Don't Talk to Me About the War (2 page)

Her mom died, but every morning Beth still reads the news. She says it helps her feel connected with her mom.

Beth lost a year of school taking care of her mom. But she said she was glad she did it.

“The Germans have divided the entire French Ninth Army,” Mr. Simmons says, and points to his paper.

“Come on,” I tell Beth. “We should go.”

“No, really,” Mr. Simmons says. “You should read this.”

“It’s late,” I tell him.

Beth finishes her glass of milk.

“Okay,” I say. “Now let’s put the papers back, we’ve got to get to school.”

Mr. Simmons looks right at me and says, “That’s what’s wrong with children today. You just don’t read.”

“I
do
read! I read the sports pages. That’s reading. And the baseball games are happening right here, not in Europe.”

“Maybe you’re right,” Mr. Simmons tells me. “Maybe you do read. I just think you should know more about what’s happening outside the Bronx, New York.”

“Yeah, okay,” I say.

“Bye,” Beth and I tell Mr. Simmons, but he doesn’t answer. He’s already looking at another story about the war.

Beth has the
Tribune, Times, News
, and
Mirror
on the table. We carefully fold them. As we leave, Beth puts the papers on the bench in front.

Soon after Beth’s mom died, her dad lost his job. “It’s just as well,” he said. “Now we can move.” He thought a new place would be good for them, would give them a fresh start.

Now they live in the Bronx, and Beth’s dad works nights in the press room of a newspaper, the
Daily Mirror.
He gets home about ten each morning, after Beth leaves for school. That’s why she goes to Goldman’s for breakfast. She doesn’t like to eat alone, and like I said, she loves to read newspapers. Mr. Goldman said she can read as many as she wants for free. She just shouldn’t spill anything on them, and when she’s done, she should fold the papers neatly and put them back on the bench just outside the door.

“What’s with Mr. Simmons?” I ask.

“Oh, he says that kids today don’t value education. He told me we should think of ourselves not just as citizens of New York, but of the world.”

“I don’t know about that citizen stuff,” I say, “but he’s right about school. I surely don’t value that. It’s boring.”

Next door to Goldman’s is a bakery. “BAG LUNCHES 15 ¢ ,” is the sign in the window. Beyond it is a fruit and vegetable store and a shoe repair shop and a newsie holding up a newspaper and shouting the headline. He’s just outside the steps to the train station at the corner. It’s a busy street.

“The war news is terrible,” Beth says as we walk toward the corner. “This could be the end of France and maybe the end of England.”

It does sound serious.

“Mom knew it,” Beth says. “Two years ago, when the Germans marched into Austria, she said there’d be trouble.”

“Sarah lived in Austria.”

“Yes,” Beth says. “She was lucky to get out.”

Sarah came here just a few months ago, and became friends with Beth. Now, every morning, we meet her at the corner. We eat lunch with her, too, along with my friends Roger and Charles.

“One million soldiers trapped!” the newsie calls out as we walk past. “Read all about it!”

Beth stops, turns to me and asks, “Do you know how many one million soldiers are?”

Sure, I do. It’s one million.

“The Nazis said this is it,” Beth says, “the beginning of the end for the British, French, and Belgians.”

“But we’re safe here,” I say.

“Is that all you worry about?”

I don’t answer, but I think Beth should stop reading newspapers. It gets her too upset.

This morning I really want to talk to her about my mother. I’m worried about her. But Beth is only thinking about the war.

Last night it seemed like Mom was somewhere else. Dad talked on and on at dinner, but she wasn’t listening. She looked at her hands, so I did, too. Her right hand was trembling, and Mom just watched it, like it belonged to someone else. Then she dropped it to her lap and looked at Dad.

“Come on,” I tell Beth. “We’ll be late.”

We get to the corner. The light is green and lots of people are crossing, but Beth insists we wait for Sarah.

