Keep Smiling Through (10 page)

I guess she thought I was looking forward to the reporter coming. If she only knew how much I dreaded it, she wouldn't have bothered sending me to Mrs. Leudloff's.

By the time I got out of the house it was ten. It was a good fifteen-minute walk each
way. I hurried, because if I didn't, Amazing Grace would do the talking to the reporter. And I didn't know what kind of lies she would tell him about me. She'd already told him I was plain and uninteresting.

I knew I was plain. But I didn't think I was uninteresting.

So I nearly ran all the way.

I wished I could keep right on running, too, right past Mrs. Leudloff's house, right to the corner where we get the school bus. Only I wished then I could get the regular bus that went to Waterville. And just stay on it for as far as it went and never come home.

Because I still didn't know what I was going to tell that reporter. The pamphlet was still in my pocket. I'd slept, again, with it under my pillow.

I fell once. I went down on my knee and hurt it bad, right through the dungarees. I was limping and the breath was out of me by the time I got to Mrs. Leudloff's gate.

I opened it carefully. Just when I did that, I noticed that the latch was down on Rex's enclosure.

Rex's gate was open, only he didn't know it.

He was sleeping. Laid out flat and snoozing in the sun. He hadn't heard me approaching. I figured it was because I never came this time of day. Nobody did. People came after work or after school.

Rex was caught off guard.

I stayed outside the gate and looked around for Mrs. Leudloff. She was nowhere in sight. There was no radio playing. The place was as silent as the Cave of the Mummies.

If I called out to her, Rex would hear me and come to life. If she was home, that was all right. But what if she wasn't home?

I had to get the eggs. And get back home to be there in time for the reporter.

I remembered my first visit, when Mrs. Leudloff told me to walk right into the henhouse and take the eggs I needed and leave money. Because she trusted me.

I can't wait around forever,
I decided.
I'm late now. And my knee is throbbing. I won't be able to run much on the way home.

If only I could cloud minds. Like The Shadow. How
does he do it?
I wondered as I opened the gate softly.
What trick did he learn in the Orient? If I try real hard, can I do it, too?

Can you cloud dogs' minds?
Sister Brigitta said animals have no souls.
Doesn't that mean their minds are weak?

I took a deep breath.
I'll just have to count on the magic pedometer to plot my way to the henhouse,
I decided.

I made my way across the soft grass in the yard, toward the far fence, where the daffodils bloomed, bright and yellow. I held my breath and made no sound.

I was almost to the henhouse. There was a door at my end.
I'll open it quietly,
I thought,
get inside, and close it fast.

I had one foot raised and was just about to put it back down when I heard the growl. It was low and threatening.

It was the worst sound I'd heard in my life.

It was even worse than the breaking glass at Ernie's.

I stood there, frozen. Rex was sitting up, looking at me. He was curling back his lips, and soon his fangs would be dripping.

I stood very still, one foot still raised.

Rex got to his feet. But it wasn't like he was just standing up. He
lunged,
growling at the same time. It was all done together, the lunging and the growling.

He came at me. Faster than a speeding bullet. More powerful than a locomotive. He came at me like Superdog.

I screamed and put one arm over my face. I could
hear
him coming at me. He made a whooshing sound.

I screamed again and sank onto the ground.

I'm going to die here,
I thought.
In
Mrs.
Leudloff's yard. I'm going to be ripped to pieces by her Nazi dog.
I waited for the first bite, praying I could be as strong as the martyrs Sister Brigitta told us about, who stood and let those Roman lions eat them rather than renounce their Christian faith.

"Rex!"

I heard a door slam. Heard her voice. But I
felt
Rex. He was standing over me. I felt his hot breath right over my face. I looked up.

He was standing over me, fangs dripping, ready to attack when he got the word. I saw his long red tongue, his sharp, pointy teeth, his glittering eyes.

"Rex!
Nein! Nein!
"

I heard her words, sharp and clear. Orders. Rex heard them, too. He sat.

She came rushing down the steps and across the yard. "
Nein, nein.
Sit!"

