I'm Still Scared

by Tomie dePaola

  “This is called a staff,” Mr. Conklin said. “It holds all the notes. Miss Mulligan, if you please ...”

  Miss Mulligan began to play one note at a time and Mr. Conklin sang the notes “DO, RE, MI.” As he sang, he drew small notes on the lines and the spaces of the staff. “These eight notes make up all the music we will sing this year. Now let’s try it together.”

  We all sang, “DO, RE, MI, FA, SOL, LA, TI, DO.” It was called “the scale.” We went up the scale and down the scale.

  “Very, very good, boys and girls,” Mr. Conklin said. Then he passed out songbooks. We opened them up and on the first page was “My Country ‘Tis of Thee.” We sang it again. Miss Mulligan told Mr. Conklin that we had sung it at the assembly this morning.

  “We can never sing it enough,” Mr. Conklin said. “All right, boys and girls, now we will start to learn another patriotic song, ‘America the Beautiful.”’

  Mr. Conklin drew another scale on the blackboard. Then, one by one, he drew the notes on the scale and Miss Mulligan played them on the piano.

  “Now follow along with your songbooks,” Mr. Conklin said. We did. It was fun. Before you knew it, we were singing the first lines, “O beautiful for spacious skies, / For amber waves of grain.”

  “That’s it for today,” Mr. Conklin said. “Next, I will test everyone’s voice, one at a time.”

  One by one, we went into the Teachers’ Room. We had to sing something for Mr. Conklin.

  When my turn came, I sang, “I Ain’t Afraid of a Policeman.” It was the song I sang when I was the pirate in Miss Leah’s dance recital in the spring. It was also the song I sang on the record my grandfather, Tom, and I made at the Savin Rock Amusement Park.

  “You have very good pitch, young man,” Mr. Conklin said. “We’ll have to see if we can give you some solos.” That meant I would get to sing something all by myself. It was a very exciting morning.

  During recess, Jeannie told me that Mr. Conklin had said she had a good voice, too. Maybe we’d get to sing a DUET! That’s when two people sing together. We were so busy talking about our music lesson that we forgot all about the war.

  Chapter Six

  Today in school, after we said the Pledge of Allegiance to the flag and sang “My Country ‘Tis of Thee, ”Miss Gardner told us to sit down with our hands folded on our desks. She had an important announcement to make.

  “This morning we will have our first AIR RAID DRILL. You all know what a FIRE DRILL is.”

  A FIRE DRILL was when the bell rang and the fire alarm went off. The fire alarm was like a horn sound. All the classes lined up quickly and filed out of the school building. If it was cold, we put on our coats first. We had to stand away from the school in a special spot for each class. The teacher had her attendance book with her. She checked to make sure every student was there.

  Miss Gardner continued, “This morning we received ‘Rules for Air Raid Drills’ from the Board of Education. Pay attention while I read these rules to you.”

  I raised my hand.

  “What is it, Tommy?” Miss Gardner asked. (In school I had to spell my name T-o-m-m-y instead of T-o-m-i-e.)

  “What’s an air raid?” I asked.

  “Well, I don’t think we have to worry about a real air raid. These are the rules just in case there is an air raid. That’s why it is called a drill.”

  I guess Miss Gardner didn’t want to explain it to us. It was like Tom told me. Maybe she didn’t want to frighten us.

  “Now,” Miss Gardner said, “here are the rules.

  “ ‘When the city air raid siren sounds, the school bell will go off. All the students will leave their classrooms and file down in an orderly manner to the designated shelter area. The students should be able to do this easily, as they are quite used to fire drills.

  “‘The students will remain in the shelter ter area until the city’s sirens sound the ”all clear.” The school bell will then ring, signaling that it is safe for the students to return to their classrooms.’ ”

  Miss Gardner had just finished telling us about the air raid drill when the school bell rang. We all lined up at the door behind Miss Gardner.

  “Follow me, class,” Miss Gardner said. “We are going to the basement.”

