Blow Out the Moon

by Libby Koponen

The kids all started playing again and then an even older boy who was holding a little book said, “Can you spell?”

  “Yes,” I said.

  “Women,” he said.

  “W-o-m-i-n,” I said.

  “E-n,” he said, and everyone laughed. I realized that he had meant Are you a GOOD speller? I am a very bad speller, but you probably already know that from the letter I wrote on the Liberté.

  No one else said anything to me, so I sat down and watched the kids running around until the teacher came in and the older boys went out and the other kids ran to their seats. They didn’t sit down: They stood straight behind them, as though they were in the army standing at attention.

  So I stood at attention, too. The teacher raised her hand and they sang a song that had the same tune as “My Country ’Tis of Thee.” It went:

  God save our gracious Queen,

  Long live our noble Queen,

  God save the Queen.

  Send her victorious,

  Happy and glorious,

  Long to reign over us,

  God save the Queen!

  Then they sat down. They folded their hands, bent their necks, closed their eyes, and said, all together:

  I am the child of God,

  I ought to do his will,

  I can do what he tells me to

  And with his help I will.

  Then they sat up and the teacher looked at me.

  “You must be the American,” she said. “Come here, Elizabeth.” She gave me three little books — all very thin — an old-fashioned pen, and a bottle of ink. I was looking at the pen when she said it was time for spelling.

  “Curious,” she said, and the girl next to me wrote in her little book. But when I tried to write in mine, my pen just made scratches on the paper.

  “You must fill it UP!” the teacher said, and everyone laughed.

  They were all looking at me, waiting.

  I opened the pen: The bottom unscrewed, too, and inside it, attached to the point, was a little rubber tube. I dipped the point into the ink, then squeezed the tube gently — ink went in, you could see it and feel it filling the tube. When the tube was hard and full, I squished it — ink squirted out.

  “Honestly, Elizabeth!” It was the teacher. She sounded annoyed. “Haven’t you ever seen a pen before?”

  Instead of having a smooth, straight point like a pencil, their pens had a big metal thing that ended in a point. The pointed metal thing, I found out later, is called a nib.

  She was just being sarcastic, I think. Anyway I didn’t want to tell her that I really hadn’t. I just filled the pen up again as quickly as I could. A few people snickered; the teacher gave me a dirty look and then said, still in a sarcastic voice, “If you’re quite finished, Elizabeth?”

  Then she said the next word.

  When we were done, she collected the books and corrected them — I, she said, had gotten almost everything wrong. It’s true that I’m a terrible speller.

  The metal desk was cold on my arms, and soon I felt cold all over, especially my hands and feet. I looked at the desk — it was very pale green, splotched with black. I didn’t like either color.

  In the middle of the morning we went downstairs to another classroom; it was full of little children. Emmy ran next to me, and Miss Reed had Willy (who seemed to be the youngest of all) on her lap. He was smiling a little uncertainly.

  I waved to him and then stood close to Emmy while Mrs. Reed passed out small glass bottles of milk with silver paper tops. At the top, the milk was all yellow (cream) — the kids shook the bottles before they drank the milk.

  “Here’s your nice milk, dearie,” Mrs. Reed said to me. “Mind you don’t spill it.”

  Emmy told me that this was their classroom, and that they did their lessons out loud, sort of singing. She said Miss Reed sat in the front of the room holding a big ruler like a baton and singing (and all the kids sang along): “One and one are TWO, Two and two are FOUR, …” Emmy thought this was very funny: As she told me about it, she kept stopping to laugh. I wasn’t sure what I thought, but it didn’t seem funny to me.

  After “elevenses” (that’s what the snack was called), we had more lessons; they were more interesting than what we did in school in America. We read a real book, The Borrowers, and wrote a composition about it in the thin little books (these were called exercise books) in ink. I liked writing with an old-fashioned pen and ink: Everything came out so thick and black.

  Then we had English history. I looked all through the history book, but I couldn’t find anything at all about the Revolution.

