“All right, we’ll give it a try,” Simon finally said. “But the minute there is any talk about union nonsense, he leaves the team. Agreed?”
“Agreed.” Sam nodded.
Rachel sighed and sat back on the bench. It was a fair compromise.
CHAPTER 13
A Special Supper
I hope Annalina likes chicken,” Rachel said, as she turned over a drumstick in the simmering lard.
“I’m sure she will like anything you cook.” Mama glanced over Rachel’s shoulder at the frying chicken.
“I tried to ask her what she likes,” Rachel continued, “but she didn’t understand. The other girls were laughing at me when I was squawking like a chicken.”
Mama chuckled. “It probably was funny.”
“Annalina still did not understand. So I don’t know if she eats chicken. I don’t know anything about what Swedish people eat.”
“What does she bring for her lunch at school?” Mama whacked the ends off a bunch of carrots.
“She usually just brings bread. Sometimes she has a piece of fruit.”
“Then I’m sure she’ll enjoy your biscuits and apple pie.”
The biscuits were already out of the oven and wrapped in a cloth to keep them warm until dinner.
“Annalina’s mother makes the most beautiful bread. It’s not just a loaf or biscuits. She twists the dough into braids, and the crusts look shiny.”
“She probably brushes the top with an egg mixture,” Mama said. “I want her to teach me how to make Swedish bread.” “Why don’t you ask her?”
“I will—as soon as I learn enough Swedish or Annalina learns enough English to translate.”
“That won’t be long,” Mama said, “considering how much time you spend with her working on English.”
“I’ll be so glad when she learns enough English to really talk. On the day after the riot, I tried to ask her if her father was all right. But she didn’t understand. It was so frustrating!”
“I’m sure it was frustrating for Annalina, too,” Mama said. “But at least you found out that it was not Mr. Borg driving that streetcar on Sunday.”
“I was so relieved. He was home safe. It was someone who looked like him.”
Mama glanced at the perfectly formed pie on the counter next to her daughter. Rachel followed her mother’s eye.
“Is it time to put the pie in the oven?” Rachel turned over another piece of chicken. The hot lard sizzled and splattered.
“Yes, put the pie in,” Mama said. “That way it will be fresh and warm at just the right time.”
Rachel opened the oven, which was still warm from the biscuits, and set the apple pie in the middle.
“Don’t forget to watch the time.” Mama tossed the carrots she had chopped into a pot of boiling water. “Linda and Agnes were disappointed that they didn’t get to taste your pie on Easter.”
“Me, too! It was my first pie, and it was perfect, but no one got to take even a bite.”
“I’m sure this one will not go to waste.”
“Mama, are we going to have another family dinner?” Rachel asked. “Can we make up for missing Easter dinner?”
“Agnes has suggested that. We all want to do it.” “Even Uncle Ernest and Uncle Stanley?”
Mama sighed. “Ernest and Stanley have finally found something to agree on. They have different opinions about the strike, but they both think that turning over a streetcar and starting a riot was not necessary.”
“Does that mean they’re ready to be friends again?” “It might be a first step.”
Someone knocked on the front door. “Annalina!” Rachel snatched up a towel and tried to rub the grease off her hands.
By the time Rachel got to the front door, Carrie already had it open. Annalina looked relieved to see Rachel.
“This is my sister, Carrie.” Rachel took Annalina’s hand and pulled her into the living room. Annalina smiled nervously.
“And this is my mother,” Rachel continued.
Annalina nodded her head politely. With one hand, she clutched a small bundle close to her chest.
“Carrie,” Mama said, “run and find Papa and Sam. Tell them our guest is here.”
“Come in and sit down.” Rachel led Annalina to a chair. “Sit.” She demonstrated by sitting in the chair next to Annalina. The Swedish girl sat down, still clutching her bundle. Her faded yellow calico dress hung down over her scuffed brown boots. But her eyes were bright with anticipation.
“I’m going to check on the chicken,” Mama said.
