by Amy Hest
Leave it to my mom to put me to work at the library. THE GRAND OPENING IS JUST AROUND THE CORNER, BRUNO. A COUPLE OF HOURS A DAY, IT WON’T KILL YOU, she says. YOU’VE GOT PLENTY OF TIME ON YOUR HANDS. WE NEED YOU, she says.
My jobs over there are not exactly thrilling. I get to mop, then dust, then scrub, then mop some more. I get to lug books — millions of little kid books — and put them on shelves in alphabetical order, since the world might come to an end if they’re not in alphabetical order. Sometimes Julie shows up. WANT SOME HELP, BRUNO? I don’t want help. Not that it stops her from trying to boss me around. WE HAVE TO PUT ALL THE HORSE BOOKS HERE, BRUNO. LINE THEM UP, NICE AND STRAIGHT, AND THE BOOKS ABOUT ABRAHAM LINCOLN GO HERE, WITH BIOGRAPHIES ABOUT FAMOUS PEOPLE. I make a point of doing the opposite of everything she says. It really annoys her. My mom is in charge of the library; she’s the boss, and the Good Ladies have all these secret meetings in her office. The Good Ladies, that’s short for the Good Ladies of Belle Beach Library Committee, and those meetings are about library stuff. You can’t believe the fighting in there. They fight about everything, including the color of the new library cards, where to put the dictionary stand, and rules about pets in the library. One thing they don’t fight about is who cuts the ribbon at the ribbon-cutting ceremony on August 31. They all say, MRS. BEN-ELI CUTS THE RIBBON. When they say it, I feel kind of proud of my mother.
So we’re walking home after working hard at the library and Julie is talking about Eleanor Roosevelt again. Only she keeps calling her Eleanor, like they’re personal friends or something. Julie: EVERY DAY, ELEANOR DOES SOMETHING NICE. SHE’S A VERY NICE PERSON. DID YOU KNOW THAT, BRUNO? Julie: ELEANOR VISITS AMERICAN SERVICEMEN OVERSEAS. EVEN THOUGH THERE ARE BOMBS OVERSEAS, AND SHE GOES TO HOSPITALS TO CHEER UP SICK SOLDIERS. And here comes the showstopper. WE’LL INVITE HER TO THE GRAND OPENING. IT WILL BE A BIG SURPRISE. FOR YOUR MOTHER, BRUNO.
I tell her I’m pretty sure Eleanor has better things to do. But you know Julie, she never lets you talk. And that afternoon we’re back in town again, at the post office mailing an actual invitation to Mrs. Roosevelt. The invitation, by the way, is made mostly by Julie, including a picture that she drew of the library. It’s a pretty good picture. SHE’LL COME, Julie says. COUNT ON IT. She says it about a hundred more times on the long walk home.
A few weeks after that, and three days before the Grand Opening, I’m at the post office mailing something again. This time it’s an actual letter, from me to Mrs. Roosevelt. And no, in case you’re wondering, I don’t tell Julie. Why would I? She isn’t even talking to me by this time. Besides which, it’s none of her business. I don’t even know why I write it, to tell you the truth. I just do.
It’s mostly about Ben. Stuff like my brother’s an enlisted man. I don’t say my parents are way more worried than the usual amount due to no letters from Ben — not one — in five weeks and four days. I put a picture of Ben in the envelope with the letter. It’s an old one — he’s around ten, I guess, but it still looks like Ben. If you see this kid next time you’re visiting the troops, tell him hi from Bruno. Before I seal the envelope, I add a little more: Remember that invitation about the library? You never answered but you’re still invited. August 31, remember? The whole town will be happy if you come. Especially my mom. That’s her birthday by the way, August 31. Best birthday present would be Ben coming home. Second best, meeting Eleanor Roosevelt. The Good Ladies might even put your name on the library. They’ll call it THE ELEANOR ROOSEVELT CHILDREN’S LIBRARY. (This part I completely make up, but I figure it’s worth a shot.) I signed it: Your friend, Bruno Ben-Eli. Even though I’m not exactly friends with Eleanor Roosevelt.
I leave the letter at the post office, cross the street to Ben-Eli’s, make a couple of sandwiches for my dad and me to eat in the stockroom. We eat and talk about baseball and hot-fudge sundaes, and how summer’s nearly over, and Ben. I CAN’T WAIT TO PICK HIM UP AT THE TRAIN STATION, I say, THE DAY HE COMES HOME. My dad sucks in his breath and says, WHAT A DAY THAT WILL BE. Then the little bell rings — ding, ding — and he hurries to the front of the store, calling out, HELLO, MRS. HERMAN! HOW CAN WE HELP YOU TODAY?
