Voices at Whisper Bend (10 page)

“Keep going. Keep going.”

The only thing that moved was the brown car. It rolled slowly down Talbott Avenue, stopping at the cross streets and then starting up again.

Charlotte could tell when the car had passed a boy's street, when his shoulders let down and he could breathe again. But
she
couldn't. Not yet.

“Jim?” Robbie whispered.

“Hush. Don't say it. Don't say anything.” She gripped his arm.

She stared down the avenue, and at last the brown car passed by her house and Betsy's and turned up a side street. It parked there, still in sight.

She felt her breath come out, and she drew in fresh, sweet air. She stretched her shoulders, but still she couldn't take her eyes off the street, off the man who was climbing out of the brown car. Now he was shutting the car door, and now, walking around the front and up the steps to the second house in from the corner.

“No! Not Tony. Oh, Ma …”

A cry rose from the knot of boys, and they separated. One kid stood alone for a moment rubbing his eyes. Then he dug his heels into the pavement and ran down the avenue, pumping his arms and legs so hard Charlotte could feel sweat rise on her own body.

Every kid watched him run, sorry as could be, except for that one part, the selfish part that was saying thank you.
Thank you for not letting it stop in front of my house
.

Slowly, one at a time, the kids drifted down the avenue. Charlotte held tight to Betsy and Robbie as her feet began to move.

Nobody said anything. Nobody had to. Everybody knew that by tomorrow, Frankie Zalenchak's ma would have a gold star hanging in her front window instead of a blue one.

C
HAPTER
9

A R
OCKY
C
OVE

When they reached home, Robbie ran for the third floor. Charlotte went to her room and sat on the bed, trying to make her legs stop trembling. She searched among her schoolbooks and papers for her history book, then flipped through until she found her list of suspects. As she read the names, all she could feel was shame. Who was she to accuse these people of stealing?

And what a list she'd made—Paul Rossi, who had brothers fighting; Mr. Costa, who wanted to enlist and couldn't; the school janitor, who'd only been nice to everybody for his whole life; some poor little kid in Robbie's class with a busted lunch pail. And there at the bottom, Zalenchak and Merkow. Seeing Frankie Zalenchak's name on her list was the worst. She tore up the paper and flushed the little pieces down the toilet.

She gathered her books and wandered downstairs to the kitchen, wishing hard that today of all days Ma could be home. But she wasn't. She'd made a noodle casserole for supper, and Charlotte was supposed to put it in to heat. She did that, then settled at the kitchen table to do her homework. But no matter how many times she stared at the fractions in her arithmetic book, all she could see was the brown car. All she could hear was Frankie Zalenchak's voice crying out, “No! Not Tony.”

She stood and paced around the house, then stopped by the front window to touch the points of Jim's blue star.
Could have been me
, she thought.
Could have been Robbie and me, or Betsy or anybody. We've all got brothers
.

Ma had heard about Frankie's brother at the mill. When she walked in the door, grimy as she was, she grabbed onto Charlotte and hugged her so hard it hurt. “You heard?”

Charlotte nodded. “We saw the brown car come. I was afraid—”

“Oh, honey, this is so hard.” Ma buried her face in Charlotte's hair.

“I hate it, Ma. I want it all to just go away. I want to close my eyes, and when I open them again, it will all be over—the war and the fighting and the ships going down and that brown car …”

“I know, honey, I know. We all want that. But …”

They stood holding on to each other for a long time, then Ma seemed to straighten herself. “I'm going to take my bath. Will you set the table? Your pa should be home soon.”

Pa came home wearing a stern face, but carrying two bundles. He set one at Robbie's place and one at Charlotte's. “I bought these this morning to celebrate my brave crew of yesterday,” he began. “Maybe after supper …”

When they sat to eat, nobody seemed very hungry. Robbie's eyes were puffy and red, and so were Ma's. Charlotte couldn't tell if she'd scorched the casserole or if the odd taste in her mouth came from seeing the brown car. Somehow they managed to eat part of the meal, and after a while, they began to talk, about ordinary things.

