Skating with the Statue of Liberty (23 page)

Gustave's legs were exhausted by the time he'd pedaled the two of them back to Mr. Quong's laundry, but the bag Mrs. Markham had given them was stuffed with cans, and several others were rolling loose around Seppie in the basket of the bicycle. When they got back to the laundry, Mr. Quong saw what they were doing. He asked Gustave to watch the desk for a minute and went upstairs to get them another bag and a few more empty cans to add to their collection. Gustave and September Rose had to stamp on a few to be able to cram the last ones in.

“Do you want to come to my apartment?” Gustave asked. “We could wash and flatten the rest there, so they'll be easier to carry.”

“Are you sure?” September Rose asked.

“Why not? It's closer than yours.”

With their overloaded schoolbags and the extra bags of cans, it was tough going. Halfway to Gustave's apartment, several cans fell out of Mr. Quong's bag and rolled down the sidewalk. Gustave stuffed them back in and ran a few steps to catch up with September Rose, his schoolbag clanking on his back. As he did, he heard a shout behind him.

“Hey! Boy! Come back!” It was a burly policeman, waving something in the air.

Gustave saw the uniform and the dark bulge of a gun, and his heart leaped in his chest. “Run!” he shouted to September Rose, and he sprinted down the block. He darted around the corner and paused to wait for her, panting. But he didn't hear any running feet. He held his breath and peered around the corner. The policeman had
turned his back and was walking away, and September Rose was jogging down the block toward him.

“Lose anything?” she called as she got closer, waving her hand in the air. She was holding something in a familiar shade of blue. Gustave reached for his head. His beret wasn't there. September Rose whacked the hat against her leg to get the dirt off it and handed it to Gustave. “What did you run away for?” she asked.

Gustave yanked his beret down over his forehead. “The police…,” he said uncertainly. “He had a gun….” His voice trailed off. It was too hard to explain. In his head he had seen the Nazi soldiers with their guns, the border guards hunting for Jews. The French police smashing his family's furniture. His heart was still thudding against his ribs.

“This is America!” Seppie said impatiently. “The police are here to help.”

“They used to help in France too.”

When they got to Gustave's apartment, neither of his parents was home. He soaked some of the cans in the sink and tried to rub the labels off while September Rose walked around looking at things.

“It's you and your mother and father all in this one room? Where do you sleep? How can you stand not having any privacy?” September Rose burst out. Gustave looked at the dingy room, seeing it the way it must appear to her.

“On the sofa,” he said. “It's comfortable enough.”

“I like sleeping on our sofa too,” September Rose said, sounding embarrassed. “Especially when I'm sick.
My Granma lets me play the radio and snuggle under a blanket there. Sometimes Chiquita jumps up onto my lap, although she's not supposed to. It's cozy on the sofa with her.” She picked up Gustave's French Boy Scout manual and flipped through it for a moment before putting it back on the shelf. “Hey, I like your tablecloth! Is that French? Did someone make it?”

Gustave smiled to himself at the way Seppie always jumped from one topic to another. “My mother did.” He tugged at the label on a can of vegetable soup, and it slipped off easily. “So, how's your brother?” he asked. “Is his eye better?”

“Yeah, it's lots better.” September Rose's face clouded over. “But now he and Granma are fighting all the time.”

As Gustave was peeling the labels off the next-to-last batch of cans and September Rose was cutting off the ends and flattening them, a key turned in the lock, and Maman came in.

“Oh!” she said, startled.

Gustave turned around, wiping his soapy hands on his pants. “Hello, Maman. This is September Rose from my school,” he explained in slow, clear English. “We're collecting cans for the Victory Rally.”

September Rose held out her hand. “Pleased to meet you, Mrs. Becker.”

Maman looked confused. “Please to meet you,” she repeated in English. She put the bag of groceries she was carrying down on the rickety table. “You and Gustave would like the biscuit?” she asked. “I make some tomorrow.”

“You mean ‘yesterday,' Maman,” Gustave said. “You made them yesterday.”

“Yesterday. You like try? We eat them all up tomorrow. Not good for Pesach.”

September Rose looked confused. “She made cookies with the last of our flour,” Gustave explained. “She wants to know if you'd like to have some. What we don't finish by tomorrow night, we'll throw out anyway, because on Wednesday it is Pesach—Passover. We can't eat flour then.”

“Oh, is that like a Jewish Easter or something? It's Easter this Sunday. No, thank you, Mrs. Becker.” September Rose fidgeted, twirling a braid between her fingers. “I need to go home now. I'll just take these cans. Gustave, see you tomorrow after the auditions. Meet you at the statue, right? Hey, and decide who you want to do your report on by then!”

September Rose stuffed the cans they had flattened into her schoolbag and left. Maman immediately switched into French.

