The Loud Silence of Francine Green Read online

  The Loud Silence Of Francine Green

  Karen Cushman

  CLARION BOOKS

  NEW YORK

  * * *

  Clarion Books

  a Houghton Mifflin Company imprint

  215 Park Avenue South, New York, NY 10003

  Copyright © 2006 by Karen Cushman

  The text was set in 12-point Berkeley Book.

  Book design by Michelle Gengaro-Kokmen.

  All rights reserved.

  For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book,

  write to Permissions, Houghton Mifflin Company, 215 Park Avenue South,

  New York, NY 10003.

  www.houghtonmifflinbooks.com

  Printed in the U.S.A.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Cushman, Karen.

  The loud silence of Francine Green / by Karen Cushman.

  p. cm.

  Summary: In 1949, thirteen-year-old Francine goes to Catholic school in

  Los Angeles where she becomes best friends with a girl who questions

  authority and is frequently punished by the nuns, causing Francine

  to question her own values.

  ISBN-13: 978-0-618-50455-8

  ISBN-10: 0-618-50455-9

  [1. Conformity—Fiction. 2. Catholic schools—Fiction. 3. Schools—Fiction.

  4. Best friends—Fiction. 5. Friendship—Fiction. 6. Family life—California—

  Fiction. 7. Los Angeles (Calif.)—20th century—Fiction. 8. United States—

  Politics and government—1945-1953.] 1. Title.

  PZ7.C962Lou 2006

  [Fic]—dc22 2005029774

  QUM 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  * * *

  For Nathan Adler, Lou Solomon, Philip Cushman, and Trina Schart Hyman for their courage and their example

  Sooner or later one has to take sides if one is to remain human.

  —Graham Greene, The Quiet American

  * * *

  With thanks to Google for the research help, libraries and librarians for being there, and Arthur (Duffy) Lipski and Edward (Eddie) Cushman, beloved little brothers, for the "Artie" parts

  * * *

  Contents

  August 1949

  1 Books and Beanies and Montgomery Clift 1

  September 1949

  2 Sophie and the Trash Can 9

  3 Flowered Skirts and Paper-Doll Saints 16

  4 Lamb Chops à la Shoe Leather and Dinner at the Greens' 21

  October 1949

  5 The Post Office, the Piggly Wiggly, and the Bomb 27

  6 Discovering Irony 36

  7 Fifteen Flavors of Butterfat 41

  8 Searching for a New, Popular Francine 46

  November 1949

  9 Sophie's Speech and Francine's Unplumbed Depths 52

  10 Montgomery Clift! 61

  11 Pink Underwear 66

  12 Changes 72

  December 1949

  13 Meeting Jacob Mandelbaum 80

  14 Hammering the Nail Back into Place 86

  January 1950

  15 Miss Velma Says I Could 91

  16 Mr. Bowman Knows Irony 96

  February 1950

  17 Francine and Sophie Talk About Life 104

  18 Mr. Roberts 111

  March 1950

  19 Oklahoma! and Lepers and Mary's Maidens 116

  20 Joan of Arc 123

  21 Hooray for Hollywood! 127

  22 The Bum Shelter 135

  April 1950

  23 The End of the Bum Shelter 140

  24 An Imaginary Dinner at the Greens' 145

  25 Class-Visit Day at the Sinless Academy for the Maidenly 149

  May 1950

  26 May Day 157

  27 Mother's Day at Forest Lawn 162

  28 Father Chuckie and Sister Pete 168

  29 In Sister's Office 174

  30 Serious Trouble for Mr. Roberts, Mr. Mandelbaum, and Sophie 181

  June 1950

  31 More Bad News 189

  32 Flag Day 195

  33 A Phone Call to the Pope 205

  34 Palm Trees Overboard 209

  Author's Note 219

  1. August 1949

  Books and Beanies and Montgomery Clift

  "Holy cow!" I said when Sophie Bowman told me she'd be joining me at All Saints School for Girls this year. "Why now, in the eighth grade?"

