Читать книгу Stars, Stripes and Surprises - Valerie Tripp - Страница 6

olly did her best to make friends with Emily in the next few days, but she didn’t get very far. Emily was always polite, but she never seemed to warm up. Molly tried everything. She showed Emily her most treasured possession—her nurse doll, Katharine. Molly’s dad had sent Katharine to Molly as a Christmas present. Molly was sure Emily would see that Katharine was the most beautiful doll in the world.

“You see,” Molly said as she handed the doll to Emily, “Katharine is dressed like a real English nurse.”

“A nurse?” said Emily. “I don’t think so.”

“What do you mean?” Molly asked. “She comes from England. My dad sent her. And he said she’s dressed like the nurses who work in the hospital with him.”

Emily straightened Katharine’s cap and said politely but firmly, “In England nurses take care of little children. Women who work in hospitals are called sisters. Your doll is dressed like a sister.”

“No kidding!” said Molly. “That’s great! I’ve always liked to pretend Katharine is my sister, and now it turns out she really is!”

Emily looked confused. She never understood when Molly said something silly just to be funny. “She isn’t your sister. She’s a sister,” Emily said.

“Oh, well,” said Molly. “Whatever you call her, she’s beautiful, isn’t she?”

“Very nice,” said Emily coolly. She handed the doll back to Molly.

The first day Emily came to school, all the girls asked her lots of questions. They loved her English accent. “She sounds like a movie star, the way she says ‘how do you do’ and ‘rah-ther,’” said Alison Hargate.

All morning long, everyone tried to imitate the way Emily talked. Emily herself didn’t say very much. At lunch, Molly sat next to Emily. She tried to include her in the conversation. During recess, Susan asked, “Was your house ever bombed, Emily?”

Emily said, “No.”

Susan kept on. “Did you ever see other houses being bombed?” she asked.

Emily didn’t answer right away. Finally, she said, “Yes.” Everyone waited for her to say more.

“Well? What was it like?” asked Linda. “Was it exciting?”

Emily looked frosty. “I don’t remember,” she said.

“Gosh, how could you forget a thing like that?” asked Susan.

Emily shrugged.

There was a chilly silence. Finally, Molly said, “Come on! Let’s play jump rope.” They all moved into the sunshine.

After a few days, everyone more or less ignored Emily at school. She was so quiet it was an easy thing to do. No one said it, but everyone thought Emily was a disappointment.

“Well, at least she’s not a showoff,” Linda pointed out. “I was afraid she’d expect all of us to make a fuss over her. I thought she might be stuck-up, but she’s not.”

“No,” sighed Molly. “She’s nice enough, I guess. She’s just so…”

“Quiet,” whispered Linda. Everyone giggled.

The girls were walking home from school under trees that were green with new buds. It was one of those tricky spring days that starts as winter in the morning and ends up as summer in the afternoon. Molly had her sweater tied around her waist. Susan had her jacket completely unbuttoned and her arms out of the sleeves. She was only wearing the hood, so the rest flapped behind her like a cape. Linda was the only one still wearing rubbers and a hat.

“Emily even brushes her teeth quietly,” said Molly.

“Where is she now?” asked Susan.

“Mom is taking her to see her aunt in the hospital. Then they’re going shopping. She has to get some sneakers, only she calls them ‘plimsolls.’ It’s one of her weird English words.”

“Plimsolls?” said Linda. She pinched her nose and said in a hoity-toity voice, “Oh, deah! My plimsolls smell simply dreadful.”

“I don’t think that’s very nice, Linda,” said Susan. “Did you ever think that maybe Emily is quiet because she doesn’t like sounding so different? Or maybe it’s because she doesn’t know the American words for things. Of course, I still think she’s quiet because she’s weak and starving. She needs food.”

“Mom gives her plenty of food,” said Molly. “But she likes strange things like sardines. She doesn’t like normal things like cake.”

They all tried to imagine not liking cake.

“What kind of cake are you going to have at your birthday party?” asked Susan.

“Mrs. Gilford is going to make that vanilla cake without eggs or butter or milk. She’s saved enough sugar rations and chocolate to make frosting,” said Molly.

“Yummm,” said Susan. “My favorite. If Emily doesn’t want her piece, I’ll eat it.”

“Okay,” laughed Molly, “we’ll share it.”

“Talking about cake makes me want some right now,” said Susan. “Let’s go see if Mrs. Gilford has any.”

But Mrs. Gilford said it was too close to dinnertime for any snack other than carrot sticks, so the girls munched their way down to the bomb shelter to play.

Emily and Mrs. McIntire came home just as the rest of the family was sitting down to dinner. “The days are getting longer,” Mrs. McIntire said cheerfully. “Spring is here. Doesn’t someone in this family have a birthday in the spring?” she asked with a smile.

“I do!” said Molly. “My birthday is only a few weeks away.”

