“I thought so. Just wondered.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Labor Day dawned broiling hot.
“When are we leaving for West View Park?” Ellie asked for the fifth time.
“I’m tempted to spend the day sleeping,” said Mom, yawning as she packed the picnic basket.
“Not really?” said Sal and Ellie together, horrified.
“Of course not. What kind of person spends the day in bed? Still…a few extra hours of sleep…”
“Sleep on a holiday?” Toots bounded downstairs, wide awake for once, in a new cherry print dress. It always gave Ellie a start to see Toots in anything other than her work clothes. Overalls suited her better, somehow.
“Sit down and eat breakfast, all of you. Nobody’s going anywhere until after breakfast.” Mom plopped the Shredded Wheat box on the table.
Twirl-twirl. The doorbell.
“I’ll get it.” Ellie jumped up from the table. Eating Shredded Wheat seemed like too much work today.
Stan and Jellyneck stood on the porch, spit-and-polished.
“What are you two doing here?” asked Ellie.
“Ma stayed up so late canning, she and Dad aren’t going until lunchtime,” said Stan. “She said I could go with yunz if it’s okay with your folks.”
“And me, too,” added Jellyneck, in case Ellie was wondering.
A half-hour later, Ellie sat squished between the boys on the Number 10, watching Mom and Pop, who sat across from her. Mom had combed her hair, put on a fresh dress and lipstick. But her hair looked dull, the dress limp, the lipstick too bright on her pale face. Pop’s face was grey, and his shoulders hunched. Another night wandering around the park, Ellie figured. But when we get to West View, things will be just like they used to be.
“Where’s Sal?” Stan asked. “Isn’t she coming?” He sounded disappointed.
Ellie gave a short laugh. “Are you kidding? She wouldn’t be caught dead with us. She is coming later with Connie Cavendish and the rest of her birdbrained friends.”
Mom craned her head around the car, then leaned towards Ellie, face puzzled.
“Where’s Toots?” she asked. “I don’t see her.”
“Don’t you remember?” Ellie said, trying not to yell in the crowded car. “She left early to meet up with Wally and the Bettys.”
Mom’s blank expression told Ellie that she did not. Ellie sighed.
“We’re all getting together for lunch, down by the bandstand.”
“Oh, okay.” Mom smiled, her puzzled expression relaxing.
Labor Day was another free-tickets-for-kids day at West View, only this time it was the labour unions handing them out. Again, the three friends took turns collecting extra tickets.
But the fun had gone out of it for Ellie. Each time she rode a ride or won a Kewpie doll she thought, The last time I did this, Jimmy was still alive. Finally, Ellie gave the rest of her tickets to the boys, telling them that she was going to sit with her parents and Toots.
“Yunz kidding?” Jellyneck said. “You’d rather listen to them clowns give speeches than ride the Dips?” Not that he waited for an answer. He and Stan were off with their fistfuls of tickets before Ellie could say boo.
She was sorry as soon as they had left. She found her parents and Toots and curled up on the wash-worn quilt, watching ants invade the picnic basket. It was election year, and it seemed like everyone from the mayor to the dogcatcher made a speech that day.
Ellie was half-asleep when she heard “Let not these brave men have died in vain.” She sat up. The speaker, a red-faced man, was thundering into a screeching microphone and waving his hammy hands. “Let not their memory vanish in the mists of history.”
The words shot through Ellie’s head like lightning. For the first time in weeks, her brain felt clear, and she could think. Her heart thudded, the soft quilt beneath her legs seemed to give way, as if she were shooting down the steepest drop on the Dips. Overhead, the sky swirled hot and blue.
Like the steady tapping of a telegraph, the thought marched letter by letter through Ellie’s head. I’m forgetting Jimmy because I’m afraid to remember. It’s too painful.
There are worse things than dying, Jimmy had said. Like not really living while you are alive.
She closed her eyes and felt the hot breeze on her face. The screams from the Dips, the carousel music, the shouting politician faded away. High above it all, she heard the faint ding-ding of the Number 10, unloading more picnickers, taking home the early leavers.
Flash! And there was Jimmy, lightly leaping from the top step of the Number 10, jacket over one arm, the Sun-Telegraph tucked under the other. “Hi, Movie Star,” he called.
