“Sure,” Jennie said. “Come on, let’s try out these new dust mops.” She pushed at the long handle that ended with a mop head that looked like a huge gray mustache. “This is just like the janitor uses at school. When I was in first grade, I always wanted to ask him if I could get on the mop head part and ride while he pushed.”
“Did you ever ask?”
“No. I was scared to talk to him,” Jennie said.
Back and forth across the lobby they went, sweeping the dirt and tiny debris in front of them. The hard part was what to do with the dirt they swept up. Jennie had a feeling they were supposed to get the whisk broom and dustpan, but that was a lot of trouble. Instead, when they were sure no one was watching, they swept it out the front door and down the steps.
Jennie had just given her mop a hard shake outside at the bottom of the steps when a voice spoke up. “Excuse me. Do you know if Mr. Pietro Contadino lives in this hotel?”
Jennie jerked around and in doing so whacked her mop handle against the wall near where Tommy stood with his mop. She flinched at the noise, and Tommy ducked. “Sorry,” she muttered to her brother before turning to the owner of the voice.
A young woman stood on the sidewalk. Jennie realized that the woman was pretty, but that wasn’t what she noticed most of all. She was dressed in black from head to toe. She wore a long coat with a slouchy kind of hat and odd-looking black boots. A cigarette dangled from her fingertips at the end of a sticklike holder. The only touch of color was her lips, and they were covered with bloodred lipstick.
“Pietro?” Jennie asked.
“Yes, Pietro lives here.” Tommy pushed Jennie aside. “His room is at the top of the stairs in the last hallway off the lobby. It’s apartment four.”
“Thank you.” The woman in black made her way up the stairs. “Interesting,” Tommy said.
“I wonder what she wants with Pietro,” Jennie mused.
“Just a friend, I suppose.” Tommy started up the stairs.
Jennie lifted her eyebrows but didn’t say anything. This woman might be one more clue in the mystery of Pietro, or she might be collecting for some charity. If that were the case, she’d be out of luck with Pietro.
Jennie and Tommy carried their mops to the closest hallway.
“Let’s get this done. I’m tired of looking at dirt,” Tommy said.
Jennie bent over to pick up a piece of paper that lay on the floor near the apartment where Jasper lived with his father. “Look,” she said and held it out for Tommy to see. “It’s a movie star picture.”
“It’s Lana Turner,” Tommy said after looking at the picture.
“I know,” Jennie said. “I wonder how it got in the hall?”
“I think it’s Jasper’s,” Tommy answered. “I’ve seen it in his school notebook before. Lots of the older boys have pictures of movie stars.”
“He should be more careful with it,” Jennie said. “She is pretty, but I like Clark Gable better. I saw him on a newsreel last week at the movies.”
“I saw Lana Turner on one, too, a couple of weeks ago.” Tommy put the picture on a nearby ledge. “She was talking to some soldiers.”
“I guess all those movie stars try to help out with the war effort.” Jennie sighed. “I wish Clark Gable would help out here.”
“Forget movie stars,” Tommy said. “We’ve still got one more hallway to sweep.” They carried their mops through the lobby. The last hallway stretched out endlessly before them.
“Let’s race,” Jennie said. “We’ll see who can get their mop to the end of the hall and back first. The sweeping will be done, and we’ll know who’s the fastest.” She gave a wide smile and waited for Tommy to bristle up.
“That won’t be any contest,” Tommy said quickly.
“We’ll just see about that,” Jennie said. “Come over here and make a starting line.”
“I wish we had someone to say go.” Tommy lifted his mop and went over to the end of the hall.
“Well, we don’t,” Jennie said, “unless you want to ask Mama.” Jennie was teasing because their mother was likely to take a dim view of another race.
“I guess that won’t be necessary.” Tommy stuck out his tongue at his sister.
They lined up and Jennie said, “Ready, set, go!” Off they went, flying down the hallway, with their mops in front. Jennie was a little ahead when they made the turnaround at the end, but she caught her mop for a second on a broken edge of the linoleum, slowing her down. She turned on the speed to catch up and had almost accomplished that when Mrs. Parker opened her door and stepped out into the hall. She was dressed in her good black coat and hat and had her handbag over her arm. Her head was ducked down a little as she tucked something in her pocket.