Rachel was tempted to flap her elbows and squawk but decided against it. It was too late to change the menu. Either Annalina would eat chicken or she would not.
Carrie returned with Papa and Sam. Annalina smiled at Sam, whom she recognized.
“This is my papa,” Rachel said.
Papa extended his hand. “I am pleased to meet you.” Annalina put her small white hand in Papa’s big hand. “Nice.” Now she thrust the small bundle toward Rachel. “What is this?” Rachel asked. “Give,” Annalina said. “Give? Is it a gift?” Annalina nodded. “I give.”
Rachel laid the bundle in her lap and began unwrapping it. Annalina’s family was very poor. What kind of gift could she have brought? Rachel gasped in delight when the package lay open in her lap.
“Dolls!” Carrie squealed.
Three small painted wooden dolls lay in Rachel’s lap. They were only a few inches tall, but they were painted with exquisite detail in bright colors and a glossy finish.
“These are beautiful!” Rachel exclaimed. “Look, Mama.” She held up the dolls as her mother came back into the room. “Look what Annalina brought.”
Mama picked up one of the dolls. “Look at that little face! Why, Rachel, it almost looks like you.”
Rachel turned to her friend. “Annalina, where did you get these?”
Annalina did not understand.
“Buy?” Rachel said. “Store?”
Annalina shook her head. “No. No store. I make.”
“You made these?” Somehow the dolls seemed even more beautiful now.
Annalina gestured as if she were holding a carving knife. “Papa.” “Your papa carves the dolls?”
Now Annalina moved her fingers delicately as if she were painting. “Annalina.”
“Your papa carves the dolls, and you paint them?”
Annalina nodded vigorously.
“They are a beautiful gift,” Rachel said. “Thank you.” “I think supper is just about ready,” Mama said. “Great!” Sam said. “I’m famished.”
Rachel showed Annalina the way to the kitchen. When they had all sat down around the table, Annalina bowed her head along with all the Borlands, and Papa gave thanks for the food and for Rachel’s new friend. Mama had put the chicken on a platter, and she started passing it around the table. The boiled carrots followed, along with a bowl of mashed potatoes.
“Where are the biscuits?” Carrie asked.
“We almost forgot.” Rachel popped over to the sideboard and fetched the basket of biscuits.
Carrie took two biscuits and passed the basket to Sam.
Rachel watched Annalina carefully as she took a small portion of everything that was passed. When the platter of chicken came to Annalina, she started giggling.
“What’s so funny?” Rachel asked.
Annalina covered her mouth in embarrassment. But she could not stop giggling. Then she flapped her elbows in the air and squawked.
The whole Borland family burst out laughing.
“Yes,” Rachel said, flapping her elbows, too. “Chicken.”
“I think she understands now.” Mama smiled.
“Chicken,” repeated Rachel.
“Shikeen,” said Annalina.
“Chicken. Do you like chicken?” Rachel asked.
Annalina picked up the chicken leg on her plate and took a big bite. Rachel leaned back in her chair, relieved.
“The chicken is delicious,” Papa said.
He helped himself to a second piece.
“Thank you.” Rachel glanced at Annalina, and they almost started giggling again.
After a while, Mama said, “Don’t forget to check the pie.”
Rachel scooted her chair back and crossed the kitchen to the oven. Peeking in, she said, “I think it’s done.” Protecting her hands with two folded dishtowels, she removed the pie from the hot oven and set it on the sideboard.
“It looks perfect!” The crust had baked to a golden brown. Steam rose through the holes Rachel had pricked in the top of the pie.
Carrie pushed her plate away. “I’m ready for pie.”
Mama inspected Carrie’s plate to see that she had eaten all of her supper. “All right,” Mama said, “but don’t take more pie than you can eat.”
Rachel took a stack of plates down from a shelf and started serving the pie. Mama cleared the dinner plates from the table.
Rachel set a slice of pie in front of her little sister and another in front of her brother. “You two have the privilege of being the first tasters.”
