Keep Smiling Through (9 page)

"And then we'll want to question you," the officer said.

I got scared then. The police were going to take Grandpa.

"Kay"—Grandpa stood up—"go on home."

"I want to go with you."

"Go home," he said. "I'm all right. I'm fine. Go home and tell Nana I'm good. And I'll be home later."

I stood watching him get into the police car. Then I ran across the highway, up the hill, and down the path to home.

I ran all the way, my breath coming in spurts, my braids flapping, branches from bushes slapping my face. By the time I burst in the back door, I had such a pain in my side I could hardly talk.

Nana was at the kitchen table cleaning string beans.

"Kay," she said. "What's the matter, child?"

Amazing Grace came into the room. "How many times have I told you not to slam that back door—," she started. Then she stopped, seeing me. "What happened?"

"Grandpa," I said. "He's been taken."

Our house was in such an uproar that night, nobody even thought to tune in to any radio program. Amazing Grace took to her bed. My father came home and had to milk the cow himself because Grandpa couldn't do it and Tom and Martin were in the city.

The police brought Grandpa home just as my father was coming in the door. He spoke with them.

Nana stood white-faced in the kitchen, her hands folded across her stomach. "Well, Grandpa, and what did I tell you?" was the first thing she said.

He mumbled something that sounded like "Oh, Mama, go tell yourself," refused to eat supper, and went to lie down.

My father called me into his library. It has
a lot of bookcases, french doors that overlook the garden, a wood stove, and his desk. The books are all for grown-ups, except for the encyclopedias and a copy of
The Water Babies,
which I love to look at.

"Kay, what happened?" my father asked.

When my father asked "what happened" in any other part of the house, it wasn't so bad. When he called me into his library to ask it, it was serious.

For a moment I just stood there. I looked at the picture of Amazing Grace on his desk. And I wondered, for the hundredth time, what harm it would have done if he'd had a picture of my mother somewhere in the house. Not on his desk, no. But maybe in a little corner someplace, behind a hanging plant.

I don't even know what my mother looked like.

There are times I hate my father for that. Did he love my mother? If I thought he still did, I could probably forgive him for not having pictures around. But I thought he didn't. I thought that Amazing Grace had clouded his mind.

I told him the same thing I'd told Amazing Grace and Nana. I did not tell him about the
pamphlet, or about how Grandpa and Ernie were talking about Hitler.

"Grandpa was talking to Ernie and some men came and made trouble and Grandpa got in their way," I said.

"Just make sure this doesn't upset your mother," he said. "We can't have her upset now." He turned to the mail on his desk.

That was all. He didn't care about me. I left, glad I hadn't told him about the pamphlet.

In my sisters' room that night, I looked at the pamphlet for the first time. I used my flashlight. Mary Frances sat next to me. I couldn't believe what I was reading.

"We Germans in America are living together on a small island in a hostile ocean," it said. "Contact with the enemy should be made only through the captain of your group."

It went on to say there are fifteen million people of German blood in America. And they have to keep their racial identity pure.

It said the Jews are inferior. It said the Germans in America should spread the word about German culture. And it said disobedience is treachery.

I didn't understand a lot of it. But I was
glad Elizabeth and Mary were still downstairs. I sensed the pamphlet was everything that the war was all about, that it was a dangerous piece of paper. And that not even Betty Fairfield would know what to do about it.

I needed powers and abilities far beyond those of mortal men, like Superman's, to know what was to be done with it.

I did nothing.

I hid the pamphlet under my pillow that night. The next day I kept it in the pocket of my jeans. I must have felt to see if it was there a hundred times. It burned against my hip. I walked around in a daze all that day.

In the afternoon the reporter called from the
Waterville Times.

Amazing Grace spoke to him. "Interview the little girl who gave the police the license-plate number?" she asked him on the phone. "I think not. We don't want any publicity about this."

I was sweeping off the front stoop. The phone was in the center hall. I saw her shadow on the Persian carpet runner.

That reporter must have been real good. Like Lois Lane on
The Adventures of Superman.
Or maybe they had a crabby editor at the
Waterville Times,
like Perry White.

