A summer spent without a favorite sister could not be called a summer at all. This was a firm belief held dear to the two Baum sisters. Well, that’s not exactly true. It was a firm belief held dear to one Baum sister: Frankie Baum. As Joan, the just-barely-older of the two, was about to spend the summer months with their aunt Dottie by the lake in rural Pennsylvania, Frankie would be left behind in their small apartment in Hagerstown with nothing to do but add to her scab collection. And honestly, what good was collecting scabs if you didn’t have anyone around to admire them?
And speaking of being honest, Joan was not very. Not really and truly. Sure, Joan was unhappy about going away from her favorite sister for these many months, but just because the two would be separated didn’t mean she was going to declare that it was going to be no summer at all. Heavens, no. There was a lake at Aunt Dottie’s, let us not forget. Besides, Joan would have her own room at Aunt Dottie’s, in particular her own bed, and that excited her even more than the lake. But Joan, who was quite sensitive to others’ feelings and who could call up a fresh batch of tears just as easily as her favorite actress, Shirley Temple, made a point of adding some gloom to her appearance so as not to cause her beloved younger sister any further distress.
There was enough distress in the world these days, anyway. Trouble was brewing overseas, a continent away. The kind of trouble that Frankie and Joan didn’t really understand, but from Mother and Daddy’s whisperings of war, of the Germans, and, yes, of death, they felt something awful was coming, like a shadow that was going to one day, perhaps soon, reach across the ocean and block out the sun.
Are you frightened? You should be. War is a terrible thing. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. The war has not yet begun, not officially. There are other troubles to speak of first, serious ones that lay heavy on the heart. And so, our story begins with a good-bye.