7: Voice of War

Pamela

His humiliation lingered no longer than it took Jimmy Cagney to be strapped in the electric chair. He was determined to get his “life“ back. Johnny had extended beyond the norm of heavy, but brief mourning, belying nature’s bent to eventual acceptance. Gradually, however, and unlike his mother, he awakened to the reality that because his life had stopped did not imply that death ruled. Life on pause by definition had to regenerate—particularly when pushed by sexual awareness, which Janie unwittingly awakened in him.

When he entered the classroom, Sally was busy showing off her pretty pink lunchbox—even the Thermos cork had a pink tint to it. His eyes were riveted to her as he dropped his books on the desk. From the front of the room, Sally glanced back at him fleetly, then blinked at her redheaded friend and giggled. Grimacing, coupled with a knuckle rap on the desk, he slid his Silvercup-wrapped apple-butter sandwiches under the desk top and wheeled round for the clothes closet. He slid the door over to hang up his brother’s hand-me-down. Jimmy and Mary Lou were undergoing youth’s experimentation.

“Close the door, Jerk!” Jimmy rasped fiercely, pulling the coat from Johnny’s hand. Mary Lou blushed, but as the door rolled shut, she swooned as the chubby boy who would have no part of the leg carried out his destiny to be a man who would have but breast.

Returning to his double desk in the middle aisles, wishing for the good old days when they shared the double desk in the fifth grade, he glanced ahead again. Janie had her face to him and smiled. He thought that the heavy dab of ashes did not detract from her one bit. She faced the front again, and he gazed, which was often during class, at her incomparable hair as he took his seat. Johnny was surprised to see the mate seat occupied; it had been vacant since December. The new girl had just been seated by the teacher who told him to make her feel welcome. “Plain-looking kid“ was his first impression. He glanced over with an awkward nod, to which she responded with a timid smile and then turned her head to the blackboard. Though he felt a little embarrassed sitting next to a girl that seemed reserved, much like himself—he was used to the “loose“ type nearby him for the past two years—he nevertheless preferred her to the fellow who had vacated her seat. Johnny had perceived his old desk-mate, Nick, as a “Dead-End“ kid who did nothing in class but wise-crack and give the teacher and some of the kids a hard time.

Just before the Thanksgiving recess, this Nick one day in the basement cafeteria had sat down next to Sally and Janie. Johnny was boiling mad when he saw this stocky kid annoying them and raised up to go to their rescue when his gym teacher, one of several gym teachers who monitored the lunch periods, made him sit down. Naturally, Sally had her own impromptu solution. Even though she feared the boy and avoided him at all costs, she had learned from her ordeal with Johnny’s “thugs“ that she would face up to danger at all costs.

Johnny observed Janie bursting into tears, apparently from some off-color remark, prompting Sally to hit the “Dead-End“ kid over the head with her old, trusty lunchbox. She then reported Nick to one of the gym teachers who immediately went over, yanked him by his black, greasy hair and deposited him in the principal’s office. Nick quieted down some in class afterward. When he turned sixteen during the Christmas break, he never returned.         Johnny studied the new girl’s profile. The high forehead and perfectly straight nose seemed undermined by the puffy red cheek and protruding lips. Judgment invaded his retina: “Looks somethin’ like...who’s that kid in the Andy Hardy movies?...Na, her nose is puggy...still, seems like her...what’s her name?...played that dumb girl...Shirley Temple was supposed to get the part...Dorothy, that’s it...the one with the ruby slippers...what’s her real name?..aw, who cares?...good singer, though...always liked that little quiver in her voice...even when talking, especially when she gets upset, which was a lot, either over that dumb dog or Andy....” He looked again. “Hmm, not that plain...no Sally, though—and sure as heck no Janie.”

The new girl felt his eyes on her and turned with a brighter smile. “How do you do—I’m Pamela,” she introduced herself in a thick but soft English accent as she nervously twirled a short curl at her rosy cheek.

“What kind of name is that? I don’t think I ever heard it before. Hollywood can come up with some strange labels, but I haven’t even heard of an actress with a name like that,” he brayed rudely while rubbing his hair.

She smiled perplexedly, then her eyes glittered. “Oh, it’s quite common where I come from.”

“Figured you was-weren’t from around here,” he asserted, then watched her twirl thin curls fanning over her ear. “How come your hair’s so short?”

“Since it seems we shall be close classmates perhaps I should tell you if you promise to keep it a secret.” Then she put her hand over her mouth for an instant; when she withdrew it she giggled. “Perhaps I had better wait till I know you better.”

“Wow, it’s that bad, eh? I guess, you’re going to tell me you accidentally walked into a barber shop during the Wednesday afternoon fifteen-cent special.” He laughed.

His genuine laugh relaxed her; she chuckled. “No, it’s a serious subject.”

“Oh, gosh, you didn’t have brain surgery!”

She burst abruptly into laughter, then quickly cupped her hand over her mouth as her eyes walled the room in embarrassment. Some of the pupils noticed with raised eye-brows. For security she returned to her new friend. “You’re as funny as that comedian of yours—it is said he’s really English, you know,” she noted, thinking of Bob Hope.

“I don’t know any English comics, except that fat bald-headed feller in the newsreels that always has a cigar in his mouth and looks like a bull dog.” She laughed again but this time chokingly and directly into her blandly freckled hand. She too—surely secretly—had thought of Churchill in that image even though she worshiped him for his inspired stand during the Battle of Britain.

His brown eyes searched her pleasant, apparently intelligent face, compelling him to cry out, “Never saw you in 9-1 or 3 where I figure you belong. You look like an odd number. Gee, maybe I guessed right and you did have an operation, eh?”

Her warm eyes turned to frost. “I beg your pardon, puppy? Are you insinuating...”

His eye-lids lowered in contrition. He was never comfortable with wise-cracking. “Oh, I didn’t mean loco or anything like that. Please don’t get huffy. I just meant that in this class we ai-aren’t exactly geniuses like the odd classes—’course, I don’t mean they’re really odd, if you know what I mean.”

Warmth returned to her nature with his contrite tone. “No, I don’t really know what you mean at all.”

“Gee, you really are a new kid. You see, the odd number classes, 9-1 and 3, are the smart kids. We’re even numbers; so we don’t too good—uh, well.... And being the 4 class...I guess that makes us the worst. Why,...like...Mrs. Denelto won’t even take us on field trips like the 2 class is always going on because she says we’re too unruly and unapp...uh, unappr...”

“Inappreciative?” she extrapolated with a slight smile.“

“Yeah, that’s it. I sometimes get stuck on a word. Well, I guess you just answered my question ’cause you seem awfully smart, and I apologize. I didn’t mean to upset you, and I sure wouldn’t want to insult you—what with being new and everything. Johnny was trying to be mindful of his speech as he would in the presence of an adult. “Anyway, we’re always reading from these kiddy books,” he added, placing his weathered, brown-caddy hand on the stack. Then he proceeded to unbuckle the books to slide them under the desk top. He slid one back out. “Except this one—we’re just—getting started on it.” as he held up an abridged copy of David Copperfield.

“Oh, indeed, there is nothing childish about Dickens. Her eyes lighted up as she saw another book under the desk and leaned over to edge out a copy of Moby Dick.

He looked down. “Oh, that...it’s not a school book; but it’s not the real thing either. I just got this from the library the other day.” He opened it up and fanned the pages. “As you can see from all the pictures and how skinny it is that it’s not what I wanted,” he chinned a deprecating smirk. He slid it back under carelessly, crushing his sandwiches. “Just a baby version.”

“Melville on any level is not simple.” Her blue eyes blinked with curiosity, mixed with mild admiration.

“You’re prob’ly—probably right, but what I’m looking for is not in it.”

“Oh, pray, what is it you’re searching for? Must be terribly intellectual if you’re prying into such a great author—hardly stuff for an odd number, eh?” She smiled pixieishly, coupled with a feeling of intrigue, however uncomfortably intrusive from uncustomary prying.

“Oh, it’s just a line or two that was read to me a long time ago—something about chips and stuff,” he equivocated, rubbing his hair. “So,... tell me,... you seem really smart. How is it they put you in this class? I know someone else who doesn’t belong here. There’s another one too—not for being so smart—she’s just too gentle for this class.” His eyes walled in the direction of Sally, then they lighted on Janie who again had turned around to look at the newcomer. This time he smiled, and Janie with a Mona Lisa expression slowly turned her head to the front.

