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defense,” suggested Miss Tredgold, who was
furiously knitting socks for the boys back home. “Just in
case the Germans decide to attack us.”
    “They wouldn’t
dare,” said Florentyna.
    The day Leon
Trotsky was slain with a pickaxe in Mexico, Miss
Tredgold kept the paper away from her charge, while on another morning she was
quite unable to explain what nylons were and why the first 72,000 were sold out
in eight hours, the shops limiting the sale to two pairs per customer.
    Miss Tredgold,
whose legs were habitually clad in beige lisle stockings of a shade
optimistically entitled “Allure,” studied the item frowningly.
    “I’m sure I
shall never wear nylons,” she declared, and indeed she never did.
    When Election
Day came, Florentyna’s head was crammed with facts and figures, some of which
she did not understand, but they gave her the confidence to feel she would win.
The only problem that still concerned her was that Edward was bigger than she
was. Florentyna imagined that this was a definite advantage as she had read
that twenty-seven of the thirty-two Presidents of the United States had been
taller than their rivals.
    The two
contestants tossed a newly minted Jefferson nickel to decide the order of
speaking. Fiorentyna won and chose to speak first, a mistake she never made
again in her life. She walked to the front of the class, a frail figure, and
mindful of Miss Tredgold’s final words of advice – ” Stand
up straight, child. Remember you’re not a question mark” – she stood bolt
upright in the center of the raised wooden platform in front of Miss Evans s
desk and waited to be told she could begin. Her first few sentences came
choking out. She explained her policies for ensuring that the nation’s finances
remained stable while at the same time promising to keep the United States out
of the war. “There is no need for one American to die because the nations of
Europe cannot stay at peace,” she declared a sentence from one of Mr.
Roosevelt’s speeches that she had learned by heart. Mary Gill started to
applaud, but Florentyna took no notice and went on talking while, at the same
time, pushing her dress down nervously with damp hands. Her last few sentences
came out in a great rush, and she sat down to a lot of clapping and smiles.
    Edward
Winchester rose to follow her, and a few of the boys from his class cheered him
as he walked up to the blackboard. It was the first time Florentyna realized that
some of the votes had been decided even before the speeches began. She only
hoped that was true for her side as well. Edward told his.classmates that
winning at kickball was the same as winning for your country, and in any case
Willkie stood for all the things that their parents believed in. Did they want
to vote against the wishes of their fathers and mothers? Because
if they did support FDR they would lose everything. This line was
greeted with a splutter of applause, so he repeated it. At the end of his
speech, Edward was also rewarded with claps and smiles, but Florentyna
convinced herself they were no louder or wider than hers had been.
    After Edward had
sat down, Miss Evans congratulated both candidates and asked the twenty-seven
voters to take a blank page from their notebooks and write down the name of
Edward or Florentyria, according to who they felt should be President. Pens
dipped furiously into inkwells, scratched across paper. Voting slips, were
blotted, folded, and then passed forward to Miss Evans. When the teacher had
received the last one, she began to unfold the little rectangles and place them
in front of her in separate piles, a process that seetried to take hours. The
whole clacssroom remained silent throughout the count, which in itself was an
unusual event. Once Miss Evans had completed the unfolding, she counted the
twenty-seven sheets of paper slowly and carefully, and then double-checked
them.
    “The result of
the mock election” – Florentyna held her breath – ”