  I had never been to the basement of King Street School before.

  We went down the stairs we used to go to the school yard if there was a fire drill. Today, instead of going outside, we went all the way down the stairs as if we were going to the auditorium. But at the bottom we turned left instead of right. We went along to a dark basement room with just a few lightbulbs in the ceiling.

  This was Mr. Walters’ furnace room. It had a big coal bin, like the one in Nana and Tom’s cellar, and a huge coal furnace. The furnace was hot and glowing.

  All along the walls were benches. They had grade numbers and teachers’ names on cards taped to the seat. There we were. “Grade 2—Miss Gardner.” We sat down and squeezed close together to make room for everyone.

  The rest of the seats were for the kindergarten garten, the two first grades, Miss Fisher’s combination second and third grade, and the other third grade.

  The older grades weren’t in the furnace room. They were sitting on the floor under the stairs.

  The furnace room was dark and spooky. The furnace made a hissing sound. Some of the little kids began to cry. I don’t think they even knew why we all were down here.

  I wasn’t scared of the dark or the furnace. But I was scared of a real air raid. Was it really going to happen? If so, when? And where were Mom and Dad and Maureen while I was down in the school basement and Buddy was under the stairs?

  I needed Mom to explain things to me better.

  Chapter Seven

  When Buddy and I got home from school, Mom told us that she’d like to talk to both of us.

  What did I do? I wondered.

  “Here, boys, sit at the kitchen table,” Mom said. “I’ve baked some cookies and I’ll get you each a glass of milk.”

  Our baby sister, Maureen, was sitting in her high chair.

  “I talked with your grandfather today, Tomie, and he told me that everything that is happening is making you a little scared. Is that true?”

  I nodded yes.

  “What about you, Buddy?” Mom asked.

  “I’m not scared,” Buddy said. “So, can I go out and play with the guys?”

  “Well,” Mom said, “why don’t you just sit and listen. You might be able to help Tomie understand things, and you might have a question or two yourself.”

  Buddy settled down and grabbed another cookie.

  “Okay, Tomie. What do you want to know?” Mom asked.

  At first, I didn’t know what to say. I wanted to know about everything.

  “I asked Miss Gardner what an air raid was and she didn’t really tell me. She said she didn’t think we had to worry about it. If we don’t have to worry about it, how come we are having air raid drills? And what are air raids, anyway?”

  Mom put her arm across my shoulder. Then she patiently explained how airplanes were dropping bombs on cities, so they sounded alarms so the people could go and try to be safe in shelters that would protect them from the bombs.

  She told us how the Germans, who had started the war in Europe, were dropping bombs every night on London, England. It was called the Blitz. “But the English people are being so, so brave. They have not given in at all,” Mom said.

  Then she told us that the Japanese were doing the same thing in China.

  “And now that we are in the war, we will probably bomb the enemy cities,” Mom said sadly. “No one thinks that the Germans can fly clear across the Atlantic Ocean to bomb us, but the government wants everyone to be safe. That’s why we will have air raid drills. They are for practice. We will have to practice here at home, too. In the newspaper today, there was a list of things that we’ll have to do. So, let me get Maureen out of her high chair and we’ll go down to the basement so I can show you where
our AIR RAID SHELTER will be.”

  We went down to the basement. Mom pointed out where she and Dad would fix up a spot for all of us when we had an air raid drill.

  When we got back upstairs, Mom told us that she would have to make curtains out of thick black material to hang on some of the windows of our house. “To keep anyone from seeing our lights,” Mom said.

  “They are called blackout curtains. Starting on the first of the year, we will have to follow regulations. First, there will be a ‘brownout’ every night. That means that all unnecessary lights will have to be out in all the houses and stores and even on the streets.

  “If there is a blackout drill, then all the lights will have to be out except in the rooms that have blackout curtains on the windows. Then, if there is an air raid drill, all the lights will have to be out and we’ll have to go down to the basement.”

  “I can’t remember all that,” Buddy said.

