The Loud Silence of Francine Green

by Karen Cushman

  "Like soldiers' dog tags," Sophie whispered to me over her shoulder, "to identify our dead bodies."

  "All Saints will, of course, be participating in this," Sister went on. "Make sure we have your current address and telephone number as well as numbers where we might contact your parents."

  "If we're dead, they'll be dead." Sophie's whispers grew louder. "In fact, all of Los Angeles will be dead. In fact—"

  "Is there something you wish to say, Miss Bowman?" Sister asked.

  Sophie stood up. "Instead of preparing for a nuclear attack, Sister, why don't we just ban the bomb? Then we wouldn't need—"

  "Wouldn't that leave us defenseless before the Godless communists in Russia?" asked Sister. "Do you think they would apologize and destroy their weapons because an eighth-grade girl from Los Angeles asked them to? Nonsense. Russia is bent on devouring us, destroying the Church, and damning our immortal souls by—"

  "Couldn't we try?" Sophie asked. "Couldn't we start here at All Saints, saying 'No killing. Ban the bomb'? And then maybe grownups would do it too. And—"

  "Miss Bowman, no matter what you hear at home, you are not to bring that communist propaganda into this school. Now sit down and open your spelling book. All of you."

  On the way home Sophie said, "Remember that Ban the Bomb Club I was going to start last winter? Maybe I should try again. In honor of Jacob Mandelbaum. Make signs and—"

  "Oh, Sophie, you know it won't be any better this time. No one will join."

  "What about you?"

  I thought about my unplumbed depths. I looked down at the sidewalk. "I can't."

  "Never mind, then. I can make signs by myself."

  And she did. The next day when I got to school, there were hand-lettered signs taped to the walls: Peace now! No killing! Ban the Bomb!

  Sophie was holding a large placard that read: Sister Basil the Great unfair to students! Speak out! Defend free speech! She carried the sign up and down the hallway until Sister appeared from our classroom, her face as red as a baked ham. Sister yanked the signs down off the walls, grabbed Sophie by the arm, and marched her into the office, Sophie waving her sign behind her back all the way.

  Sophie was probably right. Without bombs, there would be less killing and less fear. And she had the right to have her opinion heard. But to my surprise I could, reluctantly, see what Sister Pete had been saying. Sophie didn't always handle things in the best way. She was stubborn, ready to argue, and certain that anyone who disagreed with her was wrong. She could drive you crazy, even if you loved her. Maybe if she changed a tiny bit, just to make her life easier...

  After school, as Sophie and I rode home, I said to her, "You know, you really shouldn't stir up Sister so much. Call her unfair and stuff. And—"

  "I know, Francine, I know. It's stupid, but I kind of enjoy giving her trouble. And I don't mind getting it back. But this is different. This matters. This is important. We have to make peace with communist Russia. We have to ban the bomb before we all die. And we have to stop persecuting people because of their politics, people like Mr. M." Her eyes filled with tears. "I have to stand up for what I believe, to say That's not right,' and put myself on the line for it. Otherwise the other side, whoever they are, wins."

  What could I say to that?

  We had pot roast for dinner. Dolores and I did the dishes while my mother and father listened to the radio in the living room: The Catholic Hour with Monsignor Fulton J. Sheen, sponsored by God.

  The phone rang. "I'll get it," I said, and I did.

  "Francine," Sophie said, "guess what." Her voice sounded squeaky and weird.

  "What?"

  "I have been kicked out of No Sinners. For good."

  "Expelled? Jeepers, Sophie, how come?"

  "Sister Basil the Truly Awful called my father into her office this afternoon. She told him I was disruptive, disobedient, a bad influence, and didn't belong in her school." She took a deep breath. "I guess she's given up on saving my soul. My father came home and blew his stack. I'm really in the doghouse."

  "Gee, Soph, I'm sorry. Maybe you shouldn't have—"

  "Spare me the lecture. I already got the big speech from my father."

  "But I told you—"

  "Holy Francine, who knows all and is never wrong. I think maybe you hang around with me because it makes you look good in comparison. 'Saint Francine, whatever does she see in that nasty Bowman girl?"'