Jennie saw their neighbor but quickly realized that Tommy didn’t. Her brother had turned his head toward her, probably to see how far behind she was. Jennie opened her mouth to yell, but it was too late. Tommy crashed into Mrs. Parker, who saw the boy just in time to avoid being bowled over but not in time to keep her purse from going one direction and her hat the other as she tried to move out of the way. Tommy ended up on the floor with a thud.
Jennie dropped her mop and hurried to help Tommy and get Mrs. Parker’s bag and hat. “Are you all right?” Jennie asked the older woman and then her brother.
Tommy nodded and looked nervously at Mrs. Parker, who seemed to be gathering up steam to speak.
“I am just fine, I assure you.” The woman yanked her handbag and hat away from Jennie. “No thanks to you two young hooligans.”
“We’re sorry,” Jennie began. “We were sweeping the floor.”
“Spare me the details.” Mrs. Parker jammed her hat back on her head. “You’re both incorrigible, and your mother shall hear about this.” She stalked off down the hall, her back stiff and her chin held high.
“What’s incorrigible?” Jennie asked.
“I don’t know, but I don’t think it’s something that Mama is going to like,” Tommy answered. “We’ll be in trouble for sure, and on today of all days. This is all your fault. If you hadn’t wanted to race, I wouldn’t have run into her.”
“You should have watched where you were going.” Jennie beat a hasty retreat down the hall with her mop.
“Jennie, Tommy, come quick!” Trudy yelled from the hotel lobby.
“That was fast.” Jennie frowned. Getting in trouble didn’t seem to take any time at all these days. She put away her mop and dashed toward the office, leaving Tommy to catch up. Might as well get this over with. She slowed as she approached the office and put on what she thought of as her sorry face. It couldn’t hurt, and she was sorry—even though Mrs. Parker was a grouch sometimes.
“Where’s Tommy?” Mama asked. Her eyes sparkled but not with anger. She was excited. Jennie looked around a moment before answering, but Mrs. Parker was nowhere to be seen.
“He’s coming,” Jennie said. She forgot about looking sorry because apparently she wasn’t in trouble yet. “What’s going on?”
“Wait for Tommy,” her mother said.
Then Jennie saw that she had an envelope in her hand. It looked like the kind of envelope that Roger always used. “Is it a letter from Roger?”
Mama nodded, her smile wide. “Tommy,” she called down the hall, “hurry up!”
“Go ahead and open it,” Jennie said.
“No, it’s addressed to you and Tommy,” Mama said. “For your birthdays, I imagine. After no letters for weeks and weeks, your birthday letter manages to get here on the right day. It’s God’s gift.”
Tommy arrived, and they all crowded around to listen as Jennie read Roger’s letter aloud. Written on Christmas afternoon, Roger’s letter had evidently been missed by the censors because there were no cutouts where words had been removed. He didn’t say directly where he was, but he talked about trying Yorkshire pudding and going to church at a big cathedral and about the day after Christmas being called Boxing Day. Mama said it sounded to her like he was in England. She said that othe
r letters written before this one would probably arrive soon, and they might mention that he had moved to a different place.
“England will be safe, won’t it?” Jennie asked.
“I should think it would be much safer than Italy,” Mama replied, “and much more comfortable, too. There’s no ground fighting there.”
“Why would he be sent there?” Trudy asked. “They don’t use tanks in England.”
“I can’t answer that,” Mama said. “Maybe it’s only temporary.” Her face sobered for a moment. “But we’re not going to think about that now.” She smiled at them. “We’re going to have a celebration. We’ve heard from Roger, and it’s time for a birthday party.”
Jennie and Tommy cheered and danced around their mother.
“Did you think we’d forgotten your birthdays?” Mama asked Jennie later.
“Maybe,” Jennie admitted. “We wondered, anyhow.”
