I'm Still Scared (4 page)

We had apple pie for dessert.

“Boys,” Mom said, “Uncle Charles wants to tell you something.”

“Buddy, Tomie,” Uncle Charles said, smiling at us, “I've joined the Army. I'm going to be a soldier and fight in the war.” Viva started to cry again.

Once we were back in our classroom, Miss Gardner told us that today we would have our very first music lesson. The music supervisor was Mr. Conklin. He was like Mrs. Bowers, the art supervisor. He would come to King Street School every couple of months or so, and class by class, we would go up to the music room. It was on the second floor of the old part of the school. The music room was a classroom with rows of the same kind of seats that were in the auditorium. There was a blackboard and a piano.

Miss Mulligan, the fifth-grade teacher, played the piano in the auditorium for our assemblies. She played the piano for Mr. Conklin and our music lessons. The other teachers watched Miss Mulligan's class while she was off in the music room.

It was our turn. We lined up—as usual-and walked to the music room as quietly as we could. We didn't want to disturb the other classes.

Miss Gardner went to take care of Miss Mulligan's class. Our music lesson began.

Mr. Conklin had this funny-looking thing in his hand. It was made out of a wooden piece with five wires sticking out of it. Pieces of chalk would fit at the end of the wires.

Mr. Conklin drew on the blackboard with the “thing.” There were five white lines evenly spaced on the blackboard.

“This is called a staff,” Mr. Conklin said. “It holds all the notes. Miss Mulligan, if you please ...”

Miss Mulligan began to play one note at a time and Mr. Conklin sang the notes “DO, RE, MI.” As he sang, he drew small notes on the lines and the spaces of the staff. “These eight notes make up all the music we will sing this year. Now let's try it together.”

We all sang, “DO, RE, MI, FA, SOL, LA, TI, DO.” It was called “the scale.” We went up the scale and down the scale.

“Very, very good, boys and girls,” Mr. Conklin said. Then he passed out songbooks. We opened them up and on the first page was “My Country ‘Tis of Thee.” We sang it again. Miss Mulligan told Mr. Conklin that we had sung it at the assembly this morning.

“We can never sing it enough,” Mr. Conklin said. “All right, boys and girls, now we will start to learn another patriotic song, ‘America the Beautiful.”'

Mr. Conklin drew another scale on the blackboard. Then, one by one, he drew the notes on the scale and Miss Mulligan played them on the piano.

“Now follow along with your songbooks,” Mr. Conklin said. We did. It was fun. Before you knew it, we were singing the first lines, “O beautiful for spacious skies, / For amber waves of grain.”

“That's it for today,” Mr. Conklin said. “Next, I will test everyone's voice, one at a time.”

One by one, we went into the Teachers' Room. We had to sing something for Mr. Conklin.

When my turn came, I sang, “I Ain't Afraid of a Policeman.” It was the song I sang when I was the pirate in Miss Leah's dance recital in the spring. It was also the song I sang on the record my grandfather, Tom, and I made at the Savin Rock Amusement Park.

“You have very good pitch, young man,” Mr. Conklin said. “We'll have to see if we can give you some solos.” That meant I would get to sing something all by myself. It was a very exciting morning.

During recess, Jeannie told me that Mr. Conklin had said she had a good voice, too. Maybe we'd get to sing a DUET! That's when two people sing together. We were so busy talking about our music lesson that we forgot all about the war.

Today in school, after we said the Pledge of Allegiance to the flag and sang “My Country ‘Tis of Thee, ”Miss Gardner told us to sit down with our hands folded on our desks. She had an important announcement to make.

“This morning we will have our first AIR RAID DRILL. You all know what a FIRE DRILL is.”

A FIRE DRILL was when the bell rang and the fire alarm went off. The fire alarm was like a horn sound. All the classes lined up quickly and filed out of the school building. If it was cold, we put on our coats first. We had to stand away from the school in a special spot for each class. The teacher had her attendance book with her. She checked to make sure every student was there.

Miss Gardner continued, “This morning we received ‘Rules for Air Raid Drills' from the Board of Education. Pay attention while I read these rules to you.”

I raised my hand.

“What is it, Tommy?” Miss Gardner asked. (In school I had to spell my name T-o-m-m-y instead of T-o-m-i-e.)

“What's an air raid?” I asked.

“Well, I don't think we have to worry about a real air raid. These are the rules just in case there is an air raid. That's why it is called a drill.”

I guess Miss Gardner didn't want to explain it to us. It was like Tom told me. Maybe she didn't want to frighten us.