  My face burned with embarrassment and anger. "What a rotten thing to say! How can you—"

  "Oh, go climb a tree." She hung up with a bang.

  I slammed my receiver down too. How could Sophie be so wrong, so mean, so unfair!

  "Francine, come listen to this," my father called from the living room. "Monsignor Sheen is talking about young people today."

  I stood in the doorway. "I know all about young people today. I am one. And it's not much fun."

  "Sit," he said.

  So I sat.

  A teenager, said the monsignor, is like a chick just breaking the shell of the family, finding himself in a great wide world. His personality is beginning to emerge. "What do you think?" my father asked. "You feel like a chicken?"

  Very funny. "Cluck, cluck," I said, folding my arms across my chest.

  Teens, the monsignor said, are proud that no one understands them. They wear clothes designed to express their personalities and talk "bebop talk." "Sloppiness," he said, "is cultivated to attract attention; feelings are easily hurt. These are signs that a personality is being born into the adult world."

  Did he mean Sophie had hurt my feelings as part of her personality being born? Or was it my personality? Or did he mean ... Wait a minute. I hurt Sophie's feelings, too, and now that I thought about it, I felt pretty lousy. She had called to tell me her bad news, and instead of listening and sympathizing like a true friend, I had lectured her. Why, I hadn't supported her any more than Sister Pete had. Maybe I was the one who was being unfair.

  My father was laughing. "What do you think, Frannie? Is he right? Are you teenagers all bebop and back talk?" Before I could answer, he waved his hand at me. "Shush. I'm trying to listen."

  Monsignor Sheen then started in on "biological impulses" and "the value of purity." Holy cow, he was going to talk about sex! I would not sit and listen to anybody talk about sex with my family in the room.

  I went to bed, but my mind kept spinning. Should I call Sophie and apologize? But she was the one who called me names. Where would she go to school now? She couldn't go back to public school. Would her father send her away to boarding school? Was I about to lose my best friend forever?

  I finally fell asleep and dreamed about chickens.

  31. June 1950

  More Bad News

  Dolores did not get a car for her birthday. She got a radio. She did not die. Sophie wasn't at school anymore and we weren't speaking. Life was boring without her.

  On Saturday morning I finally finished Mr. Roberts. Ensign Pulver and all the men were very sad when Mr. Roberts died, and finally Ensign Pulver was more upset and angry than he was afraid. He knew that now that Mr. Roberts was gone, someone else had to stand up to the captain. Ensign Pulver remembered how Mr. Roberts had thrown the captain's palm trees overboard. The captain had gotten new trees, four of them, so Ensign Pulver went up to the boat deck and threw those trees overboard. He brushed his hands together, went to the captain, and said, "Captain, I just threw your damn palm trees over the side." I knew, and the captain knew, this wasn't just about palm trees, that Ensign Pulver was finally speaking up against what he thought was wrong.

  The ending made me itchy and restless. Ensign Pulver wasn't like me anymore. He turned out to be brave.

  I didn't like thinking that way, so I turned on Dolores's new radio, looking for music to distract me.

  Dolores came screaming out of the bathroom, pin curls and face cream quivering. "Turn it off!" she shouted. "That's my radio and I never said you could play it. Turn it off!" I turned it off. "I may
have to share a bedroom with a dishrag, but I don't have to share my radio," she said, and flounced back into the bathroom.

  I had let Dolores push me around for thirteen years, and suddenly I was sick and tired of it. 1 took a deep breath and followed her. "You know, Dolores, you're even meaner and snottier than usual these days. I don't like sharing a room any better than—"

  "It was my room first. Why did you have to go and be born anyway?"

  I was mad enough to sock her, but as she turned, I could see tears making little rivers through her face cream. Attila the Hun on his mother's lap, sucking his thumb, could not have surprised me more. "Do you hate me so much," I asked her, "that it makes you cry?"

  "Don't be stupid. I don't hate you ... most of the time. It's just that I'm miserable. Wally and I have broken up. We're through. Finished." She sat down on the edge of the tub.