“I could never forget the day I got the biggest surprise of my life,” Mama said, putting her arm on Tommy’s shoulders. “Two babies only a year apart.”
That evening after Dad came home from Boeing, they all gathered in the apartment living room to celebrate. Mr. Romano and Aunt Irene came, too, and they all ate big bowls of ham and beans with cornbread. Aunt Irene had used her meat points to get a nice chunk of ham, and Mr. Romano had baked the best cornbread Jennie had ever eaten. After they had finished the beans, Mama disappeared into the kitchen and in a few moments came back triumphantly carrying a big cake.
“It’s chocolate,” she announced. “We’ve been saving sugar and cocoa a little at a time for weeks. Happy birthday!”
Jennie felt her mouth water. She missed sweets more than anything else that was in short supply during the war. She thought she could eat this cake all by herself, but of course she wouldn’t, since everyone else’s mouth was probably watering, too.
They ate cake and talked about Roger’s letter, and then, as usual, the talk turned to the war. Jennie felt full and happy as she listened to Dad, Mr. Romano, and Aunt Irene talk about how much longer the war could last. The war was terrible, but sometimes there were happy times, and this night was one of them.
“It turned out to be a great birthday, right, sister?” Tommy asked as he lowered himself to the floor near Jennie. They sat a little apart from the others.
“Sure did,” Jennie agreed. “I wasn’t too sure it would after this morning.”
Tommy frowned. “In all the excitement of the letter, I almost forgot that,” he said. “Did Mama say anything to you about the mop problem?”
Jennie shook her head. “No, but maybe she’s waiting to punish us until after our birthday is over.”
“Or maybe Mrs. Parker didn’t tell her.”
They looked at each other for a moment. It was another time when they didn’t have to talk out loud to know what the other one was thinking.
“Mama says Mrs. Parker has a real sweet tooth,” Jennie said.
“There’s a piece of cake left,” Tommy added. “It was for us to split.”
Jennie sighed. “I know.” She got up from the floor. Talk and laughter vibrated in the living room as everyone offered opinions on every possible subject. She loved family gatherings. “Come on.” Jennie motioned to Tommy.
In a few minutes they were knocking at Mrs. Parker’s door. She opened the door and frowned at the pair.
Jennie held out the piece of cake, which they had placed on a plate and carefully covered with a napkin. “This is for you, Mrs. Parker.”
“It’s from our birthday cake,” Tommy added.
“We’re really sorry about this morning,” Jennie said. “We’ll be more careful from now on.” She watched the woman’s face and saw surprise and something else there.
Slowly Mrs. Parker reached out and took the cake. “Well, I should hope so,” she said acidly, but her voice softened when she lifted the napkin and looked at the peace offering. “Oh, I do so love chocolate cake.”
“It’s delicious,” Jennie said.
Tommy nodded. “Our mother is the best cook ever.”
A real smile lit up Mrs. Parker’s face for the first time that Jennie could remember. She looked much younger and sort of pretty.
“We better go,” Tommy said.
“Thank you, children,” Mrs. Parker said, “and happy birthday.”
Jennie and Tommy tramped back down the hall toward their own apartment, where the celebration could still be heard.
“I sure would have liked to eat more cake,” Jennie admitted.
“Me, too,” Tommy agreed.
“Maybe by this time next year, the war will be over,” Jennie said. “And we’ll have cake and cookies and pudding and fudge and …”
“Steak and licorice and—”
“We don’t like licorice,” Jennie interrupted.
“We might by then,” Tommy said, “so we want there to be plenty.”
“You’re right,” Jennie said. “And peppermints …”
“And gasoline and tires so we can go to the country again.”
They walked down the hall trying to think up all the things that they might have next year. For once the brother and sister were in perfect agreement.
CHAPTER 9
The Junk Car
At last the long, rainy winter had passed, and May brought a series of sunshiny days perfect for scrap metal prospecting. This year’s Victory garden had been planted but didn’t need to be weeded yet, so Jennie and Colleen had planned a whole Saturday to look for scrap.