The new girl had noticed for several minutes that he seemed to be elsewhere. Apparently the subject of Melville was over, she thought, smiling. “I hope I’m not disappointing you, uh—what is your name?”

“Uh, oh, I’m Johnny. He swiveled his head quickly and then back to the front of the room where Sally normally sat, but could not pick up her blonde hair. He had missed her pass by him on her way to the clothes closet by order of the teacher to remove Jimmy and Mary Lou from their trysting place. Pleased to meet you, Johnny.” She extended her hand but quickly withdrew it when she saw he was not looking at her. “The truth is, John, the principal was very apologetic, but he did not have a spare desk in any of the other home rooms. Frankly, I don’t care—I’m just thrilled to be here.”

 He redirected his attention to Pamela by searching her eyes: “My mother’s eyes are blue too. They don’t sparkle like yours—not anymore. Where are you from ...Jersey some place?”

 She beamed. “Oh?...You know England, do you?”

“What’s England got to do with Jersey? I’m just trying to make conversation. I just notice you speak different...you know, like the English...like you were chewing marshmallow.” He slapped his forehead. “Aw, there I go again. I mean chewing it nicely like a lady.”

She chuckled. “What a strange coincidence. I was thinking that perhaps you were chewing tobacco like they do in the those western talkies.”

He flushed with embarrassment. “No, I have some bringing up, you know. I never talk with my mouthful....I know I’m careless the way I talk. It’s a mystery to me how that happens. When you’re just a little feller, just learning to talk, you try hard to get the words right, pronouncing them to yourself over and over again; just so you can use them right which brings praise from your folks—and a friend,” he explained as the exacting little blonde crossed his mind. “Then it seems as soon as you learn to use them right, you start un-using them—like you’re bored with them because they’re not new and exciting anymore. And as far as tobacco goes, nobody does that anymore, least of all kids. Come to think of it, though, baseball players still chew them—like Hugh Casey.”

“Baseball?...Why, yes cricket.” Her eyes flashed. “Oh, please tell me—have you ever seen Babe Ruth? We used to hear of him all the time.” Her blue eyes danced, and her naturally pink cheeks seemed crimson, owing to a perking interest in this roughly hewed American. She suspected that somewhere he would be finely chiseled.

“Cricket? Babe Ruth?...You’re weird.” He flicked his hands defensively. “In a nice way, I mean. No, Babe Ruth hasn’t been in baseball for a couple of years! But...you know somethin’? My brother caddied for him once.”

“Oh, how exciting that must have been for your brother! Such a famous man...and to be bagging for him—thrilling!”

“Yeah, he pays good too—six bits. Well, what I mean is a seventy-five cent tip plus the dollar caddie fee. I gotta spend the whole weekend, mainly Saturdays, to make that, and I gotta add a lot of luck along with it. Of course, this is just kid stuff, but this time of year only the old caddies who don’t go south get the bags and I can’t waste my Saturdays and Sundays waitin’’ around for Lady Luck to toss me out a loop.”

“Just what do you do on Saturdays?” Her eyes dazzled with curiosity. Her English propriety precluded anything beyond that, though his good looks forced her to remind herself of a boyfriend left behind when she boarded the Queen Mary.

 Familiar blonde hair caught his eye for a moment, but he was so engaged with the newcomer that there was not the usual cerebral-heartfelt response; his eyes rolled back to Pamela and replied, “Sell magazines—Liberty and Saturday Evening Post.”

“Oh, my Norman Rockwell! He’s very popular in Britain. Oh, you simply must come round to our house this Saturday and sell me one of your ‘Saturdays’!”

 His eyes flashed golden brown. “No kidding me? You really mean it?”

“Of course, I mean it...unless you don’t want to....I should realise that you may feel it’s not worth it to sell just one magazine.”

“She said softly, a little sadly, lowering her head in disappointment.

 He beamed. “Paml’r. I go all over town selling them. Why, sometimes an hour or two go by before I sell one. You just give me the directions and I’ll be on your doorstep.”

“Her eyes danced with his. “Oh, how very nice of you! It shall so help me too—that is, to belong here, you know. We have friends next door too and on the next block as well as my American uncle and aunt. I’ll make it a point that they purchase from you. Why, you will become an entrepreneur!”

“Now I know you’re from England! Because whatever you call it, it’s not from around here!” He perked his head up, recalling Sally’s tirades of big words. He got a beam on his search for maturity: “Say,...don’t tell me you’ve been under one of those God awful aerial attacks I’ve been seeing in the Blitz newsreels?”

 Her eyes dropped as she nodded; her fingernail was absently tracing a faded I love you, Errol Flynn message written on the desk. “Unfortunately, John, I have had such experience.” She had a quiver in her voice that reminded him again of that Oz girl.

 “Wow, what excitement!” he yelped, then realizing his callous stupidity, he uttered carefully, apologetically, scraping the rust from his grown-up style, “I suppose, you think that I’m the one who’s weird—dumb would be more like it. It’s hard for me at times to think of the war as real. I should know better—especially now what with my brother and now you. It’s rough when you have to live it, isn’t it?”

 She put her finger to her lips. “Shhh...the teacher.”

 Mrs. Denelto had risen from her desk just as Sally had completed writing some of the day’s assignments on the board for her. Johnny shook his head in frustration, dropped his jaw in surprise and raised his heavy brows when he realized having been so absorbed that he had missed Sally’s “show“.

  The teacher walked up the aisle to Pamela, who immediately flushed self-consciously when the teacher put her hand on the nervous girl’s shoulder and announced the obvious to the class that it had a new student. “Pamela is not only our new neighbor from across the seas but is our ally in a war—and I do not say this, young men and ladies, to alarm you—that is destined to become our war as well. Pamela is from England. I expect all of you to do everything possible to make her feel at home.”

 Slowly ambling back to the front of the room, she continued, “As you have learned from your history books, we owe much to her nation. Yes, even though we fought Pamela’s country in two wars well over a century ago, there would be no America as we know it, were it not for England. Ironically we fought for our own independence because England taught us about freedom and parliamentary government. Currently Great Britain is now engaged in a struggle for her own freedom in this awful but momentous war against the Axis and in so doing is preserving our own valued liberty. We are therefore honored to have such a distinguished neighbor in our class.”

  During this introduction—rather political and contrite, since Mrs. Denelto was of the generation that had experienced the war that would end all wars—Pamela was moved, welled up, and washed away her embarrassment. Johnny had been staring at Sally who was perfectly attentive as usual—her hazel eyes always alive with excitement whenever the teacher spoke or the class was engaged in assignments befitting, which was rare, her intellectual ability. Johnny wondered why she had been put in the “dummy“ class this year. Johnny vaguely remembered—it seemed so long ago now—how Sally always helped him with his times table and how she could divide and multiply with the speed of Bullet Man, but it was always her verbal power that remained with him most clearly.

 Mrs. Denelto, who was their history and English teacher as well as home room adviser—was comparing Parliament to Congress. Johnny was comparing noses. Sally’s nose was still the tiny, sharply defined upturned, delightful feature that it had always been, while his had enlarged so that he imagined it unmanageably spreading all over his face. He instinctively felt above his lip. He thought, “It’ll take another year or two or maybe even three before I could ever grow a moustache like Don Ameche and Errol Flynn did to hide their big noses—especially Don Ameche’s....Wonder why Durante never grew one?—not that it would help any—he’d hafta grow a bush. Maybe he’s smarter than the rest of us in accepting himself for what he is—what would he be without that nose?...A Joey Brown without a big mouth. Why, I wouldn’t be surprised if Durante’s nose stretched to within ’ten miles of the sun!’“ This last expression stretched to the beach as he envisioned his father looking up to the sun. Then he remembered that Janie once admitted after a game at the park that his nose was perfect “like a Roman god’s.” He wondered why Sally never commented on his nose. “With all the millions of words she’s thrown at me, she’s never said anything about anybody’s nose, except her own, which she thinks is a hook.”

