Cold War on Maplewood Street (11 page)

Joanna stared. “I can't imagine you afraid of
anything.
”

Mom gave a soft laugh. “I'm scared lots of times. I've just learned not to show it. But back then—well, I hadn't learned much of anything yet. For days I just sat around crying and waiting for him to come back. I wouldn't believe he was really gone. Until finally I had to. You and Sam were depending on me. So I went out and got my first job. Remember Mother Goose Nursery School?”

“Are you kidding? I loved that place.” Joanna grinned. “They had the greatest toys.”

Mom grinned, but then she cupped Joanna's chin in her hand and looked right into her eyes with a suddenly serious expression. “The point is, I did what I had to do. I didn't let my fear hold me back. Just like you didn't when you helped Harvey and Mrs. Strenge.”

Joanna chewed her lower lip. She understood what Mom was saying, but still . . . she didn't feel one bit braver than she had before.

She watched her mother stack plates and gather up silverware. As she turned to take the dirty dishes to the sink, Joanna suddenly blurted, “I just wish you weren't going to night school.”

Mom stopped mid-turn. “It's not forever, Joanna. By January I'll have my diploma and I can get a job that will pay enough to get us out of this basement and into the sunlight. You'd like that, wouldn't you?”

“You mean it? We might move?” Joanna was excited and scared at the same time. It would be great to live in a nicer place, but she didn't want to leave Pamela or change schools. “Where would we go?”

“The Camerons are talking about buying a house next spring. If they do, we might be able to rent their apartment.”

Right next door! “That would be perfect—there's even a backyard for Dixie.”

It was all they talked about while they cleaned up the kitchen. The Camerons' apartment had a sunroom like the Watermans'. Mom said it could be Sam's room when he came home on leaves. She said it as if there wasn't the tiniest doubt in her mind that Sam would come home safely.

Joanna knew better since she'd found Mom asleep with Sam's photo in her arms. Mom was just as worried about Sam as Joanna was. But staying positive and hopeful—even just pretending to—was much better than giving in to fear.

Frannie had said that Joanna was brave to leave school when she thought they were being attacked, and Pamela had been impressed that Joanna had gone into Mrs. Strenge's apartment. Maybe from the outside everyone
looked braver than they really were. Maybe on the inside everyone was sometimes afraid, but they learned—like Mom—to do what they had to anyway. And if that was true, maybe Joanna was braver than she thought.

Grandma called just as they finished cleaning up the kitchen. While Mom talked to her, Joanna sprawled on the couch and watched the tail end of the news on TV. There was a report about how countries were taking sides in the missile crisis. France, Germany, Britain, and a bunch more supported the United States. But a lot of others were behind the Soviet Union—China of course, but other countries, too—even Canada!

“Protests are going on all around the world,” said the reporter, “and often the protests turn into riots . . .” Joanna cringed watching film footage of a riot outside an American embassy. People were swinging fists and sticks at one another. But the next story was the one that really put her new maybe-bravery to the test.

“The destroyers
Kennedy
and
Pierce
”—Sam's ship!—“teamed up today to halt and search the
Marucla,
a Russian-chartered freighter.

“A boarding party was aboard the
Marucla
for more than two hours,” the newscaster continued, “but there were no incidents and no Russian weapons were found. This may not be the case tomorrow, however, when the Russian freighter
Poltava
is due to arrive in Cuban waters. Military sources say the nearly ten-thousand-ton freighter
could very well be carrying nuclear missiles and is almost certainly armed . . .”

Ten thousand tons! It must be
huge.
How big was the
Pierce
? What if this
Poltava
ship was like the Superman of ships—and US guns couldn't even make a dent in it? What would happen to the
Pierce
and Sam then? Joanna's whole body shook. She remembered her nightmare. She saw the side of the ship splitting open and the men disappearing under the dark waves.

No! She wouldn't imagine anything so terrible happening to Sam. That had been a dream. In real life Sam would be fine. He had to be.

She opened her mouth to call to Mom that the
Pierce
was part of the quarantine, but she closed it before one word was out. Mom was already worried about Sam. Why add to her fears?

Joanna looked at Sam's picture. She hadn't liked it because Sam didn't look like
her
Sam. But the navy's Sam looked stern and strong, like someone who could survive a battle. Like someone who could protect his country. She inhaled sharply. Was that what he'd meant when he said he joined the navy for her and Mom, too? Was it a way to help keep them safe? In her heart, she felt she truly understood Sam's decision at last. “Just please, please don't get hurt,” she whispered to the photo.

“Dix, let's go for a walk,” she called. She needed to keep busy or she'd go crazy imagining the worst.

Dixie came running across the faded linoleum so fast, her paws slid out from under her and she landed on her belly, but she quickly scrambled to her feet and ran the rest of the way to the door. Joanna grinned as she snapped on the leash. “Silly dog.”

