by Jean Little
This time Mama sat still, although her eyes followed Gretchen every step of the way until the door closed behind her.
“Do you think she looked pale?” she asked Papa.
Ernst Solden laughed, a big laugh that filled the room. “Gretchen — pale! She has cheeks like roses and you know it.”
Anna snuggled closer to him and laughed too. It was funny thinking of Gretchen as pale.
“She was green on the ship,” she offered.
“Now, Anna, that is not tactful,” her father said. “Just because you were the only sensible one …”
Mama shushed them both sternly.
Papa chuckled again and gave Anna an extra squeeze.
Gretchen came back, her cheeks as rosy as ever. Frieda went and returned. Fritz was a couple of minutes longer.
“Maybe something is wrong with Fritz …” Mama began, her eyes growing wide.
“He let me listen to my own heart,” Fritz bragged, bouncing out into the waiting room.
“A fine family, you Soldens,” Dr. Schumacher boomed, stretching out a broad hand to Anna. She slid off her father’s knee at once, and put her hand in the doctor’s. Papa smiled. So someone else had discovered a way to reach his Anna!
As they disappeared, Mama gave a deep sigh of relief.
“Didn’t I tell you?” her husband teased.
She had to nod. Only Anna was left — and Anna had not been seriously ill in her entire life.
“Let me hear you read the letters on this card,” Dr. Schumacher was saying to the youngest of the Soldens.
Anna froze. Reading! She couldn’t …
She looked where he was pointing. Why, there was only one letter there. That was easy! She did know the names of the letters now.
“E,” she told him.
“And the next line down?” Dr. Schumacher asked.
Anna wrinkled up her forehead. Yes, there were other letters. She could see them now, when she squinted. They looked like little grey bugs, wiggling.
“They’re too small to read,” she said.
Ten minutes later, when he had made very sure, the doctor came out to the waiting room with the little girl.
“Did you know that this child can’t see?” he asked sternly.
Ernst and Klara Solden’s blank faces told him the answer. Feeling sorry then, he tried to soften his voice, although he was still angry on Anna’s behalf.
“At least she can’t see much,” he corrected himself.
Mama snatched at Anna. Had Anna known it, at that moment she was the only one who mattered. For once she was actually “the dearest child.” But Anna did not guess. She pulled away from her mother’s anxious hands and stood out of reach.
“Of course she can see!” Klara Solden gasped, turning away from the child to this foreign doctor whom she had not trusted from the beginning. “What do you mean? Don’t be ridiculous!”
The doctor looked from one of Anna’s parents to the other.
“She sees very poorly, very poorly indeed,” he said. “She should be wearing glasses. She probably should have had them two or three years ago. But before we go any further, I want to have her examined by an oculist … an eye doctor.”
This time Mama would not be left behind. The others stayed in Dr. Schumacher’s waiting room while Anna was taken upstairs to see Dr. Milton. Mama sniffed with scorn at this name, but she was too frightened to make any added protest.
It was all like a nightmare to Anna. Once more, she had to read letters off a faraway card. Once again, she could only see the big E. The new doctor peered into her eyes with a small bright light. He made her look through a collection of lenses. All at once, other letters appeared.
“F … P,” Anna read in a low voice. “T … O, I think … Z.”
“Now these,” Dr. Milton said, pointing to the next row of letters. But they were too small.
Dr. Milton clucked his tongue. He began to talk to Mama in rapid English. Mama threw up her hands and rattled German back at him. Dr. Milton took them back down to Dr. Schumacher’s office and the two doctors talked. The Soldens waited anxiously, Anna looking sullen, her usual touchy, difficult self. She was trying, inside, to pretend that she was not there. It was not helping.
Dr. Schumacher took her to yet another room where she sat on a chair and was fitted for frames.
“What a nice little girl,” the optometrist said heartily.
Anna glowered.