Had it not been for Mrs. Denelto’s creation of this good-neighbor policy, her being the center of attraction and the crude innuendoes concerning her “odd“ speech, Pamela would have found the social studies period overbearing except that she sensed her new classmates were generally warm, friendly and most importantly intrigued by her having been close to the devastation of war; and that they had exhibited genuine interest and shock. They were not that innocent, that unaware that they were unable to grasp the peril so evident from headlines, newsreels, broadcasts and their parents’ concerned conversations. Comic books and afternoon radio serials were beginning to hint at the current peril, together with constantly updated war cards.

Student Exchange of Young Ideas

Pamela was assigned to the same science class as Johnny’s, the period before lunch; and when its dismissal bell rang, Johnny directed Pamela to the lunch line, while he picked up his usual penny milk before the line got too long. She seemed distraught that he had left her alone in the line, but he had to go back to Mrs. Denelto’s room for his sandwiches that he had customarily left under the desk compartment or in the closet because he was self-conscious of the Silvercup wrapping; other kids had neat, custom-sized brown bags or lunch boxes in which sandwiches were neatly wrapped in waxed paper. When he arrived at the home room, Mrs. Denelto was at her desk grading papers and having a sandwich, along with her lemon-orange ade in a Miracle Whip jar, which she had kept on the outer window sill in the cool weather. Though approaching March, it was still on the edge of freezing temperatures, Janie, the ever loyal and sweetest, was assigned class sentinel to insure against her nectar from freezing. She would not entrust her “celebrated“ jar to anyone else—other than Sally in Janie’s absence. Johnny went directly to his desk, withdrew his mangled sandwiches, and the copy of Moby Dick slid out along with them and fell to the floor. He picked it up and started to flip through the pages. He began to catch some of the words and his page-flipping slowed down. He sat down to read, flip, search, flip again. He was intrigued by the illustration on the last page—Ishmael on the fringe of a vortex.

For a moment he appeared to Mrs. Denelto, who had looked up when she did not hear him leave in his usual quick manner, an earnest scholar in search of an all-important passage that would guarantee an ’A’ paper. She had read in his records that in grade school Sara Byron had a strong influence on him. Mrs. Denelto had wondered why the two seemed so apart. Observing Johnny absorbed in a book again made her think that perhaps...but then concluded that it might just be the advent of the new girl was what he needed. “Johnny, you’d better get back to the cafeteria or the period will be over before you know it.” she ordered lackadaisically as she reshuffled some papers. Then she changed her usual tone he was accustomed to whenever he broke in on her privacy, and gently suggested, “Oh, I suppose you still have time...before you go, I’d like to show you a paper. He closed the book and slid it back under. He walked up to her desk, fearing the worst. “Don’t look so worried, Johnny; I’m not going to bite you—I’ve had my lunch.” She smiled, held up the paper while he stood at the desk. Johnny recognized it as his own social studies assignment that he had turned in the previous day. She began, “In spite of slovenliness here and there, your spelling is excellent and your penmanship aside from the smudges is rather good. You should try to be as careful with your social studies work as with your English essays which aren’t half as careless. However, that is not my point right now. You have flashes here and there, Johnny—rather perceptive in some respect. But that is precisely when you seem to become incoherent and go off on tangents, making it difficult to follow you. I suspect, you really do not know where you want to go. Obviously, then, the reader becomes impatient and presumes she will be led into a blind alley. There is little wrong with your sentences, but when strung together there is no unity and therefore no direction.”

Johnny was agape, not sure what her direction was either. She turned the paper round, beckoned with her left hand that he look at the paper and pointed her red pencil to a passage. “See, Johnny, here you are actually trying to say something in this paragraph. A truly honest effort that I’ve been aware of in your more recent English compositions. Now, most of this paragraph does make sense and it expresses a great personal bearing on the exploits of Marco Polo—I like that—students should always try to relate one’s personal feeling to history for it to be meaningful. But what I don’t understand is why you are unable to follow through. Here you say:

Sometimes I wonder how great it must be to travel the globe, learning all there is to know and then to return to your own backyard and picture all the memories brought back. Yet there has to be something more important than that. Sure, Marco Polo was a man of adventure, but if he just felt like me, he would not be a man of history, just another adventurer. He wasn’t like me, thank goodness, because he returned with knowledge and maps for his country to use. Marco must have felt real good about that in bringing Europe knowledge from China. Captain Ahab should take a lesson from Mr. Polo instead of applying his fine mind( I think he had) to wrong purposes. What if Marco sailed out from the China coast into the great Pacific seeking new adventure because he wasn’t happy with all he learned from China? He could have gotten lost or been killed on some island like Balboa, and we never would have heard of him and lost all that knowledge like Ahab wasted himself and his crew.

See what I mean, Johnny?—what has Ahab and Balboa have to do with what you’re trying to say. Besides what do you know about Ahab? We haven’t studied that. It’s only in senior English, and an advanced twelfth grade class at that. This is a social studies paper; Ahab doesn’t belong here. You mention him again further down along with Ishmael—totally irrelevant, particularly since I know you’ve been carrying a children’s version. Instead, in order to strengthen your paragraph you should have mentioned the kind of knowledge that Marco Polo brought back from the Orient and gave to the western world.” She waved the red pencil before his face and added, “That’s what I mean by coherence, Johnny. You must learn to weed out scattered thoughts.”

Johnny turned away and coughed nervously, cleared his throat, turned back to say something, but he just bit his lip. Mrs. Denelto put down the pencil and stared up at his saddened eyes. “You must plan better, Johnny.” Then her voice softened. “Well, I just wanted you to know that, but especially that I have noticed a great change in you lately—mostly for the better—I’m rooting for you, Johnny. I would hate to see you not make the high school next year. I know you can do the work—you seem very capable—I’m aware of your good school record up to the sixth grade and I believe it is indicative of your true potential.” She paused and looked into his eyes brightening, yet still mixed with sadness. Touching his hand that was white knuckled on the desk, she said warmly, “I know you lost your father...very sad, very, very sad....But I’m sure your father wouldn’t want you to throw away an education. These are very dark times, my boy, but through hope, learning and perseverance, things will get brighter, you’ll see, John.” She touched his hand again. “Relax, my boy....Now run along to lunch.”

He darted through the corridor and leaped three steps at a time down the metal staircase toward the cafeteria. By the second landing his moist eyes from her reference to her father had dried. He smiled heading into the cafeteria, thinking of her words. It was the first time she had ever really spoken to him. He was thrilled that she had actually seen him as someone other than an object to bounce off. It had always been: “Lower the shades, Johnny....For not doing your homework you must stay after classes and do it.... Day-dreaming again, Johnny?...Why can’t you try to emulate some of the brighter children, at least in their demeanor.”

All this seemed “irrelevant“ now, he thought. “Jeez, I gotta return that book and get out the big one! So I’ll make better sense....Oh, why can’t I just ask her? Sally knows everything!...Still, Mrs. Denelto...maybe she’s right—it is out of whack—I should put it to rest.”

In the cafeteria he sat down at an empty bench table but for two girls and a boy at the far end. Though he had been determined to sit with Sally and Janie this day, after this morning’s travesty at the school hydrant he could not overcome the embarrassment that continued to linger. Moreover, he hoped that Pamela, if still on the lunch-line, in seeing him relatively alone would join him, though he supposed because of his delay with Mrs. Denelto that she had already found a table. Inconspicuously he glanced about the large basement- cafeteria. Granting she was plain looking—his mind continued to dwell on...”Jumpin’’’ Jupiter, of course, Judy Garland! the Andy Hardy gal!—he nevertheless reflected that there was “a kind of niceness about her...yeah, Judy, too.” He thought of Janie and their first movie alone together.

  The fact was Pamela was a very attractive girl, but her reserved and regal-like bearing was mystifying to the class. She seemed older when in biological reality she was just fifteen, virtually a year younger than Johnny and less than three months older than Janie. To Johnny she seemed closer to eighteen, especially after hearing her talk to the class about England and the Blitz. He was no judge of age, however, for the reason that he had at times considered himself younger than Sally, owing to her domination of him. Of course, he had the natural protective instinct in physical matters and in that respect was like an older brother as with Janie all the time. Now in the prime of puberty he wanted to be Sally’s “steady“ and have a normal relationship like other couples at that age. That he always admired, perhaps feared Sally’s brilliance, was, of course the underlying thrust of psychological mating. That she had never in the past evidenced any physical contact other than occasionally clinging to his hand, or kissing him on the cheek out of a happy moment or as a reward for his doing an assignment well, he dismissed as symbolic of their young age. Now, however it would be different; still, he wondered if he were simply a brother she never had. It seemed since his father’s death he had repressed the time in the Graham and afterwards when he confessed he latched onto her soul.