An old Ford, one of those boxy black cars, is stopped at the corner, stalled, and the people in cars behind it don’t like waiting.

I know how those drivers feel. I also don’t like waiting. I look around the corner for Sarah, but I don’t see her.

“Let’s go,” I tell Beth.

“Not yet.”

Sarah came here from Mexico, and before that she lived in Holland, Austria, and Germany. Beth told me, “She was chased out of Europe by the Nazis.”

While we wait, I look at Beth with her books held against her chest and her arms folded over them. She looks different today, older somehow. I know it isn’t the dress. I’ve seen it before. And it isn’t her long blonde hair. That’s parted in the middle with a barrette on each side, like always. Maybe it’s all that responsibility. She does the food shopping and makes dinner for herself and her dad. That probably does something to a fourteen-year-old.

Beth turns to look for Sarah, and I know what it is. Earrings. Gold dangling earrings like the ones Mom wears when she dresses fancy. That’s why Beth looks different—older, too, and even prettier.

“There she is,” Beth says, and waves to Sarah.

Sarah runs to us with her big leather briefcase. The light changes, and we cross the street and join the crowd of kids going to West Bronx Junior High. And do you know what? Walking with two girls feels good, especially when one of them is wearing earrings.

W
hile we walk, Beth tells Sarah about the trouble in France and the trapped soldiers.

“This is very bad,” Sarah says. “People I know want to go to France. They want to be safe.”

As soon as Sarah starts talking you know she’s from some other country. It’s not the words, but the way she says them, her accent.

We keep walking and they keep talking, and the closer we get to school, the more crowded the sidewalk becomes. And then there it is, an old big brick building with a bunch of wide steps, maybe eight, leading to real high wood doors.

“Hey, Tommy!”

It’s my friend Roger. He stops right in front of Beth, sticks out his stomach, puts his hands behind his back, and asks, “Who am I?”

“You’re Roger,” Beth tells him, “and we have to get into school.”

“No, no,” Roger says. Then in a loud deep voice, “Sit straight. Walk tall. Tuck in that shirt. Now, who am I?”

“Okay,” I say. “You’re Dr. Johnson.”

He’s the principal, and he’s real big on following rules.

“Are you neat? Are you ready to learn?” Roger asks in his phony deep voice. Then he looks us over, but mostly he looks at Beth. I think he likes her.

“Okay,” Roger says. “Now go to class.”

Sometimes Roger just tries too hard.

We walk into school and there he is, Dr. Johnson, in his suit and the vest he always seems ready to pop out of, and a tie and polished shoes, just like every morning. He’s a tall man, so he looks down at us as we walk by.

“Good morning, sir,” Roger tells him.

Dr. Johnson looks at Roger, nods, and watches him walk past.

Beth and I are in the same homeroom, but Sarah and Roger aren’t. So we say good-bye to them in the hall.

Our lockers are just outside homeroom. Beth and I put our lunch bags away, take out the books we need, and go to class. Mr. Weils tells us to be seated. “I’m just about to take attendance.”

Weils is a rules man, too, just like Dr. Johnson, and a vest-wearer, and about the same age. I’m glad I just have Weils for homeroom and not real classes, because he talks in such a monotone. He’s a science teacher, and his classes must be real boring.

The bell rings, and he reads off our names. “Donner . . . Dorf . . . Dorfman.” After he calls each name, he looks to see if that student is here and has raised his hand.

“Doyle.”

Beth raises her hand. That’s her name, Beth Doyle.

“Dropkin . . . Duncan.”

I raise my hand. I’m Tommy Duncan.

Homeroom ends and we go to class, and all three morning classes go by real slow. In math, Mrs. Dillon goes over geometric proofs that are real easy, mostly logic. Science, except for the experiments, is a bore, and the American history stuff is all in the book.

