Listen for the Singing

by Jean Little

  “Smart girl, Maggie,” she said. “Wait till I get that Suzy! I’ll wring her neck.”

  “She must have done it that way because she knew you wouldn’t agree if she asked,” Maggie said slowly. “It’s pitiful, in a way. She acts so popular and the boys do like her. Yet, we’re the only girl friends she has.”

  “And we don’t like her much,” Paula said. “Yeah. I can’t help feeling kind of sorry for her … but she still has her nerve …”

  “You don’t mind, do you, Anna?” Maggie said. “Because I don’t think Mr. Lloyd will let us change either.”

  Did Maggie mean … She must mean …

  Anna stopped guessing, afraid she was guessing wrong and would be terribly disappointed.

  Paula gave her a friendly nudge.

  “Wake up,” she said. “She means she’s put you down as her locker partner without asking you. Just another Suzy!”

  Anna’s face lighted with joy and incredulity.

  “I … I don’t mind,” she stammered, so pleased she didn’t know what to say. “Don’t you … mind, that is?”

  “If I minded, why would I have done it, dimwit,” Maggie said.

  “Here comes Suzy now,” Paula said, looking toward the door. “She must be scared but she won’t let on. I can hear it already.”

  Anna bent over her notebook, filling in the last few squares. What on earth would Suzy say and what would Paula do to her? Thank you, Suzy, she thought as she pretended to check over what she had written. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

  “Hi there,” she heard Suzy say, a little breathless but trying to sound casual. “I found out about where to go to try out for cheerleading. Where were you all? I got back ages ago and you weren’t here yet and I … Well, people were in line so …”

  “I already know, dear partner,” Paula said. “Where’s our locker?”

  Suzy said in a small voice, “Right outside the door. It’s number 34. I just thought … since we’ve been friends for so long …”

  “Ours is really close,” Maggie said to Anna. “It’s 42.”

  “Yours?” Suzy said. “You mean, you and Anna …?”

  “Sure,” Maggie said smoothly. “We had it all planned. Too bad you didn’t wait so we could have been right next to each other, eh, Paula?”

  “Yeah, too bad,” Paula said, her tone mournful. “But we’ll keep in touch somehow, Maggie. After all, we’ve known each other since Grade Four.”

  Suzy looked uncertainly from one to the other.

  “Gee, I’m sorry,” she said finally.

  “Don’t feel you have to apologize, Suzy. It’s a mistake anyone might make. Almost anyone,” Paula said.

  Anna found herself feeling unexpectedly sorry for Suzy, who now looked completely confused. So that was how Paula planned to wring her neck — talk circles around her without ever letting her understand what was happening.

  Suzy had been sneaky. But if the others were right, she had done it because she was afraid nobody would want her for a partner.

  I got used to it years ago, Anna thought, remembering her brothers and sisters leaving her out of games. And if you can’t admit, even to yourself, that you don’t have friends, it must be awful pretending and pretending.

  “Suzy, thanks a lot,” Anna said, surprising herself almost as much as she did the other three.

  “What for?” Suzy said.

  Anna chose her words carefully.

  “For arranging things so I’d have Maggie for my locker partner,” she said, “and for … for letting me be part of your … your …”

  “Gang,” Paula said. “With four of us, we surely must be a gang.”

  Maggie looked at Anna. Paula did too. Anna read, in their eyes, that they were pleased with her and a little ashamed of themselves.

  “A gang for sure,” Maggie said. “Where’ll we meet this afternoon to go book shopping?”

  As they settled on a time and place, Suzy was her old, bubbling self.

  Then Anna realized, with astonishment, that her first day of high school was over.

  And nothing too terrible happened, she thought, dismissing Mr. Lloyd’s cruel attack and being lost outside Mr. McNair’s room as trifles, now that they were safely past. As a matter of fact, she didn’t know when she’d been happier than she was that very minute.

  Chapter 7

  Anna raced home. Yesterday she had thought of confiding today’s happenings only to Isobel and, of course, Papa. But Frieda had been sympathetic at breakfast, Mama had waved goodbye to her especially from the door, Gretchen had made beginning possible. They would all be waiting to hear.