Because of his dim curiosity, he tended to yield to better minds. Johnny was not of the breed that resented superior minds. If he had learned anything from Sally it was a profound respect for learning even though he was honest enough with himself that he would never come close to the zenith toward which Sally was clearly heading. It was clear, then, that Pamela had a finely tuned mind, and he respected her for that, but not mesmerized, having been exposed to Sally virtually all his conscious life. In total, however, he admired Pamela’s other-worldliness and demure manner in stark contrast to what he had been observing in Sally of late. Partly it was resentment that he was not really with Sally at the threshold of becoming a total female. It had always been assumed that their enduring relationship would unnoticeably hurdle the crises of growing up. With his “self-exile“, however, he had become an observer, not a participant in her vitality and social dynamics, which seemed to him always on display. Though she had always been this way, he had never really noticed because of his proximity and natural acceptance. On the other hand, Pamela’s inherent sadness and reserve, which to a degree summed up his character for the last two years, if not a lifetime, drew him to her and gave him comfort—similar to what Janie had always done for him. Johnny was the kind of lad who cherished privacy; with Sally’s burst into his life, he never felt this invasion; rather, she was just a natural appendage to his maturation. For he had been quick to realize that even his comic book heroes behind their muscular stature all had high intelligence. He had learned, unfortunately through Sally’s ordeal, how dumb and vicious those “thugs“ were. “Look at FDR, tough as nails and smart as a whip though in a wheelchair. So to be tough you don’t have to be cruel and dumb.” Ray told him. It was a lesson in which he rebuked himself because he already knew it. He had often rebuked his friends when they ridiculed the school’s book worms. “Wouldn’t want a Johnny Weissmuller in the White House, wouldja?” He was drawn to Pam, too, because he was not alone with the awful, asphyxiating sense of loss after hearing her tell the class about the rigors of war that in these modern times even applied to children. Pamela had described—Janie with hands cupped over her red curls and ears—that the English children would often cry or sob in class because they had lost a father, brother, an uncle in the theaters of war; or a mother, sister, a little brother still missing from the last Blitz and possibly buried under rubble. He observed while she was talking to the class earlier that her eyes closely resembled the blinds of loss he so often noticed in his mother’s bleak eyes—though Pamela’s had not lost their lustre as much.

 Having torn into his squashed sandwiches and sucking up some milk, he looked over his shoulder to see her walking nervously with her tray, searching confusedly for a place to sit. He reared up and hailed her. She smiled with relief and approached with alacrity. He tried not to look at her legs, but there they were much fuller, industriously aimed in his direction, grandly fashionably vying for supremacy over Sally’s. Johnny’s curious bias, however, would not admit—as Jimmy had implied—such a competitive intervention with Janie’s, which were beyond all comparison and locked in his mind’s sacred place.

Pamela put down her tray. “It was good of you, John, to invite me.”

“Pamlr, I reserved this for you—I have influence with the gym teachers“ he announced nobly, then laughed at his own stupid remark.

“My, there was such a delay on the line!” she squeaked surprise, even though she was used to lines in England since the outbreak of war.

“Yeah, Pamlr, the lines are long up to Wednesdays before the family pay envelope runs dry. The lines get shorter then.”

“Please don’t think me rude, John,...but the name is Pam-e-la. However, I’m beginning to feel so American already—thanks particularly to you, the class, and, of course, dear Mrs. Denelto—that I wish you would call me Pam.”

“I kind of figured I wasn’t saying it right.” His earnestness, joined a sheepish smile. “And you must call me Johnny, though John does have a nice ring. I guess it’s because my mother and father used to call me that...see, my mother always called him Johnny, but when he died my mom started calling me Johnny. I hated it at first but then I started thinking that if it made her feel good it was worth it.”

 Sadness—just as in class when describing the Blitz—returned to her eyes. “I’m so sorry, Johnny, I had no idea.” She broke a smile and her pale blue irises rolled away the slight welling. “I lost my father....Well, we don’t know if he’s...that is, he was shot down over Dunkirk eight months ago. We haven’t heard a word since.” She busied over her tray.

“Cheez, I think that’s worse!...I mean, not know...ing or anything. But there’s hope, right?...I mean, cheez, he’s gonna be okay....I’m sure.” He reached over and touched her hand like he used to when his mother had her awful moments of soulful pain. He shook off the obsessive crane and steel girder. Wishing helplessly that the awful pain of the survived would never again emerge, he relinquished to its improbability in seeing Pam at this moment embodying what he most feared. Making him all too conscious of the enemy and contradiction of life, his brother’s words to their mom echoed in his mind’s ear.

Having a few spoonfuls of soup, Pamela put down the spoon, tapped her lips with a napkin and placed her other hand to her heart. “Hope, yes, yes, we at least have that. But you, dear John...y, what’s left for you?”

“I have my mom...and...”

“Yes, how very important. I know some friends who have lost both parents in the Battle of Britain. One, the poor soul, was the only survivor in the household. Ironic, you know, she told me that she had thanked God that her brother of the Expeditionary Force was at least unaccounted for in the massive evacuation at Dunkirk.”

“War...pretty awful stuff, isn’t it?” he understated, but to him it was a full admission. He chewed on the last morsel of his apple-butter sandwiches, slurped the container and added, “I guess, we’ll all be in it soon. My brother seems to think so, and I guess, Mrs. Denelto does too. Ray,...that’s my brother, is practically one of you now. He left for Canada months ago to join Canada’s RAF.”

“Really? My, you must be proud of him! What a brave, wonderful step to take!” ejaculating with genuine gratitude and pride, she broke off a piece of bread and added, softly; “Sad in a way that you, too, are in it, a definite part of it with your brother already into it.”

“I guess, it just has to be, right?” His war cards flipped in his head and he silently snickered at them. “It’s just a matter of timing, anyway. My brother got impatient over the snail pace of the draft bill. He couldn’t even wait a month to register; besides he claims it still wasn’t a real commitment on our part. Then he tells me, ’Johnny, a draft doesn’t mean a darn thing unless we declare war.’“

She daintily dipped the bread into the soup, held it to drain over the bowl, then put it in her mouth and let it slide inconspicuously down her throat. “John please forgive me for saying this—I know it’s dreadful of me—but I see no other course. Your brother is a brave man for seeing the urgency and acting on it. Of course, it will be extremely helpful to your brother when others join him. Hitler is totally out of control—some think terribly in control—and when my country goes down—believe me it is inevitable without assistance—the United States will be next on his maniacal death list.”

He shook his head in obstinacy and waved a hand. “FDR’s not going to let it happen and we ain’t...aren’t either.”

She was impressed by his confidence and sensitivity. “Oh, yes, your president is a courageous leader, but, according to my uncle whom we live with now, Roosevelt’s up against stiff resistance to the Lend-Lease he wants.”

“Maybe so, but they can’t keep putting it off. And the people know it. Why else would they elect him for a third term?”

“Oh, yes, thank God. All of Britain celebrated his victory in November.”

“I remember how my father used to say a long time ago that Hitler had to be stopped.” he announced maturely, enjoying a chance to be an adult. “Nothing makes more sense than surviving.” Then he slipped into the enthusiasm of “war card“ mentality and yelped, “Gee, sure wish I was older. I’d love to be in the thick of it right now! And would too—I’d run away—if it wasn’t for my mother.”

“Oh, John, what a childish thing to say!” she scolded.

He flushed with embarrassment and reached back and slicked down the back of his hair. “I guess, you’re right,” he admitted glumly. “But just like my brother, others have to see the danger of doing nothing.”

She offered with an apologetic undertone, “Strange,” isn’t it?—that it all comes to that—survival.”

“And freedom,” he added pensively.

Pamela felt that her intuition had been correct; there was something behind that American exterior. Having finished her soup, she turned to her egg-salad sandwich and offered him half. He tried not to look at it hungrily as he politely shook his head and thanked her anyway. She handed it to him nevertheless while modifying both views: “Yes, it’s even more strange that in the end we want to survive, to be free, so we can go beyond to pursue improbable ideals.” She bit into her half sandwich.

