And none of us can answer her.
The door to our classroom opens, and Miss Darby steps inside. Shetells us all classes have been canceled until further notice and that we are to head straight home. She admonishes us as we gather our things to work on our lessons on our own, but no one is listening to her. The only time school has ever been closed for more than a day was for a blizzard.
Ruby turns to me. “Do you think we’re all going to die?” Her voice is but a whisper and her brown eyes are wide with worry.
But I don’t get a chance to answer her. Her brother calls her name from the entrance to our classroom and tells her to come. Their mother is waiting outside to take them home.
When I step outside, I feel numb, like I’m in the middle of a dream. A little voice is telling me I need to hurry along to Willa’s end of the school so that I can walk her home. But I just stand there on the street corner for a few minutes as classmates and parents rush by to get away. Some of the adults are pressing handkerchiefs to their noses and mouths. One man whisks past a streetcar signpost and aNo Spitting!sign peels away from it at the tug of his coat. It floats away on the wind, and no one notices.
There are still little piles of parade confetti in the gutters, but they’re all wet and matted now. You can’t tell the clumps of mush had just a few days earlier been anything pretty to look at.
I wonder if this is what Jamie feels over there in France, this chilly, empty fear that something bad is happening and it’s so quiet and quick you can’t even name it. I haven’t heard from him since the middle of September, nearly a month ago, even though I’ve written him nearly every day since the parade. The Sutcliffs would have gotten word if something bad had happened to him, and they’ve heard nothing, either.
I finally start to make my way toward Willa’s part of the school, and I am already penning in my head what I will write to him when I get home. I won’t tell him how awful it is here, nor will I lie and say it’s all wonderful. I will just tell him we are all getting by and doing our best and hoping and praying every day that the flu and the war will both come to a quick end. I look down into the gutter as I walk and Isee a small clump of parade confetti, tucked under some leaves, that isn’t soaking wet or dirty. I instantly reach for it and slip the little cluster into my coat pocket.
I’ll separate the tiny pieces of damp paper when I get home, let them dry, and then put them in the envelope along with the letter I write. When Jamie opens the envelope in some faraway field in France, the confetti will fall out and it will surprise him and he’ll think of home and smile.