  I decided not to ask about it. Everyone, even the teacher, laughed when I talked — not in a nice way, as though they thought it was funny, but in a mean way. They laughed as though there was something wrong with me, or the way I talked.

  But what? What was wrong with the way I talked?

  Nothing, I thought. I just sounded different because I had an American accent and they had English ones. Probably they would stop doing it when they got used to me. After all, I thought, it was only the middle of the afternoon on the first day. School would get better; they would get used to me and start liking me soon.

  Chapter Nine:

  One Good Thing

  They didn’t. After a few days, the only person who talked to me at all was Norman Capp, the boy who’d asked my name the first day. And I wished he wouldn’t.

  Whenever I tried to start a conversation with the others — in the classroom in the morning, at the milk break, or at lunch — they made fun of my accent. If I tried to play in a game, they said I couldn’t. So at the milk break and lunch I talked only to Emmy, and in the classroom, I sat at my desk and (if I had a book) read.

  I often thought of Pat’s words: “Maybe they’ll say ‘Uh! American girls!’ ” — that was smart of Pat.

  One morning I was sitting at my desk reading as usual; and as usual, everyone ignored me until Norman Capp came in. I hoped that he would leave me alone.

  “Libby drink Libby’s!” he said, and everyone laughed. “Libby’s” is a kind of milk they have in England; there were advertisements all over London that said DRINK LIBBY’S.

  Then he jumped up on top of my desk and sang, as he did every morning. When he danced, he jumped and hopped all over the desk with his toes turned out — he looked silly, but everyone laughed at me. This is what he sang: “Libby there is milk for you! Nice and fresh, creamy too.”

  He sang it over and over; the other kids laughed and laughed. I just sat there — what could I say? In America I never THOUGHT about what I was going to say, I just said it. When you think beforehand, it’s hard to say anything. So I didn’t.

  “Look how narrow and slanted her eyes are,” someone — a girl — said.

  “Ridiculous — like a blue-eyed Chinese,” said another girl.

  I folded my arms across my chest and thought about Daniel Boone being tortured by Indians.

  Do you know that story? It’s true — it happened in pioneer times. After the Indians captured his two sons, Daniel Boone ran after them — but by the time he caught up with them, the Indians had already killed the two boys. Then they tortured Daniel Boone, but no matter what they did to him, he didn’t make one sound or move one muscle in his face. The Indians rewarded his courage by letting him live.

  I admire Daniel Boone; I’m proud that I’m an American like him.

  “Especially with that short straight hair and ugly fringe that goes straight across her forehead.”

  A “fringe” is what they call bangs. Mine are cut in a very straight line, and it’s true that compared to the kids in the class — who all looked kind of alike, with round eyes — mine are kind of odd-looking — narrow and slanted. It’s because my father’s ancestors are all Finns; but in America no one minded. In America, practically everyone looks different from everyone else, and it’s okay. That’s one thing America is about and one reason we fought the Revolution.

  Then someone said, “Miss Bromley
!” (that was the teacher) and Norman Capp went out and we stood at attention as Miss Bromley came in.

  Then they all sang “God Save the Queen.” After the song, while everyone was sitting down, Miss Bromley looked at me and said, “Elizabeth, you weren’t singing. Don’t you know the words to ‘God Save the Queen’ by now?”

  Their money was very different from ours. It was divided up into pounds (twenty shillings), shillings (twelve pennies), and pence (pennies). There were more coins than in America: a half-crown (two shillings and sixpence), a florin (two shillings), a shilling (twelve pennies), a six-pence (six pennies), a threepenny bit (three pennies), a tuppence (two pennies), a penny, and a ha’penny (half penny). All the coins said, “God save the Queen” in Latin.

  Of course, I did. I said, “I don’t sing it because I’m an American, and we don’t believe in kings and queens. We believe in liberty and justice for all — that’s what the Revolution and the Boston Tea Party were about. I’ll stand up, but I won’t sing.”