He eyed the other half, swallowed his pride and most of the sandwich. “Gee, their egg-salad is ideal: juicy moist.”

“Yes, they deliberately make them moist—they stay fresh that way. We learned that from the Salvation Army and the Red Cross.” She took another dainty bite of the sandwich and for a moment scanned her new environment. It seemed an eternity already when last she had seen smiling, carefree romping children. On the drab, cream-colored concrete walls were a few posters illustrating the importance of Defense Stamps and Bonds. She reached for the tiny school napkin, while saying demurely, “It’s really miraculous, John, how in time of crisis people come together—how noble they are, totally free of fear.”

“Well, not totally, but maybe just hung up awhile.” He then finished off the sandwich. She looked over, puzzled. He responded, “Oh, you know what I mean: people are scared as heck but they can’t think about it when it means such a lot.” She nodded with sad agreement. Johnny observed her lightly freckled hand while she dabbed her lips. Her finger-nails were manicured, though rather short and unpolished to his eye, since he noticed more and more the girls in the annex coloring their nails—not Janie, though. He glanced down at his own. They were clean but not for long, thinking of Indzonka’s coalyard after school. His thoughts turned to Pamela’s comment on people coming together. Sally of a few years ago came to mind: how kind and helpful she, along with Janie, had been to his mother after his father’s death. Finally he said to Pamela, “I guess, in a crisis people start seeing life as pretty serious, huh?—especially the young when life’s still a happy game, a kind of entertainment, they get shocked into action.”

“Pamela’s eyes widened from surprise; she said, “Yes, I suppose so,... unfortunately dictators like Adolph see it as a game, too,...only it is a game of destruction and pain for others, not for themselves.” She dwelled a moment on a fire exit sign, the like of which in her country was now replaced with the words “to bomb-shelter“. Taking a sip of milk, she rolled up her eyes, returning their brightness: “Yes, thank God for the likes of the Salvation Army. It has been—along with so many other organisations, of course—so marvelous under fire. Yet their aim is always peace.”

“Odd, you should say that. I feel the same way about a completely different group—the Marine Corps....They might wage war but they don’t make it.”

“I see...makes sense. We don’t think of our troops as warmongers either. I suppose, we should thank the Lord for armies...good, kindly ones, that is.”

Sally in the meantime, seated some forty feet away and midst scattered conversation, was stealing glances over at this tête à tête. She felt honored by Pamela’s presence in class this morning, but at this moment she seethed with jealously, short of hating the girl. Notwithstanding his “self-exile“ she had sensed his edginess of late and his gradual closing of space between them. From the standpoint of her increasing flights of fancy, he was indelibly etched in her life—she was his mentor, custodian of daily affairs, and eventually he would be blest by her with sublime maturity and ultimate aim.

“It was just awful hearing those horror stories about the Blitz,” Janie commented, across from her and noticing Sally’s glances over at Johnny and Pamela’s table.

Huh?...Pardon me....” Sally returned to her gradually agreeing, “Yes, simply awful, Janie, horrible to hear...but necessary, I suppose.”

Janie raised her light auburn brows. “Humph, I don’t think so,” Janie countered, disappointed in Sally’s answer. “Mrs. Denelto never should’ve allowed it. Why, you could see the dear girl herself didn’t want to speak of it; yet Mrs. Denelto kept prodding her....You would think a teacher would know better....Much too terrifying for our age.”

Sally pursed her lips, tasted her heavy lipstick and grimaced mildly in self-revulsion and parleyed in a superior tone, “We have to accept maturity, Janie. It seems to me that we should do more than simply engage in childish defense poster contests like any common art project.”

“Well, I don’t wish to be a part of this nasty war!” Janie insisted, protruding her full lower lip.

Sally thought for a moment that she was listening to Bridget. “There’s a harsh world out there, Janie.” Sally slid her tongue over her lipstick. The horrible night of Sadie Thompson rocketed through Sally’s mind. She picked up a paper napkin and rubbed her lips harder. “Janie, you give in too easily to your fears.”

Janie became lean-lipped. “Yes, I suppose I do....Yet on second thought, I think it’s the feeling of helplessness—so many unanswered questions.”

“Oh, Janie, I didn’t mean...forgive me!”

“Oh, let’s not think about that.” Janie was on occasion still lighting candles for Mr. Cory and Cornelius. She dropped her eyes lids to the table. “No, I wasn’t implying that either. I mean simply that you haven’t been doing too well with regard to Johnny.” Janie looked deeply at her friend. “Sally, I tried—Holy Mother, how I tried! He is my god, but there is something missing in him—and that is you—I feel it. And I’m mad at you for not doing something about it.” She then scowled. “I’ll never forgive you if he turns to neither of us!”

“Horrors!” Sally chuckled. “Utterly remote!...But, oh, Janie, as much as I hope you’re right, and though I imagine it is inevitable, I wish I were as confident as you are about him.” Sally smiled pensively. “He needs time.” She touched Janie’s hand. “Oh, Janie, I don’t like the idea of hurting my closest friend.”

“Well, whatever happens, happens!” Janie moaned, tossing a hand. “ But on the item of the war, what makes you so brave all of a sudden? Many times you’ve said the world scares the daylight out of you. Oh, you always rattle on about growing up—what’s the rush, anyway?—but in many ways you’re like the rest of us frightened children. Oh, to be sure, you’re too darn smart for us!—why you’re in the dummy 4 class is beyond me—but your heart is as much mush as mine....Why did they kick you out of smarty 1?”

Miss Shazel, her third grade teacher had been upgraded and transferred to the annex where she was now teaching 9-1 English and current events. Sally had pleaded with her mother, lest her daughter suffer another “trauma“ such as she had in spelling years ago, to have her name removed from the 1 class roster over the summer. Her mother liked the idea of her being with Janie again to help keep her daughter closer to the ground. Besides, Dolores knew when she reached the high school, she would be under tremendous pressure and therefore felt the reprieve would do her good. “But, Sally, we must not let your Nana get wind of it!—she’s furious as it is that I would not permit them to schedule you for the high school manor, let alone not attending Mary Louis Academy. “

Of course, this was not really Sally’s motive; she knew she could have handled Miss Shazel. She knew too that her chances of being placed in Johnny’s class was remote, for usually in such matters the office simply moves them to the other odd number class. But since more and more parents were demanding that their children be spared the dreadful stigma of being in the “rowdy“ classes, she felt it might just work. In September, though delighted that she was in the “dummy 4“, she surmised, indifferently that the office was punishing her for the rebellious request brought on by her grandmother—defying her mother’s rejection—that she be sent directly into the freshman honors program at the central high school. She looked over with feigned contempt at her friend and snapped, “I didn’t want to be in there anymore.” She giggled. “I wanted to be with you.”

“Oh, you liar!” Janie stretched a healthy smile and chuckled. “We were less schoolmates, and more student and teacher.”

“Janie! How awful! I never saw it that way. You are my dearest friend, and when you needed me I was there.”

Janie reached for Sally’s hand. “How well I know that.”

Sally smiled and raised Janie’s hand to her cheek for a moment. “You know how crowded the advanced classes are. Why, look at the English girl. You don’t really think she belongs with us?”

“With you she does.”

“Anyway, that proves that those classes are so bursting at the seams they couldn’t even accommodate her!”

Janie’s bewitching green eyes lit up. “Why, of course! See? I am stupid! Why, you, fox, you’re in here because of Johnny!” Sally flushed and glanced about, then looked into the triumphant green eyes and huskily whispered, “Oh, Janie, you knew it all the while.” she giggled and she squeezed Janie’s hand.

Janie giggled. “Of course, I did—and also to keep an eye on me.” They both giggled.

“Enough of this.” Sally commanded, “back to the war.”

“Ugh,” Janie sputtered, shaking her curls.

Sally glanced over at Pamela and Johnny with a snarl, then returned her hardened hazel eyes to Janie. But they melted whenever she gazed upon her friend’s soft innocence. In a subdued, kind tone, she pleaded, “Janie, you really should try to understand more; it doesn’t take much effort to discern that we,... the country, is in deep trouble. The ocean isn’t as vast and protective as it once was. Since the last war it is clear that the world is shrinking. Goodness, Janie, a world war by definition includes us!”

Janie sighed, maneuvering her white, lightly freckled legs out from under the table, and grabbed her tray, saying, “I don’t want to hear anymore—it’s frightening. Why, you’re as bad as Pamela and Mrs. Denelto! At least with the English girl, it’s over there. You want to bring it home.”