Outside, with Dixie at her side, Joanna walked slowly, looking up at the stars and crescent moon, wondering again if maybe Sam was looking at them, too. On her way back to the house, she saw the curtains in Mrs. Strenge's front window flutter. She waved and the curtains parted. Mrs. Strenge waved back.

So many things had happened that day. Joanna's head was a jumble of images and thoughts. After she hung up her jacket, instead of picking up her library book or turning the television on, she slipped off her shoes and curled up on the couch. Using her notebook as a desk, she began to write:

Friday, October 26

Dear Sam,

This has been an amazing day for you and for me. For you because the
Pierce
stopped the
Marucla
. I heard it on the news. That had to be so scary! I'm glad there wasn't any trouble. It was a scary day for me, too, because there was another air-raid drill at school, but I thought it was real. I ran home so I could be with Dixie. But when I got home I had to help our first-floor
neighbor who I thought was a Russian spy or a kidnapper or something else scary and bad but who turned out to just be a nice old lady. Anyway, when I got back to school I could have been in a lot of trouble, but my teacher was nice and didn't report me. He just made me promise to tell Mom. So I did, and we talked and I really do feel better now.

A shadow fell over the paper and Joanna looked up. She'd been so intent on her letter that she hadn't heard her mother come into the room. Mom sat down beside Joanna on the couch and made a big deal of clearing her throat, like people do when they have some important announcement to make. Joanna looked at her expectantly. What was up?

Mom didn't keep her in suspense. “If you still want to, you have my permission to go to Sherry's party.”

Want
to! “Yes, oh yes, I want to!” Joanna threw her arms around Mom's neck. She couldn't believe it. Just when she'd given up all hope. “What made you change your mind?”

Mom stroked Joanna's hair. “I thought about all the growing up you've had to do since Sam left. And, well, I still don't approve of boy-girl parties at night at your age, but just this once, I think you deserve a special treat.”

“Thank you, Mom! Thank you!”—
smack
—“Thank
you!”—
smack
—“Thank you!” Joanna kissed Mom's cheek loudly between each thank-you.

“My goodness, I've never seen you so excited about a party before,” Mom said, shaking her head.

“Oh, it's not about the party. Not really. It's about a horse,” Joanna replied. She couldn't sit still. She was too excited. She sprang up from the couch to do a happy twirl.

“A horse,” Mom repeated in confusion as she got up from the couch. “Of course.” She left the room still shaking her head.

When she was out of earshot, Joanna added softly, “And a boy.”

She went to her room to look through her closet and decide what to wear to the party, but first she turned on her radio. She was pleased to hear music instead of news. And she was amazed by the song that was playing. Why, it was as if even the universe had heard that she was going to the party after all. The song on the radio was “Sherry”! How amazing was that?

A little while later, her favorite skirt and blouse hanging front and center in her closet, Joanna blew a kiss to Sam's photo, turned off her lamp, and snuggled into her pillow.

Such a strange day! But it had ended happily, and that was the main thing. Now, if only the Russians would take their missiles and go home.

Shocking News

JOANNA SNAPPED ON HER RADIO FIRST THING THE NEXT
morning to see if there was more information about the giant Russian ship. There was talk of more riots around the world and Joanna couldn't help shivering. It was as if the whole world was going crazy. Then the newscaster's voice lost some of its gloom-and-doom tone.

“Closer to home, the suburb of Des Plaines had an exciting evening last night when many of its citizens believed an air-raid alert was the real thing. Panic broke out and the police department was besieged with hundreds of calls from terrified citizens who thought our country was under attack. Advance phone calls had been made, advising people of the alert and asking them to notify neighbors and friends, but apparently the warning was
not communicated as effectively as civil defense workers had anticipated.”

Ha! No kidding. Joanna grinned but she felt sorry for those people. She knew how terrified they must have been. But she felt a lot better knowing that an entire town had made the same mistake she had made. And they were grown-ups!

“. . . The weather today will be mostly cloudy with—”

She spun the dial and found another station that was reporting the news, but it didn't say anything about the
Pierce
or the
Poltava
, either. Well, maybe no news was a good thing. That's what she was going to think, anyway. Unless and until she heard otherwise.

She turned the dial again and caught the last half of “Do You Love Me?” It was the number one song of the week and one of her favorites. She danced and sang as she plucked a sweater and pants from her drawer.

Just like every other Saturday morning, right after breakfast, Mom and Joanna loaded the dirty laundry into a big white drawstring bag, set it in Sam's old red wagon, and pulled it up Division Street to the Laundromat. Joanna stayed with the laundry while Mom went to the A&P two doors down and shopped for groceries. Joanna didn't like getting up early on Saturdays, but at least she was guaranteed some good reading time.