He sat. He cowered under her words. He whined.

"Go back to your house. Raus mit you!"

He turned and went to sit back down near his enclosure.

"Child, child, I am so sorry. I did not know you were here. What are you doing here this time of day?"

I looked up at her. I saw her shining bobbed hair, her spiffy blouse, her red fingernails. For a moment I couldn't speak. My voice was gone. She was smiling down at me. She had her arms outstretched.

I found my voice, finally. And when I did speak it came pouring out, all of it. All about the Christians and the lions, my hurt knee, how I was going to be late for the reporter, how I tried to cloud Rex's mind, and how the magic pedometer saved me.

Next thing I knew she was hugging me and patting me and I was bawling like a stuck pig. After that, she was leading me, still bawling, up the steps and into her house.

"This isn't
my
Germany," Mrs. Leudloff said.

We sat at her kitchen table. In her hand she held the pamphlet. She was reading it.

"No, no." And she shook her head so that her shining bobbed hair shook, too. "This is not the Germany I know. Hitler is not Germany. He is not a leader. He is a madman."

I sipped my soda and took a bite of a homemade sugar cookie. She'd washed my face and bandaged my knee. She'd made me sit, and she'd listened as I poured out my story to her. And my worries about what I would say to the reporter.

Never did I think I could talk to her like this. Or to anyone. I think what made me do it was that she listened.

Nobody ever listens to me in school or at
home. Nobody cares what I think or fear. It was a new feeling, being listened to, and I liked it.

When I protested that I couldn't stay, that I had to get home, she waved away my objections. "I'll drive you home in a few minutes," she said.

"But the reporter..."

"He'll wait a few minutes. He came to see you, not your mama."

So I stayed.

"I have people at home, in Germany," she told me. "They are not happy with Hitler. My husband fights in the army of this country. We have a good life here. He made the difficult choice to fight against his homeland. We all must make hard choices these days. And so you, too, must make a choice. To do what is right and show this pamphlet to the reporter."

"Yes," I said. And I took another sip of soda. "But what trouble will it cause at home?"

"You did not make the trouble. You only ran into it."

"But Amazing Grace will be upset. My father said I shouldn't upset her."

"Upset? Child, the whole world is upset.
People are being gassed, put in prisons, starved, tortured. Soldiers are dying every day.
This
is being upset."

"Yes," I said again, "but what about Grandpa?"

"What about him?"

"I don't think he knew what was in the pamphlet when Ernie shoved it through the window at him. I don't want him to get in trouble."

She leaned across the table to peer at me. "Look, from everything you've told me about your grandfather, I think he is just an old man who still believes in his country, his old Germany. We all wanted a new Germany, but not at the cost of this madman, Hitler. Your grandpa can't be blamed for loving his old Germany. But he has to make the choice to separate himself from it now that Hitler is running it, just like my husband did."

I nodded, but still I said nothing.

"I don't think he'll get in trouble if you tell the reporter what you just told me. That he didn't know what was in the pamphlet. But if he does get in trouble, it isn't your fault, Kay. You must show the pamphlet."

I looked into her clear blue eyes, German
eyes. How could she know what was the right thing to do?

She smiled. "You're thinking,
Why should I listen to this lady,
" she said then, "
she's German.
Aren't you?"

I blushed. "You're like The Shadow. You can read people's minds."

"No, I can read hearts," she said. "And yours is a good heart, Kay. And I can tell you to do this thing now
because
we are German, my husband and I. And we have made our choices. Do you have anyone fighting in the war?"

"My cousins are fighting," I said. "The sons of my aunt Beth. She's my father's sister."

"Do it for them."

"I don't know my cousins anymore. We never see that family because Amazing Grace won't allow it."

She looked unhappy then. "It's so sad, the way families make war on one another every day," she said, "and make it so hard for children to survive. I'd give anything to have a little girl like you. My husband and I have no children."

She had tears in her eyes. I felt embarrassed.

"Do you know anyone else who's fighting?"

"The only person I knew is dead," I said. And I told her then about my friend Jen's brother.

