Songs of Willow Frost Read Online Free PDF Page A

once again.
    “That’s her,” William whispered to Charlotte. Then he looked across the room to Sunny, who stared back and gave him a thumbs-up as a piano played on the radio and Willow began singing “Dream a Little Dream of Me.”
    “This is so booooring,” a boy said from across the room. “Somebody get up and change the station to KJR.”
    “Yeah, let’s listen to The Shadow ,” someone else chimed.
    “The Shadow knows this is boring,” another boy teased.
    “Don’t touch the radio,” William blurted. “Please!”
    “Hey, you heard this already this afternoon …”
    “I want to hear her too,” Charlotte said, waving her cane.
    Dante was about to touch the dial when William leapt to his feet, his heart racing as he shoved him out of the way. Dante tripped over a footstool and tumbled noisily to the floor. Some of the boys laughed, a few of the girls too.
    “Hey!” Dante wailed as tears welled in his eyes. “What’d’cha do that for?”
    William stood in front of the speaker, listening intently, his heart pounding.
    “William Eng!”
    He didn’t need to turn around. He recognized Sister Briganti’s voice immediately. She must have stirred awake in all the commotion. William glanced over his shoulder and saw her looking at her wristwatch, then at everyone who hadn’t yet gone to bed.
    “William—come here!” she snapped. “The rest of you—upstairs.”
    He felt her pinch his elbow as she dragged him away from Charlotte, away from the radio to the foyer. Sister Briganti opened the door to the cloakroom, smacked him on the head, and shoved him inside.
    “If you can’t behave, we’ll have to separate you from the rest …”
    “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it,” he protested. “I just wanted to listen to the radio a little bit longer—you have to let me hear the radio.” I need to hear Willow Frost .
    Sister Briganti paused and rubbed her forehead as though considering his plea, but then she slammed the door. William stared down at the sliver of light beneath the door and at the glimmer from the keyhole. It too went dark as he heard a key being inserted and turned, locking him in for the night. He felt for the back wall, found it, and slumped down, coming to rest on a pile of old shoes and galoshes. The entire closet smelled of wool coats, wet leather, and mothballs. He banged his head against the wall until he heard the radio fading in and out as the announcer was interviewing Willow again.
    “And so you grew up just north of here,” the announcer said.
    “I did, I grew up in Washington—in Seattle’s Chinatown, but I left years ago,” she said. “I never thought I’d go back, not in a million years.”
    “And why is that?”
    William strained to listen as she paused. He waited in the darkness, eyes wide open, his ear to the door, hearing the tatter of rain lashing the building.
    “I … I didn’t have any reason to, I guess. I didn’t have a reason to stay.”
    The volume faded as Sister Briganti turned the radio off with a disappointing click, then the lights. William heard footsteps in the dark as she trudged upstairs.

Alone Together
    (1934)
    Like most of the boys, William had spent a night or two in the cloakroom. Sometimes it was warranted, like the time Sister Briganti caught him pitching pennies in the chapel. Other times it was merely a case of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. But as far as punishments went, spending a night in the closet wasn’t as bad as being locked in the boiler room, which was hot, even in winter, and redolent of the fiery, sulfuric Hell the sisters warned everyone about. And the place was so noisy that no one could hear you cry or scream. William remembered that Sunny had once been caught fighting and spent three days locked up down there. Sunny never threw another punch, not even when the two boys were working on an old crystal radio kit donated by the Boy Scouts and Dante walked by, flipped the box over, and said, “I’ve