  And if you try and make me, I won’t do it, I thought. She just stared at me and I stared right back, thinking, I won’t sing that song even if you hit me with your ruler (they did that to kids there). I won’t do it and you can’t make me. But I didn’t say anything; I just stared at her. After a while, she looked down at her desk and said, “Very well, then, stand but don’t sing.”

  I hated school, I hated London, I hated living in England, but she couldn’t make me sing a song to their queen. That was one good thing, at least.

  Chapter Ten:

  Writing to Henry

  Another good thing was the ride home. I came home by myself (Emmy’s and Willy’s classes got out earlier than mine, and they went home with Jill). When I left school the day I said I wouldn’t sing it was almost dark.

  I walked to the Underground and waited for my train right next to the UNDERGROUND sign. I liked how cheerful the Underground signs were — huge squares of white, taking up almost the whole wall, with a big bright red circle, and in the middle of the circle a blue bar with the name of the stop in white letters.

  I liked the names of the stops, too: Lancaster Gate and Queensway — being in a country where they had a real queen and real castles was like being in a nursery rhyme or fairy tale. And I liked the train — they called it the tube and it was shaped like a tube, with walls that curved out at the sides and then up into the low ceiling. People sat or stood very close together, but no one talked. Sometimes grown-ups smiled at me. The lights were a warm yellow color and the train was warm, too; I was never cold on the Underground. I watched the people reading, and read the advertisements, and each time we stopped, I looked out the window, carefully watching the signs so I wouldn’t miss my stop: Queensway.

  When I got off and walked up the stairs to the street, it was completely dark: The sky was black, the street lights were on. I liked walking along Bayswater Road, because I walked along the edge of Kensington Gardens. I looked through the fence at the formal paths and old trees, imagining Peter Pan playing there. (My parents had given me a book about that part of his life, Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens.)

  A map of Kensington Gardens from the book Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens.

  When I turned onto our street, the lights were on in all the houses. I always like to see lighted windows when I’m outside in the dark: The rooms look so snug and safe.

  At our house, Emmy’s face was against the window by the front door: She was always there waiting for me, and I liked that, too. When she saw me, she waved, and when she disappeared, I knew she was unlocking the door.

  We ran downstairs to our room, which Jill called “the nursery.” Usually as soon as I got home we had a meal called tea: brown bread cut in quarters with chocolate spread, which is like chocolate syrup but thicker and not so sweet, and apples cut up into slices on plates. In England they don’t bite into the whole apple.

  But that day the table didn’t have a tablecloth on it Emmy had been drawing on it. Bubby was playing with her white china horses, and Willy was building a tower with books. Jill was knitting. She usually wore big, baggy, beige or pale green sweaters; she was knitting another one when I came in.

  “Where’s tea?” I said.

  “Mommy and Daddy aren’t going to the theater tonight,” Emmy said.

  “You’re having dinner with Mummy and Daddy tonight,” Jill said at the same time.

  Then she said that since I was home, she would go upstairs and “make herself tidy” — she was going out that night, she said. She stood up and pulled her skirt down; her pale legs bulged out of it and out of her tan boots. Then she patted her tight black curly hair, told me to “mind the others,” and left.

  I got my pen and Quink (a kind of ink) and some paper and started to write.

  “What are you writing?” Emmy said.

  I didn’t answer.

  “A story?”

  “No, a letter.”

  “To who?”

  I didn’t answer, and she leaned across the table.

  “Dear Henry,” she read out loud. “Why not TO Henry?”

  I explained that you always started letters with “Dear.” Then I said, “Now don’t read any more — maybe I’ll read it to you when I’m done, but I can’t write with you reading every word as I go along.”

  I was still writing when our mother came in. She was wearing the new pink suit I’d helped her pick out, and she looked really pretty; I felt proud of how pretty she looked. She looked different than she looked in America: her hair was longer and softer — it curled around her shoulders instead of tightly all over her head. Also she smiles more. In America, she never seemed to have any fun. But in London she does: she and my father go to the theater a lot, and sometimes they go out to dinner, and sometimes they go dancing. Then she gets really dressed up, in a black skirt that swirls around, and she puts perfume behind her ears (it’s called Arpege and Daddy gave it to her. It has an expensive, very grown-up scent).

