War and Millie McGonigle Read online

  We were quiet then as we walked down to the jetty at the south end of the beach and around to the ocean side. “Let’s stay here,” Lily said. “I want to build a sand castle.”

  “Just do it silently. I want to read.” The sun was high in the blue, blue sky. Lily set to work on her castle. I spread my towel on the sand. Melody Grayson down the beach was in college and she had lent me her copy of The Yearling. She said it was likely gloomy and depressing enough for me. There’d been no tragedy yet, but I had hopes. If somebody in the book died, could I add it to my Book of Dead Things? Why not? I make the rules.

  “What are you reading, Millie?” Lily asked.

  “The Yearling, about a boy and a deer.”

  “Tell me about it.”

  “Later. I’m reading.”

  The day went on. Lily fell asleep and I was immersed in the Florida backwoods and not Mission Beach. The further I got, the sadder, but I couldn’t look away. By the time I finished, my face was wet with tears. How could Mr. Baxter shoot a deer? How could Mrs. Baxter do it? How could Jody lose the thing he loved most in the world and still go on?

  I put the book down and stretched. I didn’t know how much time had passed, but a cool breeze was rising. “Let’s go home, Lily,” I said.

  She woke up and squealed. “Ow, ow. Millie, my face hurts. And my back. Look, Millie. Ow. Ow.”

  Holy cow! Lily’s nose, cheeks, and chin were bright red. And her shoulders!

  “You let me get all burned up,” Lily whimpered. “You’re not a good sister.”

  Which was just what Mama said when we got home. I was blamed, of course, even though I said I was sorry but the sun wasn’t my fault. I must admit when Lily cried as Mama put her in a cool-water bath to soothe her burns, I felt pretty bad. Maybe I could borrow a nickel from Mama for ice cream for Lily. I could work it off by…I shook my head. I didn’t do anything worth a nickel.

  Pop and Pete came back from wherever they’d been, sweaty and fishy-smelling. Lily told them all about her sunburn. They glared at me and patted Lily on an unburned part of her back. I was a social outcast in my own home.

  There was a knock at the door. Maybe someone else to blame me for failing Lily. Maybe a reporter from the San Diego Union come to interview the girl who let her sister burn. Holy cow.

  It wasn’t. It was Mrs. Wagner, another former North Park neighbor.

  “Come in,” Pop said. “Sit yourself down. How are Howie and—”

  “Fine, Martin, fine. Sorry to interrupt but I’ve come with a message from Billie Harlow.” She pulled a handkerchief from her pocket and wiped at her nose. “Her son Garland has been hospitalized with infantile paralysis. Polio.”

  Pop muttered, “Oh, no,” and Mama said, “Dear God!” and started to cry. I’d heard of polio but didn’t really know what it meant, so I pulled on Pop’s sleeve.

  “It’s a disease that attacks a person’s nervous system,” he said, patting my shoulder, “weakening the muscles.”

  “In Garland’s case,” Mrs. Wagner said, “he’s too weak to breathe on his own. He’s in an iron lung.”

  I shivered as Mrs. Wagner described the iron lung: “It’s a tube-shaped metal machine that he lies in with only his head sticking out. Bellows pump air in and out, helping him to breathe.” It sounded so creepy, like something from a horror movie.

  “How does he go to the bathroom?” Pete asked.

  Mama shushed him but Mrs. Wagner just smiled. “I’m sure the doctors and nurses know the best ways to take care of him. Billie wanted all the families with children at Garland’s party to know since polio is contagious in its early stages and your Pete was…” She nodded toward Pete, who asked, “Can I have an iron lung, too?”

  “Quiet, Pete,” Pop said. He lifted him up and hugged him.

  Mama grabbed Lily. “Do you feel all right? Can you breathe? Are you feverish?” She felt Lily’s forehead and looked in her eyes. “All you kids, let us know if you, well, if you feel, well, different.”

  Mrs. Wagner left to alarm some other family. Mama questioned us all about sore throats, coughing, and muscle aches. Pop poured a small glass of whiskey. Luckily for me, Lily’s sunburn was forgotten in the face of bigger tragedy.

  Before bed I went into the kitchen for a last glass of water. Soft sounds of whimpering came from the sofa. “Pete, honey, what’s wrong?” I asked.