Because Amazing Grace gave in. "Well, all right," she said. "When do you want to come? Tomorrow? A photographer? You want to bring a photographer? Well, she's a very plain, uninteresting little girl, you know. I don't see what all the fuss is about." And then she laughed. "Well, if you want
me
in the picture with her, I suppose it could be arranged. I am her mother, after all."

She put the phone down, opened the front door, and stood looking down at me. "Now see what you've done? Brought attention down on us. You know your father doesn't like attention. We're quiet people, good people. Why did you have to give them the license-plate number?"

I said I didn't know. I said they'd asked me. And I thought it was right to do.

She set me to hoeing the garden that afternoon. The garden had to be ready for spring planting. I hoed for two hours. I got blisters on my hands, and I missed my afternoon radio programs.

Nana felt sorry for me when I came in out of the heat. She put ointment on my hands and gave me cold milk and put some Bosco in it.

"Ssh," she said, putting her finger to her
lips. "We don't have to tell your mama. Take it outside."

I took my cold milk with Bosco and sat outside under the sticker tree. Martin and Tom would be home soon with my father.

What would I do? Could I tell them about the pamphlet? Never mind them, what would I tell the reporters when they came?

Would I be brave and speak up for truth, justice, and the American way? Like Superman? Would I keep on punching for victory? Like Hop Harrigan?

Could I have no mercy for those who stepped over the line? Like Lamont Cranston, The Shadow?

Could I help track down public enemies who were trying to destroy America? Like the Green Hornet?

Could I just be brave, like Betty Fairfield?

I knew what was right to do. But I didn't know if I could do it. I needed a kindly Uncle Jim to advise me. I wandered about the house listlessly after supper. Grandpa had stayed in bed all day. He was up now, eating supper alone in the kitchen. His head was still bandaged. Nana sat across from him.

"Kay," Nana said. "When those men come from the newspaper tomorrow, you speak
good of Grandpa, yes? He won't be here to speak for himself."

I looked into her wrinkled, kind face. "Where is he going?"

"Back to Brooklyn. Tomorrow morning."

I didn't have to ask why.

"Leave the child be, Mama," he said to her.

"I just want to tell her to speak good of you."

"She speaks what she knows. Right, Kay?"

I looked at him. He didn't know what I'd heard. Or that I had the pamphlet. I nodded yes and ran from the room.

I ran across the fields, down to my favorite part of the brook, where a narrow stone ledge jutted out over the water. I lay face down on the ledge, dangling Mary Frances over the clear bubbling water. I could see small fish in the brook below.

I heard rushing footsteps behind me. My brothers. They were home.

"You've had an adventure," Martin said.

I nodded yes.

"How does it feel?"

I shrugged and sat on the ledge} holding Mary Frances in my lap.

"We went to the ball game." Tom complained, "The Dodgers lost."

"They always lose," I said. "That's why people call them the Bums."

"We know that," Martin argued. "The point is, you stayed home and had all the fun."

"It wasn't fun," I told them.

"And now, tomorrow, reporters will come," Tom went on, "and you'll talk to them. You'll be in the newspaper."

"Amazing Grace will do all the talking," I said.

"She wasn't there," Martin reminded me. "You were. What are you going to say?"

I shrugged. "What's the Bund?" I asked Martin.

He told me. "It's the American Nazi party. They're strong in New Jersey. Why?"

I looked into the faces of my two brothers. For all they knew, they really knew nothing, I decided.

I was that way yesterday. I wished I could still be that way today.

"Those men who hit Grandpa said the Bund met at Ernie's."

Martin nodded and eyed me knowingly.

"So close to home," I pushed. "Do you think it's possible?"

"It's possible," Martin said.

"Wow," Tom murmured.

We sat in silence for a while. The only sounds were the bubbling of the brook and the chirping of birds. And then I thought to ask, "How's Uncle Hermie and Fanny?"

"They took us to supper at a Chinese restaurant," Martin said. "And he let us stay up late to listen to the radio."

