Eastland Read Free

Paaa! No picnic. Come,
Delia.”
“But you promised, Mama. You said if I got all my chores
done, I could go.”
Mama frowned, her intense, black eyes piercing me like a
gunshot to the heart. The look had found its mark. I groaned
and grabbed for my basket.
Karel pulled back his arm. “You’re really not going, Dee?
Can’t you make her understand?”
“ Non! ” Mama answered for me. “And you should not go
either. The both of you should stay home.”
“Miss the picnic?” Mae screeched. “I can’t, Mrs. Pageau! I
won’t! And neither should your daughter.” She whipped around,
her glare wounding me like a second bullet. “You’re coming, right?”
I shook my head, too mortified to speak.
Mae mumbled something in Polish and stormed away.
I snatched back my basket. Karel glanced at me for a fleeting
second. I saw shock and confusion in his expression. But was
there something else in those heather-grays? Disappointment,
maybe? I didn’t have time to figure it all out, because he turned
and took off after his sister. I watched him go, knowing full well
that all my high hopes for the day would disappear with him.
I’d lost my chance to take the romantic two-hour cruise from
Chicago to Michigan City, Indiana. I wouldn’t ride the wooden
roller coaster or swing on the Whirligig in Washington Park.
I’d never taste candied apples or spun sugar on a stick. There’d
be no softball games, no pie-eating contests, and now, thanks
to Mama and her wild predictions, I wouldn’t know the feel of
Karel’s arms around me as we shared a moonlight dance at the
bandstand. I trudged up the steps.
“Forgive me, ma petite . But I could not risk … Without you,
I could not live.”
“I know, Mama. I’m here.”
Not going any place. Ever.
“May I please have a minute to myself?”
Mama hugged me and went inside. I sank onto the wooden
stoop, setting my unneeded basket and beaded bag aside. Mama
might want to follow in Papa’s footsteps and work, work, work
herself to death, but I wanted something different for my life. I
wanted to work, work, work, and live before I died.
Today should have been my day to live.
I stared at the flaking, yellow paint on our front door, wondering what to do. Should I follow Mae and Karel? Did I have the
nerve to disobey Mama for the very first time? But what about
her premonition? How could a picnic be dangerous? Yet Mama
had never been wrong before, except maybe the time when
she’d predicted that Mrs. Mulligan would die a tragic death. Our
neighbor was still very much alive, but her twin sister had been
killed the next day. She’d slipped off an icy curb right in front of
the coal man’s wagon and had been trampled by his two horses.
The very idea of opposing Mama …
Still, I couldn’t stop thinking about Karel and Mae. Soon
they’d be boarding the Eastland , and Mae would search out our
pals. Where did that leave Karel? Without me, he wouldn’t know
a soul. If only I were there to help him pass the time.
And what if Mama was right? Wouldn’t Mae and Karel need
my help?
I sprang to my feet, my heart thundering, and dashed down
the street.
3
     
    Mae and Karel had a ten-minute head start over me. It would
take more than a little hustling to catch up with them. But with
hundreds of picnic-goers swarming the narrow sidewalks, I
could barely walk, let alone run, the four blocks to the nearest
Chicago-bound streetcar. As if I didn’t have enough trouble, the
sprinkles I’d hoped would let up today seemed to be worsening.
I sidestepped a muddy puddle and turned onto Twenty-Second
Street, the paved boulevard that Mae and I took to work each day.
    It was the wrong way to go.
People poured in from every side street like water through
a funnel. I found myself pressed up against the plate-glass
window fronts of the neighborhood stores. I slithered past the
butcher shop with the sides of beef dangling from hooks in the
window. On days when the wind blew in from