  “You look really pretty, Mommy,” I said.

  She kind of shook her head, in an embarrassed way, and smiled. Her smile always was pretty.

  “What are you writing?” she said.

  “A letter to Henry.”

  She held out her hand and I gave it to her — she read it to herself and then she said, “There’s an awful lot in here about not being able to wear your blue jeans, and missing your —,” she kind of hesitated, “six-shooter. Don’t you think that’s kind of boring, honey?”

  “But I do miss wearing blue jeans. I HATE having to wear skirts and dresses all the time.”

  “I know — you’ve said that — but imagine if someone you knew had moved to Japan, and you wanted to know what Japan was like, and the letter kept saying, ‘And I can’t wear my red sneakers.’ ”

  Henry would understand how I felt — he always got it. And he never thought I was boring. At least — he never had before. But that didn’t mean he never would. I’d never been unpopular before, either, and now I was. I read the letter to myself.

  “I guess it is kind of boring,” I said. “I’ll write it over.”

  “But not now — it’s time for dinner.”

  The dining room had one big window that looked out onto a small square of gray cement and dark walls. We had dinner at a long oval table that was really too big for our family. Our father sat at one end (it was so dark, and the table was so long, that it was hard to see him). Our mother sat at the other end, with me next to her, Emmy between me and my father, and Willy and Bubby across from us.

  There was a chandelier that didn’t give out much light over the table, and a tiny fireplace behind my father. During dinner, my parents talked to each other as usual. The only interesting part was when my father was telling her about “rhyming slang.” He said that someone named Norman used it a lot and sometimes he, Daddy, didn’t get it.

  “Today he threw something on my desk and —” Daddy said the next part imitating the man’s voice and accent and expression — Daddy’s
really good at imitating people, “—‘’ere, ’av a butcher’s at this.’ ”

  “What did that mean?” I said.

  “ ‘Here, have a look at this.’ ‘Butcher’s hook’ means ‘look.’ ”

  “Is it code?” I said.

  “Slang,” Daddy said. “In rhyming slang, instead of saying a word, they say something that rhymes with it: ‘wife’ is ‘trouble and strife.’ ” (He looked at my mother and laughed.) “But when they only say the part that doesn’t rhyme, it can be hard to understand.”

  “What are some other ones?” I said.

  My father made a face — he makes faces a lot when he talks — and said, “ ‘Septic tank’ is ‘Yank’ — short for Yankee, an American.”

  “And ‘apples and pears’ means stairs,” my mother said.

  “And ‘Mable, Mable’ could be table!” I said excitedly.

  “Finish your dinner and don’t talk so much,” he said.

  After a while I stopped listening. I thought about England, and how everything seemed to come out of a rhyme or a story — “Yank” was probably from the song “Yankee Doodle.” (So they DID know about the Revolution! That proved it!)

  At dessert, my father asked if any of us had learned anything interesting. I answered first.

  The English mode up the words to “Yankee Doodle” and sang it to insult the American soldiers in the Revolution: “doodle” meant “fool.”

  Yankee Doodle went to town, riding on a pony, Stuck a feather in his hat and called it macaroni. Yankee Doodle, keep it up! Yankee Doodle, dandy! Mind the music and the step and with the girls be handy!

  But the Americans sang their own words right back at the redcoats:

  Yankee Doodle is the tune Americans delight in: Twill do to whistle, sing, or play and just the thing for fightin’.

  Yankee Doodle, keep it up! Yankee Doodle, dandy! Mind the music and the step and with the girls be handy!

  “I learned that they used to make children pull carts in coal mines and clean the soot out of chimneys, because the tunnels and chimneys were too small for grown-ups to crawl into,” I said. There was a picture of a chimney sweep in our history book — he looked about five! They’re not very nice to children in this country, are they?”