Voices at Whisper Bend (2 page)

As they turned the dominoes face-down and mixed them, Charlotte was still running the President's words over in her mind. He hadn't just talked about faraway battles; he'd spoken about people here at home, too. How they had to help the soldiers and sailors win the war. She spoke to Pa softly, so as not to bother Ma, who had pulled out her sewing basket and was threading a needle. “Mr. Roosevelt was talking about us tonight, Pa. How we all have to work hard and sacrifice.”

“Yep, that he was.”

“But, Pa, I don't understand. How can we help?”

Pa smiled at her. “Folks around here are already doing what they can. The mills are running night and day.”

“I know,” Charlotte sighed.

“And not just in Braddock,” Pa said. “Up and down the Mon valley, we're pouring more steel every day Makes a person proud.”

“I know, Pa,” Charlotte said again. “You're doing a lot, too. Running extra trips on the river so the mill won't run out of coke and coal and ore.” Charlotte glanced toward the sofa. “Even Ma, she's over there patching a dress so more cloth can go for uniforms, but …”

Pa took her chin in his hand. “What's bothering you, sweetheart?”

“What about me, Pa? Mr. Roosevelt said every man, woman, and child. I'm twelve. How can I help fight the war? Jim's doing so much …”

“You're already saving your money and buying defense stamps. And you've helped your ma plant a victory garden.”

“That's not enough.”

“Wait till summer comes. You'll be weeding and watering, you and your brother. And you can help Ma with the canning and pickling.” Pa reached into the boneyard for his seven dominoes.

“I did that before we went to war, Pa. I want to do something real.” Charlotte picked her dominoes and set them up, checking the faces.

Pa held up a domino and grinned. “Ah, I got double eights. Unless you got the nines …”

“No. You go first, Pa.” Charlotte sighed again. The only double she had was the double zero. Nothing. And that's about how useful she felt.

Before she went upstairs to bed, Charlotte stood beside the front window and looked out. Just another damp April night. She touched each point of the blue cloth star that hung in the window Jim's star. Ma had hung it up the day he left for the Navy, like every mother did who sent her son to war. But where was Jim now? How was he? Was it bedtime where he was, or morning? Dark or sunny?

With one finger, Charlotte planted a kiss on the top point of the star, just as she did every night at bedtime. “Good night, Jim. Wherever you are, sleep well.”

Upstairs, Charlotte pulled on her nightgown, but she didn't feel sleepy. The President's words and the wail of the air-raid siren still echoed in her mind. She stood near the window and looked outside again, across the backyards. Upriver, the sky glowed orange-gold from the furnaces of the Edgar Thomson. Straight ahead, she could see a small piece of the Monongahela. With all the rain, the water would turn brown and muddy, and the current would pick up.

Charlotte shivered as she remembered another time when the river had run fast, filled with spring rains. Sometimes it felt like only yesterday, instead of years ago, when she'd run too fast along Pa's wet deck and slipped into the Mon. She couldn't forget how that oily brown water had closed over her head and she'd sunk down, down, into murky nothingness. When she'd tried to open her mouth to call for help, cold, choking water had rushed in, ripping like icy knives into her lungs. But Jim had been there to fish her out. He and Pa had pounded her chest and got her breathing again. She'd been all right after that, except when the memory came back in the middle of the night.

Nights like that, she missed Jim the most. He'd been there, he understood—she could knock on his door and he'd listen and then tell her stories until she felt all right again.

She hugged her arms, suddenly missing Jim with a fierce, cold ache. Why did she still want to go cry on her big brother's shoulder? After all, hadn't the accident happened a long time ago? Hadn't she outgrown all that?

As far as the rest of her family knew, she was fine. And most of the time, she was. Most of the time, she figured she was just a cat, a critter that didn't much like the water. But a critter with nine lives. She'd used up one of her nine that spring day when she was five and slipped off the tug into the Mon.