The problem with pen pals? They don’t write back. And I’ll tell you this little fact: if someone goes to the trouble of writing you a letter, you’re supposed to write back. It’s called manners. Last spring everyone in my class got a soldier pen pal, and I am an excellent pen pal. SEND WARM GREETINGS FROM THE HOME FRONT AND YOU’RE DOING YOUR PART FOR THE WAR EFFORT! That’s what they told us and that’s what I did. I sent warm greetings. And what do I get back? Nothing. A big fat nothing from Private First Class Joe Berger of Biloxi, Mississippi. Pop says I have to be patient. YOUR PEN PAL IS FAR AWAY FROM HOME, JULIE. LETTERS TAKE A LONG TIME TO CROSS THE SEA. Too bad, manners are manners.
HOLDING A GRUDGE ISN’T NEARLY AS INTERESTING AS WRITING ANOTHER LETTER. That’s another thing Pop says. He says it a lot. Even though I don’t hold a grudge. I’m not that kind of person. And just to prove it, I write another letter, warm greetings from the home front and all that, and it’s a really interesting letter. I sound mature. More like fourteen, maybe sixteen. I find a pretty picture. For Joe. And autograph it: To Joe, With Affection From Your Pen Pal, Julie. Then I go for a swim. Swim first. Take the letter to the post office later.
Well, that was the good part of the story. Now comes the bad part. At approximately 3:00 that same afternoon, the afternoon of August 15 to be precise, Bruno — horrible, horrible Bruno — reads my letter. This is a true fact. I know it’s a true fact because I actually catch him in the act. Now a lot of people would yell and scream if you read their personal letter, but not me. I just stick out my hand as if to say, PUT IT HERE, BUDDY. And he does. He puts the letter in my hand and that’s when my picture slips out of the envelope and that horrible, horrible boy grabs it midair. He stares at the picture. Stares and stares and stares. Then he laughs.
It’s like the end of the world when Bruno laughs at me.
I thought it was a good idea when I did it. When I cut out the picture of the girl in the magazine. And signed my name. Honestly, I thought it was a good idea. So what if it’s not really me. She’s so much prettier than me, and my soldier will think I’m pretty! That’s what I thought when I did it. I thought it was a good idea. But it was more like a disaster.
It’s not fair. Because Julie won’t let me touch her letters. Or read her letters. Or watch when she is writing her letters. NOT EVERYTHING IS YOUR BUSINESS, MARTHA. THIS ISN’T KID STUFF, MARTHA. MY SOLDIER IS AN IMPORTANT AIRMAN IN THE WAR, AND HE’S EXPECTING MY LETTER, MARTHA.
So what, all I did was borrow her dumb old letter. To read on the beach. I didn’t know it was going to blow away! It wasn’t supposed to blow away! But there goes Julie’s letter . . . and you should see me running after Julie’s letter! Which I finally caught and then I saw Bruno on the beach. LOOK WHAT I HAVE, BRUNO. YOU HAVE TO READ IT OUT LOUD, I said. IT’S IMPORTANT. He unfolds the letter . . . and that’s when Julie showed up! Bruno was in big trouble.
The letters stopped coming. Sometimes you got three in one day and other times you waited a whole week, but that summer, the summer we found the baby, the letters from Ben stopped coming. Today, you think, today there’s a letter, for sure. You stand in line at the post office. It’s a really long line, and the door is open but it’s hot, really, really hot, and you wonder if everyone — all your Belle Beach neighbors — are thinking the same thing, today’s the day . . . Days and weeks and nothing from Ben, not a word. And then, finally, it comes. A letter from Ben, and it’s just for me, not my parents and me. The letter that would change our lives forever.
Speaking of letters, what do I care about Julie’s letter to some soldier? I have more important things to think about. Tons of them, but try explaining that to Julie when she’s screaming her head off, saying things like HOW COULD YOU! HOW DARE YOU! I HATE YOU! Technically, of course, it’s all Martha’s fault. She’s the one who had me thinking the wo
rld comes to an end if we don’t read that letter. And by the way, I didn’t even know — not yet — that it was Julie who wrote it. Also by the way, there’s something you should know about Martha. She tells stories. Pretty much all the time, and it’s practically impossible to figure out which of them are real and which ones are made up. She’s got this gravely little whispery voice, so you lean in when she talks, like everything is for your ears only. Julie’s pen pal is a famous airman in the war, he flies planes in the war! True or made up? My pop is friends with President Roosevelt! True or made up? Miss Bancroft is coming for dinner tonight and we’re going to the movies tonight in her jeep! True or made up?
I remember telling my mom, way back at the beginning of summer, YOU MIGHT BE INTERESTED TO KNOW THERE’S NO SIGN OF A MOM OVER THERE, AT THE COTTAGE NEXT DOOR. But she already knew about next door and told me the girls’ mother had died a few years back. When she said it, her left eyebrow shot up. Mom’s Warning Look, that’s what you call that eyebrow thing, and this time she was warning me, Be nice to those girls, Bruno. You better be nice to those girls.