Tears prickled Ellie’s closed lids. This hurts so much. I can’t do this. But if I don’t, it will be as if Jimmy never lived at all.
She took a shaky breath and let the memory come. It had been a summer’s evening at the trolley stop. Just an ordinary evening. Jimmy’s eyes shining like her best blue marbles. The smell of street asphalt, and creosote beading on the telephone poles. Mr. Green sweeping his walk. “You two looking for a cold pop before supper?”
“Maybe later,” Jimmy answered, jingling the coins in his pocket. He squeezed Ellie’s arm, and she knew that at that moment, she was the most important person in Jimmy’s world.
She opened her eyes. The earth felt firm beneath her legs again, the sky steady. And the sore spot on her heart not quite so sore.
Ellie rolled over to look at Mom, listening to the politician, but with that same vague otherworldly look in her eyes. Rising up on her elbows, she started to tell Mom what had happened, but stopped. She’ll have to figure it out for herself. Pop, too. There was something else Ellie needed to do, and now. But not alone.
Toots sprawled on the blanket, arms under her head, hat covering her face. Lifting the brim, Ellie whispered in her ear. Her aunt sat up, smiling. “You got it, kiddo. Let me get my things together, and we’ll go.”
As Toots gathered her belongings, Ellie took one last look at all the things she loved: the Dips, the game stands, the merry-go-round cranking out “My Wild Irish Rose”. She knew it would never be the same to her again. West View was a place where children had no cares.
And she wasn’t a child any more.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
“That does it,” said Toots as Ellie closed the last box.
They stood in the living room, gazing at the now-naked Christmas tree. Home from the picnic, they had set to work, gingerly lifting the glass balls from the brittle branches. Unwinding the garlands. Taking down Jimmy’s tin star from the top.
“Not much left, is there?” said Ellie. Without the decorations, the tree was little more than a pole and twigs, the last needles vacuumed up months ago.
“Nope,” said Toots. “Nature didn’t mean for it to sit in a house for months on end. Don’t just stand there gawking.” She swiped her damp forehead with her wrist. “Let’s haul this thing out to the ash pit.”
“We’re going to burn it?” Ellie’s throat tightened.
Toots hoisted the tree to her shoulder. “You got any better ideas?”
“It seems kind of…well…you know?” It was one thing to take the tree down, but burn it?
“Ellie.” Toots’s usually rough voice sounded soft. “It’s just a tree. Or was. Let’s put the poor thing out of its misery.”
So that’s what they did.
Sprawled on the back stoop, Ellie watched the last sparks from the burn barrel flitter over the alley. The restless feeling she had at the park returned.
The peaceful sounds of late afternoon washed over her. The shrill of cicadas. The faint mumble of a radio. Bikes racing up the street, baseball cards clicking on the spokes. With a steady stream of backfire, an old clunker of a car slowly turned the corner.
A breeze blew light and cool against Ellie’s bare legs. Soon it would be time to put away her shorts. Tomorrow she would be a seventh grader. Had it been only a year sin
ce Jimmy had gone away? It seemed like a million years. It seemed like yesterday.
Ellie waited for the familiar pain. He’s in my heart, she reminded herself. Every day it would hurt less, and she would remember more.
Gradually she became aware of shouting across the alley, at the Gandecks’. Why weren’t they at the picnic? Ellie wondered. Everybody went to the Labor Day picnic.
Crash! Thud! Big noises, like thrown furniture. Screams. Not Mrs. Gandeck or Victoria.
A man. A man screaming.
The Gandecks’ back door banged open, and Victoria came flying out.
Right behind her, Buddy, brandishing a knife. A big, curved knife.
Hot on their heels, Mr. and Mrs. Gandeck, huffing and puffing, never getting close to their son.
Ellie remembered Buddy’s letter. I got enough native knives and daggers to arm the whole sixth grade.
“Run, Victoria!” Mrs. Gandeck shrieked.
Victoria ran, her long legs keeping her just ahead of Buddy. Once around the garage, twice. The third time, she made a break for the alley, but Buddy trapped her by the rubbish barrel. He screamed a long string of gibberish that Ellie couldn’t make out, except for “Jap”. He slashed the air with the knife.
