by Avi
“I got a great idea,” I said to him right away.
“It was my idea,” my sister piped in.
I knew she was going to be a nuisance. So I just ignored her and told Denny that we were going to give the petition right to Mrs. Wolch.
“Mrs. Wolch?” Denny said. “That the lady whose house you went into?”
“Right. See, if a whole bunch of us gave her the petition, she’d see we meant it. And she’s Lomister’s boss. So she could un-fire Miss Gossim. There must be at least ten kids from our class on line.”
Denny looked at me with those big behind-the-glasses eyes and said, “Neat-o. When we going to do it?”
“After the show.”
Then my sister said, “It really was my idea.”
Denny said, “And Santa Claus joined the navy.”
“It’s true!” my sister cried.
Denny looked at me.
“It was,” I admitted. “I got the petition here.” I patted my pocket.
But before we could do anything else, the doors to the movie theater opened up. There was a whoop and holler from the kids, and the line surged forward like bobby-soxers at the Paramount.
35
THAT VICTORY THEATER was big. Even so, every Saturday morning it was stuffed with kids. They were all over the place, talking, yelling, shouting, running up and down the aisles, throwing stuff—paper airplanes, candy wrappers, popcorn, spitballs—across the theater and down from the balcony, where older kids went to neck. That morning, with so many people wet from rain, it was pretty stinko too.
There was one old lady in charge. The matron, we called her. She wore a white coat like an evil doctor in a bad movie. She kept rushing around, yelling at kids, promising to kick us out if were bad. Didn’t make no difference. No one stopped doing nothing. But no one got kicked out neither. Every week, same thing.
Being at the back of the line, by the time we got in the only seats we could find were in the first row. Right up front. Soon as we sat down, Denny stood up, his back to the screen. “I have to find the others,” he said.
Except right about then the lights went down. That brought this huge cheer from the crowd. But Denny kept standing, facing the audience. “Down in front! Down in front!” kids screamed at him. He didn’t budge.
The show started the way it always did—six cartoons, one after the other. Bugs Bunny. Donald Duck. Elmer Fudd. Tom and Jerry. Mickey Mouse. And my favorite, Mighty Mouse. The cartoons were mostly animals chasing animals, bopping each other on their heads. And at the same time all this loud, jazzy music going Boop! Plunk! Tweet! Bang! A regular riot. Sitting in the first row, it was like taking a bath in color and music.
Behind us kids were yelling and screaming with each film. Don’t matter what it was. Or what was happening. A barrage of noise. Kids would even make paper wads and throw them up into the movie light so they glowed. You know, inside shooting stars.
Oh, sure, the matron tried to keep things quiet. But no one paid any attention to her.
I don’t think Denny watched one cartoon. He kept searching the audience. Every time he spotted some kid from our class, he went to them.
“Excuse me, excuse me,” he’d say as he pushed his way along the rows to shouts of “Down in front! Down in front!”
When he reached one of the kids from our class, he’d say, “You gotta meet us after the show out front. It’s about Miss Gossim. We found a way to help her.”
The audience didn’t calm down until the March of Time newsreel. Then everybody got super still. Even Denny sat and watched. See, it was all about the war. Tons of moving pictures of men marching, tanks shooting, bombs dropping down from bomb bays, ships plowing through heavy seas, Germans and Japanese (hands over heads) surrendering, WACs smiling, women building ships, women pilots of the Ferry Command.
It all came with this huge voice saying how brave and determined the Free World Allies were, that it was only a matter of time before our troops would be marching home and real peace and democracy would come to the whole world. “Time,” the voice cried out at the end, “marches on!”
I’m telling you, it was really thrilling. We cheered at the end of it. And meant it too. Hey, they were our dads, moms, uncles, brothers, sisters, aunts, and cousins—our family.
After the news came the western, which brought more cheers from the audience. Finally, after the western they showed a serial chapter. My favorite part of the whole show. Chapter Seven of Junior G-Men of the Air.
