Willow Run

by Patricia Reilly Giff

  I leaned against her. Mom always smelled good, a little like starch, a little like perfume. “You feel like a plump pigeon,” I told her, reminding her of the bird game Eddie and I used to play.

  She smiled a little. “What about Ronnelle? What is she?”

  I thought for a moment. “I think a wren,” I said. “You know, they're speckled, and sweet.”

  Ronnelle had a book in her hand as she sat on her steps and watched Lulu play with a Tinkertoy in her stroller. She waved the book. “Studying science.”

  Worse than geography. “We're going to take turns, Michael and I. Both of us want to become teachers after the war.”

  Everyone was quiet then, Ronnelle turning pages, Mom's head back against the screen door, her eyes puffy. She'd been crying again, I knew that, even though she tried to hide it from me.

  I'd tell Hot-O Soup that what I really wanted was to make my mother happy again.

  “Harlan said Arnold the ice cream man is a spy,” I said.

  Dad shook his head. “Where did he get that idea?”

  “Arnold's not in the army.”

  “Good,” Mom said almost under her breath. “If he isn't in the army, he's safe.”

  Who could worry about Arnold's being safe? He was tall, much taller than Eddie, and strong.

  Dad reached out and circled Mom's wrist with his fingers. “Even so, I'm proud of Eddie. You are, too.”

  Mom made a sound in her throat.

  “Lots of reasons why people aren't in the army,” Dad said. “Maybe he's not old enough.”

  “He is. He had a birthday weeks ago. Harlan said that, too. Someone told him.”

  I thought about it. Arnold didn't look like someone who had a birthday. I couldn't picture him when he was young, wearing a party hat, blowing a paper horn, cutting the first slice of cake with his mother's hand on his.

  Next door, Harlan and Kennis were fighting. There was the sound of glass breaking. “No wonder we have wars,” I heard Harlan's mother begin. “You two can't even …” Her voice trailed off.

  “That Harlan.” Dad shook his head. “Don't pay attention to what he says.”

  I saw Dad stiffen then, and heard the sound of the truck. Not Arnold's truck. This was a mail truck, special delivery.

  Mom sat up straight; her hand went to her throat, leaving marks across her skin.

  The brown jeep drove up the street slowly, and Mrs. Tucker came out on her step. I heard Ronnelle close her book with a little snap.

  Everything was still. The jeep passed house after house. A telegram for someone, I thought. Someone missing? Someone killed in action?

  He stopped in front of our door, and I wanted to stand up, but I couldn't move. Then Dad was up off the step and walking down to meet him halfway.

  At last I saw it wasn't a telegram. The mailman came up the path holding out a small package so we all could see it.

  For a moment Dad stood there with the mailman; then he turned back to us. “It's for Meggie,” he told Mom. “From your father. That's all, just for Meggie.”

  Next to me, Mom began to sob.

  “It's all right,” I said, touching her arm. “All right.”

  Dad handed the package to me and raised Mom up off the step. “My dear Ingrid,” he said. He opened the door and they went inside.

  I held the package in my hands, ran my fingers over it, and then I heard Mom turning on the faucet to fill a glass of water. “I am proud of him,” she said, her voice thick. “It's just so hard.”

  There was the rumble of Dad's voice. “Remember when we went to the Catskills? I was so worried about spending that money. I'm so glad we did. So glad…”

  I glanced across at Ronnelle. Her head was down on the book in her lap. She looked up at me, the color gone from her cheeks. “Oh, Meggie, I thought it was Michael.” Her mouth was open as if she was having trouble breathing.

  I looked down at the package, postmarked the day after we had heard Eddie was missing, a small box wrapped over and over with a Bohack's store brown bag and garden string, addressed to me, Miss Margaret Dillon, in Grandpa's square letters.

  I brought it inside to the kitchen. Mom and Dad were sitting at the table, holding hands across the scarred wood.

  “I'm trying to coo like a pigeon,” Mom said with a watery smile, and I bent over her with the box in my hand to give her a kiss. Then I sat between them and unwrapped the package.