  “I want to see Garland and give him the nickel I pinched from his birthday card.”

  “Good idea, but you’ll have to wait until he’s better.”

  Pete snuffled. “It’s not long until Christmas, and Garland’s in the hospital. How will Santa find him?”

  Oh, Pete. What if Pete caught what Garland had? What if Pete got sick and had to breathe with an iron lung? What if I did? I grabbed him and held on tightly.

  Lily recovered from her sunburn. Her skin blistered and peeled, and she and Pete had a contest about who could peel off the longest strand. Disgusting!

  Mama still felt our foreheads and looked at our throats every day since Garland got sick. No polio was going to get past her into this house. But we all seemed healthy enough, even Lily, who wasn’t as whiny as usual.

  After school and a walk along the bay, sketching dead things in my book—a tiny sandpiper with a long thin bill, parts of a purple sea urchin, and an army of sand crabs—I found Mama in the kitchen, snuffling while she made a grocery list for Thanksgiving dinner. Tears spotted her face. “This will be my first Thanksgiving without my mother,” Mama said. “I’ll miss her terribly.”

  “Me too.” I sat, elbows on the table. “Remember that time she forgot to turn on the oven and we had Thanksgiving dinner at midnight?”

  “And when your pop taught her to float and she started to float out into the middle of the bay and he had to swim out and tow her back.”

  “And how Disney cartoonists went on strike and she carried a petition to the amusement center and told people that Mickey and Goofy and Donald Duck were on strike, and little kids began crying and begging their parents to sign.”

  I didn’t know if we were laughing or crying, but the kitchen was noisy with it. Lily and Pete, not wanting to miss anything, hurried in. “What’s going on?”

  “We’re just remembering Gram and missing her,” Mama said. “This will be our first Thanksgiving without her—and her oven. Ours isn’t big enough for a turkey.”

  “What will we have, then?” I grimaced. “Perch?”

  “Sure, I could stuff a perch.”

  Three faces fell. “I was just kidding,” I said.

  “So was I,” said Mama. “How about a big chicken?”

  “Or hot dogs,” said Pete. “Or—”

  “Cotton candy!” Lily cried.

  Mama pulled Pete to her with one arm and Lily with the other. “A big chicken it is,” said Mama. “With Gram’s turkey stuffing but without her famous pecan pumpkin pie, I’m afraid.”

  Pop came home from the Burger Shack, waving a letter. “This came for you, Miss Millie,” he said, lifting it high above my head. “Do you have a boyfriend we don’t know about who’s writing you love notes?” He winked.

  Every time I reached for the letter, Pop held it higher. “The return address is in New Jersey. Who do you know in New Jersey?”

  “Stop teasing her, Martin,” Mama said, swatting him with a dish towel. “Give her the letter.”

  I tore it open. A letter…and a five-dollar bill! “I won a contest! For a jingle. I won five dollars!”

  “Maybe it’s a mistake,” Pop said, his brow furrowed. “Maybe it’s really for you, Lois.”

  I handed the letter to Mama. “No, it’s for Mildred McGonigle,” Mama said. “Did you send a jingle to the Campbell’s soup people?”

  “I did. I sent it in so long ago that I forgot all about it. Now it seems I won an honorable mention.”

  “I send in hundreds, and you
win five dollars with your very first try,” Mama said. Her voice sounded tired and sad. “I’m driving myself crazy with rhymes and jingles in my head. I dream in rhyme. My grocery list rhymes: Do I need bread or sandwich buns? Piggly Wiggly, here I come. I’m going nuts, and for what? Soap coupons and discounts on toilet paper!”

  “Sorry, Mama.”

  She shook her head. “Just ignore me.” She gave me a hug. “Congratulations! What’s the winning jingle?”

  “I was inspired by the time Edna lost her teeth on the beach and we had to sift sand all afternoon to find them.”

  “It was me!” Pete shouted. “I found them!”

  “Yes, you did. And here’s the jingle”:

  Campbell’s Beef Broth, for a taste of meat

  so light and smooth you won’t need teeth.

  Pop poured 7-Up all around. “Here’s to our Millie,” he said, “who inherited her mother’s green eyes and poetic talent.” We all clinked glasses while Pete shot off his cap guns: Bang! Bang! Bang!