  But when she burst into the house, only Rudi was there, lounging against the kitchen table, his eyes laughing at her flushed, excited face.

  “Oh … oh, where are they?” she cried, knowing she was not going to like his answer.

  He grinned.

  “Papa and Mama at the store; the others not home yet,” he said. “But you look as though you have to talk or you’ll explode. Why not start with me?”

  “You.” She looked at him doubtfully.

  “Yes, me. I started high school once upon a time myself,” Rudi said, his voice still mocking but not mean. “Mind you, I can just barely remember. How was it? Awful? Marvelous? Tell big brother all.”

  “I have friends!” Anna could not keep the wonder of it bottled up one second longer. “And they all three live just around the corner and up about three blocks on Davenport Road. Maggie and Paula live right next door to each other. And Suzy lives in an apartment across from them. That’s how come she latched onto them when she first came.”

  “Oh,” Rudi said, taking this in as though he knew exactly what she was talking about.

  Anna plunged into the story of how she had first heard Maggie’s voice when Gretchen and she were leaving the office. Then she jumped to losing sight of Nancy French’s blouse and then to how Maggie had rescued her and on, all the way to how Suzy had fixed it so that she, Anna, had Maggie for a locker partner. Rudi swung himself up onto the table as she began, and made himself comfortable. Then he listened and listened and listened. Once Anna, in midsentence, stopped and looked at him, certain that he could not really care, but he at once said, “What did she say to that?”

  “And I’m meeting them to go shopping this afternoon,” she finished, “if Mama says it’s all right. Maggie gave me her phone number in case it isn’t.”

  “I’m sure it will be fine,” Rudi said.

  Anna took a deep breath, thought over what she had told him, and realized that there were huge gaps.

  “I’m in Mr. Lloyd’s homeroom,” she said, remembering what Gretchen had told her about Mr. Lloyd and Rudi.

  Her brother whistled through his teeth and gave her a sympathetic look.

  “That’s tough,” he said. “He’s a nasty man. Doesn’t know beans about world history. Just be as quiet as you can and try not to let him notice you.”

  “That’s exactly what Gretchen told me,” she said. Rudi was being wonderful. Just the way a big brother should be. He certainly had changed, from the boy who had teased and bullied her when they were younger. He was still looking interested.

  “The trouble with that is he’s noticed me already,” Anna added.

  “Mr. Lloyd? How? Because of your eyes?”

  “No. Because I’m German,” Anna said, her voice slowing as she remembered, and the light dying out of her face. “He picked out the ones he thought had German names. Carl Schmidt and me first. He asked us where our parents came from and then he asked me if I was proud of my Fatherland.”

  Rudi had straightened up and was staring at her.

  “How dared he?” he said. “What did you answer?”

  “I was too frightened,” Anna said. “And I felt ashamed. But Paula Kirsch — Rudi, she was so brave. She said she was born in Austria right where Adolf Hitler comes from. ‘Is this a history lesson?’ she asked him.”

  Rudi’s fists clenched. “What did he say to
her?”

  Anna had known that he would be angry with Mr. Lloyd but she had not expected the dark rage which had come into her brother’s face. She should not have told him. But she would have to finish, now that she had gone this far.

  “He just said What? or something. I can’t remember exactly. Because right away, another boy said Mr. Lloyd should go on with the roll call and get to him. ‘My name’s Weber,’ he said. Paula told me later that his father’s an alderman and her mother is on the Board of Education and that was what gave them the nerve, but I couldn’t have said anything if Papa had been Prime Minister!”

  Rudi stood up, towering over her, his face twisted with fury.

  “He had no right to treat you that way. He should be reported. If only I …”

  Then he turned away from her and ran from the room. She heard his feet thudding on the stairs and the slam of his bedroom door.

  “I should have told him what Mr. McNair said,” Anna told the empty room. “The other teachers were all right.”

  She did not like Miss Marshall and she thought Miss Willoughby was foolish. But they had not been unjust.

  She went slowly to the foot of the stairs.

  “Rudi,” she called. Then, more loudly, “Rudi!”