  "Because I got thrown out of public school." Sophie and I were in the room I shared with my sister, Dolores. Dolores was on a date with her steady, Wally, so Sophie lay on Dolores's bed, her legs in the air, twirling the navy blue beanie from my school uniform on her foot. "It was either Catholic school or boarding school. No one else would have me. But Sister Basil thinks my soul can still be saved. From what I can tell, she's nuts about saving souls."

  I sat up cross-legged on my bed. "Why?" I asked her.

  "That's what she learned in nun school, I suppose."

  "No," I said. "Why did you get kicked out of school?"

  "Oh, that. For writing 'There is no free speech here' on the gym floor. In paint. Red paint."

  She grinned at me as though that was the most wonderful thing in the world. I didn't grin back. "Why on earth would you do that?"

  "Because the principal banned radios in the lunchroom."

  "Radios? You ruined the gym floor because of radios?"

  She waved her beamed foot about. "Not just radios, dopey. It was a matter of free speech. Standing up for what you believe in. And fighting fascism."

  Fascism? Wasn't that about Adolf Hitler? Did she mean Nazis kept her from playing the radio in the lunchroom?

  "Harry says that he may agree with the sentiment, but the expression left a lot to be desired," she continued, stretching her long, summer-brown legs. I sighed and looked at my legs. They were pink and freckled like the rest of me.

  "Who's Harry?" I asked her.

  "My father. My mother went to Catholic school and he thinks she was nearly perfect, so off I go." I knew from Hettie Morris across the street, who knew Laurel Greenson, whose aunt was Mrs. O'Brien, who lived next door to the Bowmans, that Sophie's mother had died when she was born. "He wants me to be more like her and learn to express myself with patience, self-control, and moderation."

  Sophie would be going to the right school. At All Saints we had patience, self-control, and moderation to spare and not a drop of free speech. I myself was so patient, moderate, and self-controlled that sometimes I felt invisible, and I liked it that way. Let others get noticed and into trouble. Let Sophie get into trouble. It seemed a sure bet that she would.

  Sophie and I weren't friends or anything, although she lived only a block down from me on Palm View Drive, in a pink stucco bungalow a lot like the one I lived in. We had nodded to each other over the years, and even played Red Light, Green Light together with the other neighborhood kids on hot summer nights. Now she had come over after dinner to learn more about All Saints, recognizing from my uniform that I was a student there. I couldn't imagine Sophie at All Saints, couldn't see her standing patiently in line in a blue sweater and plaid skirt—not the long-legged Sophie Bowman of the thick blond hair, outspoken opinions, and that lovely name, Sophie Bowman. Long mournful O sounds, so moody and romantic. Me? Francine Green, with Es like eeek and screech, and beanie. Holy cow.

  "I seriously hate beanies," Sophie said. "They make you look so drippy. Why do we have to wear uniforms like we're in jail?"

  "It's not the same at all," I said. "Jails have much better uniforms. Black and white stripes, you know, are very fashionable this year."

  "They are?"

  "I was kidding, Sophie."

  "Oh."
Sophie wagged her beamed foot at me. "Maybe," she said, "we should find some way to express our individuality even if we're condemned to uniforms."

  "You mean like wearing red shoes?" I asked.

  "Yes!" she said, raising her arm with her fist clenched.

  "And plastic jewelry and white blouses with cleavage?"

  "It would be spectacular. Let's do it," she said.

  I pretended interest in my bedspread. Bunny ballerinas. Ye gods. "No, I couldn't," I said finally. "We'd get in trouble. And 1 have no red shoes or anything with cleavage. Or any cleavage."

  We looked down at our chests and sighed.

  My bedroom windows rattled, and I could hear palm fronds scraping along the street. Los Angeles and I were enduring a period of Santa Anas, the hot winds from the east that made tempers and temperatures rise and your skin itch.

  I got up to open the window in hopes of some cooler night air. "Look," I said, "searchlights. There's a movie premiere somewhere."

  Sophie got up and stood next to me at the window.

  "Don't you love living so near Hollywood?" I asked her. "I mean, movie stars are right there, at the bottom of that light. Gary Cooper, maybe. Or Clark Gable. Or Montgomery Clift. Imagine, right there. Montgomery Clift."