  The to-do woke Edna from a nap in the bedroom. She ran in, shouting, “Wunderbar! Wunderbar! What do we celebrate?”

  “Five dollars!” Pop said. “See, Millie, cheer up. Life’s not all doom and gloom.”

  I didn’t know how to feel. What with winning a contest and earning so much money, I was pretty joyful. But merriment during sad and scary times seemed wrong somehow. Bombs were falling, people were dying, and I was feeling happy. It wasn’t right. I needed to cheer down.

  So the next morning I took myself over to Mission Boulevard, where between the real-estate office and the liquor store was the library.

  “Mrs. Pennyfeather,” I said to the librarian, “I want to read some sad books about danger and death. What does the library have like that?”

  “Now, what do you need those for?”

  “For my education,” I said. Librarians and teachers are suckers for anything having to do with education.

  Mrs. Pennyfeather pushed her glasses up on her head. “Well, War and Peace has lots of danger and death, I suppose, but I wouldn’t call it a sad book. Not like Grapes of Wrath about the Depression and the Dust Bowl. That’s pretty tragic. And Of Mice and Men is downright heartbreaking.” She blinked a few times and sighed.

  “Do plenty of sorrowful things happen? Do people die? Can I check them out?”

  “They’re adult books, Millie, in the adult section. You’ll have to wait until you’re thirteen.”

  “Are there books with dead people in the kiddie section?”

  She frowned at me and shook her head. “Millie, Millie.” I said nothing and she went on. “I can’t think of any offhand. There are sad books—The Velveteen Rabbit, about a toy nobody wants anymore, or Black Beauty, about a horse mistreated and separated from those who love him. There is sadness and suffering but they end on a happier note.”

  “I don’t want a happier note. This is not a cheery time. What’s the saddest children’s book about death you ever read that didn’t end happily?”

  Mrs. P eyed me uncertainly. “I’d rather give you something light and merry. Like The Saturdays or The Peterkin Papers. Playing the piano through the window!” She chuckled. “I loved the Peterkins when I was a girl.”

  In the Dark Ages, I thought. I shook my head.

  “Well, then, how about The Moffats. That’s pretty funny.”

  The Moffats? Did she think I was six? “No, thanks, Mrs. P. Maybe I’ll read Little Women again. The part where Beth dies.”

  I stomped my way home.

  Mama and Lily had gone to take a tuna casserole and brownies to old Mrs. Dunsmore, a neighbor who had broken her leg. Pop was working at the Burger Shack. Pete was at Ralphie’s birthday party, and Edna lay outside in the sunshine. I was alone in the house, enjoying the silence, eating peanut butter on saltines. I was looking through the Sears catalog, wondering how to spend my five-dollar prize money, when a wailing Pete hurled himself onto my lap. His loud gurgling sobs sounded like the sink backing up. I patted his back and waited, my stomach tight and my heart pounding. Was he sick? Was it polio? Or was the war here? Had the Germans invaded?

  “The Lone Ranger,” he finally squeezed out. “Ralphie said…said the Lone Ranger…” There were more sobs.

  The knot of worry in my belly loosened. “Ralphie said what?”

  “Said the Lone Ranger is dead! Dead! You can have him for your dead book and I don’t care! I hate the Lone Ranger!”

  “Oh, Petey, that happened a long time ago. But it was the actor who played the Lone Ranger on radio who died. Now they have a new one.”

  “No! Ralphie said it was the real Lone Ranger and he’s dead and every other Lone Ranger is fake!” I didn’t tell Pete that Tom Mix was also dead. A five-and-a-half-year-old can only take so much bad news.

  “Why do you listen to Ralphie, Pete? Didn’t he tell you that in the next Tom and Jerry cartoon, Tom would catch and eat Jerry?”

  “Yes.”

  “Was that true?”

  “No.”

  “Didn’t Ralphie say if you eat watermelon seeds and dirt, a melon will grow in your belly and you’ll be full of watermelon all the time?”

  “Yeah.”

  “And was that true?”

  “No.”

  “So why do you believe Ralphie now?”

  “Because it’s true.” He wiped his nose on his sleeve. “I just know it.”

