Keep Smiling Through Read Free

and they never let us forget it. And they didn't bother to speak to us.
    "Kay's hands are red and chapped," Mary said. Only Mary could be so brave as to speak up like that. Elizabeth and my father barely spoke to one another. And when they did, it always went wrong.
    Now, taking heart from Mary's bravery, Elizabeth came into the dining room.
"Daddy, everyone in our department at the arsenal is buying war bonds," she said.
    "It isn't polite to interrupt, Elizabeth."
    "Daddy, you know we never talk."
    "If we don't, it's because you don't wish to, Elizabeth."
    I saw tears in Elizabeth's eyes. But she kept on. "My supervisor called me in again yesterday and asked me why I wasn't having fifty cents a week taken out of my pay for war bonds. My supervisor said it was only patriotic."
    "I can't afford patriotism," my father said.
    "But, Daddy, Mary and I are the only ones not giving for war bonds. My supervisor thinks it's because I'm selfish."
    "Let him think it, then." My father got up and went to the closet and took out his overcoat and fedora hat.
    "
Her,
Daddy," Elizabeth said icily. "My supervisor is a woman."
    My father waved his hand in disgust. "No wonder," he said. "Whenever women are in positions of authority they become troublemakers. I told you. I can't afford patriotism!" He yelled it.
    "You can," I heard Elizabeth whisper as she went back into the kitchen. "Mary and
I turn in our whole paychecks every week."
    If he heard her, my father ignored her. He turned to me instead. "If you can't ask for the mittens on the bus, you can go to school with chapped hands. It's March. Winter's almost over." And with that, he went out the door.
    "What's all the noise? Can't a person sleep around here?" Amazing Grace came into the kitchen in her chenille bathrobe.
    "Queenie's gone," Mary told her. "She ran off. Daddy's upset. But no reason for you to be upset, Mother. Here, sit down, we've got your breakfast all ready."
    Amazing Grace took her place at the head of the table. Mary served her breakfast. Elizabeth stayed in the kitchen. She spoke to Amazing Grace even less than she spoke to my father.
    "She never was any good," Amazing Grace said of Queenie. "It's best she's gone. She was sly and lazy. All coloreds are."
    My face burned in shame. Not for what my stepmother said about Queenie, but because I didn't have the courage to defend her. Instead, I bent my head over my Wheatena, making myself invisible, as I always tried to do when Amazing Grace appeared.
    I wanted to be like The Shadow on the radio. The Shadow could make himself invisible. "What evil lurks in the hearts of men?" the announcer always asked. "Only The Shadow knows."
    Is it possible The Shadow is wrong?
I asked myself.
I know that evil lurks in the hearts of women as well as men. Amazing Grace has evil in her heart. But The Shadow is one of my radio heroes. How can he be wrong?
    I brushed the thought aside. But I didn't defend Queenie. I just ate my cereal as quietly as I could. Because making myself invisible was becoming my best talent. All I had to do was sit very still and quiet and before I knew it, grown-ups forgot I even existed.
    I watched Amazing Grace eat her eggs and bacon. The bacon smelled like all the things in the world I couldn't have. We weren't allowed bacon. Or chocolate Bosco to flavor our milk. Amazing Grace needed these things to make her strong for the baby. Even though she was plump and round already.
    I was so skinny I could see my ribs through my skin, but nobody cared. Nazis
were killing people in Europe. Why would anybody care about a little girl in New Jersey whose ribs showed and who had chapped hands?
    My brothers came back downstairs, dressed for school, and took their places at the table.
    "Martin, you're to go to the butcher shop after school," Amazing Grace said. "Kay, you're to go for eggs. To Mrs. Leudloff."
    I stopped being invisible then and looked up. Mrs.
Leudloff?
We all stared at Amazing Grace. Even Elizabeth came in from