Overnight, a gold star flag appeared on Mrs. Miller’s classroom door. Ellie fought the urge to spit on the floor each time she passed it. She wished the gold star would disappear.
Incredibly, it did!
“Am I seeing things, or is that a blue star on Mrs. Miller’s door?” Ellie whispered to Stan as the class marched off to assembly a few mornings later. Miss Granberry’s head whipped around to see who was not being “a silent citizen in the halls”, as she called it. Stan just shrugged, as if to say “Looks like it, but I don’t know any more than you”.
Trust Victoria to know the whole story. Of course.
“Mr. Miller isn’t dead,” Victoria told them at lunch. “Pa got the lowdown at the Do-Drop last night.”
“So…?” Stan prompted.
“So, it seems there were two guys named Joe Miller on the same ship,” Victoria began, obviously enjoying being “in the know”.
“The ship didn’t sink?” Jellyneck butted in. Victoria gave him a ferocious look.
“Who’s telling this story?” she said, waving a fist in his face. “So anyway, Mrs. Miller’s Joe Miller got real sick before the ship left.”
“Why was he sick?” Bridget interrupted.
“I don’t know,” Victoria said in an exasperated way. “You wanna hear this or not?”
Everyone assured her they did.
“So anyway, he’s sick, and he goes to sick bay in port. ‘Sick bay’ is Navy for hospital,” she added before anyone could ask. “Someone fouls up his paperwork, so no one knows he ain’t on the ship. But the other Joe Miller is. The ship sinks and the Navy sends out telegrams that everybody’s dead. Meanwhile, Mrs. Miller’s husband gets well and finds out that his ship is sunk. He figures he better let his wife know he’s okay. So she gets another telegram saying he’s alive. Pretty incredible, huh?”
“Yeah,” Jellyneck repeated softly. “Pretty incredible.”
CHAPTER TWENTY
“No more pencils, no more books, no more teacher’s dirty looks,” Stan and Jellyneck chanted one May morning, fake-punching each other in rhythm.
“There’s still two more weeks,” Ellie reminded them. She perched on the school bike rack, enjoying the breeze on her bare knees, free at last of wool stockings. The sweater Mom insisted she wear lay in a heap on her books.
“Uh-oh,” said Stan, looking towards the street. “Here comes Victoria. Something’s up, I can tell.”
Victoria pranced up to the trio at the bike racks, excitement fairly shooting from the ends of her hair. Instinctively, Ellie leaned away.
“Buddy’s coming home,” Victoria shouted. “Pa’s going to San Francisco to get him.”
“Thought he was in Hawaii,” Jellyneck said.
“He was. The docs sent him to a veterans’ hospital in California to rest,” Victoria said, sounding rather vague. “Pa’s leaving as soon as he can book a compartment.”
A train compartment? thought Ellie. Since when do the Gandecks have that kind of money? Compartments with berths and private bathrooms were expensive and hard to come by. Passengers counted themselves lucky to have a seat, instead of sitting on their suitcase or standing in the aisle for days at a time.
“How come?” Ellie asked. “Can’t he get home by himself?”
Victoria scowled. “Because he’s been sick, Ellie McKelvey, that’s why! He needs a little help, Pa says.”
“Oh.” Ellie noticed Victoria clenching her fists at her sides. Not like she was going to hit somebody. Ellie herself did that when she was nervous. What did Victoria have to be nervous about?
Stan cracked his knuckles. “He’s being discharged?”
Victoria looked away. “An honourable medical discharge,” she said, as if daring them to say otherwise.
“When’s he gonna get here? You gonna have a party when he comes home? Mr. Green gonna bring ice cream?” Jellyneck asked.
“Party, sure thing,” Victoria said, her old confident self again. “It’ll take Pa a week to get out there, if he’s lucky. And as long coming back. Two weeks, I guess.”
The first bell rang, and they scurried to their march-in lines. But Ellie continued to puzzle. Buddy wasn’t wounded. Just tired. So why was he being discharged?
Those last two weeks of school seemed both long and short to Ellie. Long because the temperature zoomed into the nineties, unheard of for Pittsburgh in May. By dismissal, the boys had rolled up their sleeves and the girls had rolled down their knee socks. Ellie envied the girls whose mothers let them wear short socks before June first.