Sally rose, gathered her things and said gently, “No, Janie, believe me, I don’t want to; on the contrary, if we stop dallying we can keep it over there ....But I know how sensitive you are, Janie. I promise not to speak of it again.”

Janie squinted and hooted, “Yeah, till tomorrow.” They both laughed as they returned to the tray window. “And stop dallying with Johnny,” she bantered but with deeply harbored pain.

On their way to the washroom they stopped by Johnny’s table. Sally felt her hazel eyes bug-out to an ugly green—totally unlike the gorgeous, natural green of her friend’s. She could not help herself; she let out a shrilly growl at the two new chums, still with their heads together talking. She thought Pamela brazen that she be so familiar with her John. She tugged on his collar. Johnny looked up sheepishly. Sally was certain in glaring into his distending eyes, having known him more—so she thought—than he knew himself, that he had not forgotten her moods and expressions. Surely he was oblivious to the presence of Pam, who sensed a tenseness in the air from Sally’s intrusion. Sally confidently observed his melting into the grand, dominating presence of his other soul, perhaps his truer soul—Sally herself.

Curiously—the loins of a fifteen year old prohibited it—at this moment he perceived no soul; rather, he imagined that he was looking at Lana Turner in her notorious, tight sweater. He thought Jimmy had to be blind calling them jelly beans. They were at least limes, tantalizingly on the verge of metamorphosing into lemons, surely within a year oranges! He was ashamed to think such things, especially in Janie’s presence. Still, at the moment, unlike Pam who was simply a new, fascinating friend, Sally had been a mystifying passion—and now with his being on the edge of returning, there seemed another dimension, an earthier one.

Sally was at the threshold of womanhood and she knew it from the hours spent before the mirror admiring God’s miraculous evolution from a boring, simplistic state of angles and straight lines to the complex math of subtle curves. Pam, on the other hand, though perhaps as blossoming—conceivably more so—was unaware of it, or did not dwell on it. There lay the difference—that which is marketable, though resistant, perhaps indifferent to fashionable demand and supply owing to the war, and what has been marketed by the commercial dictum of society. Neither—though surely the most logical candidate—was Janie marketed. The publicity for some six months of the Most Beautiful Child contest devastated this very private child. She underwent excruciating embarrassment from well-wishers and envious friends alike. Had it not been for the gallant Johnny running defense for her in the fourth grade, she would have pleaded with her mother to send her to Catholic school—except she feared she would have had to stay there beyond the year, since that was what her mother wanted to begin with. In fact, Janie had convinced her mother at an early stage that Johnny would protect her in first grade and forevermore. Now older and more beautiful, she had no interest in vanity other than what Johnny thought of her—despite the overriding ambivalence of a receding rôle.

“Hello, John, are the lights still on in London?” Sally asked rhetorically, satirically, coldly, as she spread a ruby lipstick-grin across her otherwise naturally lovely face.

His heavy brows raised him from his absorptions. “Gee, Sally, don’t ask me, ask Pam—she’ll know.”

“Oh? The decision rests with her, does it?” she asked cryptically while glaring at the English girl.

He shook his head in bewilderment. “Sally, there you go again—what decision?...you didn’t ask for a decision.”

Pam broke in. “No, Sally, they haven’t been on for sometime.”

Sally noted Pamela’s tragic tone. She felt a cringe of guilt, yet forged ahead. “Oh, I’m truly sorry to hear that, Pamela.” She looked down at his sandy shock. “I hope John heard that...that the lights are indeed out.” She tossed her bony hip at Johnny and continued on with Janie, who seemed embarrassed, if not confused.

“What in blazes was that supposed to mean?” he asked, scratching his head, even though he sensed deep in the dark chambers of his being the breath of Sally’s wrath and genius blowing on the spark. He wondered if she wanted it to rekindle, or perhaps she did not mean the lights in London were out but that hers were for him. Oddly as he observed them till they were approached by Jimmy at the exit, he gave equal time to Janie’s blossoming figure. He joggled his head over his shameful observation of her figure last summer at the pool, together with amazement that seven or eight months could make such a difference.

“You don’t want to know, “ Pamela answered, curiously playing the rôle of an older sister. Pamela went on, “Furthermore, neither do I. I have no desire to be drawn into some petty squabble. There are other matters too important. Don’t misunderstand me, John,...Johnny; I’m not inferring pettiness in either of you for that matter....And actually you have been very comforting this first day...and stimulating; but I have no desire to get involved in your personal matters—I’m sick at heart over world conflict as it is.”

 “Yeah, I guess, people do bring up a bundle of problems we could do without.” He glanced over at the exit: Janie looked dejected while Sally was repeatedly jabbing her finger into Jimmy’s chest.

“I’m sick over the pedestrian fact that you live across from me!” Sally shrilled.

“Hey, little bombshell, I’m not exactly thrilled either!” Jimmy replied.

“Maybe you should be thrilled! It could conceivably inject some sense into you, in lieu of always wise-cracking to the point of cruelty. Janie’s religion is none of your business and if she wants to come to school with her face totally blackened that’s her prerogative!”

“Aw, gosh, Sally, no matter what it is, you make a G-man’s case out of everything! I was just havin’ a little fun with her,” he beseeched in a subdued tone.

She jabbed him in the paunch. “Of course, it’s just like you to pick on the nicest person in the school because you know you can get away with it—well, not this time. I’m going directly to the office and have you suspended for your loathsome behavior.”

“Now, hold on, Dragon Lady, I never meant no harm, scouts honor,” he explained, pressing palms in mock prayer.

Janie dried her tears and touched Sally’s arm. “No, Sally, don’t make trouble. I know Jimmy didn’t mean anything by it—others with ashes tolerate the ridicule.” Sally withdrew her arm.

Relieved, Jimmy changed his tone. “See, Sally? There you are! Why can’t you have common sense like the rest of us in the even classes? And talking about religion, you and Janie go to the same church! Maybe if you had gotten ashes you’d have a little forgiveness in your heart right now. I know you hate me, but you’ll hurt my mother if you tell on me.”

 “Just like you to hide behind your mother’s apron strings. But right now I’m not thinking of your mother; I care about Janie. You see in her a weakness to forgive a fool. I see it as more strength than you and I will ever have in a lifetime. Now either you apologize with legitimate meaning right now and then escort her to her next class and carry her books, or you will hear your name called over the PA.”

He turned to Janie who was already smiling at him. He cleared his throat. “Gosh, Janie, I’m really sorry. You know me and my big mouth. Why, the ashes actually give a nice touch to an already loving face.” He reached for her hand to kiss it.

Janie giggled and drew her hand away. “Okay, Jimmy, I’ve forgotten it already—except for these.” She handed him her books. “Now, take me to my sewing class.”

“Hey, that’s great—how about making me a parachute that can dance with the wind above the telephone line like Johnny’s used to do?” They laughed as they left—including Sally with shaking head.

Class Reader

Mrs. Denelto had noticed that the class, though far from rude, had not been exactly laudable in their reaction to Pamela’s speech patterns in the first period class. She decided that for the last period English class, to chance having Pamela read the planned chapter of David Copperfield. Pamela, who was not exactly responsive in the morning class to the persuasion that she relate details of the Blitz, was now politely resentful of Mrs. Denelto’s subjecting her again to display. Ruffled though she was, she mustered the courage to lead the class, owing to the welcoming attitude and the lovely things Mrs. Denelto had said about her and her country. She endured even though at the outset she was stuttery and inaudible for the first few paragraphs. By the second page, however, her natural bend to the language overrode her nervousness and quickly enthralled the class with the “strange“ beauty of the language. Sally particularly was overwhelmed by the majesty of the reading, notwithstanding that she had sulked through the first several pages feeling rejected that the teacher had not called on her to read. When the bell rang at three o’clock, some of the appreciative, girls of course, very rare for a class of this makeup, groaned that it had come to an end and begged Mrs. Denelto to let Pamela continue. Though gratified over their enthusiasm, and testimony in that she had made the right decision in calling on Pamela to read, the teacher rejected the plea, explaining that it would not be fair to the rest of the class, nor to Pamela who, she now realized was overly burdened on her first day. She promised—and if Pamela were willing—the agenda would continue the next day.

