Read Isabel’s War for Free Online Page A

toilet.”
    Aha , I think to myself. So that’s where Helga and Roy had their romantic rendezvous tonight, in the rough wooden building that is used by the annex guests. In a flash I can see them standing together in the damp-smelling shower room with its handful of stalls and its slimy floor and walls. If that’s really where they hid out during Roy’s visit, that’s pretty pathetic.
    On the other hand, I’m burning with curiosity. Did they just sit on the flimsy wooden stools and talk to each other? Did Roy hold Helga’s hand and stroke her face? Did he embrace her; did he kiss her? Was Helga already crying when they parted?
    Will I ever know? When I look down at Helga again, she’s thrown her head back on the pillow, one arm is flung across her face, and she’s as silent as if she’s fallen into a deep sleep.

Five
    Every morning after breakfast, my father and some of the other male guests at Moskin’s walk into Harper’s Falls to pick up their newspapers, so they can keep up with the war news. They call this exercise their “constitutional.” Afterwards they return to Moskin’s and sit on the porch all morning discussing the latest reports and chewing on their cold cigar butts from the night before.
    I’m sitting nearby struggling with my knitting because it’s too cool to go for a swim this early. “Leave it to the Marines,” my father rumbles with an air of authority, as he rustles his newspaper. “Those boys finally held off a Jap ground attack on Guadalcanal. They don’t come any tougher than that.”
    One of my dad’s cronies reminds him that the Japanese are still way ahead of the game. “So what? Have you any idea how many American prisoners of war they’ve taken? And what about those Jap air attacks and those Jap submarines in the Pacific?”
    â€œAahh.” My father waves his stale cigar in the air. “That’s the kind of defeatist talk that’s bad for the war effort.”
    It’s a relief when I see Ruthie approaching on the lawn that slopes up toward the main house of Shady Pines, and I skip down the porch steps to meet her. I honestly don’t see how anybody can keep this war straight in their head. There are so many “fronts”. . .which I guess is why they call it a “World War”...the second one since the first World War. There’s the Pacific front where we’re fighting the Japanese who attacked Pearl Harbor in Hawaii in December 1941. There’s Europe, where Nazi Germany has scooped up one country after another. There’s the Russian front, where the Germans are still in a fight to take over Russia and are now waging a big battle at Stalingrad. And there are also German armies fighting in North Africa to keep us from trying to invade southern Europe. I know that much from listening to my father’s pronouncements about how important it is to support the war effort (and why I’d better stop whining about having my nose fixed, or else...).
    â€œWhere’s Helga this morning?” Ruthie wants to know.
    It’s been a few days now since Helga’s midnight rendezvous with Roy, about which I’ve told Ruthie and only Ruthie.
    â€œMrs. F. took her into town to have the doctor check on her leg.” I’m still carrying my knitting needles and my ball of yarn. I’ve got about two inches of my soldier’s muffler done, but it looks like Swiss cheese and willprobably have to be ripped out when Mrs. F. gets back.
    â€œShe still hasn’t said anything about what happened that night?” Ruthie asks. “Does she ever make any sounds in her sleep?”
    â€œHow should I know?” Most of the time, I’m sleeping, too. “But I can tell you for sure that she’s mooning over him. And I know he gave her his address in the Navy so she could write to him. She probably will, too, if she hasn’t