Read Online Alice At The Home Front by Mardiyah A. Tarantino - Free Book Online

the cat; that’s their job—not just fires, they do all kinds of things. Why do you think people pay taxes? So the firemen will save their cats! Okay, Gladys, I’ll see ya Monday. Thanks for calling.”
    The rest of the afternoon, Alice pasted the one-dollar war bond stamps she’d received for Christmas into her savings book but was short three dollars from having enough for a bond. Prudy Wainright had a dozen bonds already, but she was “a spoilt child,” Mother said.
    That night at dinner, while Mother and Gramp finished off the bit of roast chicken that was left, Alice sat with a plate of vegetables—yucky broccoli, mushy turnips, and upchucky carrots—and moved them around from one side of the plate to the other, like toy soldiers that had lost a battle.
    “I’m sure the crow is enjoying your share of the meat tonight,” said Mother—cruelly, Alice thought.
     

    * * *
     
    Alice hadn’t told Gladys the whole story of what had really happened the week before. Only about the cat, because it was funnier and would make Gladys laugh. What had really happened, a week before that, Alice would never forget. That time, she was the one out the window.
    She was focusing the binoculars despite the bad weather when a sudden gust of wind snatched her logbook from her dormer window and blew it clear away, down along the roof to the gutter. Alice saw it lying there, soaking up the freezing rain, the ink fading fast. She was sure all of her notes little by little were being washed away in the downpour. Alice watched crestfallen while the wind whipped the pages of the book back and forth. Another burst of wind would tear them out in no time. All of her work would be lost—all of those months of note-taking wiped out! She had to retrieve it, so she grabbed the side of the window and climbed out onto the roof. Immediately she was almost blown over by the fierce gusts, and she realized the slippery leather soles of her shoes would never keep her from falling. Whipped by the wind, she lost her grip on the windowsill and began rapidly slipping down the roof toward the gutter.
    Terrified, half crouching, she reached and grabbed at the edge of some shingles, barely able to get hold of them. While the wind blasted at her face, she lay on her belly and hung on to the shingles. But a minute later they broke away in her hand, and she slid down farther. She cried, “Mother! Gramp!” with a whiney little voice no one could hear, because it was whipped away in the wind. Hoping her clothes would provide some resistance against a fall, she twisted herself up, both her hands reaching blindly around, her fingers scraped and bleeding, searching, grabbing what they could find. Then a stronger gust of wind tore at her clothes, and she slid down inches closer to the edge. Terrified, she realized that when she reached the gutter, it would break away. It would be too weak to hold her, even if she could get a foothold. Now, sobbing and crying, she was sliding down again until her feet touched down on the flimsy metal. She heard a crack and felt the unsteady sway of it under her weight. She screamed. She heard the sound of an engine through the wind and rain, but there was nothing she could do now but to stay absolutely still so the gutter under her toes, which was swaying with each gust, would not give away—would not collapse at any minute taking her plunging to the ground below.
    From the corner of her eye, she could see the book being lifted into the air by the wind and flying off like a wounded bird over the roof and out of sight. Alice didn’t want to hold on any longer then because what was the point? She might as well let go. She was about to do just that when a head with a steel helmet on it come into sight, and a fireman quickly lifted her up and carried her down the ladder and into the eager arms of both Mother and Gramp. It was Gramp who handed her the logbook, soaking but still readable, and said to Alice with a smile, “Might ye be