It began with last week’s ending: Lionel Croft—supposed to be sixteen years old—was flying into a Nazi ambush behind the clouds in his special biplane when his motor conked out. Except that morning they added this bit where Lionel—at the last moment—saw he was in a trap. So, natch, he leaped out of his plane and parachuted to safety. But, double natch, the Nazis go after him. Didn’t matter. He got away, though it wasn’t easy. In fact, triple natch, he was speeding away in his sporty runabout—top down—to save his girlfriend—Betty—when the wooden bridge he was on—booby-trapped by spies—exploded. Which was, quadruple natch, the end of the chapter. You didn’t know if Lionel Croft was alive or not. I mean, this time it looked really bad.
But that’s when the lights went on. Everybody cheered and swarmed out. If you moved fast, the theater gave you a peppermint patty when you went out to the street, where the rest of the world was still going on.
36
“STAY RIGHT HERE,” Denny said to me and Gloria when we got outside. “I’ll get the other kids.”
In all the excitement with the movies—almost four hours’ worth—I forgot we were going to Mrs. Wolch with the petition.
Denny got five kids from our class. There was Billy Wiggins, Susan Pollador, Albert Porter, Gladys Halflinger, and Toby Robinson. So with me, Denny, and my kid sister, that was eight. A few more wanted to come but couldn’t.
We met on the corner of Clark and Henry streets. It had stopped raining.
To begin, Denny said, “Remember the petition we were going to give to Lomister for Miss Gossim?”
“About Miss Gossim and her baby?” Susan Pollador asked.
“Yeah.”
“And being fired?” Toby Robinson said.
“Well,” Denny explained, “Miss Gossim didn’t want us to give it to Dr. Lomister. Okay, fine. Howie here came up with the idea of giving it to Lomister’s boss.”
“Who’s she?” Albert Porter suddenly said, pointing at Gloria.
“My sister.”
“This whole idea was mine,” Gloria said.
“The thing is,” I told my classmates, “the lady we have to talk to, her name is Mrs. Wolch. She’s sort of like the president of all the schools in Brooklyn. Over Lomister too. So she can do whatever she wants. If we give the petition to her, she can make sure Miss Gossim stays.” I held the petition up as a reminder.
“And we know where she lives,” Denny put in.
“Where?”
“Right over on Hicks Street.”
“Come on!”
All eight of us took off down the block, running hard. I was up front. As I was going, I stuffed the petition into my back pocket.
37
WE GOT TO Mrs. Wolch’s brownstone house in nothing flat. Standing on the sidewalk, we just looked at the place. The house looked pretty big. No one said nothing.
Then Gladys Halflinger whispered, “This lady we’re going to, she live in the whole house?”
“Just the top floor, I think,” I told her.
“You sure she’s even gonna be there?” Billy Wiggins wanted to know.
It was Albert Porter, after a minute, who said, “How about ringing the bell?”
Denny said, “I think Howie has a better idea.”
Everybody looked at me.
I said, “The dumbwaiter. It’ll take us right to her door.”
“The dumbwaiter!” Billy Wiggins said. “You crazy or something?”
“Did it before.”
“Yeah? When?”
“You really did that?” Susan Pollador asked me.
“Yeah.”
“You never told me that,” my sister said.
“Snaky,” Toby Robinson said, giving me a look like I was half-crazy, half-Superman.
I had been checking where the steel door and the coal chute were. The door was closed, but like before, no lock, which meant it could be opened.
“See,” I said. “You go down the coal chute, then get right to her floor. She wouldn’t even see us till we got there.”
“Which means,” Denny added, “she won’t be able to tell us to leave before we present the petition.”
“No way,” Susan Pollador said, backing away. “I’m not supposed to go into other people’s house. Not when I don’t know them. Not down no coal chute.”
“You’re not supposed to either,” my sister said to me.
So that’s when I said, “Look, we going to help Miss Gossim, or what?” Without waiting for an answer, I went over the low fence and pulled up the steel door that covered the coal chute. “Come on! Now or never.”
