Isabel’s War Read Online Free PDF

dummy. And very sarcastic, too.”
    Since Ruthie and I aren’t exactly on the best of terms at the moment—and she has to take her little tykes off to the playground (two rope swings and a bumpy slide) after their naps—I go slouching off to the deserted social hall to practice piano. It’s the best way I can think of to avoid waking Helga, who’s supposed to be sleeping or at least resting.
    I wish I didn’t have such mixed feelings about Helga. It’s stupid of me, of course, to be angry with her because of Roy. It isn’t her fault that she ran into an unfriendly dog and that Roy came to her rescue. And it isn’t her fault that there’s a war on in which she’s one of the victims, so that in this small world up at Moskin’s, people are centering their feelings of sympathy on her.
    I’ve been practicing my Czerny exercises for twenty minutes or so, when I hear a step behind me.
    â€œOh, I thought I heard tinkling noises in here.”
    I turn around. It’s Mrs. F. She’s changed out of her colorful playsuit and is wearing an orange blouse and a tan walking skirt. “I just looked in on Helga,” she reports. “She’s up and about and says she’s well enough to go into town for our little shopping trip. I told her I’d asked you to come along and she seemed very pleased. Are you ready, Isabel?”
    It’s about half a mile from Moskin’s to Harper’s Falls along a rutted dirt road studded with stones and tree roots. Most of the guests at Shady Pines walk to town, but because of Helga’s wounded ankle, her uncle will drive the four of us in. As I soon learn, my mother is coming along, too. The only good thing about that is that maybe, maybe, she’ll buy me the pair of dungarees that I’ve been yearning for.
    As soon as we are in town, it’s pretty noticeable thatthe war has come to Harper’s Falls and changed it from a sleepy country village to a place of bustling activity. Banners in support of the war effort are flung across Main Street, and there is now a Red Cross center and a blood bank. Even the sleepy old railroad depot behind the five-and-ten seems to have come alive with announcements of extra trains daily.
    We’re dropped off at the town’s so-called “department store,” which is really just a single-story building, nothing at all like Macy’s or the other real department stores in New York City with their elevators and escalators to take shoppers to the upper floors filled with endless amounts of merchandise.
    â€œDungarees, hmm?” says the salesperson who I’ve rushed to approach as we walk in the door. She’s a short, stocky country woman, probably the wife of the owner. “We had a few pairs back in the spring. Might be some left. But there’s not much of a choice of sizes.”
    â€œWhat’s this all about?” my mother wants to know, as the saleswoman goes off to check the stockroom.
    â€œNothing, nothing,” I reply. “They probably don’t have any.” I figure there’s no use getting into an argument over something that may not exist. Meantime, Mrs. F. has led Helga over to the resort clothing to look at playsuits, halters, shorts, slacks, and cotton skirts.
    Helga hops around on one leg inspecting the garments that her aunt takes off the counter or the rackto suggest to her. “Such bright colors,” Helga murmurs.
    â€œExactly,” says Mrs. F. “We don’t have to hide ourselves in camouflage here in America. You’re safe here, Helga, safe at last. But keep in mind that the selection will get smaller and smaller as the war goes on and there will be shortages of material, even of buttons and zippers, of everything.”
    â€œThat’s true,” says the saleswoman who went to search for my dungarees. “Buy now. Our stock of everything is running low.” She’s holding something made