Today she had the Laundromat all to herself and she had an especially good book.
Taffy's Foal
was about a girl
who lived in the country and had a horse she loved, but then had to move to the city and leave her horse behind. With the soft rumbling of the machines in the background, Joanna turned pages faster and faster.

She had just reached a really exciting part when the washers stopped. She hated to put down her book, but she had to shift the wet clothes into the dryers and drop dimes into the coin slots. She did it all as fast as she could, eager to return to the story, but on the way back to her chair, she noticed a
Chicago Daily Tribune
on top of a dryer. When she saw the headline, she forgot all about her book.

NIKITA DELAYS ARMS SHIPS

“Oh my gosh!” Joanna exclaimed. But right below that, in just a little bit smaller letters, it said:

Reds Speed Cuban Missile Buildup

“What?”
The two headlines seemed to be saying opposite things. Joanna's stomach dipped and churned as she read both articles.

The first one said Nikita Khrushchev promised that Russia would hold its ships back for a while in the hope that a conflict could be avoided. But the second article said work on the missile bases was going ahead faster than ever, and that the US was thinking about changing
the quarantine—which was just for keeping out ships carrying weapons—into a full-blown blockade that kept out
all
ships, no matter what they were carrying—even food and medicines.

That sounded pretty drastic. But so did the fact that the Russians were building those missile bases so darn fast!

Joanna swallowed hard. She put down the newspaper. There were crumpled spots on both edges of it now from where her hands had clenched as she read.

She sat back down and tried to read her book, but her thoughts kept drifting off to Cuba and Sam. She was glad when she heard the buzz of the dryer and a few moments later Mom came through the door with two grocery bags in her arms. Together they folded the warm clothes and linens and stacked them neatly back inside the clean laundry bag. Then they set it and the two grocery bags in the wagon and headed home.

A little while later, laundry and groceries put away, Joanna decided to stop in to see Mrs. Strenge while Mom had a second cup of coffee and wrote a letter to Sam.

“I can only stay a few minutes,” she told a delighted Mrs. Strenge. “When Mom finishes her letter to Sam, it will be time to clean the apartment.” She wrinkled her nose. “I just wanted to see how Harvey is doing today.”

“See for yourself,” the old woman said with a laugh.

Joanna looked into the living room, where Harvey was batting an empty thread spool around the floor like
a hockey player without a stick. He'd swipe with one paw and then the other and sometimes jump straight up in the air.

Joanna grinned. “He looks okay to me.”

“Thanks to you,” Mrs. Strenge said.

Joanna blushed. “I noticed yesterday that you have a whole bunch of S&H Green Stamps that need to be pasted into books. If you want, I can help you with them sometime.”

“Oh, that would be wonderful, dear.” Mrs. Strenge beamed. “With my stiff old hands it's sometimes hard for me to tear the stamps apart.”

“Save them for me,” Joanna told her, sitting down on the sofa.

Mrs. Strenge eased herself into her chair. “How did it go when you got back to school yesterday?”

“A lot better than I expected,” Joanna admitted. “You were right. My teacher was way more understanding than I thought he'd be.”

“I'm glad,” Mrs. Strenge said with a pleased nod. Then she added thoughtfully, “It's been my experience that most people are kind when we give them a chance.”

Joanna nodded hard in agreement. She hadn't given Mrs. Strenge a chance and look at all the worries that had caused her.

When she went back downstairs half an hour later, Mom was just slipping Sam's letter into an envelope. She
grinned and said, “You're right on time.” Joanna wrinkled her nose but went to work.

While Mom scrubbed floors and changed bed linens, Joanna dusted and vacuumed. Saturday morning was the one time Joanna was glad their apartment was tiny. It was always clean by noon, and she had the rest of the day to do something fun with Pamela.

When the weather wasn't too cold or wet, they usually walked to the library, and they stopped at Woolworths on their way home to giggle over the true confession magazines. If they didn't go to the library, they stayed home and played Monopoly or Clue or rummy. Today, though, Joanna hoped Marie would be off somewhere so she and Pamela could read more of The Book. So as soon as she had gobbled down a bologna sandwich, she headed upstairs.

Most of the time Pamela was ready and waiting, and she pounced on the door as soon as Joanna knocked. But that day it was a while before the door was answered, and it was an unsmiling Marie who opened it. Joanna tried to hide her disappointment. Chances for reading The Book didn't look good.

She looked past Marie, expecting to see Pamela hurrying toward them, but all she saw was Mr. Waterman. He was in his chair, staring at the television—which was odd, because it wasn't even turned on. Marie shifted her position, blocking Joanna's view into the apartment.

“Is Pamela home?” Joanna asked.

Marie gave a little sniff. “She's not feeling well.”

Golly! Pamela hardly ever got sick. She must've caught whatever Mr. Waterman had. “Oh. That's too bad. Tell her I hope she feels bet—” But the rest of Joanna's message was cut off because Marie closed the door.