“I've got a long haul coming,” Pa said. “One of the big tugs is down for repair, and they need me to tow coal in from a mine down in Fayette County. I'll be gone most of the week. Will you be all right?”

Ma shook her head. “Seems like everything goes wrong at once. Somebody's sick at the mill and they asked me to cover the swing shift for the rest of the week. Charlotte, can you manage here alone from four until midnight? I could get somebody to stay, but …”

“She won't be alone,” Robbie said. “I'll be here too. We aren't babies.”

“We'll be fine, Ma,” Charlotte said. “Betsy's right next door. Her ma will help if we need anything.”

Ma patted Charlotte's hand. “Thanks, honey. In spite of everything, we do have to keep going.”

Then Pa pointed to the packages. “I know this is a bad night. With a war on, we'll have some bad nights, no hiding from that. We've all got to hang on to each other to make it through the rough spots. But yesterday was a good day. I was very proud of both of you. So today I stopped by the store and … well, open them up.”

Robbie smiled a little as he lifted the box lid. He held up a white shirt with a square collar and a tie in the front. A boy-size Navy shirt. “Neat, Pa. It's like Jim's. Can I put it on right now?”

“Let Charlotte open hers first,” Ma said.

Charlotte slipped her box open. Inside, she saw tan cloth—a jacket with wide lapels and buttons. Underneath, she found a matching skirt. “Oh, Pa. It's a WAC suit? Really?” It was like a woman's Army uniform, but in her size. The Cussick twins had worn suits just like this to school last week, and Sophie Jaworski had bragged that her ma was buying one too. Last week Charlotte would have loved the suit, loved the chance to wear it before Sophie got one. But now it just made the war seem closer.

“Thanks, Pa,” she whispered. “It's really swell.”

Pa nodded. “I'll understand if you want to wait a few days …”

After supper was finally over and the kitchen clean, Charlotte sat in her room to study for a history test. The WAC uniform hung on the doorknob, sturdy and serious. A knock came at the door.

“Charlie, can I come in? It's important.”

“Sure, Robbie.” She set her book aside.

He stepped into her room, wearing his sailor shirt. He'd tied a square knot in the front, but it was crooked.

“You want me to fix that?”

“I guess.” He stood and fidgeted while she straightened the knot.

“There. You look like a real sailor,” she said.

He frowned at her, then took a deep breath. “I didn't really come about shirts or knots, Charlie. We have to go get more scrap, right away. I got my stitches out now.”

“Ma doesn't want us collecting scrap,” Charlotte warned.

“Ma doesn't have to know. Come on, Charlie. It's important. If we keep on collecting metal, maybe they can make a ship or a plane with it. So we can beat the Japs and the Germans. So Jim doesn't … you know.” He wouldn't look at her.

“The brown car?”

He nodded and sat next to her on the bed. He swung his legs. “We gotta do something, Charlie. We can't just sit around. If you won't help, I'll do it by myself.”

“You'll do what by yourself?”

“Promise not to tell.”

“I won't.”

“Okay. You know that pile of metal we saw from the
Rose
? I want to get it and take it to school.”

Charlotte's stomach tightened. “It was steep there. We'll never find that junk from the riverbank.”

“So what? We'll find it from the water then. Unless you're too scared. Unless you're such a chicken you'd rather sit home than help win this war.”

Charlotte winced. Was she a chicken? She didn't like the river, that wasn't news. But she had helped Pa rope in those barges. So maybe she could at least try to find the metal. “How about looking from the bank first? After school tomorrow? We'll ask Betsy to come along.”

“And your friend Paul. I like that guy,” Robbie said. “He knows about stitches and shots. Besides, he carried me—imagine how much junk he can lift.”