  "Montgummy who?" Sophie asked.

  "Are you kidding me? Montgomery Clift. He's only the dreamiest dreamboat in the whole world, with the saddest brown eyes." I sighed and looked again at the searchlight connecting me to Montgomery Clift. "He's my absolute favorite. Who's yours?"

  "I don't know much about movie stars," Sophie said.

  "But Hettie Morris said your father writes for the movies."

  "He writes them, he doesn't go see them. He wants us to read books to improve our minds. Good books. Serious books. Boring books. Oh nausea."

  "He sounds like Sister Basil. She's always making us read holy, dull-as-dishwater books." I thought for a minute. "Don't you get tired of improving your mind?" I asked her. "I would."

  "Sure, sometimes. But you can't improve the world until you improve your mind, I always say." She smiled. "Actually, I don't always say that. I just made it up. Pretty good, don't you think?"

  I nodded. "But jeepers, you could take a day off now and then. Just read a novel or a comic book or something."

  "Okay, like what?"

  "Well," I said to her, "you have come to the right place. There is nothing here that will improve your mind." I walked over to my dresser and examined the clutter on top. Dolores had a pink-skirted dressing table in our room, so there was no space for me to have a desk. I thought that said something about what was important in the Green household. "Let's see. Archie comic? Donald Duck? Stories from the Bible?" The only other book I owned was Stuart Little, which my aunt Martha and uncle George had sent me for Christmas last year. I held it up. "How about this," I asked her, "about a family with a son who's a mouse?"

  Sophie frowned.

  "Okay you're a little old for that." I tossed her a copy of Modern Screen magazine. "Take this. It has a story about Montgomery Clift. You can borrow him until you get a favorite of your own."

  "Don't you think mo vie stars and fan magazines are a bit frivolous and juvenile?" She took the magazine anyway and hopped back to Dolores's bed. The magazine fell right open to a picture of Monty. Sophie took out the dried banana peel I had used as a place marker and studied the photo. "Jeepers," she said, "he is good-looking. Kind of shy and haunted, like he's been persecuted and misunderstood."

  The telephone in the hall rang. I could hear my little brother, Artie, answer it, "Duffy's Tavern, Archie the Manager speaking," just like the guy on the radio show. Artie liked Duffy's Tavern. He said he would own a tavern just like Duffy's when he grew up if he wasn't going to be a cowboy. Artie says things like that. He's five.

  "Is it for me?" I called to him.

  "It's for Dolores, like it always is," he said, sticking his head in. His yellow cowlick was standing straight up from the back of his head, and his glasses hung from the very tip of his nose. "Where is she?"

  "Out," I told him, "like she always is." Artie left. I flopped back onto my bed. "It's so depressing being the sister of Miss Popularity. I'm surprised I don't have a complex."

  "Don't you get along with her?"

  "Are you kidding? Dolores hates me. If she could, I think she'd return me, like underwear that doesn't fit."

  Sophie looked puzzled. "I don't think you can return under—"

  "Never mind. It was just a joke. I meant that she'd like to get rid of me. I wish she was someone else's sister."

  "Still, she's your family. I think you'd be awfully lonely being an only child."

  "Are you?" I asked her.

  "No," she said, "but I think you would be."

  I leaped up and began jumping furiously on my bed. "We're acrobats on the trampoline," I shouted as I bounced onto Dolores's bed, "and we're gorgeous and popular and everybody loves us and we're never lonely and—"

  Dolores blew in like the Santa Ana wind. "Stop it!" she shouted. I stopped. "Get off my bed. And get her off!"

  I jumped down. "This is Sophie. She's a friend of mine from school. Or she will be when—"

  "1 don't care. Get her off my bed. And get out of here. Both of you."

  "It's my room too."

  "Who cares?"

  Sophie got off the bed. Dolores flopped onto it and kicked her shoes across the room.

  Sophie walked regally to the door, stopped, and looked back over her shoulder. "Gee, Francine," she said, "she's not nearly as pretty as you said."

  Dolores stuck her tongue out, and Sophie stuck hers right back.