But in those fourteen sweltering days, so much else happened.
Mr. Gandeck left for San Francisco. Ellie watched him plod to the trolley stop, looking strange and uncomfortable in his Sunday suit, Victoria clutching his hand. He was on his way to Union Station to catch the Capitol Limited to Chicago, where he would board the City of San Francisco. His itinerary had been the main subject of Victoria’s conversation for days.
“Bye, Mr. Gandeck,” Ellie hollered, and waved. “Have a good trip.”
“Thanks, girlie,” he called without waving, since he had a suitcase in one hand and Victoria clinging to the other.
Clang clang. The Number 10, with Mr. Gandeck aboard, disappeared down the hill. Victoria’s shoulders slumped as she turned to go, then her eyes met Ellie’s. She squared her shoulders, jammed her hands in her pockets, and sauntered towards home, whistling “Mairzy Doats”.
Lucky duck, thought Ellie. At least one of her brothers is coming home.
The ground had finally thawed enough to put in the Victory Garden. This year, with Mom at work and Pop’s bum leg still acting up, the digging, hoeing and planting fell mostly to Toots.
“Fine by me,” she said. “Not like anybody else around here can do a fair job of it.”
Ellie was grateful, because once she had weeded and watered the garden, she was free for the afternoon.
Free, that is, to do the housework, start supper, and water the increasingly crispy Christmas tree in the living room.
Decoration Day came in the middle of the last week of school. No matter what the calendar said, Decoration Day was the first day of summer, the way Labor Day was the last.
Decoration Day also meant the school picnic at West View Park. Everyone went, even people without kids. The kids ate Victory Burgers (a little hamburger mixed with a whole lot of soy extender) and ice cream and soda, and rode as many rides as they had tickets for.
Every kid got a strip of ten tickets for food and rides when they walked into the park. Ellie, Stan and Jellyneck had worked out a scheme, taking turns coming in each of the three park entrances. It was a fine plan that would’ve been perfect if Jellyneck hadn’t had three Victory Burgers and two Grapettes before riding the Dips four times in a row.
“Remind me not to do that at the Labor Day picnic,” he said after returning from the bushes, looking green around the gills. “Here, kids.” He handed the rest of his tickets to a pair of his little brothers. “Ellie, could you take them on the carousel?”
Ellie plopped the young Jelineks on a stationary carousel bench, and picked out a white horse with a gold bridle for herself. The barrel organ cranked out “My Wild Irish Rose” as the ride picked up speed. A clean, warm breeze tickled her nose. I am nothing but happy, Ellie thought.
With the doctor’s bills caught up and a little extra money coming in, Mom had been able to buy Ellie a new dress for the picnic. They had gone downtown to Kaufmann’s one Saturday so Ellie could pick it out herself, a pale blue check, trimmed with red rickrack. While they were there, Ellie also got new sandals, ankle straps with heels. Little ones, but heels all the same because Mom said Ellie could spend her shoe ration coupon any way she wanted.
Ellie had pinned up her braids in a more grown-up style for the occasion. Without Sal around, Ellie felt…well…pretty. Not like a saddle-shoe smudge at all.
After the carousel ride, Ellie delivered the boys back to Jellyneck and Stan, who took them off to try their
luck at the shooting gallery. Feeling far too mature to shoot at tin ducks with a popgun, Ellie sauntered along the shady cinder path that circled the park.
I’ll be twelve in July, Ellie thought. Practically a teenager. A bobby-soxer. She tried out Sal’s hip-rolling stroll. She was sure she looked at least fourteen, and maybe even a little hubba-hubba. She wondered if she should have worn Jimmy’s stockings.
“Mairzy doats and dozy doats and liddle lamzy divy,” Ellie hummed over and over. She could never remember the rest of the words. She was trying to think of them when her sandal heel caught on something, and she sprawled face down in the cinders.
That’s what you get for thinking you’re such hot stuff, she scolded herself.
“Beg pardon, miss,” said a man’s voice. “Are you hurt?”
“No,” said Ellie, feeling foolish. She looked up to see that the voice belonged to a soldier. On crutches. A soldier with one leg. His empty trouser leg was neatly pinned out of the way.