  “Go back to Ralphie’s party, Pete, and don’t worry. They’ll get another actor and—”

  “No! No more Lone Ranger! He’s dead! I loved the Lone Ranger and now I hate the Lone Ranger!” Pete jumped from my lap, ripped off his gun belt, and threw it on the floor. “Here, draw this in your book.” And he ran into the bedroom.

  Poor Petey. He seemed more angry than sad. But it wasn’t fair to be angry with someone for dying, was it? Was it?

  Pete knowing about my book felt wrong, but I didn’t know why. I chewed on my lip in thought for a moment but then busied myself adding Actor who played Lone Ranger to my Book of Dead Things. I couldn’t remember his name, but it seemed a way to honor Pete’s grief.

  There came a series of loud hiccups at the front door.

  “Petey,” I called, “Archie’s here.”

  “Don’t care.”

  Obviously Pete needed a new hero or he wouldn’t be himself again, and I had an idea where to find one. I pulled on a sweater. “I have to go out for a minute,” I called. “Edna is right outside if you need anything.”

  “Don’t care.”

  I bumped into Archie at the door. “Where’s Artie? I never see you without him.”

  “Artie is tied to a tree by bandits, waiting for the Lone Ranger to come rescue him.”

  “Well, the Lone Ranger is indisposed at the moment.”

  “What’s that mean?”

  “It means you’ll have to save Artie yourself today.”

  Archie left with a final hic.

  I headed to Bell’s Grocery. There was a blue star in the store window—I’d heard that Walter, the oldest Bell boy, had joined the navy—and several posters urging folks to give to Polish War Relief and Greek War Relief and French War Relief. It seemed as if all of Europe needed relief, and Mr. Bell was determined that they get it.

  Bell’s was not open on Sundays, but the Bell family lived behind. I found Mr. Bell sitting outside, reading his newspaper. “Sorry,” he said when he saw me. “All the movie-star magazines are locked inside today. Something else I can do for you?”

  I explained my mission and Mr. Bell handed over the comic section. Then, holding up the front page, he said, “Says here Hitler has a peace plan. Maybe things’ll turn out okay after all. I mean, no one wants war. Even Hitler, it seems.”

  At home again, I sat on the sofa and searched through the comics for a new hero for Pete. Red Ryder? No. That would mean more cap guns and more bang! ban
g! bang! Dick Tracy? Same thing. I paused to read Popeye and Nancy, and then there it was: Buck Rogers in the 25th Century. Perfect.

  Rattling the newspaper loudly and often, I shouted “Wow!” and “Oh boy!” and “You tell ’em!” It wasn’t long before Pete came snuffling out of the bedroom. “What’re you doing?”

  “I’m reading the funnies from the Sunday paper. Buck Rogers in the 25th Century.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Oh, it’s the best. Buck Rogers is a hero fighting evil spacemen and that blackhearted bum Killer Kane. The whole fate of the world—the universe even—depends on him.”

  Pete climbed onto my lap and I read Buck’s adventures aloud.

  “Are there bathrooms in spaceships?” Pete asked.

  “I guess.”

  “How do they go pee-pee with those space suits on?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe they’re hooked up with tubes and wires, or maybe they just pee in their suits.”

  “Neat! I might—”

  “Don’t you dare.”

  Pete grinned. “What if they are wearing space helmets and they have to throw up?”

  “Gross, Pete, enough. How should I know?” Pete was silent while he thought of another annoying question, so I hurried on. “Archie was here a while ago. Artie has been tied to a tree by evil spacemen and he needs help.”

  “Really?” Pete jumped off my lap. “Hold on, Artie,” he hollered. “I’ll save you.” He grabbed his cap pistols and ran to the door. Bang! Bang! Bang! “I am Buck Rogers of the twenty-fifth century!”

  “Wait a minute, there, Buck. Heroes in the twenty-fifth century have ray guns, which shoot super-silent light rays: whoosh whoosh whoosh.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Yeah. Let me hear those ray guns.”

  “Whoosh! Whoosh!” he shouted.

  “Even more silent.”

  “Whoosh,” Pete whispered, and he was off.

  I smiled. Pete was happy again. He sure was quick to bounce back. The house would be quieter now that he was Buck Rogers, and the Lone Ranger and his six-shooters were gone. Planes thundered overhead, and I shuddered. Life was much easier when you were five and a half.