Pamela had gone for her coat. John quickly ran vanguard in case Jimmy and Mary Lou were in the closet. He was relieved that they had already left. “Probably smoking together by now....Besides why am I worrying?...They must have Jimmys and Mary Lous in Merry Ole England’s schools.”

Sally caught up to Pamela in the hall and addressed her excitedly, perhaps with a shade of guilt, “Pamela your reading was beautiful! It really was...I wish I could read and talk like you. It sounds so sophisticated, so adult, and most emphatically poetic. I trust that’s why they chose Vivien Leigh for the Scarlet O’ Hara rôle—to give the southern accent some style.”

Pamela was surprised that this girl was being so nice to her. She could not detect any sarcasm. Her tone was so very different from the cafeteria. “Why, thank you, Sally. You’re very kind.” Pamela flipped up her high collar and with bewilderment glanced at Johnny who shrugged his shoulders as if to suggest that there was no defense against Sally. The little blonde picked up her things and squeezed in between Pamela and Johnny. Then he realized he had left his books behind. “I’ll catch up, ladies.” He ran back to the home room.

“I simply can’t wait till Mrs. Denelto introduces Romeo and Juliet—the language is so beautiful,” Sally rhapsodized.

Pamela was so besieged by Sally’s compelling drive—she had never experienced one so in flux—that she answered quizzically, “Oh? You’ve read it before?”

“Yes, last year in the quiet of my bedroom—aloud to myself. I had tried reading it to my mother, but she got tired of it after the second scene.”

Pamela turned up her collar to the side of Sally and snickered inaudibly.

Johnny ran into Janie who was just leaving their room. “Wait up a minute, Janie till I get my books, I’ll walk home with you and Sally.”

She looked up at him inquisitively. “Really,...how come?”

“Uh, gee, I thought it would be nice, that’s all.”

“Well, I ’d like that but I have to attend a sewing club meeting. Our little club wants to do something for the children in Europe, you know, like making little things for them.”

“Yeah? Gee, that’s nice. But what about you? You told me last summer you didn’t want to even think about the war over there.”

“That still holds. But I certainly didn’t mean that the children over there should be forgotten about.” Her eyes glanced off to a faraway bombed out village she imagined.

“Yeah, that figures, coming from you.” He took in her perfect profile as he had a thousand times before—now, there is a nose beyond comparison—but mostly he would dwell on the magnificent long red lashes, especially in the bright sun when they would flicker like sparklers. “Say, what was that run-in with Jimmy all about in the cafeteria?”

She returned and laughed. “Oh, you know Jimmy and his big mouth. He made a comment about my ashes, and Sally sailed into him. I swear, someday she’s going to be another Portia or a lady Thomas Dewey! She’d make some prosecutor.”

He nodded, thinking of his mother’s words that he is not of Sally’s world. Now, however, with Janie’s vague reference, he was reminded of her growing intelligence. He was too embarrassed to ask who Portia was. He said simply. “Yeah, I figured Jimmy was up to no good.”

She looked up at him again. “Have you heard from Ray?”

“Yes, he’s still in Newfoundland,” he replied with a trace of disappointment, then he chuckled. “My mother hopes he stays there.”

“Only natural.” She nodded. “Gee, you must be so proud of him. Just think he is in already and I don’t think anyone from round here has even been drafted yet.”

“That won’t be for long.”

Her eyes went to the floor. “I suppose,” she vented with a sigh, sadly, then snapping out of it, added, “You haven’t been to church yet, have you?”

He laughed. “Ash Wednesday’s one time I can’t lie about it.”

She giggled through her disappointment. “I guess, you could always say you washed them off accidentally. Usually I see your mother there keeping the candle lit for Ray, not this morning though....I lit one for him.”

“You know my mother; she’ll find a church to duck into before the day is over....” He ran the back of a finger over her freckled cheek. “Gee, Janie, that was really sweet of you to think of Ray—not surprising though—say, you’re not thinking of becoming a nun, are you?”

She smiled graciously, blinking her eyes while running her thumb and forefinger lightly down the silver chain till it arrived at the medal. She slowly flipped it up and looked down with reverence. “No, Johnny, I leave that to those with strength and deeper love and sacrifice for the Church.” She touched his hand lightly. “I have to get to the meeting. I do hope to see you in the morning to walk with us. I’ve missed you.”

He arched his brows, felt a tassel of hair on his forehead and brushed it back. “You have?....You’re pulling my leg, right?”

She chuckled. “I don’t know about you sometimes, Johnny, your such a galoot. Why wouldn’t I miss you? You know how I feel.”

“I do? Then why are you so scarce?”

“Me! Oh, Johnny, you’re a masterpiece!” She tapped him on the cheek, then reached up and swept his hair back onto his forehead and ran down the hall.

’40 Buick

Pamela was just as mesmerized by Sally as apparently Johnny was and perhaps knew now why he was. For in spite of Sally’s incessant babble there was a great innocence and gentle integrity in her tone. She totally believed in what she uttered. Pamela ventured, “Yes, I agree, Sally. There is no genuine substitute for reading. Why, even in the London theatre I have seen scholars enter the theatre with the works of Shakespeare accompanying them.”

Sally froze in her tracks. “Oh, my, you mean to say that you’ve been to a professional Shakespearean performance?”

Pamela nodded and smiled, “Yes, several times.”

“Oh, how heavenly! I shouldn’t be at all surprised that you have been to Stratford too!”

“Yes, that, too. My family’s estate is but a few miles from there.”

“Pray to the Lord no nasty bomb befalls its sacred path!...And, of course, far from your home, too.” she added. “But, Pamela, though I agree that Shakespeare ought to be read and several times over—at least the truly great plays—I cannot accept one’s following the text during performance. For there is no substitute for the sound and action of Shakespeare on the stage.”

Pamela laughed. “Touché!”

“Agreed; for I have another tack.” Sally glanced at her coyly as they went down the metal staircase.

“Oh, my,” Pamela cried, wincing.

Sally looked over her shoulder to the landing above, then jerked her head down and leaned over the bannister. Looking puzzled, she asked, “Where’s, John?”

Pamela laughed. “My, Sally, you are priceless! Why, he told us but a few moments ago that he went back for his books.”

“Really?...See, Pam, how engaging you are!...That’s strange that he should think of his books....Hmm, perhaps he is changing....Oh, well,...”

“Johnny is very nice, Sally. You are fortunate to have him for a friend,” Pamela said, hoping she could escape whatever Sally was planning next.

“Yes, I noticed you noticed,” glossing over her bitterness as well as she could, Sally replied. “For the record, though, I certainly don’t have him as you put it—least of all now. On the other hand, it may go even deeper than crass possession.”

“Forgive me, Sally. It’s really none of my business.” She welcomed the return to whatever Sally had in mind next. “What is this tack—as you put it.”

“Oh, yes....I should really like us to get fully acquainted so that we may discuss initiating a war-relief club at school. You would be an invaluable asset in clarifying the challenge that all of us face and in motivating the students to act on behalf of the free world.”

They left the building. Pamela’s eyes sparkled not from the light outside but from this dynamo’s idea. “How splendid, Sally! Do you think it’s possible?”

“We shall not leave it to possibility. Why, John’s father, when I was but a child, used to speak to my father about the German threat. The nation, all nations, should have taken action then as Mr. Cory had urged—my father, an isolationist and conservative of sorts, disagreed. Now, I fear it is but a few months away from us. My mother hates to hear of it, but she has enough of my grandmother in her to resign to its inevitability; yet curiously she still clings to flimsy hope. My father claims—he’s a revolting Republican—that with FDR in the White House for a third term, it is a foregone conclusion.”

“Ah, FDR!’ Pamela ejaculated. “Yes, bless the man! Long live Franklin Delano Roosevelt—and your idea!”

“Yes,” Sally rejoined, “clearly the club’s time has come—thanks to your arrival....And, oh,...Roosevelt,...ah, so true!...My mother and I think the world of the president.” Having extolled him with genuine admiration, she felt compelled to add, “except, I have to admit, in spite of my confidence, he’s not really rallying the people round the imperative of war.”

“Britain, don’t forget,” Pamela reminded her, “was not exempt—we had Chamberlain all those years. It may be that we will face resistance regarding the proposed club as well.”

