Uprising Read Free Page B

and the only words that slipped out were a question: “No fire escapes?”
    â€œNot
here
”, Pietro said. “Not in this part of the city. There are hoity-toity rich people just around the corner. They think fire escapes are ugly.”
    â€œBut if there’s a fire . . .” Bella wasn’t really thinking about fire. She was thinking about falling, or failing, or being fired.
    â€œThere’s probably a fire escape at the back, I guess. Or they have extra stairways inside. This is New York City. They have rules about things like that. Now come on. You can’t be late your first day.”
    They went inside and stepped into a marvel called an elevator—a little box that whisked them up to the ninth floor. Other girls were crowded into the box with them, girls in fancy hats and elegant skirts and those shiningwhite shirtwaists. Bella guessed these girls were royalty of some sort. She might have been brave enough to ask them who they were except that they all seemed to be speaking in other languages. Even one girl who looked Italian was chattering away in a strange tongue that Bella couldn’t understand at all.
    The box stopped and the doors opened. The other girls streamed out, rushing toward rows of machines on long tables. Pietro led Bella to a man standing at the end of one of the tables.
    â€œThis is Signor Carlotti,” Pietro said. “Signor Carlotti, this is Bella.”
    â€œScissors,” Signor Carlotti said, handing her a pair. “When the shirtwaists come to you, cut the loose threads.”
    Actually, that wasn’t exactly what he said. Bella couldn’t quite make sense of any of his words—his accent was even murkier than Signora Luciano’s. But he demonstrated as he talked, lifting a shirtwaist from the table, snipping threads, dropping the finished shirtwaist into a basket. Another girl sat nearby, already slicing threads with her own pair of scissors with such reckless speed that Bella feared that the blades would slip through the cloth as well.
    â€œBuon giorno,”
Bella started to say to the girl. “My name is—”
    â€œNo talking,” Signor Carlotti said. “Work.” At least, that’s what Bella guessed he said, because he held his finger to his lips and glared.
    Bella picked up her first shirtwaist. The garment was delicate and fine, with frills around the collar and gathers at the waist. It was like holding stitched air. Bella turned it overcarefully, searching for hanging threads.
Ah, there’s one.
She lifted her scissors, angled the blades just so, gently pulled the handles together.
    â€œFaster,” Signor Carlotti said. “You take that long over every thread, you will never earn a cent in the factory. You will be out on the streets and even Pietro won’t be able to save you. Your family will starve.”
    It was amazing that Bella could understand what he was saying, without comprehending a single word.
    Bella glanced up and saw that the other girl had whipped through three shirtwaists in the time it had taken Bella to cut one thread. Bella decided that if the other girl wasn’t afraid of ripping the shirtwaists to shreds, Bella shouldn’t worry either. She sliced through the rest of the threads, dropped the shirtwaist in the basket, and picked up a new one.
    â€œThat’s better,” Signor Carlotti grunted, or something like it.
    â€œYou’re set then,” Pietro said. “Good-bye. I’ve got to get to my job. I’ll meet you on the sidewalk outside, after work.”
    â€œOkay,” Bella said. She wanted to flash him a big smile, to tell him how grateful she was that he’d be waiting for her, that she wouldn’t have to find her way back to the Lucianos’ alone. But Signor Carlotti was glaring again, so she dipped her head down over the shirtwaist. She resisted the impulse to watch Pietro walking back to the elevator.
    Pietro,
Bella