Don't You Know There's a War On? (11 page)

SATURDAY, MARCH 27, 1943

U-boat Lair Raided.

British Bombers Drop

1,000 Tons of Bombs on

French Port.

New Ships Ready to Fight U-boats.

Eight Butchers Jailed. Get Federal

Terms for Black Market Dealing.

Stores Foraging for Long

Island Potatoes.

WHEN I WOKE UP
, my mother had already gone to work. It was drizzling too.

On the kitchen table was this note.

She left a dollar bill and our ration book.

During breakfast, I read the back of the corn flakes box. It had these German airplane silhouettes for Junior Spotters to learn. I studied them hard. You never knew when you'd need information like that.

Then I woke Gloria. I was hoping she wouldn't want to go to the movies. Soon as she opened her eyes, I told
her it was raining.

Only she said, “I don't care. I'm coming with you.”

The Victory Movie Palace was over on Clark Street, a block from Hicks. Gloria and I got there half an hour before the movie began, which was nine o'clock. Even so, there was this huge line of kids waiting to get in. Some were in raincoats and galoshes. A couple had umbrellas. The rest were just getting wet like me and Gloria.

Walking to the end of the line, I saw tons of kids from school. Denny too. Soon as he saw me, he left his place and went to the back of the line with us.

“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.

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.

“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.

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?”

“Last Monday.”

“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.