  Dolores had been dumped? I couldn't believe it—not Miss Popularity. I sat down beside her. "Wally is crazy about you, Dolores. I'm sure you'll be back together in no time," I said, patting her hand.

  She shook her head. "No, it's over. Wally wants to go into the Navy after graduation, and he doesn't think it's fair to tie me down while he's gone. These are my best years, you know." She stood up and looked in the mirror, smoothing her face cream and lifting her chin.

  Attila the Hun was back in the fight. "I'm sorry, Dolores," I said, and I was. Now she'd be around more, and more bad tempered than ever. "I am really sorry."

  I got up to leave and stopped in the bathroom doorway. "Now can I listen to your radio?" I asked.

  "No," she said, pushing the door shut with her foot.

  I lay down on my bed. I missed Sophie. Enough was enough. She and I both had been unfair, but since I was unfair first, I decided I would apologize first. Right now.

  Sophie's line was busy and kept being busy, so finally I just walked over to her house.

  When she opened the door, I said, right away, before she could say anything, "I'm sorry, Sophie, I'm so sorry, you were absolutely right, I was being insufferably smug and superior and—"

  "Shut up, Francine," she said. "It doesn't matter. My father..." She began to cry.

  My heart stopped. "What? What about your father?"

  "He lost his job at the studio. His agent won't talk to him, and Hedda Hopper in her column said he was 'suspicious.' Oh, Francine, what is he going to do? What if he gives up like Mr. Mandelbaum did?"

  I put my arms around her and squeezed. "It'll be all right. Your father will fight. He won't let those guys bully him."

  She pulled away. "But how can you fight rumor and gossip and anonymous threats? How? And who? And how will we live when he can't work?" I heard voices inside her house. She wiped her eyes. "I have to go. Thanks for coming over. I'll talk to you later."

  My father was mowing our lawn when I got home. He handed me a broom, and I swept up the grass clippings on the sidewalk. "It's too awful," I said to him when the clacketa-clacketa of the mower stopped. "Mr. Bowman has lost his job because someone said he was 'suspicious.'"

  "Gee, that's tough. I doubt Bowman's a red," my father said, wiping his face on his sleeve. "Just a little pink, maybe." He put his hands on my shoulders. "Either way, this is getting more serious, Francine. I want you to stay away from the Bowmans. Do you understand me? Don't get involved."

  "But what are they going to do if he can't work? They'll starve. It's so unfair! I don't think Russia should be in charge of our country or that we should let communists spy on us or anything, but it is so unfair what happened to Mr. Bowman."

  My father lit a cigarette and leaned against the porch. "The government and the FBI have a job to do, trying to keep America safe and free for Americans. I don't know—maybe a little 'unfairness' is a small price to pay for security."

  "But Sophie—"

  "I keep telling you, you shouldn't be involved with them. We don't know what's true and what isn't, but it's serious business. Be quiet, do what you're told, and stay out of the way." The clacketa-clacketa began again.

  I found my mother in the kitchen crushing potato chips to put on a tuna casserole. "Mr. Bowman's friend, Mr. Mandelbaum, is dead. Sophie is expelled. And now Mr. Bowman has lost his job. The whole world is falling apart," I told her.

  "I'm sorry. The poor Bowmans," my mother said. "Maybe I'll make two casseroles and you can take one over there."

  Knowing my mother's tuna casserole, I didn't think that would be much of a treat for the Bowmans, but it was nice of her to offer. "Dad told me to stay away from them and not get involved. That's all he ever says: Don't get involved."

  "Come here a minute, Francine," she said, sitting down. I sat down next to her. "You know, your father doesn't just have one job. He has two—and the more important one, as he sees it, is keeping us safe. He thinks the best way to do that is not to get involved in anything risky." She put a handful of potato chips in front of me. "You know how much he cares about his union. He used to be quite active and go to meetings regularly. Once he even thought about running for union office. But a couple of years ago, when the union voted to go out on strike—why, he got worried that it could mean trouble for his family. So now he pays his dues and that's it. He thinks it's the best way to protect us."