Enough, Charlotte
, she scolded herself. She'd be as cranky as a cat if she didn't get to sleep soon. And there'd be that postponed history quiz first thing in the morning. A good grade would help her final report card. She climbed into bed and pulled the blankets up to her chin.
Warm and dry, I'm warm and dry
. Maybe if she said the words often enough, she'd believe them. She closed her eyes and waited for sleep.

In the night a dream came.

Charlotte sat up in bed, wide-awake and sweating as bits of the dream still clung to her mind. There she was in rough water, huge waves swelling and sinking all around. Through the darkness, she could see Jim balancing near a ship's rail. Then a lurch and a wash of seawater and Jim disappearing.

“Just a dream, a nightmare,” Charlotte whispered to herself. She wiped sweat from her face with a corner of the sheet and took a deep breath. But the palms of her hands still stung where she'd dug her fingernails in, trying to hold on to that phantom ship's rail, and trying without success to sight her older brother in the whirling black water.

C
HAPTER
2

S
CRAPPERS

The next morning Charlotte knelt in the damp grass, petting a pale gray cat. He was one of the dozens that belonged to old Mrs. Dubner, who lived next door in the corner house. The cat's fur was matted and rough with burrs. Charlotte pulled a couple out. “Looks like you had a bad night too, kitty,” she said. “Hope you didn't have bad dreams.”

“Hey Charlotte!” Betsy called from her doorway on the other side of Charlotte's house. Betsy hurried to the sidewalk, pulling on a sweater, her pale brown pigtails bouncing. “Sorry I'm late again. Why are you petting that nasty cat? He probably has fleas. He looks like he's been in a fight.”

“He just needs a good brushing,” Charlotte said. She stood and stepped carefully across a wide crack in the sidewalk. “Betsy, did your family listen to the President last night?”

“Sure. Everyone here at home's going to have to pitch in. I'm buying an extra war stamp this week. How about you?”

Charlotte shrugged. “Buying a measly war stamp doesn't seem like much. Not with what our brothers are doing.” They turned off Talbott and headed north, toward Braddock Avenue. Once they crossed Braddock, the climb would start, but for now the hill still lay in shadows, waiting to burn their leg muscles.

“We could lie about our age and get jobs at the mill,” Betsy suggested. She pulled her shoulders back. “We're both tall.”

Charlotte laughed. “They'd never believe us.”

“What about the Red Cross? They'd let us help.”

“Rolling bandages? Little old ladies do that.” Charlotte shook her head. She and Betsy crossed Braddock Avenue, passing by all the stores and businesses, and began the long uphill climb. “I wish we could do something interesting,” she continued. “Like being spies.”

“Are you kidding?” Betsy huffed as she spoke. She wasn't much of a climber.

“Come on, Bets. We could do it. Nobody would ever suspect a couple of kids. We could sneak places and overhear war secrets.”

Betsy shoved her shoulder. “You're nuts, Charlotte Campbell. What war secrets are we going to hear in Braddock, Pennsylvania? Nope, unless your brother can smuggle us onto a Navy ship and slip us into Germany or France, we're not going to hear anything more interesting than Mrs. Dubner swearing at her cats.”

Charlotte felt the familiar burn in the back of her calf muscles and picked up speed. The best way to make your legs stop aching was to get to school fast. She kicked at a stone and sent it flying across the street. “Mrs. Dubner does swear a blue streak. I caught Robbie using some of those words on Monday. Now he owes me.”

Betsy shook her head. “Ma says she's a disgrace to the neighborhood. If she'd just clean her yard and porch, she wouldn't have to holler. Those poor cats are always bumping into trash and knocking cans over.”

“She's old, Bets. And there's so much junk, it would take a whole company of soldiers to clean her place.” Something glinted on the sidewalk and Charlotte stooped to pick it up.

“What'd you find?”

“Nothing. Just a bottle cap.” She drew back her arm, ready to pitch it, then stopped stock-still. “Hold on a minute. Look at this.” She showed the cap to Betsy. “What's it made of?”

“I don't know. Steel? Tin, maybe. Why? What are you thinking up, Charlotte?”