  But her brother did not answer. It was as though she were alone in the house.

  It had been a long morning, a morning full of tension, surprise, fear, hurt, joy. Now she suddenly felt exhausted. Rudi’s silence behind the closed door, his hopeless anger, weighed on her heart but she could not think of anything she could do to change what she had done already. Anyway she had to eat lunch. And she had to go to the store and tell Papa and Mama about her morning. She must ask if she could go shopping with the gang.

  At that, her smile returned.

  She got herself some bread and cheese and poured out a mug of milk. Leaving the empty mug in the sink, she slipped out the front door. The moment the door shut behind her, she felt lighter, as though she had escaped. Partly it was coming out of the darkness inside into the sun-filled noon.

  Looking around her, she saw the clouds, fluffy and a dazzling white, racing in the sky. Tree branches waved; leaves rustled. Why, it was breezy! Delighted, she stopped long enough to put on her sweater. Then she began to run.

  Soon she slowed to a fast walk. Then she began to sing softly, but out loud because there was nobody around to hear her and she wanted to celebrate.

  I’m going to meet Maggie

  And Paula and Suzy

  We’re going together

  Out shopping for books.

  Oh, I’ve got a locker

  And Maggie’s my partner

  And Suzy is Paula’s

  And four is a gang!

  A block and a half from the store, she broke into a run again, hoping no customers would be there when she arrived.

  She opened the door, heard the bell tinkle as she stepped across the threshold, and stopped dead. Right in front of her stood her all-powerful older sister Gretchen, facing Papa and in a flood of tears.

  “No, Papa, I don’t mean that,” she wailed. “I’m not ashamed of you or Mama. But my real name is Margaret. It is! You know it is.”

  “And your friends will care more for you if you are not called Gretchen?” Papa asked, very quietly.

  “Not my friends! It’s the others. And there’s a new teacher … She said … she …”

  “What did she say, Liebchen?” Papa’s voice was so gentle.

  “Never mind,” Gretchen said, giving up and flinging her arms around him. “I’ve always been Gretchen. I don’t know why I thought changing my name would help. Everybody would know anyway. It would probably just make things worse.”

  A woman came in to buy eggs. Gretchen withdrew into a shadowy corner and mopped her eyes. Anna waited. When another customer came in, so that both Mama’s and Papa’s attention was taken, she crossed the store to stand beside her older sister.

  “I know how it is with the names,” she said, her voice just above a whisper. “Mr. Lloyd picked out the German names in the class. I don’t want to tell about it. Nothing happened really. He just scared me. I told Rudi and he was so angry, he ran up to his room and slammed the door. When it happened, it made me feel … feel …”

  “Like a criminal,” Gretchen finished for her. “Miss Howard told the class that there would be German spies everywhere and warned them to watch out. Then she just looked around at some of us. As if we could be spies! Then, the way she said ‘Gretchen.’ I thought …”

  Papa had come up to them without them noticing. From the look on his face, he had heard most of what Gretchen had said.

  “Gretchen, running away will not help,” he said gently but firmly too. “Were the other teachers like this Miss Howard?”

  “No-o,” Gretchen admitted, slowly regaining her composure. “A couple of the boys said things … but they’re mean anyway. The others were the same as always.”

  “There, then,” her father said, smiling at her. “In this case, you must act the adult and leave the teacher to play the child. Isn’t that so, Anna?”

  Gretchen looked at her younger sister. Anna knew she was waiting for her to tell about Mr. Lloyd. But she also knew Papa, knew him better than anybody in some ways. And she knew that, under his apparent calm, he was so angry at the woman who had hurt Gretchen that it was all he could do to keep his voice level. He was even angrier than Rudi, she thought.

  “I made friends, Papa,” she told him. She did not have to feign excitement. It seemed more of a miracle every time she thought of it. “They want me to go shopping with them this afternoon. We can get many of our books secondhand at the book exchange from last year’s students. May I go, Papa?”

  “What are their names?” Mama asked, joining them. “And what do their fathers do?”

  Anna sighed. Mama always wanted to know about people’s fathers.