And I am. I’m very nice. So when Martha said we had to read some important letter, something to do with some soldier, my first thought was, Okay, fine, let’s read the letter. My second thought was, Hey, maybe this guy knows Ben! Then all of a sudden Julie is there, grabbing the letter out of my hands, acting like I’ve committed a murder. I can’t really tell you what she’s saying, only that it’s loud. And that picture? It doesn’t take a genius to figure out it’s not a picture of Julie, even though she’s gone ahead and written her name on it, and the question is why. Why would she do something like that? One more reason I’ll never understand girls.
I’m no thief. Obviously. But once, when I was six years old, I did kind of steal something. A tiny silver bracelet, I stole it right out of Pop’s dresser drawer and put it in my own dresser drawer, with some rolled-up socks. I knew exactly what it was (my mother’s baby bracelet), and I knew exactly what I was doing, and I never told anyone. Not even Pop. Years and years went by and I still never told. I love the secret of holding it whenever I want. And touching the seven letters that spell her name. I take it to school sometimes, and nobody knows. I brought it to Belle Beach, and nobody knew. On the morning of the library party, I tucked it in my pocket and nobody knew. I was all dressed up in a dress, not shorts. And by the end of the morning, the bracelet wasn’t a secret anymore.
ELEANOR. WE’LL BE NAMING YOU ELEANOR. That’s what I told the baby whenever we stopped to rest on the beach. Mostly we rested for Martha. I’M TIRED, JULIE. . . . MY LEGS HURT, JULIE. . . . I WANT POP, JULIE. LET’S BRING THE BABY TO POP. That basket weighed a ton, by the way. A baby plus a bag full of baby things, such as diapers, pajamas, two bottles of milk, the pink sundress — it all adds up to heavy. So I stopped whenever Martha needed to stop, put down the basket, and talked to my little Eleanor. We loved each other very much. One time when we stopped, I put my mother’s bracelet on her wrist, and wouldn’t you know, it fit her tiny wrist. It was perfect.
Then we saw George on the beach. And the car.
Bossy Julie got to carry the baby and she wouldn’t let me carry the baby even for one little minute on the beach. YOU HAVE A VERY IMPORTANT JOB, MARTHA. YOU HAVE TO BE OUR LOOKOUT, LIKE A REALLY GOOD SPY. YOU HAVE TO MAKE SURE WE AREN’T BEING FOLLOWED. You want to know what I saw? Because I’ll tell if you want. I saw Bruno on the beach and didn’t tell Miss Bossy. And that girl. I saw her, too. And she was following Bruno! I am a good spy.
Usually I don’t have too many secrets. But that day, the day we found the baby, I was all jammed up with them. Because of Ben’s letter. The one my parents didn’t know about. To tell you the truth, I got all kinds of sidetracked due to finding the baby, and somewhere along the way just totally forgot about Ben and the news in that top-secret letter. Tess and I got married. That’s what he wrote. Pretty big news, right? We got married in New York, the Sunday before I shipped out, and don’t tell Mom and Dad. Whatever you do, Bruno, don’t tell anyone, not yet. There was more. I haven’t gotten a letter from Tess in a really long time. I’m worried. Really worried and don’t ask why. You’ll know why soon enough but you have to find her right away (her boardinghouse is at 241 East 39th Street in the city). Find Tess and bring her home with you. Bring her to Belle Beach. Mom and Dad will understand, you’ll see. I’m counting on you, Bruno.
That’s a lot of secrets in just one day.
May I offer you a piece of this fine cake, Mrs. Roosevelt? I baked it myself. It’s your favorite. May I show you around the new children’s library, Mrs. Roosevelt? I had actually practiced saying those words. All of them. Many times. But by the time we were halfway to town that morning, I was totally convinced I’d done all that baking for nothing. Convinced she had never gotten my beautiful invitation. Convinced she had better things to do. Bruno was right. Bruno. The most maddening boy on earth. I hadn’t said a word to him in sixteen days, and why would I? He read my personal letter. And laughed at me. What could be worse than that? Nothing. That’s what. Well, I took care of that picture, all right, and the letter. Tore them into a thousand pieces, that’s what I did, and threw them in the ocean, goodbye. Which proves I’m a terrible pen pal after all.