“I guess,” Charlotte said. “With Ma working the swing shift and Pa on a long haul, we could spend a while there. But don't wear your new shirt unless you want Ma to figure out what we're up to.”

Robbie saluted. “Aye, aye. Top secret. No uniforms.” He raced from her room and she heard his footsteps thumping up to the third floor.

As she stood to close her door, she ran her hand along the shoulder of the WAC uniform. In her mind, she heard again the voice of the President, calling for sacrifice on the home front.

“It is for them. It is for us. It is for victory.”

But how much will victory cost, she wondered. How many more brown cars?

“We can't go down there. It's too steep,” Charlotte said the next day after school. They'd trudged along the railroad tracks into North Braddock—upriver, past the mill, past the railroad bridge. Here the banks narrowed, with weeds and small trees clinging to the slope, a tumble of pale spring greens and golds. Instead of flats with houses, massive piles of limestone boulders guarded the water's edge. On the other side, a rocky hill seemed to climb straight out of the muddy Mon. She peered down through overgrown bushes toward the river, holding tight to a small tree so she wouldn't slip.

“But, Charlie, there's so much good stuff down there. And it's ours, if we just climb down and—”

“And what, buster? Get your other hand torn up? What do you want, a matched set? We aren't going down.”

Betsy gave Charlotte a hand and pulled her up higher where the bank flattened out. “Can't we do anything? There
is
a lot of metal down there. You can see it shine in the sun.”

Robbie grinned at Betsy, like she'd taken his side. “Yeah, Charlie. Can't we? Not everybody is a scaredy-cat. How about it, Paul?”

Paul Rossi had been standing to the side, studying the rocky wall that dropped down toward the river. He looked up when Robbie mentioned his name. “Your sister's right. We can't climb down this, and even if we could, we'd never be able to carry the stuff out. It's too steep.”

“So it's a dead end?” Charlotte sighed. Partly she was relieved, but there
was
a lot of scrap down there, metal for bombs or bullets.

Paul shook his head. “I didn't say it was a dead end. I just said we couldn't climb down. No reason we can't get in there with a boat.”

“If we had a boat,” Betsy said. “Charlotte's father has a tug, but he's away all week.”

“We don't need a tug,” Paul said. “I got a rowboat at home. Belongs to my brothers, but they'd let me use it. Especially for this.”

“But—” Charlotte began.

“Great! I knew we could do it!” Robbie shouted. “Let's go right now.”

“Wait a minute,” Charlotte said.

“Come on. Nobody's home. We won't get in trouble. I'm going with Paul, even if you aren't. So there.”

“I can't go,” Betsy said. “I promised my mother I'd get home in time to help with supper. I've got to hurry now or she'll holler.”

“Fine,” Robbie snapped. “You dumb girls just go home then. Me and Paul can—”

“Watch it, Robbie,” Paul said. “Betsy can't help it if her ma's expecting her home.” He looked at Charlotte, and she saw a challenge in his eyes.

“I'll come,” she said.

After Betsy left for home, Charlotte and Robbie followed Paul to his house. From a shed back in the alley, he hauled out a rowboat on a small wheeled trailer. Then he tossed in a pair of fishing poles.

“We're not going fishing,” Robbie said. “How come you're taking poles?”

Charlotte wondered the same thing, but she was glad Robbie'd been the one to ask.

“Never hurts to have fishing stuff along,” Paul said. He tugged on the trailer and pulled the boat toward the water. “Gives us a good excuse to be on the river. Before they went off to the war, my brothers used to row up and down near the banks and watch for girls. But they kept their fishing gear out so nobody would know what they were up to.”

“Girls? That's dumb,” Robbie said. “I'd rather catch fish. Even catfish are better than girls.”

Charlotte grinned. She pushed the rowboat from behind as they neared the tracks. The sun behind her sat low in the sky. The Rankin Bridge cast long, rippling shadows on the water, but it was still light enough that she could see to ease the rowboat into the river without slipping.