. “I’m full to the tonsils, and I have another sandwich here. You want it?” Jellyneck nodded, and wolfed it down as if he hadn’t eaten in a week.
“Anybody got a letter?” Stan asked, looking at Ellie.
“Jimmy dropped me a line,” she said, trying to look casual.
“Swell,” said Stan, as if he hadn’t already seen it. “You gonna read it to us?”
Ellie cleared her throat.
Dear Movie Star,
The Army is keeping me busy. So far, most of the things I have learned have to do with blood. How to take blood pressure, draw blood, tie a tourniquet, stuff like that. I’m turning into a regular vampire!
It’s still warm here, which isn’t so good for those twenty-mile marches we take. I’m homesick for snow!
It’s almost taps. That’s Army for lights-out. Just when you think you’re too old for someone to tell you it’s bedtime, along comes the Army!
Your brother, Doc Jimmy
“Swell stuff,” said Stan, folding his lunch bag to use again.
“Big deal,” sniffed Victoria. She pulled a letter from her pocket and read:
Dear Little Sis,
Can’t say where I am, but it’s an island and it’s hot and we’re looking for snipers. Them Japs are sneaky, hiding in trees. We watch for smoke. That means a sniper is smoking a cig. Then you watch the tree trunk for
Victoria dropped her voice to a loud whisper.
P-I-S-S. They do that in the trees so we won’t see them, they think. I nailed a couple that way already.
The islanders are so happy to see GIs, they give us gifts all the time. I got enough native knives and daggers to arm the whole sixth grade! I’m still going to get you that Jap flag I promised. And one of them whatchamacallit swords. A sayonara sword? That don’t look right, but I can hardly spell English, let alone Jap. Ha ha!
Remember me to Macken Street and keep your nose clean, kid. I’ll be home before you know it.
Your big brother, Buddy
“Zowie.” Jellyneck licked cream cheese from his lip. “A real Jap sword.”
Stan snatched the letter from Victoria. “I want to read about the snipers again.”
“Did he really say ‘piss’?” asked Ralph.
“Hey, yunz are getting it all smeary.” Victoria grabbed the letter back.
Ellie slumped in her desk. Even Victoria’s letters are better than mine, she fumed.
Miss Granberry clapped her hands for attention. “Students, lunch hour is over. Now let’s prepare ourselves for the afternoon. Dispose of your lunch wrappers, and get out your arithmetic books.”
Ellie stumped up to the wastebasket with her wax paper, her mood decidedly sour. Her bad mood lasted until the middle of arithmetic when she heard…
“It’s snowing!” The whisper rippled up and down the rows. Sure enough, the sleet had turned to snow. It always snowed before Thanksgiving.
The first holiday without Jimmy.
Victoria threw open a window and leaned out. Cold whooshed through the room, swirling papers off desks. “The snow is sticking to the sled hill,” she announced.
The whispers rose to a buzz. The first sledding of the year was always the best.
“Victoria Gandeck, close that window immediately.” Miss Granberry thumped her ruler for attention. “One would think you had never seen snow before.”
Ellie stared at the fat, wet flakes piling up on the stone window ledge.
“Eleanor, stop woolgathering and come to the chalkboard, please.” Snapping to attention, Ellie started for the front of the room.
“Your arithmetic homework, Eleanor?” Miss Granberry reminded her. “Could you work example 12 for the class, please?”
Ellie couldn’t believe that Miss Granberry had picked the one problem she didn’t do! She grabbed the undone homework from her desk and slouched to the blackboard. On her way, she glanced out the door at the big hall clock. Two forty-five. Fifteen minutes until school was out.
Phooey.
Picking up the chalk, Ellie wrote 233 x 499, and drew a line under it. The line was a little crooked, so she erased it and drew a straighter one. Sweat trickled down her backbone. The radiators hissed and knocked. The room smelled of pencil shavings and Vitalis and Victoria’s salami sandwich wrappings in the trash.
Thwack. Thwack. Thwack. Miss Granberry whacked the ruler in her palm. The sound drove any arithmetic thoughts right out of Ellie’s head. Even though she knew it was wrong, she quickly scratched 1,227 as the answer, and scuttled back to her seat.
