Read Online Isabel’s War by Lila Perl - Free Book Online Page A

turkey roasters to help build an airplane for Arnold to fly for the Air Force. But tinfoil...really.
    After a while, Sibby and I get tired of window-shopping and climb up one hilly street and down another toward home. The war might mean shorter skirts and even the possibility of two-piece bathing suits come next summer, but it’s not really a bright side.
    My parents and I still haven’t heard from Arnold. He seems to have vanished into thin air. Sibby and her mother still haven’t had a letter from her father in the Merchant Marine. And even the post cards I’ve sent to Ruthie and Helga up at Shady Pines, apologizing for our sudden departure, haven’t earned a reply.
    â€œ Je souffre ,” I tell Sibby as I follow her into the darkened lobby of our building, “ d’un grand malaise .”
    She whirls around and stares at me. “ Malaise, malaise . What’s that supposed to mean? Honestly, Izzie, you are so dramatic. Do you always have to suffer in French? Can’t you just say what you feel in English?”
    I scowl back at my closest friend (for the time being). “There is no word in English for malaise . It’s sadder than sad and yet, as Miss Le Vigne says, it’s very vague, like an ‘enveloping mist’.”
    Sibby turns her head and starts up the stairs to her apartment on the second floor. “Forget about Miss Le Vigne. Sixth grade is over, remember? I’ll see you injunior high next Monday. If you can come down from your high horse by then, Mademoiselle .”
    It’s scary, but a huge relief to be setting off for our first day at Samuel S. Singleton Junior High School in the Bronx on a rainy September morning. Sybil is over her “mad” at me for being what she calls “a French-speaking snob” and I’m being careful to keep my lip zipped when it comes to using la langue .
    Besides, there’s so much else to think about. Kids who already go to Singleton make fun of it by calling it “Simpleton.” But it’s still a big step up from elementary school and a lot more complicated. Even though each class will have a home-room teacher, we’ll march off to different classrooms for all our subjects. Sibby and I may see each other only a few times during the day. We may not even have the same lunch hour. I’ll have to make new friends and get used to five or six new teachers.
    The first thing that happens is that we find out our home-room teacher is a man, Mr. Jeffers. He’s tall and skinny with poppy eyes and pale skin, a little strange, but he seems harmless. Sybil and I have never had a male teacher, so this is quite a shock. “What,” she whispers to me, across our desks, “if we have a sanitary-napkin problem?”
    I know she’s referring to Miss Haverford in sixth grade, who kept sanitary materials in her supply closet,especially for girls who got their first period while they were in school. No embarrassing trips to the school nurse while the whole class was watching.
    â€œHow old do you think he is?” I ponder softly. “If he’s between eighteen and thirty-five he’s draft age. So what’s he doing here?”
    â€œ4-F? He’s pretty pasty-faced.”
    â€œYoung ladies,” Mr. Jeffers calls out with surprising authority. Sybil and I button up and we stay that way.
    Sure enough, it turns out we don’t have the same lunch hour. Who knows why schools do those things? Sibby’s is early. Mine is late. Maybe it’s because of my French class. The first person I see when I enter the cafeteria is Sue Ellen Porter, so I sit down with her and a few other familiars from elementary school. Where are all those new faces from other schools, and those thirteen-and fourteen-year-old eighth and ninth graders I’ve been hoping for?
    Sue Ellen, although she has a pretty face with perfect baby-doll features, has gotten even more blubbery over the summer. So I