Why?: The War Years Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Come home to 26 FAIRMOUNT AVENUE!

  Also available in the

  26 FAIRMOUNT AVENUE series:

  26 Fairmount Avenue

  a 2000 Newbery Honor Book

  Here We All Are

  On My Way

  What a Year

  THE WAR YEARS:

  Things Will NEVER Be the Same

  I’m Still Scared

  G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS A division of Penguin Young Readers Group. Published by The Penguin Group. Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, NY 10014, U.S.A. Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4P 2Y3 (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.). Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England. Penguin Ireland, 25 St. Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd.). Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty Ltd). Penguin Books India Pvt Ltd, 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi - 110 017, India. Penguin Group (NZ), Cnr Airborne and Rosedale Roads, Albany, Auckland 1310, New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd). Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd, 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa. Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England.

  Copyright © 2007 by Tomie dePaola.

  All rights reserved.

  This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the publisher, G. P. Putnam’s Sons, a division of Penguin Young Readers Group, 345 Hudson Street, New York, NY 10014. G. P. Putnam’s Sons, Reg. U.S. Pat. & Tm. Off. The scanning, uploading and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials.

  13579108642

  First Impression

  eISBN : 978-1-440-68457-9

  http://us.penguingroup.com

  For all the families in the world who lost loved ones in those first days of WWII.

  Chapter One

  Mom and Dad had a New Year’s Eve party last night. Everyone had a good time even though we are at war. Mom let me stay up until midnight. We all stood around the radio waiting for the New Year to be announced. I remembered when our family had listened to the radio together just a few weeks before, when President Roosevelt said that the Japanese had bombed Pearl Harbor in Hawaii on December 7. That was the beginning of World War II for America.

  Tonight was different. We were listening to the crowds in Times Square in New York City. Every year, for a long time, a big ball covered with light-bulbs would fall down a big pole that was way up on the top of the New York Times building. Lots of people would fill the streets, shouting, “Nine, eight, seven . . .” We did the same

  We did the same thing at 26 Fairmount Avenue. “. . . six, five, four, three, two, one! Happy New Year!”

  We blew horns and other noisemakers that Uncle Charles and his girlfriend, Viva, had brought. They gave Buddy and Maureen and me party hats. (Of course, Maureen was in bed, but she’d wear her party hat all the next day.)

  Uncle Charles was not wearing an Army uniform like we thought he would. He found out that it would be a couple of months before he was “officially” in the Army. Buddy wore his new Boy Scout uniform, though.

  “I want to show everyone that I’m patriotic,” he said. I think that meant that he loves America. I wore a white shirt and a necktie.

  So many of our friends were there: Vinnie and his girlfriend, Queenie; Mickey Lynch; Mr. Bob Dowling and his girlfriend, Edna; Mr. Joe Suma and his girlfriend, Monnie; Carol Crane’s mother and father, Helen and Frank; and Roy and Yvonne Brooks. Carol Crane and Bobby Brooks, who was Buddy’s age, were there, too. Besides Uncle Charles and his girlfriend, Viva, some of our other relatives were there: Cousin Mabel and her husband, Bill Powers; Uncle Nick, my dad’s brother, and Aunt Loretta, his wife; and Mom’s cousin Ed Downey and his wife, Kay.

  Mom had made sandwiches with the crusts cut off. Dad had filled a big platter with Italian stuff that everyone liked. I helped Mom make celery stalks stuffed with cream cheese mixed with cherry juice and some others stuffed with cream cheese and green olives. All the grown-ups had drinks. We kids had Cokes with ice.

  “Well, we’re going to make sure that this will be a great party, because we won’t know about next year,” Mom told everyone.

  Then we heard the radio announcer say, “Happy 1942, radio listeners. The festivities from Times Square were especially crowded this year. The famous New Year’s Ball will be put in mothballs (that meant “in storage”) until the war is over. Let’s all hope that that is soon!”

  The Crane and Brooks families said good night and left.

  Buddy went upstairs. So, I was sent off to bed, too. Buddy was already asleep when I came into our bedroom to put my pajamas on.

  I could hear everyone still laughing and talking. I went down the hall and into the bathroom and brushed my teeth. When I finished, I crept out into the hall.

  I had a “secret” way of watching and listening to everything in the living room. I’d lie down on the hall floor above the top step of the stairs and peek through a little space between the top step and the ceiling. I could see everything and hear stuff, too. I’d be able to see anyone coming near the stairs, so I could sneak away and quietly run back to my room.

  Now the grown-ups sounded serious. They talked about the enemy bombers, and the draft, which meant that all young men would have to get a number from the local draft board, and if their number was called, they’d have to go into the Army. Someone said that there would be shortages of lots of things. Someone else, I think it was Cousin Mabel’s voice, said, “Oh, come on. This war won’t last long. You’ll see.”

  Suddenly I saw Mom coming toward the stairs. “I’m going to look in on Maureen,” she said. She almost caught me. I couldn’t get inside my room, so I turned around. I yawned and rubbed my eyes.