“Now, class.” Towards the end of the day, Miss Granberry’s voice squeaked like chalk. “Who can correct Eleanor’s mistake?”
Victoria’s hand shot straight up in the air, like a Heil Hitler. Briskly, she marched to the board, snatched the eraser, smeared away Ellie’s feeble efforts, and rapidly chalked in the correct answer.
“Very good,” said Miss Granberry. Victoria swished back to her seat with a pleased smile.
Show-off, Ellie seethed. Know-it-all.
At long last, the class went to the cloakroom for their wraps and lined up at the door.
“Eleanor,” Miss Granberry croaked, her voice barely audible. “Please remain.”
Ellie trudged back to her desk, dropping into her seat like a sack of potatoes. She couldn’t imagine what Miss Granberry wanted. She stared at her desktop, where some long-ago student had carved Sean O’Toole into the worn oak. Wherever Sean O’Toole was now, he was better off than Ellie McKelvey, missing the first snow.
Creak creak creak sang the floorboards as Miss Granberry came ever-so-slowly down the aisle. Hurry up, Ellie thought, tracing Sean O’Toole’s name with her finger.
“Eleanor, did I hear you reading a letter from your brother during lunch? Is he still in basic training?”
“Yes, ma’am. He’s in South Carolina,” said Ellie. “But he’ll be home for Christmas.”
“Will he, now?” Miss Granberry’s silver eyebrows came together in a puzzled line.
“Yes, ma’am, but the war will be over by then, won’t it?”
The teacher started to say something, then patted Ellie’s shoulder instead. “I hope so, dear. Now run along.”
Ellie was at the door before Miss Granberry called, “Eleanor, Mr. Hitler will not be around for ever, but I assure you that multiplication will. Please redo today’s homework.”
“Yes, ma’am. Goodnight, Miss Granberry.”
Outside, Ellie gulped the deliciously icy air. The frosty lungful made her feel frisky, like a squirrel. She’d have to tell Stan, “Hey, I really am squirrelly!”
She wasn’t the only one who felt squirrelly. Snow turned the kids into shrieking animals. Sliding on the slick walks. Throwing snowballs. In a corner of the play yard, a couple of optimistic first graders struggled to roll the bottom boulder of a snowman.
Ralph had Stan in a headlock, scrubbing his face with snow.
“Scram, Sam,” he told Stan when he saw Ellie.
“What did Granberry want?” Stan asked, brushing the snow off his jacket. “Careful, it’s slippy.”
Ellie picked her way across the playground, wishing she had worn her galoshes. “I have to do that arithmetic homework over. And she asked about Jimmy. Wonder why?”
“Who knows?” Stan stuck out his tongue, caught a snowflake, then grinned. “Let’s go sledding.”
“I have to let Aunt Toots know where I’m going. I hope she’s awake.” She blinked to keep snow from sticking to her lashes.
“Don’t forget your sled,” added Stan, as they stamped up Ellie’s porch steps.
Ellie jiggled the doorknob. Locked. “Aunt Toots, I’m home,” she shouted, banging on the door. “Maybe she’s washing her hair or something.”
“With the door locked?” Stan said. “Who locks their door when they’re home?”
Opening the door with her latchkey, Ellie stepped into the entry with Stan.
“There’s a note,” Stan said, pointing to a sheet of tablet paper on the lamp table.
Kiddos,
Heard a butcher in West View has some beef. Don’t know when I’ll be back. Put potatoes and carrots on to boil.
Toots
“I guess you aren’t coming, are you?” Stan headed for the door, rezipping his jacket.
“I guess not,” said Ellie, sighing as she took off her coat. “She could be in line for ever.”
Stan lingered in the entry, flapping his wet mittens.
“So go sled,” said Ellie, not caring how cross she sounded.
“Uh, can I borrow your sled?”
“Use your own sled.”
“Can’t. I gave it to the Commandos’ scrap drive. The iron runners, you know.”
“Oh, all right! Wait here.” She stomped to the cellar.
“Ick.” She shook stringy cobwebs from her hands as she reached behind the furnace for her sled. With everyone turning their Flexible Flyers into scrap, Ellie’s wooden-runner hand-me-down was one of the few left.
Jimmy's Stars Page 6