“I’d give you a hand, except I don’t have one to spare,” he joked. “But I do apologize. I’m still getting used to these darn things.” He jerked his head towards the crutches. “I’m always tripping folks.”
Ellie got to her feet, brushing cinders from the skirt of her dress. “No, it’s my fault. I’m so clumsy.”
“Join the club, sister,” he said with a laugh. But not like he thought it was funny.
The soldier went on his way, good leg swinging between the wooden supports. Ellie realized he was the first soldier she had ever seen who wasn’t just fine. Soldiers in movies either died or came back with a trunkful of medals.
Nobody came back with one leg.
Two days later, Miss Granberry handed out the last report cards, and school was over for the year. For the sixth grade, it was their last day at Macken Street Grammar School.
No dismissal lines today. Most of the class shot out the door without a backward glance. Ellie and Stan took the time to say goodbye to their teacher.
“Don’t forget to come back for a visit,” Miss Granberry said, packing her teaching supplies in a Fels-Naptha soap box.
“Yes, Miss Granberry.” Ellie’s eyes strayed to the Honour Wall. When had it grown so large, covering the wall from corner to corner? So many gold stars. “Are you taking down the pictures?”
“No, dear,” said Miss Granberry. “They will stay until the war is over.” She gave a tiny sigh, then went back to loading books in the Fels-Naptha box.
Ellie bid a silent farewell to Sean and Otis and Sy and the rest. Don’t worry, fellas. We’ll beat that Hitler and the Japs, too. You’ll see.
Too bad Jimmy never sent that snapshot to Ellie for the Honour Wall. In a way, she was glad he hadn’t. Without him up there, she wasn’t reminded he was gone every time she sharpened her pencil.
“This is the last time,” Ellie said to Stan as they started down the staircase. “We’ll never come back.” Her hand trailed along the sun-warmed banister and she wished she’d slid down it, like Jimmy.
At home, a thick Jimmy letter waited in the mailbox for Ellie. Though she was dying to put on shorts and sneakers and officially start summer vacation, Ellie decided the letter came first.
She ripped into the envelope, contents spilling to the porch. Sinking to the cool cement floor, she gathered the scattered bits into her lap. One sheet of paper? Did Jimmy forget the rest of the letter? No. “Your loving brother, Jimmy” was at the bottom. The rest of the bulk was photographs of people Ellie didn’t recognize.
Saturday, April 29th, 1944
Dear Movie Star,
Here are the snapshots I’ve been meaning to send. I’ve been pretty busy, so it took a while to get these developed at the PX. One is of me and Max, all spiffed up for a night on the town. Handsome dudes, don’t you think?
Ellie shuffled through the photos until she came to one of two soldiers in front of a building labelled BARRACKS D. A short fellow, curly hair creeping from beneath his overseas cap. His companion a sharp-jawed, hard-eyed young man with a familiar grin. She knew it was Jimmy, but he looked so much older, almost like a stranger. A hollow space opened in her heart, as if Jimmy had left a second time. Turning the picture over, she read, in a pencilled scribble, This one is for Miss G.
Suddenly, it was last September and she was telling Jimmy about Miss Granberry’s wall. Looking back, that now seemed like the happiest day of her life. Ellie gulped away the lump in her throat as she returned to the letter.
Another is of the Whitehursts, the family I told you about. That’s Mum and Da and their daughters, Eileen and Priscilla. The dog is named Betts, after Princess Elizabeth.
The Whitehursts posed stiffly before a mantel cluttered with empty vases and dog figurines. A plumpish mother in a lace-collared dress and sensible shoes sat upright in an armchair, ankles crossed in a ladylike way. Next to her, the father, with sunken cheeks but merry-looking eyes, a spaniel asleep on his shoes. Dentures, Ellie decided. His cheeks caved in like Grampa Guilfoyle’s.
Beside the adults stood two girls. One looked a bit younger than Sal, with rimless spectacles, frowsy hair, and a too-big cardigan. Sal would’ve called her a drip.
Next to the Drip, a chunky girl, with stubby braids, leaned against her mother’s chair. Her stockings wrinkled at the ankles, cardigan gaping between the buttons. She clutched a framed picture to her chest.