  “Tomie, what are you doing up?” Mom asked.

  “I have to go to the bathroom,” I said.

  “Well, make it snappy,” Mom said. “We have to get up early to go to church tomorrow. It’s a Holy Day.”

  Before I climbed into bed, I looked out the frosty bedroom window. It was so dark out there, with only a few streetlights lit. Even if people were still up, like at our house, you couldn’t see any lit windows in the houses because of all the blackout curtains we had to close every night so enemy planes wouldn’t see anything if they flew over.

  There was one more weekend before school started up again. It had snowed, so we kids would be able to spend some fun time sliding at Del Favaros’ field. Saturday, I’d be able to go down to Wallingford with Dad and Buddy to help out at Tom and Nana’s grocery store. Dancing School wouldn’t start until the next week. And of course on Sunday, after we had Sunday dinner, we’d go visit Tom and Nana at their house like we did almost every Sunday.

  Even though lots of things have changed because of the war, there are still some things that are just the same. I like that!

  Chapter Two

  While we were eating breakfast, my grandfather Tom called on the telephone and asked Dad to pick up some stuff at the Armour meatpacking place.
I had never been there before, but I knew that Tom got lots of meat for his store from Armour’s. Dad, Buddy, and I went into the office and Dad gave the lady behind the desk the list. She filled out some papers and stamped them with a thing that looked like the one the library used when we took out a book.

  “Mr. dePaola,” she said, “ask for Jerry. He handles Mr. Downey’s account, so he knows the kind of quality Mr. Downey likes. Go right through these doors.”

  “Bundle up, boys,” Dad said. “It’s going to be cold in there.”

  Dad pulled my hat down over my ears. We went through a set of double doors and Dad rang a doorbell.

  A big door clanked open and cold air and steam rushed out at us. The door shut with a thud. We were in a very large room that was icy cold. I could see my breath. The floor was covered with sawdust, and hanging from hooks on the walls and ceiling were big pieces of meat.

  “The big ones are called ‘sides of beef,’” Dad explained. “Those over there are lamb, and way over there is the pork.”

  Big barrels filled with slabs of corned beef, pickled pigs’ feet and other weird-looking stuff were scattered around the room. Some of the men, called butchers, were cutting the big sides of meat into halves or smaller pieces at thick wooden tables.

  “Hi, I’m Jerry,” said a man wearing a white coat over his overcoat. He had on a hat, earmuffs, and heavy shoes. All the men were dressed the same.

  “This is just like Tom’s walk-in cooler at the store,” Buddy whispered. “Only it’s lots bigger.”

  Jerry looked through the big sides of beef hanging from the ceiling. He lifted one down and put it on one of the wooden tables. It was almost as big as Dad.

  He made some marks on it, then took it to a big electric saw. Another man helped him. They sawed the beef in half the long way and then sawed one of the halves into two pieces. They wrapped both pieces in the same white paper Tom used in the store. They taped both packages shut and wrote “Downey” on them with a black crayon like Tom’s.

  Jerry looked over the lamb. He grabbed one and wrapped it up without sawing it in pieces. Then he fished out some slabs of corned beef from the barrel and wrapped them in several layers of paper so the package wouldn’t leak. Finally he pulled some pigs’ feet from their barrel and put them in a large cardboard tub.

  “Why don’t you move your car around back and we can load it right up,” Jerry told Dad.

  “Sonny,” Jerry said, looking at me, “be sure to watch your grandfather turn all this meat into steaks and lamb chops. He’s a real artist! Maybe you’ll grow up to be a butcher, too,” he added.

  “My name is Tomie,” I said. “I am going to be an artist when I grow up, only an artist with paints and crayons and stuff.”

  “Well, good for you. Be sure to tell Mr. Downey that Jerry said hello. Oops. I almost forgot the case of frankfurters.”

  It took only a half hour to get to Wallingford. We pulled into the big parking lot behind the store and went in the back door. Dad, Buddy, Uncle Charles, and Tom unloaded the car.

  Tom opened the door to the walk-in cooler. I peeked inside. Chickens ready for cooking were hanging from hooks on the walls, next to a couple of sides of beef and lamb. There was a barrel just like at Armour’s filled with corned beef, and tubs of pigs’ feet. Cases of frankfurters filled the shelves against the wall. Near the door was another barrel with a large fork tied to it. Tom fished into the barrel and brought up a big juicy dill pickle.

  “Here’s a tip for you, me bucko,” Tom said. “Go sit down at the desk and eat it before you get to work.”

  I had three jobs. The first was to stand on the counter and put cans of vegetables on the shelves.

  “Nice and neat, with the labels facing out,” Nana said.

  Next, because I had good handwriting, I had to mark the cans that were ON SALE with the special price. I used one of Tom’s black crayons. Then I stacked them up on a table, just like my wooden blocks.

  My third job was the most fun. I had to pick the best potatoes from the big basket and put them into bags, four or five in each, depending on the size. Next, I tied up the bags the way Nana showed me, with the string that was above the scale. Then I weighed them and wrote very clearly how much they weighed.

