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

don’t think it’s a good idea to open the conversation by asking her what she thinks of the new short “victory” skirts and the prospect of two-piece bathing suits.
    I slip my tray down next to hers and blurt out rather abruptly, “My brother just went into the Air Force.”
    â€œOh,” says Sue Ellen, her china-blue eyes mistingover, “mine is in the Marines. How long do you think this awful war will last?”
    It’s been a confusing day—so many teachers that I can hardly keep them apart except for Mr. Jeffers with his library-paste complexion and black panda eyes. And I haven’t even had my intermediate French class yet because it only meets twice a week.
    â€œIsabel, I’m on the phone,” my mother calls out in a warning voice as she hears the door into the foyer click shut.
    Automatically, I tiptoe past the hall table where my mother is seated and head for my room, dump my new school books on the bed, curl over onto my side, and vigorously bicycle my knees into the air in an attempt to push away the past six hours.
    â€œTerrible, oh terrible,” I hear my mother muttering into the phone. “When did the pain begin? You must have been beside yourself. Do you really trust this doctor to do the surgery? Six to eight weeks of recovery time. You poor thing. You know, of course, that I’ll do anything I can to help...”
    I’ve begun to pay attention to my mother’s conversation. This can’t be about Arnold. Her tone would be entirely different if anything had happened to my brother. It sounds more like one of her women friends. They’re always having operations, it seems, for onedisastrous-sounding thing or another—dropped wombs, weak bladders, bleeding fibroids—mysterious ailments known as “women’s troubles.”
    I begin to hover around the telephone because I want to complain about my weird home-room teacher, the horse-faced gym teacher who won’t let us do tumbling, French class only two times a week, and not having lunch hour with Sybil.
    But my mother keeps shaking her head and waving me away. “You know I would do that for you,” she says into the phone, nodding decisively. “No, it’s not too much trouble and it can go on as long as it needs to. Of course, it will be fine with Harold. Look, there’s a war on. We all have to do what we can for each other. Don’t give it another thought. Tonight, tomorrow, whatever is good for you. I’ll talk to you later and we’ll make final arrangements. Take care of yourself and don’t worry. Yes, I’ll tell her. She’ll be delighted.”
    The phone goes firmly back on its cradle and my mother looks up at me with a stern expression.
    â€œWhat’s happening?” I demand. Since those last two brief sentences I feel as though something is crawling on me. “ Who are you going to tell? Wh o will be delighted? Who was that on the phone?”
    â€œHarriette Frankfurter,” my mother declares, getting to her feet. “She’s seriously ill. Must go to the hospital for a long stay. Helga needs a home for the time she’s away.Her uncle travels on business, you know.”
    â€œOh,” I say, dragging myself across the hall into the kitchen. “Helga. I might have known it. She didn’t even answer my postcard. That’s how much she cares about us. Now she wants to come and live here, forever I suppose.”
    â€œShe doesn’t want to do anything of the sort, Isabel. What would you like the Frankfurters to do? Send her back to England or, even better, Germany?” My mother bangs her fist on the white porcelain table and it makes a sickly clanging noise that brings me to my senses.
    â€œWhere would she go to school if she lived with us?” I muse. “Would she go to ‘Simpleton’ Junior High? If they took her in, she’d be a ninth-grader...”
    â€œWell, of course,