A few times during class, I look at my hands and wonder what would make them shake like Mom’s. During math I hold one hand just over my notebook and watch it. It’s steady. I look at Mrs. Dillon’s hands. She’s about Mom’s age. She’s talking about two isosceles triangles, how you know if they’re congruent—the same. Mrs. Dillon is sitting on the edge of her desk with her hands on her lap, and they’re still.

At least lunch is fun. I sit with Roger and Charles. Beth and Sarah sit with me. That may be a strange way to say it, but that’s the way it is. I’m the one in the middle.

Roger, Charles, and I have been good friends since second grade, when we were in the same class. Roger is always joking. Charles is quiet, more sensitive. He’s nicer.

They look real different, too. Roger is tall and skinny with dark brown hair and brown eyes. Charles is shorter, chunky, and has short curly blond hair. I’m thin, but not as skinny as Roger, and not as tall. I have straight, light brown hair and blue eyes.

At the beginning of this school year, I brought Beth to our table. Later, Beth brought Sarah.

Roger is always the first of us in the cafeteria, and he gets us a table near the front. We’re one of the only “mixed” tables—you know, boys and girls—and both our girls are pretty, Beth with long blonde hair and Sarah with dark hair and eyes. I know lots of boys walk by and wonder how we get to sit with them.

“Hey,” Roger asks the girls when they sit down, “did you hear Bob Hope? He was funny.”

“No,” Beth answers.

Sarah just shakes her head.

“So what did you listen to?”

“News,” Beth tells him. “You know there’s a war.”

“Not here there isn’t,” Roger says. “We’re not fighting anyone. Why should we?”

My mom and dad agree. They don’t want us in any war.

“Well, if you didn’t hear Hope,” Roger says, “you didn’t hear this joke. They were talking about who has the most fans and Crosby said, ‘When it comes to figures, I’ve got it all over you.’ ‘Oh, yeah,’ Hope told him, ‘if you take off that girdle, you’ll have it all over everything.’”

“That’s funny,” Beth says, and smiles.

Sarah smiles, too.

“Tonight and tomorrow,” Roger says, “you should tune in to WEAF at nine o’clock. Tonight it’s Fred Allen. You’ll like him. He jokes about the news. And tomorrow it’s
Good News of 1940.
Listen for Baby Snooks. She’s such a brat.”

I’m almost done eating. At last, Roger unwraps his sandwich.

“Salami.
Yuck!
I hate salami. What do you have?”

“Egg salad,” I tell him. “And I ate it.”

Roger always asks what we have, but we never trade.

He hurries, eats his sandwich, and finishes just as the bell sounds. We are about to leave the lunchroom when he tells Beth and Sarah, “Now don’t forget, WEAF at nine.”

I go to English next, to Miss Heller’s class. She stands in front with her arms folded. You should have been here the first day of school. She stood there and didn’t say anything. We talked and talked. Finally, we realized she was waiting for us, and got quiet.

“You’re in seventh grade now,” she said. “I shouldn’t have to tell you that when you come in here you should be ready to learn.”

Today, Miss Heller is holding yesterday’s paragraphs. The one I wrote is about the parachute jump at the World’s Fair.

“Your stories were very good,” Miss Heller says, and reads from one of the papers. “Listen to this.

‘When you go to the Fair, look for the tall red post and the big red, green, and yellow LifeSaver candies.’”

Hey! That’s mine!

“‘The ride cost forty cents, but it’s worth it,’” Miss Heller reads. “‘Take a seat beneath a parachute. Make sure to get strapped in. Then up you go! Up! Up! Up past the LifeSavers. You go two hundred and fifty feet in the air. Don’t be scared. Look around at the fair and at the tiny people below. Now hold on! The ride down is fast.
Whoosh!
That was fun. It’s a great ride and you should try it if you don’t mind waiting in line. I waited half an hour.’”

Miss Heller looks up. “Wasn’t that great? ” she asks. “I could almost feel the excitement of the drop.”

That’s exactly what I was trying to do. You know, I think writing should do more than list facts or tell a story. It should make people
feel
something.