“Oh no,” Ellie breathed. “Run, Victoria.”
But Victoria couldn’t. She crouched in a wrestler’s stance as Buddy feinted this way and that. Back and forth. Side to side, in a shadow dance. They froze, panting, eyes locked.
“Aiee!” Buddy wailed, as if tormented by a thousand demons. He heaved the rusty trash barrel. Victoria dodged, vaulted the fence, and dashed across the alley. Ellie ran to open the gate.
“Here,” she said, drawing Victoria into the yard.
The McKelveys’ back door banged open. Toots stepped out, dishcloth in hand.
“What the hell is going on?” she asked.
“Buddy,” gasped Ellie, waving wildly towards the Gandecks’ yard, where Buddy now had his parents backed against the garage.
Charging through the open gate, Toots sailed over the Gandecks’ fence and took a flying leap onto Buddy’s back, dishcloth still in hand. He wilted in a heap. Toots snatched the knife from the ground while Mr. and Mrs. Gandeck pounced on him, dragging his limp body towards the house.
Ellie led Victoria to the house, as if she were a lost toddler. “Sit,” she said, gently pushing her to the stoop. Victoria’s shoulders heaved, face buried in her hands.
Big bad Victoria Gandeck, crying!
At last Victoria’s sobs came to a hiccupy end.
“Well, go ahead,” she said, swiping the tears with her palms. “Tell the whole school. I have it coming to me, after all the hooey I spread around. My brother the big hero.” Then her defiance vanished, as she sat hunched, hugging her knees.
“Tell them what?” asked Ellie.
“Buddy,” Victoria said in a flat voice. “He’s different. He’s not Buddy any more.”
“But at least he came home,” said Ellie. “I’d give anything to have Jimmy back.”
“That’s what you say.” Victoria sounded like her old self. “What if he was crazy?”
“Crazy?” Buddy didn’t look exactly sane, but crazy?
“Yeah.” Victoria rested her chin on a knee. “Battle fatigue, they call it. Or shell shock. Whatever they call it, it makes people loony. See and hear things that ain’t there. Like Japs and booby traps and people without heads and such.”
“Oh.” Ellie didn’t know what to say.
“Like today. The docs told us not to startle him. No loud noises or nothing. But a car backfired while he was sleeping and he woke up screaming about Japs. Then he saw me, and thought I was a Jap. Dad was supposed to hide all those daggers, but I guess he missed one.”
“Is he like that all the time?” Ellie couldn’t imagine.
“Not all the time.” Victoria sighed. “Sometimes he just sits in the front room, wrapped in his Marine blanket, rocking back and forth. We can talk till we’re blue and he won’t even blink.”
“I’m sorry,” said Ellie, although she wasn’t sure that was the right thing to say. But Victoria went on as if she didn’t hear.
“When he does talk he doesn’t make any sense. Jabbering to men he thinks are there, and of course they ain’t. Talking to ghosts or something.”
“He’s going to get better, isn’t he?” asked Ellie. “I mean, it’s not like he got shot in the head or something.”
Victoria stared across the alley at her house. From inside came loud moans and thumping.
“I don’t know,” she said in a dull voice. “Sometimes I wish he had been shot in the head. You take out the bullet and sew ’em up and they either get better or die. The docs don’t know what to do for Buddy, besides give him calming-down medicine.”
“Well, that’s something,” said Ellie.
Victoria gave a short, ugly laugh. “Yeah, it calms him down all right. He conks out for days. Or he stares into space and staggers around like he’s drunk. We don’t use the medicine except for emergencies. Like today.”
“Why doesn’t he just go back to the hospital?” Ellie asked.
“All they’ll do is give him a bunch of drugs and let him wander around the loony ward. Do you know there are men like Buddy who have been there since the last war?”
Ellie counted quickly in her head. “But that’s twenty-five years, give or take a little!”
“Uh-huh,” said Victoria. “Ma says if Buddy’s gonna be out of his head, he might as well be among people who love him. She thinks he’s gonna get better.”
“What do you think?” asked Ellie.