“Even with the glasses, she will not have normal vision,” Franz Schumacher explained when they were back in his office. The grown-ups took the chairs. Anna stood near Papa but she did not look at him. Instead she scuffed the toe of her shoe back and forth on the worn carpet. Maybe she could make a hole in it. That would teach Dr. Schumacher.
“She’ll have to go to a special class, a Sight Saving Class,” he went on. “Lessons are made easier there for children with poor eyesight.”
“Not go to school with the others!” Mama wailed, hoping she was not understanding.
Dr. Schumacher switched back to German. He spoke gently, soothingly.
“It is a nice place. She’ll like it there. You will, Anna. You’ll like it very much,” he finished.
From the beginning, he had been drawn to this thorny little girl. Now, guessing at how hard life must have been for her since she started school, he wanted more than ever to be her friend.
All of this was in his voice as he spoke straight to her. He not only tried to reassure her about the special class; he also said, without actually putting it into words, that he, Franz Schumacher, liked her, Anna Solden.
Anna went on scratching her shoe back and forth on the bare place in his carpet. She did not look up or answer. He had become part of the bad dream in which she was caught. She hardly heard what he said. What she did hear, she did not believe. How could she like school?
In the days that followed, the Soldens were busy settling into their new home. Mama and Gretchen scrubbed and polished, aired and dusted. Papa went over everything in the store, finding out what he had, trying to decide what he needed to order. Since Karl Solden’s death the store had been kept running by hired help, but now Papa planned to look after it by himself.
“I think he’s worried about it,” Rudi told the others.
Anna thought so too. Her father seemed to have no minutes to spare, no special smiles to give. She tagged after him, trying to help. Both of them were surprised when she really was a help. She counted cans of peaches, boxes of arrowroot biscuits. She was good at counting. When Papa checked, she was always right. Frieda came too one day; she made mistakes.
“You hurry too much, daughter,” Papa said to Frieda.
Anna listened wide-eyed. Could it be that being slow was sometimes a good thing?
Then, three days before school was to begin, Anna’s new glasses arrived. Perched on her nub of a nose, they looked like two round moons. She longed to snatch them off and hurl them into a far corner. Instead, she peered through them suspiciously.
For one startled moment, an utterly new expression came over her small plain face, a look of intense surprise and wonder. She was seeing a world she had never guessed existed.
“Oh, Anna, you look just like an owl,” Frieda laughed, not meaning any harm.
The wonder left Anna’s face instantly. She turned away from her family and stumped off up the stairs to her alcove where none of them could follow without permission. Papa, though, came up alone a minute or two later.
“Do you like them, Anna?” he asked quietly.
She almost told him then. She nearly said, “I never knew you had wrinkles around your eyes, Papa. I knew your eyes were blue but I didn’t know they were so bright.”
But she remembered Frieda’s laughing words. How she hated being laughed at!
“Do I have to keep wearing them, Papa?” she blurted.
Papa looked sorry for her but he nodded.
“You must wear them all the time and no nonsense,” he said firmly.
&nbs
p; Anna reddened slightly. It was not right, fooling Papa like this. But she was not ready to share what had happened to her. Even her father might not understand. She could hardly take it in herself.
“All right, Papa,” she said, letting the words drag.
Wanting to comfort her, her father put his hand gently on top of her bent head. She squirmed. He let her go.
“Would you like to come back to the store with me?” he asked.
Anna nodded. Then she said in a muffled voice, “I’ll be there in a minute. You go on down.”
Ernst Solden started to leave. Then he turned back, stooped suddenly, and kissed her.
“Soon you’ll get used to them, Liebling,” he consoled her. “Wait and see.”
Anna felt her blush grow hotter. She was glad that the light in her alcove was dim.
When he had gone, she lifted her right hand and held it up in front of her. She moved her fingers and counted them. Even though the light was poor, she could see all five. She examined her fingernails. They shone faintly and they had little half-moons at the bottom. Then she leaned forward and stared at her red wool blanket. It was all hairy. She could see the hairs, hundreds of them.
