Don't You Know There's a War On? Read online

  She gasped. “How do you know about that?” she whispered.

  Not expecting the question, I just stood there.

  She said, “Does the whole class know?”

  “Just . . . me,” I said, skipping over the Denny part.

  “How did you learn?” she asked.

  “Miss Gossim,” I said, “remember how I came late to school this morning?” I wasn’t looking at her. Just staring at my shoes like they were a dollar bill I’d found on the curb.

  “You were covered with coal soot.”

  “Well, see, I was digging my way out of a coal pile.”

  Her brow wrinkled. “I don’t understand.”

  I took a deep breath, looked up, and said, “Miss Gossim, it was like this. . . .” Then I blurted out what happened that morning. The whole thing. How I went into the house. Going up the dumbwaiter. Hearing Lomister. Digging out.

  The more I talked, the bigger her blue-gray eyes got. Couple of times I was pretty sure she was going to laugh. Only she didn’t. And when I told her all the talk I heard—you know, between Lomister and that woman named Wilma—she got pretty serious.

  She said, “That must have been Mrs. Wolch.”

  “Who’s Mrs. Wolch?”

  “She’s acting superintendent of schools.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Dr. Lomister’s superior. His boss.”

  “Oh.”

  “And you were there?” she said, sort of, I guess, still amazed.

  “Sure. One-seventy-two Hicks Street.”

  Miss Gossim got thoughtful. Then I saw her write down the address I just said.

  “So that’s how I know,” I muttered.

  “Did you hear Dr. Lomister say why I was being fired?” She looked sad.

  “No.”

  I waited for her to tell me why, but when she didn’t I said, “I’m really sorry. Are . . . are you . . . mad at me or anything?”

  Miss Gossim looked at me with faraway eyes. “No,” she said. “Of course not.”

  Then she took a deep breath and said, “Howie, I really don’t understand. Why did you even go into Mrs. Wolch’s house?”

  “Denny Coleman is always saying Dr. Lomister is a spy.”

  “A spy?” she cried.

  “Yeah. They’re all around, you know.”

  “Howie, I don’t believe Dr. Lomister is a spy,” she said, adding, “or for that matter anyone in our school.”

  “You don’t?” I said, disappointed.

  “Not at all.”

  I waited for her to say something more. When she didn’t, I said, “Miss Gossim . . .”

  “Yes, Howie?”

  “Then how come . . . I mean, how come you’re being fired?”

  She turned away.

  So I said, “Well, I just wish you weren’t.”

  She came back to me with that sad look on her face. “Thank you, Howie,” she said. “I wish I weren’t either.”

  “Can I do something about it? Help you or anything?”

  “Howie, you’re very sweet to offer. I can’t imagine how you could. Besides, this is something I need to work out for myself. Except, may I ask you, please, don’t tell the class what you know. Can you promise me that?”

  “Yes, Miss Gossim,” I said, which wasn’t honest, ’cause, see, I told Denny already.

  She said, “Thank you. I appreciate it. Now, it’s late. You’d better go on home.”

  I headed for the door.

  “Howie!” she called.

  “Yes, Miss Gossim.”

  She picked up a paper from her desk. “I’m afraid you failed the math test again.”

  “Miss Gossim,” I cried, “if I fail, my mom said she won’t let me go to the Saturday movies. It’s Chapter Seven, Junior G-Men of the Air!”

  She broke into a smile. “Oh, dear. That is serious. Then let’s see. Can you promise me you’ll study real hard tonight? If you do, I’ll give you another test tomorrow. I think everyone deserves a second chance. Don’t you?”

  “Yes, Miss Gossim.”

  “Good-night, Howie.”

  “Good-night, Miss Gossim.”

  16

  DENNY WAS WAITING for me on the front school steps. “You talk to her?” he said soon as he saw me.

  “Yeah. You owe me a comic book.”

  We started walking up Hicks Street slowly. After a while, he said, “Hey, what about our no-secrets pact?”