“I don’t know,” said Victoria in a tiny voice. “I want him to get better.”
“But you still have your other brothers. Frankie and George and…”
“I know,” said Victoria. “But I was special to Buddy. I mean I still am…” Victoria’s voice trailed off.
Ellie touched her shoulder gently. “It’s okay,” she said. “I know what you mean.”
Someone at the Gandecks’ snapped on a radio. Kate Smith singing “God Bless America” drowned out whatever else was going on over there.
“It doesn’t seem fair.” Victoria fiddled with her frayed shoelaces. “Our brothers do what they think is right, and this is what happens.”
“Yeah,” Ellie agreed.
Victoria pounded a fist on her knee. “It ain’t fair. It ain’t. Buddy’s the strongest guy I know. Nothing hurt him. Nothing stopped him. Until the Japs.” She pounded harder. “I thought my brother was stronger and smarter than anyone.”
“Yeah.” Ellie chewed her knuckle. “Jimmy promised he’d be okay. That he’d come home. I mean, if you can’t count on your brother, who can you count on?”
The girls watched Dr. Atkinson’s shiny Lincoln bump down the alley, stopping at Victoria’s driveway. He hustled through the kitchen door, doctor’s bag in hand.
“You know what? Everybody will go on with their lives and forget what Buddy and Jimmy and all the others did. Nobody thanked ’em or anything,” Victoria said.
“I don’t think they did it for the thanks,” said Ellie. “They went because they wanted to. Because they thought it was the right thing to do. Commando Kelly got parades and speeches and a key to the city, and he said all he wanted was to go home.”
“Buddy and Jimmy didn’t even get to come home.” Victoria sighed. “Well, Buddy’s home, but he don’t know it. Not really. And who’s going to remember what they did?”
“We are,” said Ellie.
“So?” Victoria shrugged. “What can we do?”
“Make a start.” Ellie stood, and held out her hand to Victoria. “Come on in the house with me. I have to get something.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
“Nearer, My God, to Thee” pealed from the carillon bells as the girls crossed the schoolyard. Tree shadows stretched across the asphalt, still sticky from the heat.
“It’s like walking on flypaper,” Victoria complained, exa
mining her tar-stained sneaker soles. She squinted up at the school windows. “Do you think anyone is here? School hasn’t started yet.”
“Yeah, but it does tomorrow,” said Ellie. “Look, there’s a light in Miss Deetch’s office. I’ll bet Miss Granberry’s here, too.”
“Well, that’s teachers for you. Don’t they know nobody works on Labor Day?”
The halls smelled of freshly waxed floors and last year’s dust.
“Does the ceiling look lower to you?” Ellie whispered. Talking out loud didn’t seem right, somehow.
“Yeah,” Victoria agreed. “Do you think it shrunk over the summer? We didn’t change that much, did we?”
Through the open office door, the girls spied Miss Deetch at her battleship desk, the lamplight sparkling on her dress lapel. Ellie caught her breath – the rhinestone eagle brooch.
“Hi, Miss Deetch,” Victoria called.
The principal looked up, startled. Then she smiled. “Homesick already?”
Miss Deetch made a joke! Maybe principals were friendlier when you weren’t their problem any more.
“We have something for Miss Granberry,” said Ellie, feeling braver.
“Well, she’s in her room,” said Miss Deetch. “You haven’t forgotten the way already, have you?” Were her eyes twinkling? Or was it just the light reflecting from her spectacles?
“No, ma’am,” said Ellie. Her eyes strayed to the principal’s shoulder. “Miss Deetch, have you heard from your nephew? The one who gave you the eagle?” She held her breath.
Miss Deetch’s face broke into such a wide grin, she looked almost…young.
“How dear of you to ask,” she said. “We did hear from Ronnie. He is in a Japanese POW camp, but he writes that he is well. Time will tell.”
“I’m glad, ma’am,” said Ellie.
“Me, too,” Victoria chimed in.
A shadow passed over the principal’s face. “Eleanor, I was sorry to hear about James. It must be a comfort that he died a hero. I understand there is talk of a Bronze Star.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Someday, she would tell Miss Deetch that it wasn’t the Bronze Star that comforted her.
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