The following Monday, Alice, dressed in her gym shorts and top, crossed the sports field in back of Miss Whittaker’s School for Girls. She was supposed to be playing softball but was taking her time getting there, wondering just what maneuvers Jimmy was practicing at the CAP pilot’s training school. Target practice? And was it as dangerous as he said it could be? Would he go deaf, and then she’d have to write him letters instead of talking on the phone? She’d give him a week before he went deaf. In the meantime, she’d learn sign language.
Alice thought she’d heard somebody calling her from the storm fence surrounding the grounds. She looked over toward the enormously thick wisteria vine growing up one side, with its fat trunk and branches that hugged the fence like a family of pythons. Alice had once climbed it, carrying a hunk of coal as big as her head that she called the black diamond. She was a pirate and was going to hide it from the redcoats, a bunch of girls who were standing around below, watching her. They were afraid to follow her up, of course. They might hurt themselves or get their uniforms dirty.
That was years ago. Ancient history. Today, Alice spotted her friend Gladys, who was sitting on the trunk calling her over.
“Hey, Alice, come here a minute.”
Gladys was built like what she thought a wrestler must look like: short and stocky with fat, muscular legs that curved a little outward as if she’d spent most of her life on a horse. She had a thick neck on wide shoulders. Her eyes looked at you from a crooked angle that Alice wished she could straighten with a twist of her hands. She was a good friend, just different enough from the other girls for Alice to like her. She never played with dolls, and she never traded cards in a circle.
“Come here; take a look at this! It’s a new comic book!”
Alice walked over and joined her on the trunk of the tree. She looked at the cover of the comic book, which was called Wonder Woman, Amazon Princess.
“You know I only read Terry and the Pirates,” said Alice, backing away.
“No, look, she’s terrific. She fights the enemy and stuff in the war. This war.”
Alice noted Wonder Woman’s blue shorts with the stars on them, her red halter and boots, and the gold crown. Her mother would say she had really bad taste. Alice thought so too, with those two embarrassing bosoms sticking out at you.
“She looks kooky,” said Alice.
Gladys gestured for her to come over. “No, she’s swell. She’s a princess from the Amazon, and she’s got special powers.” Gladys pointed at the comic strip. “Here she’s fending off German bullets with her bracelets. And there she’s forcing a spy to tell her the truth.”
“How does she do that?” said Alice, glancing at Gladys sideways.
“She lassoes him with her magic truth-telling lasso. See?”
“You’re kidding.” Twigs from the branches were getting caught in Alice’s hair and pulling. She untangled them with one eye on the drawings.
“And on this page, she breaks a Nazi sub in two!”
Alice examined the drawings closely.
“And, Alice, she’s a girl, and she fights the Axis with her own powers!”
“In Terry and the Pirates, he does it with brains and a plane.”
“Yah, but he’s not much without his friend Pat Ryan.”
Alice was not going to argue that one.
“Listen to what it says. ‘She’s going to free Europe from the Axis. Stop the Axis cold.’ That’s the Germans and the Japs.”
“I know.”
“Here.” Gladys pushed the magazine over so Alice could see. “She defeats Baron Blitzkrieg, and in the next chapter, she fights Doctor Poison and Tyrannosaurus Reich.”
“Ha ha. Yeah, that’s pretty good.” Alice reached up and untangled more hair.
“No other girl does that!”
“No, I guess not. But I hate the way she looks—all those stars on her underwear and that big pointed bra.”
“That’s to show she’s a girl and not a freak. And so’s the boys’ll read it too.”
“Okay, the idea’s great. But Terry is more real, and he’s a lot cuter. The drawings are real without magic lassoes. I like that better.”
“Okay then, I won’t buy you a copy for your birthday,” said Gladys, looking over with her crooked smile.
“That’s okay, Gladys. Thanks anyway.”
“Is that for you they’re blowing the whistle like crazy?”
“I guess so. That’s the softball team. I’m supposed to be a fielder. Yawn.”
She heard Gladys laughing as she walked off.