Everything, everywhere she turned, looked new, looked different, looked miraculous.
At last, knowing she was safe, Anna smiled.
9
The Beginning
“ANNA, HURRY,” Mama called.
Anna pulled up her other long brown stocking and hooked it onto the suspenders which hung from a harness that went over her shoulders. She reached for the cotton petticoat Mama had put ready. Already she was too hot. She felt smothered in clothes. First there was the underwear which came down to her knees, then the straps holding up her suspenders, then the hateful, itchy ribbed stockings and now the petticoat.
Mama pushed aside the curtain that hung across the end of Anna’s alcove. “Hurry up,” she urged again.
Anna put on her white blouse and buttoned it. It gaped open between the buttons.
Mama sighed. “You grow so fast,” she said.
Anna sighed too. She would stop growing if she knew how. She felt far too big already. Her heart lightened, though, as she stretched out her hand for her new tunic.
“One new thing each to start school in,” Papa had decided.
Always before, they had whole new outfits for the first day of school, but by now they were getting used to things being different.
Gretchen had chosen a yellow blouse which made her fair hair shine like gold. The boys picked corduroy pants. When they got home, they pranced around in them, making them squeak. For once, Rudi was as silly as Fritz. Frieda and Anna got tunics.
“I hate it,” Frieda had stormed. “It’s dull and awful. Like a uniform!”
“It looks fine on you,” Mama had insisted, ignoring the bright, more expensive dresses. “There is a good big hem to let down and it’s serge too. It will last forever.”
At that, Frieda moaned as though Mama had plunged a knife into her.
Anna loved her tunic, though. She liked running her fingers down the sharp pleats. She even liked the plainness of it. It was like a uniform. Anna had always secretly wanted a uniform.
“Sit up,” Mama said now, “while I fix your hair.”
When it was done, she sent Anna to show herself to Papa.
Anna hurried until she reached the landing. The rest of the way she walked sedately, for she felt special-looking and grand. She presented herself proudly to her father.
Papa looked at her. Anna waited.
“Klara,” he called, “what about ribbons for her hair?”
Anna stood as straight as before but the proud feeling inside her crumpled. She knew what Mama would say. Mama arrived and said it.
“Ribbons will not stay on Anna’s hair,” Mama said grimly. “However I will try again. Gretchen, run and get your new plaid ribbons.”
When Dr. Schumacher arrived to take Mama and her to the new school, Anna was ready with a bright bow on each of her thin braids.
“You look lovely, Anna,” the doctor smiled.
Anna looked away. She knew better.
“It is so kind of you to take Anna to this school,” Mama fussed, getting herself and Anna into their coats.
“Nonsense,” Dr. Schumacher said, “I know Miss Williams. I can help with the English, too. It won’t take long.”
The three of them found nothing to say to each other as they rode along. When they got out in front of the school, Anna marched along between her mother and the doctor. She tried to look as though this were something she did every day, as though her heart were not thudding so hard against her ribs it almost hurt. Franz Schumacher reached down his big warm hand and gathered up her cold little paw. Anna tried to jerk away but he held on. She gulped and went on walking: one foot … the other foot. His hand felt just like Papa’s. She left her hand where it was and felt braver.
Miss Williams was the first surprise in what was to be a day of surprises.
“It’s lovely to have you with us, Anna,” she said when Dr. Schumacher drew Anna forward and introduced her and Mama.
The teacher had a low husky voice, not a bit like Frau Schmidt’s. And her smile was so honest that even Anna could not doubt she meant it. She was pretty, too. Her hair was as bright as Gretchen’s. She looked at Anna almost the way Papa did.
She doesn’t know me yet, Anna reminded herself, not smiling in return. She hasn’t heard me read.
“I’ve brought you a real challenge this time, Eileen,” Dr. Schumacher said in an undertone.
Challenge.