I'd never had Chinese food. Once a year when Amazing Grace took us into New York and my father met us for supper, we went to The Reef, a fish house with sawdust on the floor. I hate fish.

"I wonder if the reporter who comes tomorrow will be mild mannered, like Clark Kent?" Tom asked.

Clark Kent is really Superman, only nobody knows it. Not even Lois Lane. She loves Superman, and she always makes fun of Clark.

I thought how wonderful it would be to have another identity. To be able to go into a broom closet and rip off your clothes and come out in a tight-fitting outfit with a cape and fly out of a window. And leave all the
people who were mean to you standing there, gaping up.

"I don't know what the reporter will be like," I said.

There was nothing else to say then, so we all turned to go back to the house.

I started to take the pedometer off my wrist. "Here," I said to Martin, "you better take it back."

He waved me off. "You keep it for now," he said. "You'll need it tomorrow when you talk to the reporter."

I awoke the next morning with a feeling of doom. For a moment I couldn't think why. Then I heard Nana calling me to come and have breakfast, so I dressed quickly and went downstairs.

I'd overslept. My father had already left for work, taking Grandpa with him to the train. Martin was outside doing chores. Tom was milking the cow, and Elizabeth and Mary were rushing about getting ready to leave, too.

I stood on the bottom step in the hall, blinking.

"Kay, come have your oatmeal," Nana called from the kitchen.

My sisters were putting on lipstick, and Mary was fussing with the high pompadour
on top of her head. The folded smocks that the girls wore over their clothes at work were on a chair.

Mary came and grabbed me and pulled me into the middle of the hall, so I couldn't be seen from the kitchen. "You be careful what you say to that reporter today," she whispered. "Don't say anything against Grandpa. Or you'll upset Mother."

Elizabeth only scowled, and then when Mary went into the kitchen, she drew me aside. "You say what you have to say," she whispered. And then she gathered up her things and left.

I stood watching her go. Somehow I wasn't surprised. Amazing Grace is at her meanest when it comes to Elizabeth. She gives her all the worst chores and blames her for everything. Once when Elizabeth talked back to her, my father made Elizabeth kneel at our stepmother's feet and say she was sorry.

I never will forget how Elizabeth cried while she knelt. And I think Elizabeth will never forget it, either.

I went into the kitchen to have breakfast.

"I wanted to have your feed-bag dress done today for when the reporter comes," Amazing Grace said. "I wanted to show him
how we work in this house for the war effort. But I haven't finished it yet."

Well,
I thought,
there's one good thing about today, anyway.

"So you'll wear your white organdy that you wear to church on Sunday."

White organdy!
In front of a reporter! That was ridiculous. Reporters hung around newsrooms where women like Lois Lane dressed in suits and polka-dot blouses with spiffy bows at the neck.

"Can't I just wear my dungarees?" I asked. "The organdy is so dressy."

"You'll wear what I say!" she snapped. "And you'll not answer any questions of his until I nod and tell you to do so."

"Grace," Nana said, "don't talk so to the child."

"Mind your business, Mother. You don't know what I have to put up with around here all the time." Amazing Grace turned her attention again to me. "And take that stupid thing off your wrist when the reporter comes."

I gasped. "It's my pedometer. I need it!"

"It's nonsense. Where did you get it?"

"It's Martin's. He loaned it to me. It's magic! I can't take it off!"

"You'll do as I say if you know what's
good for you. Now take that money on the counter there and go to Mrs. Leudloff's. We need eggs," Amazing Grace said. "You have time. The reporter doesn't come until ten-thirty."

I didn't have time and Amazing Grace knew it. She was up to one of her tricks. She has a lot of them.

One is that if she thinks I'm looking forward to some event, she'll find last-minute things to keep me busy. So I end up being late.

Once when she and my father were to take me to school in the evening to be in a play, she kept me so busy with last-minute chores that I didn't have time to dress right. Or even comb my hair. Then I got so nervous, I threw up when I got to school.

I've learned never to let her know that I'm looking forward to anything. Or she'll set out to ruin it for me.