“Yes, so true, so very hard to look at it squarely,” Sally admitted sadly. “I know I sound glib about it, but I am confident you will make the difference....And as far as public resentment in the political realm is concerned, I believe FDR is making inroads.” She shook her head, not wanting to dwell on the bleak side of it, yet with a note of resentment, expounding, “Why my father is among those who dislike the man is beyond my ken. We’d be penniless today—my grandmother once said—were it not for all the public projects. I rather suspect that my father, who’s in construction and a rather independent man, has this silly notion that he is on charity when engaged in public works.”

“My father is...was an engineer.” Pamela added.

Sally flushed with some embarrassment. “My father calls himself an engineer, but he isn’t really, though extremely knowledgeable in the field.”

Pamela glanced at young teenagers—some jostling round, several young couples cooing on the other side of the fence, some huddled in secrecy smoking, others still younger in spirit climbing a fence within the yard to a section of a playground, obviously for much younger children. She asked, more to change the subject than out of curiosity, and pointed to monkey-bars. “Why are children’s play equipment here?”

Sally frowned for an instant, then realized that, after all, Pamela should be curious about a new environment.

Johnny popped from behind them and quipped, “They’re for our class when Mrs. Denelto doesn’t know what else do with us. It’s just about the extent of our field trips this year.”

Pamela’s unplucked brows rose with a twitch of her nose and a full smile. Sally laughed, looking askance at Johnny, then turned back to her new fascination. Pamela’s eyes brightened, still looking at Johnny, and popped, “Which reminds...”

Sally jumped to clarify Johnny’s jocularity, “It’s for a neighborhood summer school program for grade school children.” Then she got on with her plans. “Now, really, Pamela ...you are serious?...You will help me with the club?...I hope you don’t think I’m imposing...what with your just arriving....Perhaps, I should bring it up another time?”

“Oh, no, Sally, I am really thrilled over it. It is indeed urgent...and I am grateful to you....My mother is American. She always claimed that the United States would rise to the occasion....Truly, you prove that.”

Sally beamed with satisfaction. “Oh, Pamela, thank you! But only with your help is it conceivable!” Joggling her head, she glanced at Johnny. “You must always remember your assignment books, Johnny....It is gratifying that you went back for them.”

He nodded customarily as though they had never parted these two years. However, for a few moments before he went back for his books, he was dumbfounded. For two years, it had been few and far between that Johnny was witness to Sally’s barrage. Even in their earlier years she had always struck him as being a nasty, but lovable and loving little brat who never stopped tongue-lashing him, yet never without the beseeching tone of a little mother.

Pamela, feeling the tension again, forced an opinion, “You know, Sally, you mentioned how well I read and speak. I must say, you are eloquent—despite the strange accent!” She chuckled. “I shall ask Mrs. Denelto to have you read for me tomorrow!”

“Truly?” Sally beamed a perfect set of gleaming teeth. “You’re not just saying that to be kind?...I always...well, my mother always claims I tend to ramble and speak breathlessly ....Oh, Pamela, forgive me!...I must confess, I was envious when you took over my rôle as leading class reader, which, immodest I know, has always been my status in class since the first grade.” She looked back. “Isn’t that so, Johnny?”

Johnny’s eyes were fixed to the giant hydrant. “Huh,...oh yeah, I’d say so.” Then he recalled, so out of character for her, that Janie was in on the morning’s taunting.

“But, oh, when your voice translated the marvelous rhythm, the enunciation, the beautiful intriguing shapes of vowels of our mother tongue and so deeply touched my heart as well as mind, I felt indebted to Mrs. Denelto for having the insight to call upon you to deliver such grandeur!”

“Oh, my, you are the kind one, Sally,” Pamela responded, very much impressed, then added: “However, I trust my reading imparted more than just pleasing sound.”

Sally, of course, too proud to let it rest, inserted, “Heavens, yes, beauty is in the manner of the message, without which there is no beauty.”

Pamela gaped for an instant and twirled her lonely curls, praising her: “My, you are a treasure....Clearly, I know whom Johnny meant when he told me that there was someone else who did not belong in this class.”

Sally reeled round to Johnny and her smile stretched fully, coupled with a chuckle. “Did you, John?...Did you really say that?...Oh, was it I whom you really meant?”

Johnny’s eyes rolled skyward and his palms followed. “Who else?” He was disinclined to mention that he had included Janie, as well.

A long black car pulled up two car lengths from the hydrant. Pamela yelped, “Oh, my Mum is here! I have to leave now. I almost hate to. It’s been a glorious day.” They paused at the gate. Pamela’s eyes twinkled as she looked up at the tall, lean boy whom she early in the day had pictured as a gangling Gary Cooper growing up in his boyhood. “I shan’t forget Saturday, Johnny.” She reached out for Sally’s hand, which did not respond as her mood had swiftly changed. Sally simply nodded.

Sally, no different from any other her age, was prone to moods. This year, she was particularly distressed over the fate of womanhood: to her it was an imposition, a troubling indoctrination into cosmetic rôle-playing, particularly that of stressful subservience. Sally secretly longed for—as she perceived her nature—the unassuming naturalness of childhood, in which, she conveniently thought, was free of spasms of jealousy.

Pamela got into the car but before closing the door, she beckoned to Sally to approach. Sally reluctantly, head down strolled uncomfortably to the car. She caught a glimpse of the driver in a gorgeous feathered hat. The woman glanced back with the same sparkling blue eyes of her daughter’s and smiled warmly. Sally reflected that her own mother used to look as ravishing. She smiled back; bashfully and timidly she undulated her fingers.

“Sally, this is my mother,” Pamela said proudly.

Her mother removed a handsome suede glove and extended over the seat a flawlessly, white, slender hand. “How do you do, Sally. It’s so nice that Pamie has a new friend already.”

Sally touched her warm hand and smiled fully. “Small wonder, since your daughter is so lovely, Mrs. Lockely.”

“Oh, my dear,...and how lovely you are!”

“Oh, she is that, mother, and so extraordinarily brilliant!” Pamela continued launching laudation. “And can you believe this: in a few short hours, she has asked me to help her form a school club for the war relief—isn’t she splendid?”

Sally blushed. “Without you, Pamela, it would be impossible.”

“My, Sally, I am not only pleased but humbled.” Mrs. Lockely reached over and graciously tapped Sally’s hand. “Why don’t you come to our house some day to discuss it over tea?”

“Oh, I should love to! Is Saturday too soon?”

Mrs. Lockely looked bomb-shelled for a moment, then laughed. “My, you really are serious! By all means, come Saturday. If you need transportation just let Pamela know and I shall pick you up.”

“Oh, how thoughtful, but no thank you. My father will take me.”

Pamela tugged on Sally’s arm and leaned her further into the car and pleaded in a voice barely above a whisper, “Sally, if you will, I must say this.” Sally looked into Pamela’s commiserating eyes. “Now that I know you better, I see that was not you in the cafeteria. Please, Sally, you must not allow the dark green images of envy and resentment eat away at your sweetness and charm.”

Startled at first, never having anyone her own age probe her motive of behavior; and mother present or not, she was about to rail into her, but she checked herself as she acknowledged that her behavior in the cafeteria was unbecoming to say the least. Drained of the proverbial green by Pam’s bluntness, her eyes warmed to clear hazel. “How very wise you are, Pamela—there is after all a positive side to war, isn’t there?—in that we all must grow up quickly if not gracefully.” Sally reached in and squeezed her hand. Pamela closed the door. With a smile Sally glanced at her mother, wriggled her fingers, then blew a kiss to Pamela.

Johnny whistled and called out, “That’s a beautiful ’40 Buick you have there, Pam.” Pamela rolled down the window to hear better. “I love the rounded off trunk—beats the square ones.”

She popped her head out. “You’re interested in the auto, are you? I shall bring some pictures in of the fleet the family has owned since the turn of the century—several Rolls in the batch.”

“Rolls Royce! Wow!” he ejaculated. She rolled up the window, jiggled her fingers at them. Then with afterthought she rolled the pane back down and leaned out.

“By the way, Johnny, I mentioned to Mrs. Denelto that I should love to see the famous aquarium in Brooklyn. She assured me she would arrange a class trip before Easter!” The car sped away. Pamela’s mother glanced back. “Goodness, Pamela, all on the first day!”

“You should know, mother, how industrious and emotional you Americans are.”

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