CHAPTER 14
•August 1918•
Willa
Today it is too hot to do anything.
Evie said she’d take me to the park later if I want to go, but it’s too hot to even do that.
If Flossie was home her mother would probably take us to their friend’s house. They’re rich and they have a swimming pool. We could spend the whole day in that pool, and it wouldn’t bother us how hot it was. That would sure be better than sitting here in the house, making paper fans out of catalog pages. But Flossie had to go with her family to Ohio because her cousin died. He was a soldier in the army, and he got sick and died. They brought his dead body back from France all dressed up in his uniform.
I have seen lots of dead bodies since we moved here. Probably ten.
I’d sure like to go downstairs where it’s cooler, but Uncle Fred has some of his secret people over for a lunch meeting and they are talking about secret things and I am not allowed to come down until they are gone. Mama and Maggie are downstairs, in the Elm Bonning Room, but Evie and I are stuck up here.
I asked Evie what Uncle Fred and his friends are talking about down there and she said it’s just war talk. I’ve been listening at the grate to what they are saying and it doesn’t sound like it’s about the war. Right now they are talking about a raid at a dance hall where five hundred slackers were arrested.
I don’t even know what slackers are or why they aren’t allowed to dance. Wars and dances are two different things.
It’s so hot I don’t care what slackers are and why they’re not supposed to be dancing and why that has anything to do with the war in France.
I wish Flossie’s cousin hadn’t died. If he hadn’t, Flossie would be here instead of in Ohio and I wouldn’t be stuck upstairs with Evie. I’d be with Flossie and we’d be splashing and swimming and pretending we are mermaids.