  “I know. Just thinking.”

  “Less thinking, Jackson. More talking. What’d you say to her?”

  “Said I knew she’d been fired.”

  “What’d she say?”

  “Wanted to know if everybody knew. Said I didn’t think so. I didn’t say I told you.”

  “How come?”

  “Just didn’t.”

  “You say anything else?”

  “I said, you know, ‘How come?’”

  “How come what?”

  “How come she got fired.”

  “What she say?”

  “She didn’t.”

  “You say anything else?”

  “Said I’d like to help her.”

  “What she say then?”

  “Said I shouldn’t.”

  “Are you gonna?”

  “Maybe.”

  “How?”

  “Don’t know.”

  “You say that to her?”

  “No.”

  “What about spies? You say anything about them?”

  “Yeah.”

  “What she say?”

  “Said she didn’t think there were any.”

  “Oh.”

  “But you know what?”

  “What?”

  “I really like her.”

  “So do I.”

  “You do?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Oh.”

  We walked on without more talking, stopping only to stare at the afternoon headlines at old Mr. Teophilo’s. But I wasn’t thinking about the war. I was looking at Denny sort of sideways. Thing is, and I admit it, I was jealous. See, I’m thinking, how come my best friend has to like Miss Gossim too? He could have picked someone else. And then, all of a sudden, I started worrying. What if she liked him better?

  But right about then Denny said, “You went into that house thinking about spies, right?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You still think it has anything to do with that?”

  “No.”

  “How come?”

  “The lady Lomister was talking to was the acting superintendent of schools, that’s all. Her name is Mrs. Wolch.”

  “How do you know who it was?”

  “Miss Gossim told me.”

  “Why Lomister go to her?”

  “Mrs. Wolch is his boss.”

  “I didn’t know he got a boss.”

  “Everybody got a boss.”

  “God don’t.”

  “God ain’t everybody.”

  “Pretty much.”

  “Come on, Denny, that’s nothing to do with what we’re talking about.”

  Denny got quiet. Then he said, “We going to do some collecting?”

  Denny and me—like tons of kids—went around the neighborhood getting newspaper, scrap metal, and old clothes—stuff, see, for the war effort. He had an old wagon—a red Radio Flyer—which was great for hauling. We’d store whatever we got over at his place. Every couple of weeks we’d bring it to the collection center at Brooklyn Borough Hall.

  “Thing is,” he said, “we could go to that house you were at too. Maybe learn more about what’s going on.”

  “That Mrs. Wolch’s?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Spy on it?”

  “Sure. Where’s it at?” he asked.

  “One-seventy-two Hicks.” I looked at him. “Why do you think she got fired?”

  “Hey, Jackson,” he said, “don’t you know there’s a war on?”

  17

  AFTER DENNY AND I agreed to meet at his house, I went ho
me to get out of my school clothes and to make sure my kid sister, Gloria, was all right.

  Gloria was two years younger than me. With braids and bangs, she was always wanting to know what I was doing. Or tagging after me and my pals. Far as I was concerned, she was a drizzle puss.

  But looking after Gloria was something I was supposed to do ever since my mom started working at the Navy Yard. She left before we went to school and didn’t get home till night, around six-thirty.

  “I don’t want to take care of her,” I told my mom.

  “Howard Bellington Crispers,” she said, “don’t you know there’s a war on?”

  See. You couldn’t say nothing to that.

  Gloria liked radio soap operas. Liked them more than anything else in the world. There were tons of them too. The Romance of Helen Trent, Our Gal Sunday, Backstage Wife. Gloria breathed all that lovey-dovey-oolie-droolie-behind-the-back stuff like other people breathed air. So what Gloria would do, see, is rush home after school and paste herself to the radio. Which was fine with me. That way I could do what I wanted.

  So that afternoon, by the time I got home, Gloria was in the kitchen, listening to Linda’s First Love. This was—and I kid you not because I ain’t forgot—“About a Girl in Love with the World around Us, and in Love with Wealthy Young Kenneth Woodruff.” It all took place in a “midsized city in Indiana.”