“That's a new American friend?” she asked, twisting the shopping bag between her fingers. “She's a ‘Negro'?” Maman used the American word.

“Évidemment.” Obviously
.

“Ah.” Maman's brow furrowed. “She's a nice girl?”

“Of course.”

“And well behaved?”

“Yes.”

“Respectable? You're sure?”

“
Oui
, Maman! She's the one who gave me that American candy bar you liked so much.”

“Oh, that's the girl who gave you the chocolate?” Maman smiled. “It was delicious!”

Gustave took the cans he had been soaking to the table. While Maman started dinner, he worked on the cans and thought about his oral report. He cut the ends off with a can opener and peeled off the labels, trying, just for fun, to get them to come off in one long strip. Underneath, the cans were surprisingly shiny. He held one up and let the light from the bare bulb over the table glitter on its surface. It was one small can, but together with lots and lots of others, it could help end the war. Gustave turned the can in the lightbulb's blunt glare, and for a moment it seemed to gleam with hidden, secret power. Power to defeat the Nazis. Power to win the war. All at once, Gustave knew who he wanted to do his oral report on.

Charles de Gaulle, leader of the Free French.

30

“
W
ho is Charles de Gaulle?” Frank asked after history on Tuesday as he and Miles and Gustave left the classroom. Gustave had been a bit worried that Mr. Coolidge wouldn't consider Charles de Gaulle a historical figure, since he was alive, but Mr. Coolidge had nodded and taken down the name. “You're going to need to look at newspapers, Gustave,” he had said. “It'll be hard to find information in books.”

“He's a general in the French army,” Gustave said as the three of them walked past the milk line in the cafeteria. “He's in London now, though. It isn't safe for him in France with the Nazis there. But from London he's organizing the French to fight back against the Nazis.”

“Oh. I never heard of him. Hey, look! What are Martha and her friends doing at our lunch table?”

Martha was standing in front of the table where they usually sat, talking to Leo and some other boys, who were already eating lunch.

“We need help,” she called as Gustave, Frank, and Miles sat down. She waved a roll of striped red, white, and blue ribbon at them. “Who's got a pocketknife with scissors that I can borrow?”

Frank pulled one out of his pocket and passed it down to her. Martha squeezed into a spot next to Leo and started cutting lengths of ribbon and passing them to the girls. “Tie this around your ponytail,” she said, handing one to Caroline. She looked critically at Elsie. “Your hair is too short for a ponytail. But I guess you could wear it like a headband.” She handed a piece of ribbon to Leo and turned so that her golden brown ponytail was in his face. “Can you tie this around mine?” she asked.

Leo grabbed the scissors, clicking them at her. “I'll just cut your ponytail off and then you won't have to worry about it!”

Martha ducked, giggling. “You wouldn't dare,” she shrieked.

Leo slid the ribbon around her neck, pretending to choke her. “Is this where you wanted it?”

“Do it right, Leo!” she demanded.

After he had tied the ribbon in her hair, she tugged at the bow, smiled with satisfaction, and rolled up the remainder of the ribbon, tucking it into her bag. “Looking patriotic will definitely help us stand out this afternoon,” she said.

It was easy to tell who Martha's friends were for the rest of the day. In the hallway Gustave overheard several comments from girls who weren't wearing ribbons.
“Sorry, girls!” replied Martha sweetly. “There just wasn't enough for everybody.”

September Rose's braids were unadorned, and Gustave saw her looking at the ribbons. She caught his eye in the corridor and shrugged. “Who cares?” she said. “The auditions are about your voice, not how you look.”

As the school day drew to a finish, excitement built. After the final bell rang, many of the students hurried to the auditorium. Gustave went to his cubby first. He wasn't in any hurry, since he was just going to watch. By the time he got to the auditorium, there was a big crowd of kids outside the door. A teacher was walking along the hall with a clipboard.

“Name?” she asked him.

“Gustave Becker,” he answered automatically, standing on his toes and trying to see over the heads of the people in front of him, looking for September Rose. There she was, down at the front, near Martha and her crowd. Gustave got through the mob around the door and took one of the seats in the back of the auditorium. They were built on a slant, so he could still see the stage.

As the last of the students sat down, Mrs. Heine walked to the front of the stage. The microphone boomed as she tapped it, and the room quieted. “Welcome to the auditions for the Victory Rally chorus,” she said. “When Mrs. Spencer or Mrs. Davis calls your name, come forward. Announce your song, step up to the microphone, and, at the pianist's signal, begin. Briskly, please. We don't want to be here all night.”

Mrs. Heine took the center seat ten rows back. The
two teachers who had been asking for names as people came into the auditorium took up positions at the microphones on the sides of the stage. One of them called out the names of the first ten singers and showed them how to line up on the stage steps, and the auditions began.

