Don't You Know There's a War On? (12 page)

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.

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.”

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.

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?”

“Chocolate.”

“How many layers?”

“Four.”

“What's between the layers?”

“More chocolate.”

“Anything else?”

“A cherry on top.”

“That's the same cake I gave you.”

“With all these shortages, I'm willing to share.”

ON SUNDAY WE
didn't do much of anything. My mom slept late. We read the funny papers. We listened to the radio. And you know what I did? I studied math. All day. It was boring, but I did it. See, I really wanted to give Miss Gossim that hundred percent as a going-away present.

And all the time I was thinking about my pop too. Where was he? Was he safe?

MONDAY, MARCH 29, 1943

Americans Sweep Forward

in North Africa.

Churchill Pledges Invasion

of Europe Within Nine Months!

1,000,000 Nazi Children Urged

to Do War Work.

U.S. Repels Flotilla

in Aleutians.