  As Gloria listened, she read one of her Little Orphan Annie books. Don’t ask me how she could do both things at once. She just did. It drove me nuts.

  I swallowed a glass of Ovaltine, then started out.

  “Where you going?” she asked.

  “Nowhere.”

  “Doing what?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Who with?”

  “None of your beeswax.”

  “Can I come?”

  “Nope.”

  She stuck her tongue out at me.

  Like I said, looking after my sister was a pain.

  18

  DENNY WAS WAITING for me with his wagon in front of his family’s tailor shop. He was in his school duds—bow tie, suspenders, the works. “My mother said I have to be back by five to mind the store,” he explained.

  “Okeydokey with me,” I said.

  “Better do some collecting first,” he suggested. “It’ll make things look right when we get to that lady’s house.”

  We set off, pulling his noisy wagon behind us. Down the block was a house with two blue stars in the window. It was always worth asking at those places. I went up the stoop and rang the bell.

  A window on the first floor slid open. This gray-haired lady stuck her head out.

  “Ma’am,” I called, “we’re collecting scrap for the war effort.”

  She gave us a smile. “Good boys. Just a moment. I’ll check.”

  Couple of minutes later she came back. She had an old dented kettle and a bundle of newspapers tied with lots of string. She said, “I have two boys in the service.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  By the time we got to Mrs. Wolch’s place, we had three piles of newspapers, a ball of string, two old sweaters, a paper bag full of squashed tin cans, and that kettle. A better haul than most days. But it was getting late.

  All of a sudden Denny said, “Cheese it!”

  “What?”

  “Look.” He pointed. Coming up the street was Miss Gossim. She was wearing a brown coat and a hat on her head with a feather. She was walking fast too, head bent, like she was thinking hard about something. Every once in a while she looked at a piece of paper she had in her hand, then up at the houses, like she was checking for an address.

  I was thinking, I bet I know what she’s doing.

  I didn’t have to say it out loud. Denny whispered, “Bet you anything she’s going to the same place we were going.”

  I knew she was. Because I gave her the address.

  We ducked behind a car to watch. Sure enough, Miss Gossim went up the stoop of 172 and rang the bell. She stood there fidgeting, but never turned around to look our way either.

  After maybe ten minutes—and no one coming to the door—she left the stoop and went off the way she came.

  Denny started to follow.

  “Hold it,” I said, grabbing his arm.

  “What’s the matter?”

  “We can’t follow someone and drag a wagon full of junk too.”

  “Why not?”

  “Junk ain’t private. She’ll see us. Or hear us.”

  “Howie, I can’t leave it.”

  “I’ll go alone. Anyway, you said you had to be home by five.”

  Denny looked at me suspicious. “You promise to tell me everything what happens?”

  “Sure.”

  “I mean it. Everything. No secrets, right?”

  “No secrets,” I said back.

  “And no fins,” he said, holding out his pinky.

  “No fins.”

  We linked and chopped fast. “See you tomorrow on the way to school,” I said, racing off. “And don’t worry. I’ll tell you everything.”

  “You better!” he said, but by then I was running to catch up with Miss Gossim. I looked back once. Denny was pulling on his ear.

  I didn’t. Truth is, I hadn’t been fair to Denny. I wasn’t worried about the wagon. I wanted to be the only one saving Miss Gossim.

  19

  OKAY. I followed Miss Gossim as she went along Hicks Street, then made a turn onto Orange Street. I was about half a block behind. She didn’t turn around. Not once.

  After a while she got to this street called Columbia Heights. It was sort of a cliff that overlooks New York Harbor. There were tons of houses there, but between some of them you could see the harbor. All these boats. Navy ships, cargo boats, tugs, and ferries. Plenty of them.

  Behind them was Manhattan with its tall buildings, including the Empire State Building. It was huge, but people said it was mostly empty. Go figure.