  "Wow, Sophie," I said once we were safely out the door. "That was great." We slapped hands.

  In the hall we bumped into Artie and his stuffed bear, Chester. Rice Krispies spilled from Artie's pockets and snap-krackle-popped as we walked over them. Sophie looked at me quizzically. "He carries them in his pockets in case of sudden starvation," I told her.

  "Little kids are such a mess," she said, scraping Rice Krispies off her shoe. "I can't stand them."

  "Artie's okay. He's sweet. Unlike Dolores."

  Sophie shrugged and left.

  I pushed Arties glasses back up his nose. "Almost time for Dragnet," I said, taking his hand.

  "Dun da dun dun," he sang, like the Dragnet theme song. Dragnet was one radio show Artie and I wouldn't miss for anything. We sat on the floor in the living room, our backs against the big radio. When we heard Jack Webb say, "This is the city. Los Angeles, California," we whooped and clapped. Los Angeles was our city.

  After that day, Sophie and I were friends. Good friends. On the way to being best friends. It's funny how that happens, so suddenly, first just neighbors and then best friends.

  2. September 1949

  Sophie and the Trash Can

  "Sophie," I said to her as we waited for the bus after school, "I never knew anyone before who got in trouble her first day. I told you to lay low and not talk back to Sister."

  "I just wanted to ask some questions. I do have freedom of speech, you know." Sophie adjusted the pleats in her plaid skirt. She looked gorgeous in her uniform, like a teen model showing off the latest in Catholic-school fashions.

  "You were supposed to ask me when you want to know something," I said. "Nuns have pretty strict ideas about asking questions and talking back."

  Sophie said nothing, but the muscles in her jaw tensed. I guessed she was remembering this morning.

  We had been circling adverbs and adjectives in our workbooks when Sister Basil clapped sharply. Sister Basil the Great was the school principal as well as the teacher of our eighth-grade class. She was not too old and very sweet looking with her green eyes, red cheeks, and snub, freckled nose.

  I think it's wrong when people look like something they're not. Take nuns, for example. Friendly nuns should be plump and soft, like Sister Saint Elmo. Pious nuns, like Sister Anacletus-and-Marcellinus, should be skinny, quiet, and timid. And mean,
nasty nuns like Sister Basil should look like Bela Lugosi in Dracula, not like a merry colleen on a Saint Patrick's Day card.

  "Put away your workbooks, girls," Sister Basil had said. "It's time for morning prayers." I knew what that meant: prayers for the conversion of Russia. Sister was passionate about the conversion of Russia. Why, we'd said so many prayers for the conversion of Russia in this school since Sister became principal that I was surprised the Russians weren't all saints by now and praying for us.

  We closed our books and knelt down in the aisles next to our desks. After a quick Our Father and Hail Mary, Sister Basil said, "Our Lady, holy Mother of God, we humbly beseech you to intercede for us with your divine Son that we may be with Him forever in Paradise. Ask Him to halt the Red Tide pouring out from Russia and lead the Godless communists to the True Church, for only then will there be salvation for the Russian people and true peace for us all. And, if it be His will, may we be victorious over Saints Peter and Paul today on the volleyball court."

  I knew Saints Peter and Paul was a school, like All Saints, but still I imagined two old bearded saints in robes playing volleyball. I gurgled in my throat at the picture but didn't dare laugh out loud. Sister Basil would tie my tongue to the flagpole or something.

  Sophie gave a muffled snort. It was not muffled enough.

  Sister Basil rose from the ground like a column of smoke. "Stand up," she commanded. We stood.

  "Not all of you," Sister said, grabbing her pointer and smacking it on the floor. "Just Miss Bowman." The rest of us knelt down again. I leaned back against my heels. This could take a while.

  "You have a comment, Miss Bowman?"

  "It just seemed silly, Sister, praying to win a ball game. Does God really care who wins?"

  "That will do, Sophie."

  "And what if students at Saints Peter and Paul School pray too? What will God do?"

  "That's enough, Sophie."

  "And why we are praying to win a volleyball game anyway when there are real problems in the world?"