“Have you decided what kind of party you want this year?” asked her mother.

“I haven’t decided yet,” said Molly. “I’ve been thinking about it and—”

Suddenly, a loud, shrill siren screeched.

“Hurray!” said Ricky. “A blackout!” He jumped up from the table. Emily shrank back in her seat.

“Oh, dear,” sighed Mrs. McIntire. “A surprise blackout. All right, everyone, let’s get going. Jill, you close the blackout curtains. Ricky, turn off all the lights. Molly and Emily, you take Brad downstairs. I’ll get some blankets and be right down.”

Molly was halfway to the stairs with Brad when she realized Emily wasn’t following her. She was sitting at the table, as still as a stone.

“Come on, Emily,” said Molly. “Hurry up!”

Emily didn’t move.

Molly spoke louder. “Emily, you can’t just sit there. It’s a blackout. We all have to go downstairs. We have to hurry.”

“Don’t be scared, Emily,” said Brad. “No bombs will come. This is only pretend.”

Molly looked hard at Emily. Was Brad right? Was that the problem? Was Emily scared? She certainly looked scared. Her face was white. Molly’s voice softened. “It’s okay, Emily,” she said. “It’s just practice, really. I promise.”

Emily didn’t say anything. But she got up from the table and followed Molly downstairs.

“We have these blackouts every once in a while,” Mrs. McIntire said to Emily when everyone was gathered in the basement. “They’re a drill for us. There’s not much chance of being bombed here, but we want to be ready just in case. So we practice turning out all the lights in town, so no one could see our houses from an airplane. But I imagine you know all about blackouts.”

Emily was sitting in the darkest corner of the basement, a little apart from everyone else. Even though it wasn’t cold, Emily was wrapped up in a blanket. Molly went over to sit next to her. She couldn’t see Emily’s face.

“Sometimes they tell us beforehand about the blackouts. Then Mom makes a thermos bottle of hot chocolate…” Molly stopped. She saw that Emily was shivering. “Emily? Are you okay?” she asked.

Emily sniffed. Molly realized she was crying. “What’s the matter? Are you scared?”

Emily shook her head no. “I hate this,” she said suddenly. Molly sat very still and listened. “I hate sitting in the dark, waiting. In England, back during the Blitz, almost every night we had to do this. You’d hear an awful noise, then one split second of silence, and then the explosion.” Emily shuddered. “The whole house would shake. If we were on the street when the siren went off, we’d have to make a dash for the tube station—the subway, you call it. We sometimes had to sleep there, with all the other people, all crowded together.”

Molly didn’t know what to say.

Emily went on. “But it was almost worse afterward, coming out again. A house you’d walked past every day would be nothing but a pile of stones. Sometimes the flowers would still be growing along a path, and the path would lead to nothing. The house would be gone.”

Emily pulled the blanket tighter. “In England the bombing isn’t exciting at all. It isn’t a game. It’s terrible. People and…things get hurt. They get killed. You Americans don’t know.”

Molly waited to be sure Emily was finished talking. Then she said, “I guess we really don’t know. We’re safe here. And now you’re safe, too, Emily.”

Emily sighed. “But my mum and dad are still there.”

Molly moved closer to Emily. She knew how it felt to be worried about someone far away and in danger. “My dad’s there, too,” she said. “I miss him so much my heart hurts.”

Emily looked sideways at Molly. “Sometimes I feel like a coward to have left London.”

“Oh, no,” said Molly. “I think you’re very brave to have been in the bombing. You’re as brave as a soldier. You’re the bravest person I know, after my dad.”

“If I were really brave, I would have asked my parents to let me stay,” Emily said sadly.

Molly wanted to make Emily feel better. “But even the princesses of England had to leave London,” she said. “I read it in a magazine. They’ve moved out of the palace in London and out to…what’s the name of that place?”

“Windsor Castle,” said Emily.

“That’s right,” said Molly. “I read that they sleep in the dungeons every night, to be safe from bombs. They’re very brave and they left London. You are just as brave as those princesses, Emily.”

Emily let the blanket fall away from her head. “Do you like Princess Elizabeth and Princess Margaret Rose, too?” she asked.

“Oh, yes!” said Molly. “I always love to see them in the newsreels and magazines. I think they’re so pretty. I even have paper dolls of them.”

“You do?” said Emily. Her face looked bright. “I have a scrapbook full of their pictures. I even have pictures of them when they were little girls.”

“Ohhh, how wonderful,” said Molly. “Did you bring your scrapbook with you?”

“Yes!” said Emily. “It’s in my bag, under my bed.”

“Could I see it?” Molly asked eagerly.

“Of course!” said Emily.

Just then the all-clear signal blew and the blackout was over. Molly stood up. “Let’s go,” she said.

Emily gathered the blanket in her arms. “Yes, indeed,” she said.

Molly grinned. And Emily actually smiled back.