  “Maggie de Vries and Paula Kirsch,” she said, answering the first question. “And Suzy Hughes. I don’t know about their fathers, Mama. They didn’t say. Paula’s mother is on the Board of Education.”

  Mama pursed up her lips as though she were considering the matter. Anna had an obscure feeling that she would not approve of Paula’s mother being on the Board. To Mama’s way of thinking, such things were better left to men. Papa laid his hand on top of Anna’s head.

  “Of course, you may go, child,” he said. “Have a good time. How much money will she need, Gretchen?”

  Gretchen tried to estimate. Mama looked at Anna.

  “You haven’t eaten and you had nothing for breakfast,” she said. “You go nowhere until you eat.”

  “I had some bread and cheese.”

  Mama sniffed and began to put together, right there in the store, a lunch big enough to fill someone three times Anna’s size: more cheese, a dill pickle, salami, a tomato, bread, cookies, and a Macintosh, Anna’s favourite kind of apple.

  And while she ate it all, Anna told them about her morning.

  In half an hour she was on her way. She was the first one at the meeting place. Then Paula came running down the street.

  “Hi, Anna,” she called.

  Maggie and Suzy arrived two minutes later together.

  “Well, here we go,” Maggie said as they started for the book exchange.

  “Here goes the gang!” Paula sang to “Here comes the bride!”

  Anna felt like skipping. But acting her age, she marched along with the others.

  “Where do we go?” Suzy asked.

  Anna was impressed by the casual way in which she put the question. Suzy was the only one of them without older brothers and sisters who had already gone to Davenport Collegiate. Now that she had come safely through the dreaded first morning, Anna was beginning to realize that she knew a lot more about the school than she had thought she did. She had picked up all sorts of bits and pieces of information during the last few years as first Rudi, then Gretchen and, finally, the twins talked about their days at school. Maggie a
nswered Suzy but Anna could have. She knew all about the secondhand book exchange run by the Student Council.

  Suzy stopped walking.

  “I have to buy new books,” she declared. “Mother says secondhand ones have germs.”

  “What’s she afraid you’ll catch?” Paula wanted to know.

  “I know,” Anna said. “Bookworms!”

  Maggie and Paula laughed.

  “The bookstore people bring in a load of new ones too,” Maggie assured Suzy. “But most kids buy as many used books as they can.”

  “I don’t have to get many,” Paula said. “Max kept his from last year. The math book is new though and they studied Oliver Twist instead of Great Expectations.”

  “My sister Sarah is so much older than I am that hardly anything is the same,” Maggie complained.

  “I already have two of the English texts,” said Anna. “Papa has all of Shakespeare and Dickens.”

  “How come?” Suzy asked. “I mean, Nancy French told me your father’s a German who runs a grocery store. So why does he have so many books in English?”

  “He taught English literature when we lived in Frankfurt,” Anna said. For good measure, she added proudly, “He got a degree from Cambridge. Cambridge in England.”

  “He must be terribly clever,” Maggie said, awe in her voice.

  Paula was less impressed. “Cambridge in England!” she teased. “I always thought it was in Madagascar.”

  “He is clever,” Anna said to Maggie, pointedly ignoring Paula but unable to keep from smiling.

  They walked on for a few steps in silence. Then, Suzy, still not satisfied, turned to Anna again.

  “If he was a teacher and he’s so smart, how come he runs a grocery store now?”

  Anna hesitated. It was a long story. How could she make Suzy understand? What did it matter what Suzy thought anyway?

  “My Uncle Karl owned the store first,” she began. “When he died he left us his grocery store and the house we live in. Right then times were bad in Germany. Papa hated the Nazi party. He was afraid. Everybody was afraid …”

  “What was he afraid of? Were the Nazis after him?” Suzy’s eyes were gleaming with curiosity.

  Anna shook her head, really disliking Suzy for an instant. Papa had not been forced to flee. None of their lives had been endangered. But he had been a hero in a different way. He had decided himself to leave the land he loved in order to raise his children where people were free to speak their thoughts aloud without fear. And he had uprooted the rest of them much against their will. At the time, he had seemed ruthless. Now Anna saw what strength he had shown.