“Howie,” my sister called, “Mom’s not going to like you doing this.”
“Go suck a lemon,” I told her.
“Let’s get moving,” Denny said. He was holding up the steel door.
Susan Pollador went home. The rest stayed. So we were seven now, if you included my sister, which I didn’t want to, but there wasn’t no choice. Fact, she was the first to sit on the chute edge and push off. She slipped right down into the basement, nothing flat.
Then—one after the other—Billy Wiggins, Albert Porter, Gladys Halflinger, Toby Robinson, and me went down. Last to come was Denny.
38
SO THERE WE were, in the basement of Mrs. Wolch’s house. Like before, it was pretty dim. But with the steel door open, we could see a lot better than when I was there before.
“Spooky down here,” Albert Porter said, looking around.
“Filthy,” Gloria said.
“You really did this before?” Billy Wiggins asked me.
“Yeah,” I said. “Here’s the dumbwaiter I went up in.” I pulled the door open. They looked at it.
“Pretty small,” Albert Porter said.
“We’ll go one at a time,” Denny suggested.
“Ain’t there any steps?” Toby Robinson said.
“Back there,” I said. “Only it’s locked.”
“What are you, some kind of snitch thief or something?” my sister said to me.
“Shut up!”
“Who’s going first?” Toby Robinson asked.
I said, “Hey, I’ll go. I know the way. If everybody pulls the ropes, it should go pretty fast.”
“I’ll go last,” Denny said.
I crawled into the box, pulled in my hands and knees. Next thing, Gladys Halfinger and Billy Wiggins grabbed hold of the ropes and started pulling.
Compared to when I did it before with just myself, I went up like a Flash Gordon rocket. Only since they didn’t know how far to go, I smashed into the top with this big noise.
I opened the door slowly and poked my head into the hall. It was pretty much the way it was first time I was there. Deserted.
I jumped out, called into the shaft, “Lower away!”
The dumbwaiter creaked down. I stayed where I was, my eyes fixed on the door to Mrs. Wolch’s apartment, wishing the rest of them would get up fast.
They came one at a time. For Albert Porter, being big, it was a tight fit. But he made it too.
“Okay, Howie, now where?” Denny whispered when he climbed out of the dumbwaiter.
“This way,” I said, and headed toward Mrs. Wolch’s door. We just stood there, too nervous to do anything. I was cracking my knuckles.
“Howie,” my sister said, “use your knuckles on the door.”
I gave her a dirty look, but all the same I reached up and rapped the door.
Which was just about the time that Denny said, “Hey, Howie, the petition. Better have it ready.”
I reached into my pocket. It wasn’t there.
39
HEART POUNDING, I searched my pockets like I was digging for gold. But see, the petition was gone. It must have fallen out when we were running down the street.
And natch, next second the door opened and a lady was standing there who I just knew had to be Mrs. Wolch.
I had never seen her before—I had been out in the hallway when she was talking, right?—so I didn’t know what to expect. She wasn’t very tall, and she was thin, with curly hair on the top of her head. Her eyeglasses were pushed up to her forehead. Her face was what you might call narrow, with this long nose. Actually she sort of looked like a poodle.
For a moment she just stood there, blinking at us. “Yes?” she finally said.
Denny, in his high voice, said, “You Mrs. Wolch?”
“Yes. Is this a scrap collection?”
Gloria, in a very loud voice, said, “My brother Howie has something important to tell you.”
Everyone looked at me.
So did Mrs. Wolch. “Yes?” she said.
I heard myself saying, “We’re . . . from P.S. 8.”
“Yes?” Mrs Wolch said again as if it was the only word she knew.
What with my heavy breathing and all, I was finding it hard to say anything. But I finally said, “And . . . and . . . we need to talk to you about Miss Gossim.”
“Miss Gossim?” Mrs. Wolch said. She was like an echo machine.
