As Bright as Heaven(16)

I guess I don’t mind not knowing the answer to that because I am not in trouble for going inside in the forbidden room. I’ll still be allowed to go to Hog Island tomorrow with Jamie and Charlie. And I might be able to help Mama do the hair.

Besides, now I know everything else about that room.





CHAPTER 9



Willa


Our new house in Philadelphia has three stories and there are two front doors. The one painted gray that faces Charlie and Jamie’s house is the one we’re supposed to use, not the one around the corner that faces the other street. That other one is painted green. It’s for Uncle Fred and Papa and the bodies.

I am not allowed to go into the funeral parlor when there are families inside, because Uncle Fred said they will be sad and maybe crying. I can go in the room where the long boxes are, but I am not supposed to touch them or climb inside them. The room at the back is the Elm Bonning Room, and I am not supposed to even touch the doorknob of that room. There are dangerous things inside that could hurt me. Maybe a tree ax or something. The dead people go in there to get ready for heaven. Maggie isn’t afraid of the dead bodies, so I’m not. If they got up off the table and started chasing me with their arms stretched out, then I’d be afraid.

The kitchen is on the other side on the first floor. Mama has been painting it because it needed brightening up. Now it’s yellow. Before, it was no color. The floor in the kitchen is black and white squares like a checkerboard. I like stepping on the white ones. There is a dining room that Uncle Fred has piled up with books and boxes and I don’t know what else. Mama wants to clean that up next. There is also a sitting room with a big fireplace and a sofa and chairs and a phonograph. And a piano. Mama says when I’m older I can have lessons. And electric lights everywhere! Uncle Fred has a bedroom and an office next to the sitting room. I am not allowed in those rooms, either. Mama told me Uncle Fred never had a wife or a family, so I need to give him some time to get used to there being children in the house.

There’s a girl who lives three buildings up the street from the gray door. She’s seven like me and in my class in my new school. Her name is Florence, but everyone calls her Flossie. She lives above a bookstore. It’s not hers; that’s just where she lives. She has dark hair and freckles and three brothers who tease her all the time. They are older than her, so they’re not like Henry. I think she will be my best friend.

There is another little girl who lives close to us, too. Her name is Gretchen Weiss. I see her at school, too. But Flossie said that girl is a Hun and her parents are Huns, and we can’t be friends with her because of the war.

I had to ask Papa what a Hun is, and when I did, he asked where I’d heard that word. I just said at school. He was probably going to tell me what a Hun is, but Uncle Fred heard me ask and he turned to me and said Huns are those damn German savages responsible for all the misery in the world.

Papa gave Uncle Fred a look that said he can’t say that one word. Damn.

But Gretchen doesn’t look much like a savage to me. I’ve seen pictures of savages in Evie’s History of the World book. Gretchen has pigtails and a little white dog and a baby doll carriage. Her parents own a bakery. They aren’t savages with wooden clubs and no clothes on.

So I don’t think Uncle Fred knows what a Hun is. But I don’t want Flossie not to like me, so I will stay away from Gretchen.

Today I went with Jamie and Charlie and Maggie to see the warships being built. It was supposed to be an island, but we got there in a streetcar full of shipyard workers and didn’t go over a bridge or anything, so what kind of island is that? Jamie knows someone who builds the ships, so that man went with us and took us past the fences. Maggie didn’t want me to come with them. Jamie had asked me if I wanted to go along, and before I could answer, Maggie said I wouldn’t like to see the ships and that I would get too tired and that it was too cold for me. I told Jamie I did want to see the ships and that I wouldn’t get tired and that it wasn’t too cold for me. So I asked Mama if I could go, and she said I had to mind Jamie the whole time, and that if I promised to do that, I had her permission. She didn’t say any of the things stupid Maggie did.

I did get bored after a while. The ships weren’t ships. They were just big hunks that looked like funny-shaped buildings being built upside down. And I was so cold, my fingers stung inside my gloves. There was mud everywhere. Jamie said the whole island used to be mud and marshes and swarms of mosquitoes, but then the war came and we needed to build ships. There are no hogs, though, even though it’s called Hog Island. Not one. There wasn’t one pretty thing to look at. But I wasn’t about to say a word out loud about that and have Maggie scold me for coming when she said I shouldn’t have.

I’ll tell you why she didn’t want me to come. It’s because she wants Charlie and Jamie for herself. They are always doing puzzles and games with her. Well, it’s mostly Charlie who comes over to play games and do puzzles, but then Jamie comes over to fetch him and he stays. And sometimes she goes over to their apartment and visits with Mrs. Sutcliff. She likes Maggie because she has no girls. Only Jamie and Charlie. Charlie is nice, but he’s not very smart. He’s older than Evie and can hardly read. I read better than he can. Maggie is trying to teach him, but it’s like he forgets everything she says two seconds after she says it. Mama told me his brain won’t let him remember all that he’s taught. She said no one knows why, but some children are born with not everything working quite right.