  Inside, wrapped in waxed paper, was Grandpa's Victory medal from the Great War. I looked down at it, hardly believing he had sent it. I ran my fingers over it, gently touching the angel's outspread wings, her flowing skirt, the sword in her hand. I patted the ribbon with its faded rainbow stripes, reminding myself of Grandpa patting the leaves of his cucumber plants the day we had left for Willow Run.

  Why hadn't he given it to Eddie? I wondered, thinking of the day Eddie had left. Eddie hugging us all, hugging Grandpa last, Grandpa's arms wrapped around him, tears in his eyes. “Edvard.”

  Not to Eddie. Eddie, his favorite. Eddie, everyone's favorite.

  Me. He had given it to me.

  Mom looked up, her mouth open in a round O. “I wonder why he sent it.” Then: “He always cherished that medal, Meggie.”

  “I wish he were here.” I'd have given anything to put my head out the door and see him walking up the street, even with that red hat, even with an Apfelstrudel in his hands and even with his accent.

  Mom leaned over and fished a piece of loose-leaf out of the bottom of the box. “Read it, Meggie,” she said.

  I began to read aloud, and then I couldn't get the words out, so I finished it to myself and slid it gently across the table so they could see it:

  Liebe Margaret,

  My cucumbers are grown. Yesterday I brought in a bushel basket of them to make into pickles. The sun was shining on the back window and it made me think of brining the pickles last year with you and Edward. Such a happy memory. And do you know what the shine on the window showed me, Margaret? The outline was so faint I might never have seen it. I would never have known what you did for me that night. What was it you called it when we saw the mark on your sleeve? Victory Red.

  So I send you my Victory medal because what you did was brave. I send it to you so you will be brave when you need to be brave. And I send it to you because there is no one I love more.

  Grandpa

  We sat there without talking for a moment; then Mom asked, “But what did you do?”

  I was crying now, so I didn't have to talk. I didn't have to tell them.

  Mom shook her head. “They always had secrets, my father and Meggie. How lovely for them both.”

  Dear Grandpa,

  I'm sorry you found out about the paint.

  The medal is the best thing anyone ever gave me in my life. I will keep it forever. I'll never lose it.

  I love you.

  Meggie

  Chapter Seventeen

  I went to bed with the medal on my pillow, thinking that school would start in a few days, and that Harlan was going back to Detroit tomorrow. But most of all I thought of Grandpa.

  I could hear Patches turn over on the other side of the wall and I leaned over to tap: bing bing bing bong.

  “Want a Necco Wafer?” she asked. “I can't see in the dark, but the ones that are left are probably pink.”

  There was just enough room to slide one through. Mom would have a fit; I had already brushed my teeth.

  “Pink?” Patches asked as I chewed.

  “Mmm, the worst kind.” I took a breath, and then I was telling her about Grandpa, telling her that he had come from Germany instead of Mongolia, telling her about the swastika and that some people thought he was a spy.

  I was hoping she'd say that of course he wasn't a spy, that anyone who had a Victory medal was a hero. But she didn't say anything like that.

  I could hear her voice now, close to the opening in the wall. “You think I'm so tough.”

  What was that all about? I shook my head, thinking
of Patches with her ten stitches, Patches jumping rope, her bare feet pounding on the street among the bits of dirt and stones. Tough as nails, Grandpa would say.

  What she said next was so low, so hesitant, that I wasn't sure I had heard it right. “Say that again?”

  “I never had a pair of shoes before. We never had the money.”

  But everyone had shoes! There were always piles of them on the boardwalk when we went swimming. Sometimes I even came home with someone else's. Shoes thrown in the closet. Wearing my mother's high-heel shoes. How could you not have shoes, even though leather was rationed? “But what about school?” I asked slowly. “And church?”

  “We never had the money until now,” she said. “Most of the kids I knew didn't have shoes, either.”

  I remembered seeing her marching around in those shoes in her bedroom. Her first shoes!

  I poked my finger through the hole in the wall, and a moment later, she gave it a tap.

  It was hard to keep my eyes open, but just before I fell asleep, I heard her whisper, “I screamed so loud when I had stitches that some kid told me I was a big baby.”

  And then, when it seemed as if I had just shut my eyes, it was morning. Harlan was going home today. Lucky Harlan.