"Do it for him, then. And do it for your friend Jen."

"She doesn't even speak to me anymore." And I told her about that, too.

"She will," she said. And it sounded like a promise. "She is hurting. She will. Give the pamphlet, Kay. It's the right thing to do. You know that, don't you?"

I said yes, because I did know it. I think I'd known it all along. And just needed someone like her to tell me.

"Come," she said, "I'll drive you home."

I had never been in a car driven by a woman. Amazing Grace doesn't drive. Neither do my sisters.

By the time Mrs. Leudloff dropped me off in front of our long driveway in her old Ford pickup, I thought she was better than The Shadow's Margo, Superman's Lois, and Nick's Nora in
The Thin Man.

The way she drove, with one elbow resting on the windowsill and one hand guiding the wheel, speaking at the same time, made me feel good.
I'll drive like that someday,
I told myself.
I'll wear red nail polish. I'll know what's right to do in times of crisis. And my hair will always be bobbed and shining, and my lipstick will be handy.

"Be brave," she said as I slid off the seat, got out, and closed the door.

"I will be. Like Betty Fairfield in
Jack Armstrong.
"

She smiled. "Like yourself," she said.

My brothers and Nana were waiting in the kitchen. "Where
were
you?" Martin asked. "The reporter and photographer are here."

"The reporter looks just like Clark Kent!" Tom put in.

"Child," Nana admonished gently as she took the eggs, "what happened to you?"

"I fell and hurt my leg. Mrs. Leudloff drove me home."

"La," Nana said. It's as strong as her language gets. "You'd best go right into the library. Don't bother to change. Hurry!"

I walked through the dim hall and toward the library, feeling to make sure the pamphlet was in my pocket and the pedometer secure on my wrist. My heart was thumping. The boys peered out of the kitchen after me, but Nana wouldn't let them go any farther.

I'll be all right,
I told myself.
I've got the magic pedometer. It saved me from Rex, didn't it?

"Well, this must be the little girl now," the reporter said.

I knew he was the reporter because the other one had the camera.

The reporter was a dead ringer for Clark Kent. He even wore glasses.

"Kay, where
were
you!" Amazing Grace demanded. She was seated in the captain's chair in front of my father's desk. She was wearing her best loose silk dress. Her red hair was all wound in a bun. And I could tell she was doing her best to be like the actress Rita Hayworth. She wore her Tangee lipstick and good silk stockings and best shoes.

"I fell and hurt my leg. Mrs. Leudloff brought me home."

"Tsk, tsk, child. Come in and meet our guests." Amazing Grace looked up at them coyly. "What can I do? It's so hard to keep little girls from being tomboys. She was supposed to be back in time to put on a pretty dress."

"Looks fine as she is," the reporter said. "Just how a little girl should look in the country. Come on in, Kay, and talk to us."

I sat down on the couch.

The reporter took out his notebook, pushed back his hat, and knelt down on one knee in front of me. "Now, do you want to tell us what happened at Ernie's place?"

"I told you that," Amazing Grace purred. "Some men knocked my father over and Kay
gave the license-plate number of the car to the police. Wasn't she a bright little girl to do that?"

"Yes, ma'am, she sure was." The reporter nodded at her. "But we'd like to hear it in Kay's own words."

"Kay, tell the nice reporter how Grandpa was knocked down for doing nothing," Amazing Grace said to me.

I looked at her. I saw the warning look in her eyes. I looked at the reporter and photographer. They were waiting patiently. The reporter had kind eyes. But now that I'd heard him speak, his voice was more like Britt Reid's than Clark Kent's. Britt Reid is the Green Hornet. He owns the
Daily Sentinel
and fights all people who try to destroy America.

I thought of Mrs. Leudloff, who drove her Ford pickup with such ease. And ran her egg farm with only a part-time man since her husband went to war.

I thought of Jen's brother, who'd been killed by Hitler's Wolf Pack submarine.

I must do the right thing,
I decided.
Like Britt Reid. Or Superman. Or Betty Fairfield. I must fight for truth and justice and go against all people who want to destroy America.