The closer we got to town, the madder I got. Things kept popping into my head, and every single one of them made me mad. Including the fact that summer was nearly over. Just a few more days and we’d be going home. Did I want to go home? No. Not yet. I love my home and I love New York, but I wanted to stay here some more. Here in Belle Beach. WHY NOT? I said that to Pop. I said it a few times that week. The week before we found the baby. WHY CAN’T WE JUST LIVE IN BELLE BEACH FOR A WHILE? MARTHA AND I CAN GO TO SCHOOL HERE, I said. THINK OF THE FRESH AIR! BEACH AIR, I said, IT’S GOOD FOR CHILDREN. AND YOU COULD WRITE ANOTHER BOOK HERE! IN THE FRESH AIR! Pop pretended to listen to my good ideas. YOU’RE RIGHT ABOUT ALL OF IT, he said. BUT I’M AFRAID IT’S NOT PRACTICAL, JULIE. MAYBE WE’LL COME BACK NEXT SUMMER, he said. And then, completely out of nowhere, the subject was, of all things, Miss Bancroft. SHE COMES TO THE CITY NOW AND THEN, AND MIGHT STOP BY TO SEE US SOMETIME. WHEN SHE’S IN THE CITY, he said. WELL, SHE CAN’T BE MY MOTHER IF THAT’S WHAT YOU’RE THINKING, I said, FORGET ABOUT THAT!
We were nearly there. Nearly at the library, and I didn’t see anyone else on Main Street. Just me and Martha, and she was holding my hand. Martha loves to hold my hand. Hers is so little and warm. It’s always warm, even in winter. I TOLD MRS. BEN-ELI TO GET READY FOR A BIG SURPRISE AND NOW THERE IS NO SURPRISE, NO ELEANOR ROOSEVELT. That’s what I told Martha and I heard myself sigh. Martha patted my hand. DON’T WORRY, JULIE. SHE’LL BE HERE.
It was just after she said, DON’T WORRY, JULIE, SHE’LL BE HERE, that I saw the basket. And the baby inside.
Mrs. Ben-Eli said I would get my own library card! Right after the ribbon-cutting ceremony! I couldn’t wait to have my own library card! You’re allowed to borrow eight books at a time at the new children’s library! POP, I said, YOU HAVE TO HELP ME FIND EIGHT BOOKS. THEY ALL START “ONCE UPON A TIME.” AND THEY ALL END “AND THEY ALL LIVED HAPPILY EVER AFTER.”
That morning, the morning we found the baby, my mother was inside the library, putting the finishing touches on everything for the Grand Opening, making sure everything was perfect. My father was across the street at Ben-Eli’s, setting up for the day. He made a sign to stick on the door. BEN-ELI’S CLOSED TODAY FROM 11 TO 2 FOR TOWN EVENT AT THE NEW CHILDREN’S LIBRARY! COME TO THE LIBRARY! SUPPORT YOUR TOWN! IT’S PATRIOTIC! I was supposed to be getting to the library at nine, to help out. That had been the plan. My mother’s plan. But then Ben’s letter came and I had to choose between my mother’s plan (library) and Ben’s (take the train to New York). Ben’s plan was the winner. Only I never did make that 9:15 to the city.
I knew it the second I saw her. That second, I knew I was standing just a few feet away from Eleanor Roosevelt. Honestly, she was wearing these awful brown shoe
s. You know the kind, sturdy city shoes, and her feet were sinking. I swear they were sinking in the sand! Normally you would tell a person barefoot is best on the beach! Just take off your shoes! But of course you would never say such a thing to Eleanor Roosevelt. Unless you are Martha. Not only did she say it, she knew exactly who she was talking to, like this: YOU SHOULD TAKE OFF YOUR SHOES, MRS. ROOSEVELT! THE SAND FEELS NICE. AND TICKLY IN YOUR TOES! Mrs. Roosevelt smiled at Martha. (Remember? Grown-ups always love Martha.) FRANKLY, she said, I’M NOT IN THE HABIT OF TAKING OFF MY SHOES IN PUBLIC. She’s here! I kept saying it to myself. She’s here! She’s here! She’s here! Martha was telling her everyone’s name: I’M MARTHA . . . THAT ONE IS JULIE . . . But inside my head: She’s here! She’s here! Over and over again. Until I heard Martha say, NANCY. THIS IS OUR BABY SISTER, NANCY. At that point the only thing in my head was this: My little sister is lying to Eleanor Roosevelt.
We had a picnic with Mrs. Roosevelt! Bread and cheese and big purple plums! I hate cheese, so I took one purple plum and said, THANK YOU, MRS. ROOSEVELT. Julie took one purple plum. Bruno took a lot of bread and cheese and two purple plums. We found milk in the basket that came with the baby, and guess who fed the baby? Mrs. Roosevelt! She looked at Nancy’s little bracelet, and said, OH, WHAT A LOVELY BRACELET . . . FANCY THAT, IT’S EVEN ENGRAVED. George and I, we were wishing Mrs. Roosevelt could be our grandma.