  “Me, neither!” I chimed in.

  “Don’t worry, your father and I will remember. There will be separate sirens for all the different drills. And after we practice, you’ll see—it’ll be easy. And it might even be fun!” Mom said.

  I couldn’t wait to tell Jeannie, Jack, and some of my other friends at school all about air raid drills, brownouts, and blackout curtains.

  Chapter Eight

  Mom told me that after Dancing School we would go shopping. Dad and Buddy would meet us with Maureen. One of the things we would buy is the material for our blackout curtains. There were four of us in our tap class at Dancing School—Patty Clark, Billy Burns, Carol Morrissey, and me. Miss Leah had us do our “warm-ups.” We did slaps and up-back-downs, drumrolls, paddle turns, and time steps. Then, one by one, we did “traveling steps” from one corner to the other. Mrs. Anderson played the piano for us.

  “All right, children,” Miss Leah said, “today I am going to start teaching you the tap number you’ll do at the recital this coming spring. I already know what I’m going to call it. It will be called ‘A Couple of Couples.’ The music will be the main song from a new full-length animated movie that is coming to the Capitol Theatre during the Christmas vacation.”

  “Is it Mr. Walt Disney’s new movie, Dumbo?” I asked. “Mom said she’d take me to see it.”

  “Well,” Miss Leah said, “yes, Dumbo is coming, too. But this movie was made by the same man who made Gulliver’s Travels several years ago. It’s called Mr. Bug Goes to Town. The song is ‘We’re the Couple in the Castle.’ Tomie, you and Billy will learn the words and sing the song together. Carol and Patty will be your partners. Mrs. Anderson doesn’t have the music yet. The song is brand-new, but let’s start anyway. Now line up in front of the mirror.”

  This was going to be so much fun.

  Miss Leah asked our mothers to take us to see the movie if they could. I knew Mom would certainly take me! Maybe all four of us could go together. That would be great!

  After our dancing lesson was over, we met Dad, Buddy, and Maureen at Mr. Frank McLaren’s Barber Shop, where Dad worked before he became the State Barber Examiner.

  Then we went to Kresge’s five- and ten-cent store. They had a fabric department where Mom would buy the thick black material for the blackout curtains.

  “You know, Tomie,” she told me, “Nana wants a new piece of oilcloth for her kitchen table. Do you want to pick it out?”

  I picked out the design with pineapples on it. I hoped Nana would like it.

  Next, we went to the Christmas decorations counter. Dad got boxes of icicles and as many Christmas tree lightbulbs as he could. Dad said this probably would be the last Christmas we could buy Christmas tree stuff until the war was over.

  We walked a bit, looking at the Christmas decorations in the store windows and at the decorations on all the lampposts.

  Dad told us that the mayor’s office had said that since the Christmas decorations and lights were already up, they would be lit for several hours every night until New Year’s.

  Also, people could put up outside decorations on their houses this Christmas. They would be allowed to be lit for several hours until New Year’s, too.

  “Of course,” Dad said, “if there is an air raid drill, all the lights will have to be turned off.”

  So, we would have the blue lights on the bushes in front of the house and the blue electric candles in the windows. The Christmas tree would be tucked in the corner away from the windows so we could leave it on a little longer every night.

  So, I guess we’d have a Christmas pretty much like the ones we had before. But when I went to bed, I thought about the grown-ups and children in England. What kind of a Christmas would they have?

  Chapter Nine

  An older kid in the school yard said that I was an ENEMY because I was Italian and the Italians are fighting the war against us, with the Germans. I told him I was also Irish. He pushed me. I looked for Buddy, but I couldn’t find him.

  Then I missed my ride home with Jeannie. Her father would pick us up at the corner of Hanover Street and Orange Street. But Mr. Houdlette wouldn’t wait for me if I wasn’t right there. He said I “DAWDLED,” so I missed the rides home a lot.