Each student walked across to the microphone, announced his or her name and the name of a song, and began. Some were pretty good, but some were terrible, Gustave thought—almost as bad as he was. A lot of the students sang “The Star-Spangled Banner.” Some sang “You're a Grand Old Flag.”

Mrs. Heine stopped most of the singers after just a bar or two. “Thank you!” she called out imperiously, interrupting the song. “That's enough!”

The second group of ten students included Martha and most of her friends. Gustave watched as Martha gave a last tug on her hair ribbon and walked confidently onto the stage, her ponytail swinging. Suddenly everyone in the auditorium was paying close attention. “I'm going to sing ‘Over There' ” Martha announced. The piano music started, and she sang out, her voice loud and resonant, almost brassy, like a trumpet, Gustave thought.

Mrs. Heine let her sing to the end of the song. “Thank you, Martha,” she said. Martha smiled and walked offstage.

Elsie came out next. “Song?” asked the teacher at the piano.

“ ‘You're a Grand Old Flag,' ” she answered, twirling a finger nervously in her short blond hair. The pianist struck
the opening notes. When Elsie began to sing, she let her hands drop to her sides and stood straight and confident. Her voice was sweet, birdlike, Gustave thought, and the best he had heard so far. Mrs. Heine let her sing all the way through as well.

One by one the girls with the patriotic ribbons came onstage. Some giggled and sang weakly, others did pretty well, but none of them sang as well as Elsie, or even Martha, Gustave thought. Then came a bunch of boys and some more girls Gustave didn't recognize. The audience was thinning out a little as some of the singers and their friends left, although most of them seemed to be staying to hear the others audition.

Gustave was getting bored. He took out his geography textbook and flipped to the section Mr. Coolidge had assigned. He was reading about crops in East Africa when he heard his name.

“Gustave Becker?” And then the teacher on the right of the stage repeated his name, sounding irritated and impatient. “Gustave BECKER?”

He jumped up, confused. The folding seat slipped up behind him, and his book fell to the floor with a loud bang. Someone giggled. Faces turned toward him.

“I am Gustave,” he called, feeling heat rise to his face.

“Pay attention! It's your turn to line up and
sing
!”

Sing?
His heart throbbed with panic. “Me? No! NO! I did not…I don't want to audition!” he stammered. A ripple of laughter went through the auditorium.

“Then why did you waste our time?” the teacher muttered. “Very well. Next?”

As the boy at the head of the line went up to sing, Gustave sat back down, hearing whispered comments and giggles around him. His face gradually cooled, and his heart slowly went back to its normal rhythm. He must have accidentally put his name on the audition list, he realized. That was why the teacher had been taking names at the door. He felt like an idiot. But at least he hadn't been forced to sing.

Suddenly he heard the name he'd been waiting for. “September Rose Walker. ‘America the Beautiful,' ” Seppie announced, clasping and unclasping her hands in front of her. It was the first time Gustave had ever seen her looking nervous.

The pianist struck up the first notes. September Rose seemed to wait just a beat too long. You can do it, Seppie! Gustave thought, trying to send her confidence. Sing!

“Oh, beautiful for spacious skies,”
September Rose's voice started out so quietly he could hardly hear her.

Louder, Gustave thought. Louder!

“For amber waves of grain.”

Her voice expanded, becoming rich and warm as she went on. Now she was singing naturally, singing full throated, the way she did in music class, the way she had in her kitchen, only now she was filling the vast expanse of the auditorium.

“For purple mountain majesties

Above the fruited plain!”

September Rose's voice soared like an eagle:

“America! America!

God shed his grace on thee”

Everyone was listening now. You couldn't help it. It was impossible not to follow her voice.

“And crown thy good with brotherhood

From sea to shining sea!”

In the pause as the last note faded away, the room was hushed. A moment later the whole auditorium erupted into applause. Seppie's face lit up with joy.

“Thank you,” said Mrs. Heine, scribbling something down on her pad. “Next?”

Four more girls sang, none particularly well, and then the auditions were over.

In the crowded hallway outside the auditorium, Gustave spotted September Rose and squeezed through the crowd toward her. She was surrounded by girls congratulating her. Elsie had said something to September Rose, smiling, and was just moving away as Gustave got there.

“You were great!” he said. “You'll get the solo. I'm sure.”

September Rose looked at him, still flushed with triumph, smiling slightly. “Elsie was good too,” she said modestly. She lowered her voice slightly, grinning. “Even
Martha
wasn't half bad.”

“They weren't as good as you,” Gustave said, and he could tell from the excited look on her face that she knew it was true.

“Well, we'll see. Mrs. Heine is going to post the results in a few minutes. I'm going to wait. Then I'll get my stuff and meet you at the statue and we can walk over to the library.”

She ran through the crowd to the spot where her friend
Lisa was waiting on the other side of the hall. Gustave got his things from his locker and came back to see if the results had been posted yet, but the students were still milling around, waiting.