There was to be a big rally on June 12 to celebrate the beginning of the fifth war loan drive, and that same day would be the end of a scrap metal drive that had started last week. Jennie and Colleen planned to show the boys how this collecting business should be done.
“What do you hear from Roger these days?” Colleen asked as the pair started out Saturday morning after chores were finished. The plan was to crisscross the streets and alleys south of Cedar Avenue, looking for metal of any kind. They each carried old burlap bags for their finds.
“We’ve had lots of letters from him lately,” Jennie replied. “I don’t think he has much to do in England.” She stopped for a moment to peer around a building corner. The alley was bare except for two cats sunning on a stoop.
“Why is he still there?”
Jennie shrugged her shoulders. “Don’t know. At least not for sure. Dad says that sooner or later the Allies will invade Europe. He doesn’t say it, but I think he wonders if Roger is waiting to do that.” Jennie had a feeling that Dad didn’t talk much about that because of Mama. She had been so cheerful this winter just knowing that Roger was in England.
The girls walked and talked and looked for close to an hour. Finally Colleen lifted up an old tarp that lay in a corner near the back door of a warehouse. “Nothing here, either. We’ve been looking forever and don’t have a single piece of scrap that amounts to anything.” She dumped her sack, and a rusted piece of bucket tumbled out.
“You’re right,” Jennie said. All she had in her sack was a mashed toy car. “We’ve had so many scrap drives that I guess there’s not much left.”
“We’ll never win the contest at this rate,” Colleen said. “What about the boys? Are they collecting today, too?”
“They went with Art back to our old house. Tommy said that Art wanted to get something out of the shed, but I think they’re looking for scrap.” Jennie leaned over to pick up a long bolt that she saw in the gutter.
“That doesn’t seem fair,” Colleen said. “It’s your house, too.”
Jennie grinned. “I checked it out last week when I went with Trudy to collect the rent and get Mama’s good tablecloth out of the box in the attic. There’s nothing there any better than this junk.” She ran into the street to pick up a squashed old teapot.
“I guess it all adds up,” Colleen said.
“Yeah, but not fast enough to win that contest. We need something big.”
“Like what?” Colleen asked.
“I don’t know.” Jennie stopped for a moment. “Something like a machine that isn’t any good anymore.”
“Where would we find that?”
“Not around here. That’s for sure,” Jennie said. “Maybe we should get on the bus and go farther south, where there are more houses instead of apartments, or even farther where there are factories.”
“Couldn’t hurt,” Colleen said. “We could go out near Boeing. It’s not that far, really.”
A quick trip back to the hotel got them some lunch and permission from Mama to go if they’d be back before dark. A half hour later they were on the bus headed south.
“I haven’t been out here since the plane crash last year,” Jennie said. She hadn’t thought about that crash in a long time. She wondered again if the woman who had called for Raymond had ever found him.
“Let’s get off at the next stop,” Jennie said. “We’re almost to the Boeing factory. We can circle around and see what we can find.”
They pulled the bell and climbed off the bus at the next corner.
“Tell me again what we’re looking for,” Colleen said after they had walked a block.
“We’ll know it when we see it.”
Colleen raised her eyebrows. “Maybe you will, but I need a little more to go on.”
Jennie laughed. “Come on, let’s look over there.” She pointed to an overgrown vacant lot across the street. It looked a little like the Victory garden lot before they had plowed it up, but the grass and weeds were much taller. Jennie doubted she and Colleen could see over the tops, even though they were both pretty tall for their age.
“You really want to go in that jungle?” Colleen asked doubtfully. The girls crossed the street and stood at the edge of the lot.
“It doesn’t look like anyone else has been in there lately, either,” Jennie said. “Who knows what we might find?”
“Snakes and bugs,” Colleen muttered.
Jennie waded in the weeds a few feet. “Look here, a bunch of little paths. Probably made by small animals.”
“Wild animals! In Seattle?” Colleen stopped abruptly.
“I didn’t say wild,” Jennie said. “They might be dog trails or rabbit tunnels.”
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