  I threw on my clothes, grabbed a piece of paper and a pencil, and rushed outside.

  Kennis sat in the back of the Tuckers’ car, but all I could see was the top of his head and one hand. His fingers tapped on the pile of boxes next to him as if he were plinking on a piano. I wondered where Harlan was.

  Mr. Tucker came down the path with still more boxes in his arms, and in the doorway, Mrs. Tucker shook the mop until feathery balls of dust flew through the air and landed on the cement.

  She smiled at me, blowing at a strand of pale hair on her forehead. “Have to leave the place better than I found it. A lot better.”

  I thought about thanking her for saying “Ah” that night, but I didn't even want to think about it. Instead, I raised my hand to wave.

  Harlan dashed out the door, bumping into his mother and the mop. He skidded off the step, then righted himself. In the car, Kennis began to laugh.

  I waved the paper at Harlan. “I want to get your address,” I said as he crossed the little square of beaten-down grass to sit on my stoop. “I like to write letters.”

  He twitched one shoulder. “I'm not much on writing myself.”

  “Still,” I said.

  “I guess.” He reached for the paper and scribbled down an address I could hardly read. “You probably won't write anyway,” he said.

  “I will, really.” Then, before I could stop myself, I said, “You look different. You look …” I bit my lip. I didn't want to say cleaner. He did look cleaner, though, his hair slicked back with water, his shirt with only one or two spots, the World's Fair pickle gleaming.

  “Going home,” he said. “What do you think? I have to look good to see everybody.” He squinted toward the car. “There's something I have to talk to you about before I never see you again.”

  “Don't say that.”

  “You live… where? Rockaway? I never even heard of that place before you came,” he said. “I've never been to New York. Never seen the ocean.”

  I didn't know exactly where Detroit was, either.

  “When I'm grown up,” I began, then raised one shoulder the way he had. He was right. I'd never get to Detroit and he'd never get to New York. Wasn't that strange? In a few minutes he'd be gone forever, and even though I'd known him only a couple of weeks, he'd be there in my head until I was at least as old as Grandpa.

  I stared at him so I'd remember his face, the light eyes, the few freckles, his ears flat to his head. I wished I had done that with Eddie, stared at him hard enough to remember him forever.

  “We owe Arnold the Spy a lot of money,” Harlan said. “More than I can count.”

  “I know I have to pay him back,” I said. “I have this week's allowance, and I can ask Dad for next week's.…” I thought for a moment. “And the week after that, maybe.”

  Dad would wonder why.

  And how was I going to get the money to Arnold? Suppose I left it on the seat of the truck? I saw myself climbing up on the running board, looking over my shoulder to see his angry face a step in back of me. It was like a terrible movie I had seen with Grandpa one time. “Watch out, he's got a gun! More popcorn, Margaret?”

  But Grandpa wasn't here to make it seem less scary. He was home, weeding his garden. I glanced down over the step, but his seeds weren't growing. Maybe they'd all washed out in the rain the other day.

  I leaned over farther. I knew that spot by heart, the five stones I had laid against the wall of the house so they'd be out of the way, the faint ridges in the earth where I had planted the seeds. Grow, I told them, grow.

  At the curb Mr. Tucker opened the front door of the car. “Let's go, Harley,” he called. “Got a long way to drive before dark.”

  Mrs. Tucker locked the apartment and dropped the key back into the mail slot in the door. She leaned her head against the wall for just an instant, then came down the path. “I'll never forget this place,” she said. “It was a hard time, a terrible time.” She bit her lip. “Tell your mom and dad I'm praying for them, and praying for your brother.”

  I crossed the lawn and she hugged me there on the front path. “I hope you'll go home soon, Meggie.” She touched my shoulder, shaking her head. “This war has done something to every single one of us.”

  “Harlan!” Mr. Tucker called again.

  “I'm coming, aren't I?” Harlan said, but he didn't get up from my stoop.

  I hesitated, then went back to him.

  “Listen, Meggie,” he said. “I've got to go. Just give this to Arnold the Spy.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a dollar bill.

  I had seen it before, creased and old: his uncle Leo's hardware-store dollar.