  Walking home in the winter wasn’t much fun. It was cold and sometimes I had to go to the bathroom. If that happened, I’d knock on the door of Mr. and Mrs. Crane’s house on Columbus Avenue. Their daughter, Carol, was my best friend before we moved to 26 Fairmount Avenue. Mrs. Crane was always home. She always let me use the bathroom.

  Their bathroom was very fancy. It was all green and black tiles. The seat covers on the toilet were green. The Palmolive soap was green. Even the toilet paper was pale green.

  Only once, Mrs. Crane wasn’t home and—I hate to admit it—I wet my pants. Wet corduroy pants are not fun. By the time I got home, my legs were all red and raw. Mom didn’t scold me. She just had me take a nice, hot bath and she put clean clothes for me on my bed.

  Buddy laughed at me, though. “Just go in the bushes,” he said.

  Dad finally got home. I asked him if I could ask him something VERY important. I told him what the older kid had said about me being the ENEMY because I was Italian. Dad listened carefully.

  “Okay, Tomie,” he said. “This is what you tell that kid. You are an American. So am I. I was born in Fall River. Nana Fall-River was born in Italy and so was my father. But they came to Massachusetts before I was born in 1907.

  “Just because we are of Italian descent—that means our ancestors were Italian—that was a long time ago, and way before Mussolini, the leader of Italy, came into power and decided to join Hitler, the leader of Germany, to fight the war.

  “So, don’t you worry! I’ll tell your brother the same thing. Loads and loads of people here in the United States are genuine Americans, but their ancestors came from other countries—in fact, almost everybody’s ancestors came from other places.”

  See, all I have to do is ask my dad or my mom or Tom. They always tell me the whole truth!

  Chapter Ten

  The newspaper said that all the stores downtown would be open until 9:00 P.M. every night until Christmas Eve—except Sunday. They are closed every Sunday.

  The newspapers had lots of ads about Christmas shopping. “Don’t wait until the last minute,” the ads said.

  Usually I went downtown with Mom. But today I was going to buy her Christmas present, too, so Dad took me. First, we went into Woolworth’s and Kresge’s, the two five- and ten-cent stores. I bought Maureen a tiny little doll with “real” hair and arms that moved. Mom would be able to make it lots of clothes.

  We went to Bessie Boynton’s on Colony Street. We took the elevator to the third floor, where all the Boy Scout stuff was. I bought Buddy a camping kit that had a metal cup that closed up, a metal tube to keep matches from getting wet, and some other stuff. He could wear it on his Boy Scout belt.

  We went into Liggett’s Drug Store across the street. Dad knew Mac, who worked there.

  “Well, hello, young fella!” Ma
c said to me. “You here to get your grandpa a new pipe?”

  For the last three Christmases, I had given Tom a new corncob pipe.

  “And here are some pipe cleaners for you, too,” Mac said.

  Then Dad took me to Upham’s Department Store. It was on Colony Street, too.

  First I bought two pretty handkerchiefs, one for Nana in Wallingford and the other for Nana Fall-River. I had been in Upham’s a lot. I always bought Mom Tweed cologne for her birthday. The lady at the perfume counter knew me.

  “Well, hello, Master dePaola”—lots of grown-ups called little boys “Master”—“let me squirt this new cologne in the air for you to smell. Do you want a bottle of Tweed for your mother for Christmas?”

  I told her that I was going to buy my mother a pair of nylon stockings for Christmas.

  Dad had given me the idea. “Nylon stockings will probably be hard to get because of the war. They need all the nylon thread for parachutes,” he had explained.

  The stocking counter was right next to the glove counter. Both counters had tall chairs in front of them. The glove counter had a little cushion on the counter in front of each chair.

  “If Madame will put her elbow on the cushion and hold her hand straight up, I will try the glove on for her,” the saleslady would say. I loved to watch.

  “Little Master dePaola, do you want to try on a glove?” the saleslady asked me once when no one was around. I sat, or rather knelt on the tall chair and put my elbow on the cushion. The saleslady tugged a glove onto my hand, one finger at a time. It was funny.