One

The Basement

THE SIRENS WENT OFF just as I was coming to the best part of the book, the chapter where the heroine discovers that her new friend is really her long-lost sister. “Oh, for heaven’s sake,” I said, trying to read a few more lines.

But my father was putting his white helmet on, and that whistle around his neck that always reminded me of gym teachers. “Hurry up,” he said. “Come on, children! Etta!” he called to my mother, who was very neat and couldn’t go down to the air-raid shelter until she was sure the seams of her stockings were straight.

This all happened during World War II when my father was the air-raid warden for our street. If anyone left even a single twenty-five-watt bulb on during a blackout, when it was supposed to be completely dark, my father blew on his whistle until he was red in the face. He would mutter about enemy planes finding Brooklyn someday because of one little light and about how we all had to cooperate and stick together.

My little brother, Theodore, who didn’t like loud noises, and especially sirens, was hiding under the kitchen table, and my older sister, Velma, couldn’t be found anywhere.

“Velma!” my father shouted. “Where is that girl? The war will be over before we get downstairs.”

I knocked on the bathroom door. “Velma? Are you in there? You better hurry up. Can’t you hear the sirens?”

The door opened and someone with a green face was looking back at me.

“Well, don’t just stare,” Velma said.

“Wh—what happened to you?”

“Nothing happened, baby. It’s just a beauty mask. A person can’t have any peace or privacy in this place.” She was rubbing her face with a towel all the time she was talking.

“The towel’s getting green,” I said.

“Nobody asked you,” Velma said, turning red under the green.

Daddy blew two short blasts on his whistle. “Let’s go, everybody.” He reached his hand under the table to Theodore. “Come on, Ted, old sport. Nothing to be afraid of.”

Finally we were all out in the hallway with our neighbors and Daddy led us to the air-raid shelter, which was really the basement of our apartment building, a place that scared the life out of me.

Of course I wasn’t too scared then, when everyone in the building was there together. We all stayed very close to one another and the grownups made funny jokes and sang songs to keep the children cheerful, so we wouldn’t think about enemy planes and bombs and things like that. Some of the women formed a little group and talked about their children and about recipes and food prices, just as if they were sitting on a park bench in the sunshine. Old Mr. Katz from apartment 4J told corny jokes and riddles. “What has four wheels and flies?” he asked.

“What does?” said Mrs. Katz, even though she had heard all his jokes a million times.

“A garbage truck!” Mr. Katz yelled, and he laughed so hard that he didn’t notice everyone else was groaning.

I had to hold Theodore’s hand and he held on so tight that my hand got all hot and sticky.

“I’ll just die if anyone sees me,” Velma whispered to Mother.

“You look fine,” Mother said, “perfectly fine,” even though there was still a little green around Velma’s eyes and on her chin.

I looked around me at the gray walls and I shivered. That basement held in its shadows every horror it was possible to imagine. Never, never go down in the basement alone, we were warned. But I hardly needed a warning. I wouldn’t go down there alone, even on a dare. What lurked, what waited with perfect patience for us? The Mummy waited, or perhaps just his hand, floating in space. Mr. Hyde waited, or worse still, Dr. Jekyll, who at the very moment he saw us would become Mr. Hyde. Heh, heh, heh. Janitors waited, nameless, faceless janitors famous for their torture of children stupid enough to wander into basements. Witches, bogeymen, murderers, Ali Baba’s thieves, Heidi’s wicked aunt, Captain Hook, vicious dogs, dead bodies...

“Let go,” Theodore whined, and I realized that I was holding his hand too tight.

“Sorry,” I said, and to make up for it, I played spider fingers on his arm and sang his favorite song about eating worms.

Velma looked at us and sighed, shaking her head. Mr. Katz told a joke about a dentist. Then he told another one about two women in a butcher shop. All the grownups laughed and Mrs. Katz laughed the loudest and the longest.

Then the all-clear siren began to blow and we all stood and smiled at one another. Daddy began to lead us upstairs again. Velma was still grumbling about her beauty mask and about being interrupted.

Daddy tucked his arm in hers. “Be grateful,” he said, “that it’s only an air-raid drill, and not the real thing.” Some of the grownups murmured in agreement as we climbed the stairs.

“What has forty eyes, green wings, and a bad disposition?” Mr. Katz called out.

“What has?” Mrs. Katz said, but then a door slammed shut and I never heard the answer.