Anna did not know that word. Did it mean “stupid one”? But no, it couldn’t. Franz Schumacher still had her hand in his and the kindness of his grasp had not changed as he said it. Anna kept the new word in her mind. When she got home, she would ask Papa.
Fifteen minutes later she sat in her new desk and watched her mother and Dr. Schumacher leave the classroom.
“Don’t leave me!” Anna almost cried out after them, her courage deserting her.
Instead, she put one hand up to feel the crispness of Gretchen’s hair ribbon. One of the bows was gone. Anna pulled off the other one and shoved it out of sight into the desk.
She must not cry. She must not!
Then the desk itself caught her attention and distracted her. She had never seen one like it before. It had hinges on the sides and you could tip it up so that your book was close to you. She looked around wonderingly. The desk was not the only thing that was different. The pencil in the trough was bigger around than her thumb. The blackboards weren’t black at all — they were green; and the chalk was fat too, and yellow instead of white.
Even the children were different. Most of them were older than Anna.
“We have Grades One to Seven in this room,” Miss Williams had explained to Mama.
The desks were not set in straight rows nailed to the floor. They were pushed into separate groups. Miss Williams put Anna in one right beside her own desk near the front.
“You can sit next to Benjamin,” she said. “Ben’s been needing someone to keep him on his toes, haven’t you, Ben?”
Anna had no idea how she was supposed to keep Benjamin on his toes. She looked sideways at his feet. They seemed perfectly ordinary.
Was it a joke, maybe?
Anna did not smile. It did not sound like a joke to her.
Quickly, Miss Williams told the new girl the names of all the other children in the class: Jane, Mavis, Kenneth, Bernard, Isobel, Jimmy, Veronica, Josie, Charles. The names flew around Anna’s ears like birds, each escaping just as she thought she had it safely captured.
“You won’t remember most of them now,” the teacher said, seeing panic in the child’s eyes. “You’ll have to get to know us bit by bit. Bernard is the oldest, so you’ll soon know him because he runs us all.”
Like Rudi, Anna said to herself. She would keep out of Bernard’s way, if she could. Only she wasn’t sure which one he was.
“Introduce her to Ben properly, Miss Williams,” a tall boy, who might be Bernard, suggested.
“Anna, allow me to present Benjamin Nathaniel Goodenough,” Miss Williams obliged.
Anna stared at the small boy with black tufty hair and an impish face. He was a good head shorter than she was, though his glasses were as big as hers. Behind them, his eyes sparkled.
“I’m named after both my grandfathers,” he explained.
“Now you know us well enough to begin with,” the teacher said. “It’s time we got some work done in this room.”
Anna, who had been relaxed studying Benjamin Nathaniel, froze. What now? Would she have to read? She sat as still as a trapped animal while Miss Williams went to a corner cupboard. In a moment, she was back.
“Here are some crayons, Anna,” she said. “I’d like you to draw a picture. Anything you like. I’ll get the others started and then I’ll be free to find out where you are in your schoolwork.”
Anna did not take the crayons. She did not know anything she could draw. She was nowhere in her schoolwork. She wanted Papa desperately.
And what did “challenge” mean?
“Draw your family, Anna,” Miss Williams said.
She spoke with great gentleness but firmly too, as though she knew, better than Anna did, what the girl could do. She picked up one of Anna’s square, stubby hands and closed Anna’s fingers around the crayon box.
“Draw your father and your mother, your brothers and your sisters — and yourself, too, Anna. I want to see all of you.”
The feel of the box, solid and real, brought back Anna’s courage. The crayons were big and bright. They looked inviting. The teacher put paper on the desk, rough, cream-coloured paper. Lovely paper for drawing. Six pieces, at least!
“Take your time,” Miss Williams said, moving away. “Use as much paper as you need.”
Anna took a deep breath. Then slowly she picked out a crayon. She knew how to start, anyway.
She would begin with Papa.
10
A Challenge