Carrie stuck her fork in the pie and shoveled a piece into her mouth. Sam did the same.
As Rachel brought plates to the table for Annalina and her father, she saw Carrie spitting out her first bite of pie.
“Carrie!” Mama scolded.
“I’m sorry, Mama, but it doesn’t taste like your apple pie.”
“She’s right.” Sam’s face was contorted, and his cheeks puffed out as he tried not to spit out the bite of pie. With a great effort, he forced it down his throat. “This doesn’t taste like anyone’s apple pie.”
Rachel’s heart started pounding. What was wrong with her perfect pie?
Papa gingerly took the tiniest piece of pie on the end of his fork and put it to his lips. Even before he put it in his mouth, he knew what was wrong. He started laughing.
“Rachel, how much sugar did you put in this?” Papa asked.
“One cup, just like the recipe called for.” “And where did you get the sugar from?”
Rachel whirled around to look at the canisters on the counter. Then she groaned. “I used salt!”
“A whole cup of salt!” Sam grimaced and put down his fork.
Rachel snatched away the plate she had just set in front of Annalina. Her friend was confused.
“No good,” Rachel said. “No good.”
“Annalina like pie,” her friend said.
Rachel shook her head hard. “Not this pie. This pie is bad.” She made a sour face. Rachel nudged the platter of chicken toward Annalina. “Have some more chicken.”
Annalina started giggling all over again. Carrie and Sam flapped their arms. Mama and Papa roared. The kitchen full of human chickens almost made Rachel forget about her disastrous pie.
Still laughing, Mama took the plates from Sam and Carrie. “Rachel, you go visit with your friend. Papa can help me clean up tonight.”
In the living room, Rachel pouted for a few minutes. She dropped her first pie in the Easter riot. Now she’d put salt in the next one. Would she ever make a pie that anyone could eat? She pushed her straggling blond hair away from her face and sighed.
Annalina’s hair was neatly tied in tight braids. Rachel’s hung loose around her shoulders, with two floppy bows on top of her head. She touched the end of one of Annalina’s braids.
“This is pretty,” she said.
Annalina reached out and took hold of Rachel’s hair. With skilled fingers, she started braiding.
“Can you braid my hair?” Rachel asked. Annalina’s finger’s kept moving.
“Wait,” Rachel said, “I want you to do all of it.” She pulled a straight-backed chair away from the wall and sat in it. Annalina combed her fingers through Rachel’s hair, making it do exactly what she wanted it to do. After she had made two tight, neat braids, she moved the bows from the top of Rachel’s head to the bottom of the braids. Finally, she stood back, satisfied with her work.
Rachel got up and stood in front of the brass-rimmed looking glass next to the front door. Annalina stood next to her. They smiled at their matching blond braids and blue eyes.
“You two could be sisters!” Sam had come into the room and looked at their reflection in the glass. “Rachel, you really look Swedish!”
Rachel smiled. “I think it would be fun to go to another country. Maybe someday I’ll go to Sweden.”
Annalina stepped away from the mirror and peered out at the darkness beyond the front door. “I go,” she said quietly.
“Already?” Rachel moaned.
“Papa said he would walk Annalina home,” Sam said. “She shouldn’t go by herself now that it’s dark.”
After Papa and Annalina were gone, Mama said, “Your friend is very nice, Rachel. And you’re doing a wonderful job teaching her English. She understands quite a bit.”
“At least now she knows what chicken means! I don’t understand how anyone could not like Annalina.”
CHAPTER 14
Annalina’s Gift
When Rachel went to school the next morning, she still wore her hair in braids. She liked the braids, and she did not mind one bit if she looked Swedish.
“People are going to get you confused with Annalina,” Sam told her.
Rachel simply tossed her braids over her shoulders and said, “I don’t care.”
They got to school early, twenty minutes before the bell would ring. Carrie scampered off to play with girls her own age.
“I’m going to go find some of the boys from the team and let them know Seth is coming to practice tomorrow,” Sam said.