  Meanwhile, Buddy and Dad helped Uncle Charles “put up” the orders. “Four cans of Del Monte peas for Mrs. Lahey. Two bags of potatoes. One head of cabbage.” The last thing to go in each order was the meat. “A nice fat roasting chicken, two pounds of ground chuck, one pound of liverwurst, and a nice soup bone,” Nana would announce to Tom, who was always behind the meat counter at the back of the store.

  The orders lined the counter, waiting for the packages of meat. Once the boxes were all set, they were put in the back of my grandfather’s black Ford truck and Uncle Charles and Buddy would deliver them. Dad put some orders in the trunk and on the backseat of his car. He would go by himself to deliver them.

  Nana said I was too small to go. I think she was afraid I’d sing one of my songs at every house, “just like Cousin Morton did when he was your age.”

  While the morning orders were being delivered, I had my lunch. I picked out one of my favorite “cold cuts,” which was what we called bologna, luncheon loaf, salami, boiled ham, and stuff like that. Nana would make me a sandwich with “Iowa State butter,” “Cains mayonnaise,” and “French’s mustard.” They were her favorites.

  If Tom made my sandwich, he would use his favorites—“Land O’Lakes butter,” “Hellman’s mayonnaise” and “Gulden’s mustard.” Tom would always give me another dill pickle from the pickle barrel.

  For dessert, I’d have a Mrs. Frisbie’s “nickel” pie. It was about four inches wide and was usually apple, cherry, or peach. Mrs. Frisbie’s bakery was in Bridgeport. They made two sizes of pies, the small nickel ones and the regular eight-inch ones. They were in metal pie plates and came in waxed paper bags. The pies actually cost six cents, but you got a penny back when you returned the “nickel” size plate. I don’t know how much you got back when you returned the big pie plate. We NEVER had a Mrs. Frisbie’s pie for our family dessert, only a small pie when we worked at the store.

  I ate my lunch at the big rolltop desk in the back of the store. Then I watched Tom work at his “butcher table,” cutting up lamb chops and steaks and—my favorite thing to watch—cleaning the chickens.

  Tom had given me chicken feet to take home as a joke. He showed me how to loosen the tendon on each foot and to pull it. When I did, the chicken foot opened and closed as if it were alive. I was forbidden to take chicken feet to school. I did once and scared a teacher. That was the end of that!

  When Buddy, Dad, and Uncle Charles got back, there were some more orders to put up. Once that was done, Dad would deliver them in Tom’s truck.

  Uncle Charles would take us up the street to Charlie’s Smoke Shop. On the way we’d stop off and say hello to his girlfriend, Viva. She worked at Gallagher Brothers Coal and Oil Company on Saturdays. Then, we’d go into Charlie’s and Buddy and I could each pick out five comic books.

  Buddy’s favorites were Superman, Batman, The Green Hornet, Dick Tracy, Buck Rogers, Joe Palooka, comics like that! MY favorites were Little Lulu, The Pie-faced Prince of Pretzelburg, Fairy Tale Parade, Classic Comics , Mickey Mouse, Nancy, and other funny comics. It would be a while before I liked adventure comics.

  Finally, it was time to get ready to go home. Nana had put up our order and Tom had wrapped our chicken and meat for the week. Sometimes he’d draw pictures on the packages. It was always fun to open everything up when we got home.

  I’d think to myself, I wonder what kind of butter we got this week, Iowa State or Land O’Lakes? We usually got both. I think Tom would sneak the Land O’Lakes into our box without Nana knowing.

  “Well, Timothy,” Tom said to me as we were leaving (he gave me two nicknames—me bucko and Timothy), “you tell your mom that next year, you have your dancing lesson after school. I like you here helping me out. Why, I might
even teach you to clean chickens! See you tomorrow.” (We always went to Tom and Nana’s house on Sunday.) “We’ll go to Mr. Foote’s and get ice cream.”

  Not a single person had even mentioned the war.

  Chapter Three

  “Boys.” It was Mom standing in the doorway.

  I closed my diary and sat up in bed. Buddy groaned and rolled over.

  “The morning paper says that parents should make sure their children will be dressed extra warm this morning. The schools will be using less coal while we are at war. So the heat will be lowered and it will be colder in your classrooms. Tomie, you wear that green zip-up sweater over your shirt and undershirt. Buddy, you’re old enough to decide for yourself. Come down as quickly as you can so you can have a good breakfast.”

  Buddy was always slower than I was in the morning. So by the time I washed up and went back to the bedroom to dress, Buddy’s feet were just hitting the floor. The smell of pancakes was in the air. I dressed quickly and ran downstairs.

  Sure enough, there on the table was a stack of pancakes and a pitcher of Log Cabin maple syrup. Mom put three on my plate, buttered them (was it Iowa State or Land O’Lakes?), and put the syrup in front of me.

  “Don’t use up all the syrup, now. Leave enough for Buddy,” Mom told me.

  Maureen was already in her high chair, eating a pancake with her fingers.