Stars, Stripes and Surprises. Valerie Tripp
didn’t know what to say.
Emily went on. “But it was almost worse afterward, coming out again. A house you’d walked past every day would be nothing but a pile of stones. Sometimes the flowers would still be growing along a path, and the path would lead to nothing. The house would be gone.”
Emily pulled the blanket tighter. “In England the bombing isn’t exciting at all. It isn’t a game. It’s terrible. People and…things get hurt. They get killed. You Americans don’t know.”
Molly waited to be sure Emily was finished talking. Then she said, “I guess we really don’t know. We’re safe here. And now you’re safe, too, Emily.”
Emily sighed. “But my mum and dad are still there.”
Molly moved closer to Emily. She knew how it felt to be worried about someone far away and in danger. “My dad’s there, too,” she said. “I miss him so much my heart hurts.”
Emily looked sideways at Molly. “Sometimes I feel like a coward to have left London.”
“Oh, no,” said Molly. “I think you’re very brave to have been in the bombing. You’re as brave as a soldier. You’re the bravest person I know, after my dad.”
“If I were really brave, I would have asked my parents to let me stay,” Emily said sadly.
Molly wanted to make Emily feel better. “But even the princesses of England had to leave London,” she said. “I read it in a magazine. They’ve moved out of the palace in London and out to…what’s the name of that place?”
“Windsor Castle,” said Emily.
“That’s right,” said Molly. “I read that they sleep in the dungeons every night, to be safe from bombs. They’re very brave and they left London. You are just as brave as those princesses, Emily.”
Emily let the blanket fall away from her head. “Do you like Princess Elizabeth and Princess Margaret Rose, too?” she asked.
“Oh, yes!” said Molly. “I always love to see them in the newsreels and magazines. I think they’re so pretty. I even have paper dolls of them.”
“You do?” said Emily. Her face looked bright. “I have a scrapbook full of their pictures. I even have pictures of them when they were little girls.”
“Ohhh, how wonderful,” said Molly. “Did you bring your scrapbook with you?”
“Yes!” said Emily. “It’s in my bag, under my bed.”
“Could I see it?” Molly asked eagerly.
“Of course!” said Emily.
Just then the all-clear signal blew and the blackout was over. Molly stood up. “Let’s go,” she said.
Emily gathered the blanket in her arms. “Yes, indeed,” she said.
Molly grinned. And Emily actually smiled back.
The Princesses
Emily went on, “Of course, the princesses are practically grown-up ladies now. When they were our age, they used to wear matching clothes like this.” She pointed to an old picture of the princesses in matching dresses. They were playing the piano together. A dog was lying asleep at their feet.
“We could do that!” said Molly. She jumped up and flung open the closet door. “We could dress alike, just as the princesses did. We could wear outfits that look like theirs, too. Wouldn’t that be fun?”
Emily looked up at Molly. Her eyes were as blue as robins’ eggs. Emily didn’t say anything, but Molly now knew that when Emily was quiet, it did not mean she didn’t care. Emily just didn’t say everything she was thinking, the way Molly did when she got excited.
Molly rattled on. “See?” she said. “You have a blue skirt and so do I. That’s just the kind of thing the princesses would wear. And we both have white blouses and blue sweaters…”
“You could borrow a pair of my blue knee socks,” said Emily.
“Okay!” said Molly. “Come on! Let’s put these clothes on.”
Molly was dressed in a flash. She watched as Emily carefully buttoned her sweater all the way up to her chin. “How come you always button every button?” she asked Emily.
“I keep forgetting how warm your houses are here,” said Emily. “In England houses are much colder.”
“Even Windsor Castle?” asked Molly.
“Yes,” nodded Emily. “Especially castles. The princesses have to make sacrifices because of the war. Their rooms are cold. They can put only a few inches of hot water in the bathtub. They even have to eat dreadful things like parsnips and turnips.”
“Turnips!” said Molly. “We have to eat those here!”
Emily smiled. “You see, you’re like the princesses, too. Did you ever think that your name starts with M like Margaret Rose—”
“And your name starts with E like Elizabeth,” finished Molly.
The girls smiled at each other in the mirror. “Before you came here, I thought you might look like Princess Elizabeth,” Molly said to Emily.
Emily grinned. “I rather expected you to look like Shirley Temple, the film star!” she said. “You know, big brown eyes and blond ringlets!”
Molly lifted her braids so that they stuck straight out of her head. “Not exactly blond ringlets. More like long brown sticks,” she said.
“I think your hair is very nice, just as it is,” said Emily.
“Well, it sure doesn’t help me look like a movie star or a princess,” sighed Molly. “Of course, if I really wanted to be like one of the princesses, I would have to get a dog. The princesses always have dogs with them, don’t they?”
Emily bent over to pull up her knee sock.
“We’ll just have to pretend we have dogs,” said Molly. She snapped her fingers and said, “Here, boy!” She pretended to pat a dog at her feet. “Good dog!”
Emily looked down at the imaginary dog.
“Let’s go for a walk,” said Molly. “Don’t forget your dog, Em—I mean Elizabeth.” She led the way out of the room.
They bumped into Ricky in the hall. When he saw the girls, Ricky smirked. “Why are you two dressed alike?” he said in a disgusted voice. “It makes you look twice as drippy as usual. What stooges!”
Molly put her nose in the air. “Ignore him, Emily,” she said. “He only wants attention.”
But Emily was staring at the poster Ricky was tacking to his door. It showed fighter planes from different countries. Ricky had cut the pictures out of magazines and labeled them all. “That one’s wrong,” Emily said quietly.
“What?”