Rachel scanned the school yard for Annalina, but she was not there yet. Shifting her bundle of books to the other shoulder, Rachel started over to the corner of the school yard where Annalina liked to sit. She would wait for her friend there.
Instead, she nearly ran into Mariah Webster.
“Rachel Borland, what have you done to yourself?” Mariah laughed loudly.
“What do you mean?” Rachel responded, even though she knew what Mariah was talking about.
“Your hair! It’s in braids!”
“So? Haven’t you ever seen braids before?”
“Of course I have—just not on you.”
“I never tried them before, but I like them.”
“You look like you just got off the boat from Sweden.”
Mariah had dark hair and dark eyes. No one would ever mistake her for a Swedish immigrant. Like Rachel’s family, the Web-sters had been in America for generations.
“We all have to come from somewhere,” Rachel said.
“Why do you want to be Swedish? What’s wrong with being American?”
“What’s wrong with being Swedish?” Rachel countered.
“Rachel, why are you so crazy lately? I never see you anymore. You always eat lunch with that new girl.”
“Her name is Annalina. And there’s plenty of room on the bench for you to sit with us.”
“Now you’re acting just like her, even fixing your hair the way she does. Are you going to stop speaking English?”
Rachel lifted her chin. “Tack sa mycket.”
“Stop it, Rachel!”
“Mariah, Swedish is just another language. Annalina is just like you and me and all the other girls. She’s smart and funny and works hard. When she learns more English, you’ll find out for yourself.”
Mariah looked doubtful. “We’ve all known each other all our lives. I have enough friends already.”
“But Annalina doesn’t,” Rachel said. “What if your father decided to move your family to Europe and you had to leave all your friends?”
Mariah was not sure what to say. “My father wouldn’t do that,” she muttered.
Rachel saw Annalina come through the gate. “There’s Annalina now. Let’s go talk to her.”
“Um, you go,” Mariah said. “I see Katherine coming in at the other gate, and I need to talk to her.”
Mariah hurried off to Katherine and her familiar
cluster of friends. Shaking her head, Rachel crossed the yard to greet Annalina. At the same moment, they put their elbows in the air and flapped and squawked.
“Chicken good,” Annalina said.
“I’m glad you liked it.”
Annalina smiled. “Pie not good.”
“Shh. Don’t tell anyone about that.”
Behind them, Mariah snickered. Rachel glared at Mariah. Apparently talking to Mariah had done no good at all. Katherine, however, had stopped giggling. Rachel saw her looking at Annalina as if she was really interested in her.
They moved to a bench and put their books down. Rachel reached into the roomy pocket of her skirt and pulled out two of the dolls Annalina had given her the night before. She set them on the bench.
“These are beautiful,” Rachel said. “I couldn’t stand to leave them home.”
Two other girls had joined Mariah and Katherine. Mariah was pointing at Rachel and Annalina.
Rachel had an idea. She held the dolls up in the air. Loudly, she said, “You did such a beautiful job painting these dolls. I hope that you will teach me how to do it.” She turned the dolls in several directions. Their bright colors gleamed in the sunlight.
Annalina was puzzled.
Rachel pointed to Annalina and then herself. “You,” she said slowly, “teach me.” And she held her fingers together as if she were holding a paintbrush. She glanced at the other girls. They were watching.
“Painting the dolls is very difficult,” Rachel said loudly. “You have a special talent. Not everyone could do such beautiful work.”
Rachel knew she was talking too much—and too loudly. Annalina was not understanding. But Mariah and Katherine and the others understood. She had their attention now. In a group, they were slowly walking toward the bench where Annalina and Rachel sat. Rachel watched them out of the side of her eyes while she continued to talk to Annalina. When the four girls were close enough to cast a shadow on Annalina, Rachel turned to speak directly to them.
“Would you like to see my new dolls?” Rachel said to the girls. “Annalina gave them to me. She painted them herself.”
Unsure, the other girls looked at each other. Finally Mariah nodded her head. “Okay. We’ll look at them.”
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