“Five-B,” Billy Wiggins explained.
“On the second floor,” Toby Robinson put in.
“I’m afraid I don’t understand any of this,” Mrs. Wolch said.
“It’s Miss Gossim,” I almost yelled with frustration. “She’s getting fired. And you said Dr. Lomister could do it.”
Mrs. Wolch’s eyes got some light. “Ah!” she said. “I think I understand now. You’re here to talk about the teacher who has been let go. The Robert Fulton School. Where Dr. Lomister is the principal.”
“That’s it,” Gladys Halflinger said.
“So now you’ve all come to tell me something.”
“It was my idea,” my sister said.
Mrs. Wolch gave us another puzzled look. “But how did you all get here? I didn’t hear my doorbell ring.”
“We took the dumbwaiter,” Gloria announced.
Denny said, “It’s like a field trip.”
“But—”
I couldn’t stand it anymore. I suddenly burst out, saying, “Mrs. Wolch, we need to talk to you about Miss Gossim.”
“Well, please, do so.”
“See, she’s being fired only because she’s going to have a baby,” I said.
“A baby?”
“Right. I mean, don’t most people have to be born sometime in their life? And it’s supposed to be majority rules. Look at the whole world war. All these people dying. And all she’s doing is making one. You know, a replacement. And if you read the headlines, we need replacements. So we don’t see why she has to be punished for that. And she needs her job. And her husband—his name is Smitty—is in the air force. Fighting in the war. With a P-38. And, anyway, it’s not her fault she don’t know where he is. It’s the censors. Loose lips sink ships. Besides, she’s the best teacher. So the thing is, it’s not fair, and what’s the whole war for anyway? And also, we had a petition which the whole class signed. Only I lost it. The whole thing is, we don’t want her fired.”
Mrs. Wolch, not saying anything at first, just stared at us. Then she said, “You had best come inside and we can talk about this.”
40
WE WALKED INTO the apartment. It was like nothing I’d ever seen before. I mean big. Which for me meant the lady was well-heeled.
The place had a high ceiling, with a rug and a marble fireplace, plus curtains. All the furniture I saw was dark wood. Not one crack in any wall I saw. But the one thing I saw, more than anything else, is that she had a star flag hanging on her
wall.
Anyway, like I told you, we went in, and she got us to sit down—some on the rug—and we started telling her all about what a great teacher Miss Gossim was. A whole lot of that stuff. She asked us some questions too. Was Miss Gossim a nice person? How did she teach? What did we like about her? You can guess. We gave her tons of answers.
Then after a while, this Mrs. Wolch said, “I want to thank you for coming. I will surely think about what you’ve told me.”
“Can Miss Gossim stay?” I asked.
“We shall have to see,” Mrs. Wolch said. “There are rules. And regulations.”
“Mrs. Wolch,” my sister suddenly blurted out, “don’t you know there’s a war on?”
“I think I do,” she said quietly. “I had a son. He was in the Philippines. Now, when you leave, please take the stairway. Not the dumbwaiter.”
I looked toward her star flag on her wall. That’s when I took in that it was a gold one. Her son had been killed.
41
A FEW MINUTES later we were all standing in front of Mrs. Wolch’s house. No one said anything. I was feeling kind of empty. See, we did this big thing, and then . . . nothing.
“Think she’ll let Miss Gossim stay?” I asked nobody in particular.
“Guess we’ll have to just wait and see,” Gladys Halflinger said. “We tried.”
Denny agreed. “Better than not trying,” he said.
As Gloria and I walked home, she said to me, “You going to tell Mom?”
“If you want to, you can,” I said.
I’m pretty sure she didn’t. Least my mom never said anything to me.
Only thing I know is, that night I had the worst dreams of my whole entire life. It wasn’t just pieces of my pop floating around, but some of Miss Gossim’s body parts too.
I must have cried out.
“Howie,” my sister said. “What’s the matter?”
“Had a nightmare.”
“Think of cake.”
“What kind of cake?”