  Anyway, Miss Gossim was leaning on a fence facing the harbor. Like she was staring at something.

  I suddenly got this thought: Maybe she’s gonna kill herself. You know, leap off the cliff. Holy smoker-eeno! Suicide! Which, see, I happened to know—’cause Denny once told me—was against the law.

  I just stood there, heart beating like crazy, not knowing what to do. Except, after a while, Miss Gossim turned. Anyway, she began to walk back along Orange Street, where she went into an apartment house.

  I hung back for a while, making sure she really went in. Then I took myself into the building. A quick peek told me she wasn’t in the lobby or nothing. But I saw this up-and-down line of mailboxes in the wall with a call button and name label under each box. At the bottom of Apartment 5-C, fifth button down, it said, GOSSIM.

  When I went home, I walked right by Coleman Tailors. I didn’t talk to Denny. Then, at my house, we didn’t have a phone, so I couldn’t call neither.

  See, I had to think it out in my own head first. You know, before it went into someone else’s head.

  Only at night, when I got into bed and the lights were out, I couldn’t fall asleep. It was like a stuck movie: Miss Gossim just looking over that cliff. It was probably the most awful thing I had seen in my whole entire life.

  “Good-night, Rolanda Gossim,” I kept saying. But she didn’t show up. Not at all.

  TUESDAY, MARCH 23, 1943

  American Drive Forges Ahead.

  Rommel in a Vise.

  Grand Admiral Doenitz,

  Nazi Germany’s Submarine War Wizard,

  Pledges U-boat Warfare

  Backed by Total Nazi Sea Power.

  U-boat Toll Rises As Nazis Use New Tactics.

  Test of Army Air Raid Signals

  in City Is Set for Wednesday Night.

  20

  THE NEXT DAY, far as I could see, Miss Gossim was acting normal. Full of smiles and fun. But, see, maybe because I knew what was going on, every once in a while I’d catch her staring out the window. It was as if something was out there on
ly she could see. I checked. Nothing there but Hicks Street.

  Miss Gossim let me take the math test again during first recess time, which I did. She graded it right away. I passed it—with a D-minus. Have to admit, I was happy. At least I’d be able to go to the movies next Saturday morning.

  But I wondered if her passing me meant she liked me special. Know what I’m saying? Only, when I was watching her, seemed to me she liked all the kids.

  Oh, yeah. Another thing happened that day. Like Miss Gossim promised, it was head-lice-check day. The whole room passed. Even Emily. Which was a good thing, because no one liked a louse.

  But then Miss Gossim reminded us that next week would be ringworm-check day.

  And I was thinking, great, Miss Gossim wouldn’t be around. Not even for ringworms.

  WEDNESDAY, MARCH 24, 1943

  Allies Lost Millions of Tons

  of Shipping in 1942.

  Seamen from U.S. Cargo Vessel

  Torpedoed in the Atlantic.

  Nazi U-boat Menace Is Seen as

  Sole Threat to Allied Victory.

  To Save Gas, States Asked to

  Keep 35-Mile Speed.

  21

  WEDNESDAY WAS A big day. In school, not much happened. After school, tons.

  First, like I was supposed to, when school was over I headed home. Denny had to go somewhere. On the way I checked the headlines. As I was looking at them, old Mr. Teophilo—the blind newsman—turned toward me with his closed eyes and wrinkled eyelids and said, “I don’t know, Howie. Looks pretty bad today.” He fingered his gold chain like it was some good-luck charm. “Where’s Denny today?”

  “Had to do something. Mr. Teophilo,” I said, “you mind my asking? How come you knew he wasn’t here with me?”

  “Aw, Howie, it ain’t so hard. Everybody is all kinds of different ways. You know, different breathing, talking, moving. They even smell their own way. In the whole world, no two people the same.”

  I said something like “Yeah,” wondering, as always, how he knew.

  Soon as I got back to our apartment, Gloria said, “Guess what?”

  “What?”