  “Tell him it's the best thing I ever had.” Harlan's eyes filled as he looked down at it. He unfolded it. “Look. My uncle's initials in pencil. L.T. I did that so they'd always be there.”

  I put my hands behind my back. “Don't do it, Harlan.” I could hardly talk.

  Mr. Tucker tapped the horn now, a short, warning sound, and Harlan grabbed my elbow. “I thought I had a year to pay him back, even two years. But there's no time left.” He opened my curled fingers and put the dollar bill in my hand. “Tell him my uncle was a hero. Leo Tucker.”

  I watched him zigzag across the grass, calling back over his shoulder. “Tell him to take good care of it,” he called. “It's all I have left of my uncle.”

  “I will.” I took a step after him, wondering how I would ever do that.

  Harlan slid into the car, giving Kennis a little punch. “You have to take up all the room?” He rolled down the window and stuck out his head. “If Eddie doesn't come back, maybe you'll get some money from the government, enough to buy a hardware store of your own.”

  “Harlan!” I heard Mrs. Tucker say.

  “You could come to Detroit,” he yelled, his voice almost lost beneath the sound of the motor as Mr. Tucker pulled away. “We could be partners.”

  “He's coming back,” I yelled, my voice loud in my ears. “Don't you worry about that.”

  The apartment door opened on the other side of me. “Good luck,” Ronnelle called, and Lulu waved both hands.

  And Patches came running. “Good luck, Harlan.”

  And there was Mom out on the step, ready for work, going across the lawn to say goodbye.

  The Tuckers drove down the street then, the motor not catching right somehow, the muffler banging as they turned the corner.

  I went back inside and sat on the foldout couch in the living room, tightening my fist around Harlan's dollar bill.

  Chapter Eighteen

  It was almost time for Mom to go to work. She rushed around hanging socks and underwear on a line across the kitchen. “Oh, Meggie,” she said. “Last year this time we were in Rockaway sweeping the sand
off the front steps.” Her mouth quivered. “I'd be putting on a second cup of coffee for Grandpa. How I miss him.”

  She arched her back. “Can you imagine, I spend my days helping to put huge bombers together…almost like sewing up a skirt on the machine at home.”

  I thought of Terry, Harlan's friend, the man who was shorter than I was, working inside the wings.

  After Mom left I could see a puddle of soapy water in front of the washing machine, and drips across the floor from the laundry. The wringer was hardly working, but Dad had said it was just for the duration anyway.

  The duration again.

  I found the mop and swished it back and forth, making shiny arcs across the red linoleum. The sun slanted through the window onto the floor, drying it quickly; the clock tick-clicked up over the stove, and it almost seemed that the faucet dripped out Arnold's name.

  I went into my room and sat on the edge of the bed, the springs creaking. I must have awakened Dad in the other bedroom. “Are you all right in there, Meggie?” he called, his voice thick with sleep.

  “Sure,” I managed to get out. I ran my fingers over the bedspread. Judy or Jiggs had chewed on the little balls of chenille and I could see the sheet underneath. Harlan's dollar was there, under the pillow.

  I had to give it to Arnold, give him my allowance, and tell him…

  Tell a spy.

  I slid out the dollar and patted my pocket to be sure I had Grandpa's medal in there for courage; then I tiptoed out so I wouldn't wake Dad. It was time to find the SUNDAE, MONDAY, AND ALWAYS truck.

  The truck wasn't on our block or the next. I was about to give up when I saw it ahead of me, slowly turning the corner.

  By the time I reached the end of the street, Arnold the Spy was chaining the truck to a tree halfway down the block.

  I could have called out; I could have run after him. I didn't, though. I stood there thinking about the scratches on the running board and what he was going to say.

  He put the key underneath the back fender. For a spy he certainly wasn't very smart. I followed him as he walked away, wondering where he was going.

  He crossed the street, and halfway down I crossed after him. He went a long way and I kept myself almost a whole block in back of him. And then the streets came to an end, and there was the field Dad had shown me, and I could see Arnold was going to that house across the field, and if I didn't call him it would be too late. He'd be inside with the door closed and I'd never have the courage to knock.