* * *
When Alice arrived home that afternoon, Mother said, “Mrs. Brownell called. She wanted you to come over after dinner and share some cake with Jimmy and some friends. He’s back for a day or two. I said you could go.”
“He’s back? Really? Are you sure?”
“Yes. She said she knew you’d like to see him.”
“She said so? Did he agree?”
“Well, I don’t know, dear. I suppose so.”
“He’d better have agreed, or I’m chopped liver.” Alice had never said that before, but she’d heard Becky use it, and it sounded good. Mother looked a little surprised.
Alice arrived late because Mother had wanted her to wear that awful blue dress, and she wanted to wear coveralls so she’d look less like a frilly girl and more like a CAP person. In the end, Mother won because she was afraid of “what Mrs. Brownell would say if she saw my daughter in trousers at a party in her house.”
Alice was so furious she had tears in her eyes, which she quickly wiped away before she left the house. You don’t cry because of what your mother said or didn’t say, she told herself.
Entering the house, Mrs. Brownell handed Alice a piece of cake. Alice didn’t get cake very often these days, and it looked delicious. She nodded a thanks because Jimmy was in the middle of explaining something to everybody. A couple of older girls were there too, sitting pretty in their chairs. One had a head full of curlicues. Phooey on them. The boys were on the couch, and Alice joined them with her cake.
“I’d forgotten all about the gusty wind factor, so when I made a turn, the nor’easter caught me under the right wing, and I momentarily lost control. The plane started to go into a tailspin.” With his hand, Jimmy showed them how it had spiraled down. “But then I righted it and pulled out of the spin. Pretty scary moments there, I can tell ya. I’d never flown in a nor’easter before. Dad would never have let me.”
Alice got a little twinge of fear hearing about the tailspin and remembering how terrified she was sliding down the roof. How the wind pushed her down, and she could barely hang on and then lost her grip. Someday she’d tell Jimmy about it. That she’d had scary experiences too, like when he lost control of his plane.
Now he was explaining something about the instruments and what happens in a tailspin. But Alice had lost track thinking her own thoughts.
“You’re in the army now; you’re never behind the plough,” sang Bill, hunched down in a corner of the couch.
“Never get rich, diggin’ a ditch,” finished Cameron.
“Hey, enough of that. I’d never go in the army. Give me the air force any time. But for now, the Civil Air Patrol is about all I can handle,” answered Jimmy.
They laughed and made boy noises.
Alice noticed Mrs. Brownell’s serious face. She was not having a good time. Criminy, wasn’t she proud?
“Anyway”—Jimmy stuffed his mouth with cake—“towing target sleeves for antiaircraft practice turned out to be pretty dumb work. We’d just fly back and forth from one location to the other while they drove us crazy with their rat-tatting. This cake is swell, Mom.” He smiled at her.
“Yeah,” joined the others, with full cheeks.
“Yes, it certainly is lovely, Mrs. Brownell,” said the curlicue girl whose lipstick was smeared on her teeth. That’ll teach her to try to look grown up, thought Alice.
“You guys see the CAP insignia? Take a look,” said Jimmy, turning to show his sleeve.
The two older girls pushed each other to get in close, as if he was some kind of a movie star. Alice stayed put. She’d already looked it up in the manual.
He showed them the blue chevron-shaped badge with the white triangle and the three red propellers, and underneath was written CAP US Air Force Auxiliary. Handsome colors, thought Alice.
“Pretty nifty, pretty nifty there, ol’ boy,” said Bill.
“Ooooh! It’s nice!” gushed curlicue’s friend.
Alice thought, Ugh. It was time to go.
After everyone had examined the insignia, Mrs. Brownell began collecting the dishes, and the others were helping her, while Jimmy stood at the door saying good-bye.
“Yup, I’ll be into the real rescue business next week. As a CAP sub chaser and search-and-rescue pilot. That’s when the fun begins.”
Moses was mumbling, “At eight bucks a day, you’re going to risk your life?”
“Aw, it isn’t like I was overseas, ye know.”
Jimmy turned toward Alice. “Bye, Alice. Go catch some of those Jerries before I do, ya hear?”
“You bet!” said Alice with a grin. With that, she hopped down all the steps.