  She stood up and wiped her salty hands on a dish towel. "Your father and I are both a bit confused with the way things are today. So many things are better. We're at peace, there's more money more opportunities, more optimism, but it also feels like there's more to be afraid of, for ourselves and our children. Sometimes we aren't sure what we should do. Be patient with us."

  I stared at her. Who was this person standing there? For a minute I felt like she wasn't my mother but a stranger in glasses with her hair rolled in a sausage, a person with ideas and opinions. I thought I might like that person. "Then do you think it would be all right if Sophie and I—"

  "Don't push it, Francine," she said, sliding the casserole into the oven and closing the door with a swing of her hip.

  A loud wail arose from the front yard. The door slammed, little feet pounded across the floor, and Artie burst into the kitchen, his nose streaming blood.

  My mother grabbed a towel and soaked it with cold water. "Sit, Artie," she said, "and hold this to your nose." Artie sat.

  "We were playing a little catch," my father said, coming into the kitchen, "and the ball just tapped—"

  Artie took the towel away from his tearstained face. "I don't want to be a man," he said. "I want to be a cowboy. Or a dog."

  "Enough, Fred," my mother said. My father nodded, and that was that.

  My mother made another tuna casserole for the Bowmans, and she took it over there. I was not allowed to go.

  32

  Flag Day

  my mother had tried a new product called a home permanent, made by the Richard Hudnut Company, one of the sponsors of Walter Winchell's show. "If it's good enough for Walter," my mother had said, "it's good enough for me." Now the roll of hair at her neck was gone, and her head was a mass of tightly clenched curls.

  "Mother," I said, "you look so different." I thought that I might try that myself someday. It had to be easier than the curling iron.

  "It's the nineteen fifties," she said. "A whole new decade. The world is changing and we have to change with it." Now I understood the new hat and the restaurant on Mother's Day.

  She straightened the seams in her stockings and twirled so the skirt of the new green-and-white dotted nylon dress swirled around. "What do you think? Wouldn't a mink stole be perfect with this?"

  "Blue blazes, Lorraine," my father said, leaning back in his big chair. "Who besides the Rockefellers has a mink stole?"

  "Ellie Jacobs. We play canasta on Tuesdays."

  "Ye gods," he grumbled. "That could turn out to be the most expensive card game ever."

  They were going to my father's boss's house for a barbecue and television. I was on my way to Mary Virginia's to help prepare our group presentation for world history: the c
auses and results of World War Two. I myself hoped one of the results was that the world had learned enough to prevent World War Three.

  "These are for you," my mother said, handing me a box. Karl's Shoes, it said. I opened it. "Mother, red shoes!" I hugged her.

  "I think you've gotten enough wear out of those old black flats," she said.

  I ran into my room and changed my shoes. I stuck my feet out to admire them. They were perfect. Wait till I showed Sophie!

  Sophie. I couldn't show Sophie. I was not allowed to see Sophie. I could not get involved. I looked at my feet again. Red shoes weren't as much fun without a best friend to share them with.

  I sat on my bed. What was happening with Sophie? Was she going to school? Had Mr. Bowman found another job? Did they go to a ball game and smoke cigars for Mr. Mandelbaum? Were they still real sad? What was happening?

  Dolores came into the room. She squinted at me. Her new boyfriend was picking her up, and she never wore her glasses around her boyfriends. "Is that my old skirt?" she asked. "It sure looked better on me."

  Good old grouchy Dolores. It was nice to have someone to count on. "You can't see well enough to know what it looks like," I told her. "You poor dear."

  "Don't be mean," Dolores said. "You should try being me sometime. Even when you're as pretty as I am, it's not always easy." Her face clouded over. "And now I have to find a new steady. Only one more year until graduation. One more year to find Mr. Right."

  "Don't worry, Dolores. You'll find him and you'll get married. He'll be rich and handsome and very kind. You'll be madly in love and have three children who are so smart, they skip classes in school. You'll be president of the PTA and be friends with Bing Crosby's wife, who will invite you over to—"

  "Gee, Francine, you have some weird imagination." She squinted into the mirror once more, took a deep breath, and left the room.