Charlotte smiled. She tossed the bottle cap into the air and caught it. Then she polished its smooth silvery top on her skirt. “That's it. That's what we're going to do for the war.”

“Pick up bottle caps? Why? So we can throw them at the wicked Germans? That's about as dumb as being spies.”

Charlotte turned and pointed upriver toward North Braddock. Huge billows of black smoke drifted across the morning sky from the giant mill chimneys. “Look, Bets, they're making more steel every day. People are having scrap metal drives all over the country, so mills like the Edgar Thomson can melt down the old metal and pour new steel for ships and planes.”

“Scrap metal. Sure, we could collect that—steel and tin and aluminum! Charlotte, you're a genius.”

“We'll get our class to help. Mrs. Alexander will go for it. She's been making us write all those paragraphs about freedom and the USA.” Charlotte speeded her stride again. Uphill, the early bell rang.

“Slow down,” Betsy said. “You're always in such a hurry, Charlotte. We've got five minutes. This hill's a killer.”

“Come on, I want to talk to Mrs. Alexander right away. Before school starts.” Charlotte stuck the bottle cap into her skirt pocket. Maybe she was in a rush, but today she had a good reason.

“I'll hurry, but if I pass out on the sidewalk, you'd better pick me up.” Betsy's cheeks were red and she was huffing and puffing.

Charlotte's lungs burned too, but they only had a block left to walk. “I'll tell you what we'll be picking up. Old wheels and bent pots.”

“Sounds like work,” Betsy said. “But down by the river it wouldn't be so bad. You see a lot of old junk there. 'Course, we'd have to be careful. The banks can be steep.”

Steep and slippery. Charlotte shuddered. “I've got a better idea. We'll start our drive right in old Mrs. Dubner's back yard. Just you wait, Bets. We'll be the best scrappers in Braddock.”

Charlotte placed her right hand over her heart and recited the Pledge of Allegiance. On mornings like this one, when the President had just given a speech, it seemed like everybody stood a little straighter and spoke a little louder. Even her teacher wore a dark blue suit that looked military. Charlotte held her shoulders back the way Jim had taught her to do once he joined up. She wished that the flag hanging over the blackboard was bigger, and less faded.

Then Mrs. Alexander nodded for them to sit down. She perched on the edge of her desk. “Class, may I have your attention, please? Before we begin this morning's current events reports, Charlotte Campbell would like to speak to all of you.”

Heads turned. Charlotte's stomach did somersaults. She stood and cleared her throat. “Um, I guess you all heard the President last night. I'd like to do something for the war. Not just buy stamps. Betsy and I got an idea. We could start a metal drive, right here in Braddock. What do you think?”

Her cheeks burned. She slipped into her seat, fiddling with the bottle cap. Around the room she heard whispers. What would they say? Would they do it? Amazingly, most of the class liked her idea.

Then Sophie Jaworski raised her hand. “But what about lockjaw, Mrs. Alexander? You can get it from rusty metal.”

Charlotte rolled her eyes at Betsy. They both knew what really worried Sophie—getting dirty, or, heaven help her, breaking a fingernail.

“Good question, Sophie. We'll have to be very careful.”

Paul Rossi wanted to collect everything—rags, rubber, and paper, as well as metal—but Mrs. Alexander didn't agree. “Let's save something for the seventh and eighth graders to work on. I'll speak to their teachers. Now, on to current events.”

Several kids reported on the President's talk, which seemed odd to Charlotte. Every family in America listened, so why tell what people already knew?

Sophie Jaworski pulled her news from the fashion pages as usual. “Hemlines Go Up to Save Fabric for Our Soldiers.” It was war news, but barely. That girl!

When it was Paul Rossi's turn, he got out a newspaper clipping and read the headline. “‘Woman Found on Church Steps.' Did you see this?” he asked. “It was in the morning paper. They found a dead woman on the steps of St. Stanislas Catholic Church in Pittsburgh. She was wearing her nightgown and wrapped in a torn blanket. Nobody knows who she is. Nuts, isn't it? I've heard of people falling asleep in church, but this one never woke up.”