Cilla is holding a picture of her brother, Clive. He’s in the Royal Air Force but they wanted him in the family picture. They send their regards, and hope that after the war, we can all get together. Wouldn’t that be something?
A red mist rose before Ellie’s eyes.
She shook her head to clear it, and flipped through the rest of the snapshots. Jimmy and Max. In a jeep. Toasting a pair of Army nurses with Coca-Colas. Marching.
The last was of Jimmy and Priscilla, her shoulders hunched under the weight of an accordion, frowning down at the keys. Jimmy’s head was thrown back, mouth wide open, obviously singing along.
When I get homesick for the Gandecks, Cilla plays “Oh Marie” on her squeezebox. She knows “The Hut-Sut Song”, too. I am teaching her “Mairzy Doats”. She’s some musician.
I go on duty soon, so I’ll sign off now. Please give that picture to Miss Granberry for me.
Your loving brother,
Jimmy, The Singing Sensation of the US Army
Ellie crammed the pictures and letter back into the envelope. No fair that this Cilla girl could joke and sing with Jimmy and she, Ellie, couldn’t. She let herself into the house, banging the door behind her.
“Hey!” Toots shouted from upstairs. “There’s a lady up here trying to sleep.”
“Sorry,” Ellie yelled back as she stomped to her room. But she wasn’t sorry she’d woken up Toots. She was sorry the world wasn’t fair.
No fair that Victoria’s brother got a Hawaiian vacation, and then could come home. No fair that Toots lived in Jimmy’s room. No fair that Sal got paid at Green’s for mixing a few sodas and flirting with boys. Ellie wanted to get even with the whole world, but she couldn’t think how. But she knew where she could start.
She yanked open her underwear drawer and buried the envelope beneath her slips and underpants. You can just stay there, Jimmy-the-Promise-Breaker. You didn’t come home for Christmas. You didn’t tell me you were going to England. And now you’re singing “The Hut-Sut Song” with some accordion-playing English girl. No fair!
Arky Vaughan gave Ellie a reproachful look from his home inside the mirror frame. Promise breaker, he seemed to say. You told Jimmy you’d put his picture on Miss Granberry’s wall.
I don’t have to keep my promise, she told Arky. Jimmy didn’t keep his promise, so I’m not keeping mine. Besides, school’s over.
Slamming the drawer, Ellie went downstairs to water the Christmas tree.
After all, it wasn’t the tree’s fault that Jimmy welshed on a deal.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Ellie sucked the last of the straw
berry ice cream from the bottom of her cone.
“June 6th, 1944, D-Day,” she said, savouring the date as much as the ice cream. “We’ll remember it our whole lives. The Allies invade Europe.”
Swivelling her counter stool around to face the room, Ellie surveyed the mob scene in Green’s. The store was packed with adults and kids in a holiday mood. And not just because Mr. Green had scrawled across his scoreboard, Forget the Pirates! The Yanks have landed in France! Free ice cream as long as it lasts!
“Yeah,” said Victoria, agreeable, for once. “We can tell our kids about D-Day and how the Americans kicked Hitler’s butt.” She spun her chair around and around until she was just a blur to Ellie.
“They haven’t kicked it yet,” Stan reminded her.
“But they’re gonna.” Jellyneck dreamily licked at the chocolate that ringed his mouth.
“Yeah,” said Bridget. “My da says it’s the beginning of the end of the war.”
“If you kids are finished, scram,” Sal yelled from behind the counter. “We need the seats.” Sal’s hair drooped from the ponytail she wore to work, her face beet-red as she scooped cone after cone. Mr. Green was scooping too, but mostly he schmoozed with the customers.
“Yes, that’s my Ruthie,” he said, waving a dripping scooper at her service portrait over the cash register. “She’s in Washington DC helping beat them Nazis, you betcha.”
“I mean, make like a tree and leave. Now!” said Sal, viciously attacking a tub of chocolate ice cream.
“All right, all right, keep your shirt on,” said Ellie, taking as much time as she dared, slowly sliding from the stool and sauntering out the door with the rest of the gang.
Outside, they stood on the sidewalk looking at each other. The Number 10 rattled past, people hanging out the windows, banging on the sides of the car, cheering. “Hooray for Ike!” “Hooray for General Eisenhower!” “Hitler is a dead man!”
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