Gosh! How rude. But maybe she wasn't feeling well, either . . .

Back downstairs, Joanna told Mom that Pamela and Mr. Waterman were sick.

“Oh, what a shame!” Mom said. “I hope it's nothing serious.”

“Just the flu, I think.” Joanna realized that Marie hadn't really said. All Joanna knew for sure was that she had a long afternoon ahead.

Mom was spreading her books on the table. Joanna decided she might as well do her homework, too. She had the party to look forward to later, but doing homework was a boring way to spend a Saturday afternoon, and she couldn't help the disgusted sigh that whooshed out of her when she sat down.

Mom gave her a sympathetic smile. Then the smile stretched into a grin. She slapped her book shut and stood up. “Forget your homework, young lady. We're going to do something fun.”

Joanna looked at her. “What kind of fun?”

Mom winked. “The chocolate chip cookie kind.”

Joanna jumped to her feet with a little whoop. “Really?” She and Mom hadn't baked cookies in ages.

“I bought enough ingredients to bake a double batch—one for Sam and one for us. I was going to wait until tomorrow, but I think we need some chocolate sooner rather than later. What do you think?”

“I think we should hurry up and get started!” Baking cookies for Sam was a terrific idea. Joanna couldn't imagine anything bad happening to Sam when they were baking his favorite cookies. She could only think of how happy he was going to be when they arrived.

Mom stacked her books into a pile and swept them onto a chair, out of the way. Joanna did the same with hers. Then Mom headed for the refrigerator. “You get the flour, sugar, and brown sugar,” she said. “I'll get the margarine and eggs.”

Joanna flew to the pantry. Soon the table was covered with ingredients and she was covered with flour. She'd never understand how Mom could bake and stay so clean. Joanna always managed to spill or splash things all over herself. But she'd be changing her clothes for the party anyway, so today it didn't matter. And Dixie happily cleaned up most of what landed on the floor—everything except the flour, although she sniffed it and a little stuck to her nose. It looked pretty funny until Joanna wiped it off.

“If only we could make good things like this in Slop Class. Then it might actually be fun,” she told Mom as she licked a dab of cookie dough from her finger.

“
Slop
Class?” Mom echoed.

Joanna grinned. “It's supposed to be cooking, but mostly we make things like custards and pudding and stuff that nobody wants to eat.” She shrugged. “Slop.”

Mom laughed. “Come to think of it, I had a class like that when I was in school, and it was pretty awful, too.”

The cookies turned out great. But when they'd cooled and Mom went to the shelf for containers to pack them in, she looked confused. “I could have sworn I had some empty coffee cans . . .”

Uh-oh! Joanna rushed to her closet and returned with two of the cans she'd filled with water. Cheeks burning, she carried them to the sink. “I'll just empty them out,” she mumbled.

“Wait.” Mom stopped her. “Saving water is a good idea. I should have thought of it myself. What else have you put aside?”

Joanna led the way to her closet and opened the door. Mom looked inside at the jars of water and the cans and boxes of food, the flashlight, the quilt and pillow, and Dixie's food. All the while, Joanna stood very still, hands clasped so tightly together that her fingers ached. If her mother laughed, she was sure she would curl up and die of embarrassment on the spot.

Mom turned around wearing such a wide grin that Joanna's lip started to quiver. But she said, “What a great
idea! You even remembered a can opener and a spoon. This is exactly the kind of thing I can imagine Sam doing.”

Joanna felt a rush of pride she hadn't felt in a long time.

“Can I offer just one suggestion to make your shelter even better?” Mom asked.

“Sure.” Joanna looked at her expectantly.

“Your closet is only a few feet from your bedroom window. If we moved the shelter to the pantry, it would be a lot more protected.”

Joanna quickly nodded. Now that she didn't have to keep the shelter a secret from Mom, she could see that the pantry really would be the safer place to hide if they had to. Not only was it farther from a window, it was bigger than her closet. “And this way we can just leave the food on the shelves,” she said.

“Let's move these things right now.” Mom rolled up the quilt and stuffed it under her arm. Then she picked up the pillow. She looked at the ribbon-wrapped packet of Sam's letters for a long moment. Then she laid them carefully in Joanna's hands.

Joanna took the letters and the flashlight and the bag of Dixie's kibble. Between the two of them, after just a couple of trips, she and Mom had emptied the closet and organized all the cans of food back in the pantry with the can opener beside them. Mom put the rolled-up quilt against the back wall and set two pillows on top.

Joanna got bowls and another spoon from the kitchen. Then she brought the coffee cans back from the sink after refilling them with fresh water. Mom added blank paper and pencils, a deck of cards, and some of her books and Joanna's. Last of all she brought Sam's navy photograph.