First Papers by Laura Z. Hobson Read Free Book Online Page A

uncertainly.
    Fee’s mother came toward them, unwinding a few lengths from the bolt in her arms, so as not to topple the ladder. She addressed herself to Trudy. “It was in a factory, where the owners saved expenses on fire escapes, and a hundred and fifty workers were burned alive.”
    Politely, Trudy said, “Oh, yes.”
    “But, Mama,” Fee said, “is anybody else putting black all over their porch?”
    “I had the idea and we—”
    “The whole labor movement,” her father interrupted, still sounding patient, like Miss King at school explaining parsing, “is staging public demonstrations. We want to do something too.”
    “It was my idea,” Alexandra began again, but she saw that the child was looking only at Stefan, and she let her voice trail away.
    “But, Papa,” Fee said, moving closer to the ladder and looking up in entreaty, “everybody will make fun of me.”
    “It’s nothing, Firuschka, let them. When you’re older you won’t mind.”
    He turned back to his work and the hammering started again. Shag instantly resumed his barking; together, the hammering and barking were deafening. “Come on,” Fee said to Trudy, and ran around to the side entrance. She flung open the door to the back hall, and dropped her coat and books on the floor. Behind her, Trudy said, “Don’t you care, Fee. It’s not your fault.”
    “It’s horrible,” she cried. “I hate it. I just hate it.” She sat down on the lower step of the stairway, and put her face on her knees. “Oh, Trudy, I just can’t make fudge today,” she said.
    “Let’s go up to your room.”
    “They’re so mean! They never even care what I feel like.”
    “Come on, Fee, we can go up, can’t we?”
    Trudy started up the uncarpeted stairs, and in a moment Fee picked up her books and coat and followed her. This crazy stairway! She forgot all about it until something bad happened, but then she could see the blueprints on the table again, and hear their voices, and see her father with his face all red and his foot pumping up and down a million times a minute.
    “And I hate this whole house,” Fee said to Trudy, flinging herself on her bed. “It’s homemade and Dutchy, and I hate it.” From below came the hammering, and her parents’ voices, and Fee looked at her friend in a passion of misery.
    For a moment Trudy said nothing at all. The hammering seemed to grow louder. Then she said, “My father fell down drunk in the kitchen last night, Fee.”
    Fee raised her head, staring. “He did?”
    “He just slobbered all over and my mother cried so, and Carl and I had to help her get him up and half pull, half shove him into bed.”
    “Oh, Trudy.”
    “So you see.”
    Fee nodded and felt obscure comfort, and an unexpected gratitude to Trudy, for what, she did not know. Her own father never slobbered or fell down or sprawled on a chair smelling of beer. But Trudy and her brother, Carl, wouldn’t trade theirs for hers anyhow.
    “When I grow up,” Fee said, “I’m going to live in a beautiful big house, with beautiful furniture and wallpaper, and never let anybody but you and Betty and my brother Eli come and see me.”
    “How about Fran?”
    “No.”
    “And your mother and father?”
    “Except for my birthday, maybe.”
    “Not for Christmas?”
    “We don’t believe in Christmas,” Fee said, “or in Passover, or anything in a building.”
    Trudy sat down on the bed, closer to her. “But you believe in God, don’t you?”
    “I don’t know,” Fee said. “I know we believe in something but not about listening to your prayers to get A or B on your card, or have it stop raining for Field Day. I asked my father.”
    “My mother says you believe in a Jew God.”
    Fee shook her head. Whenever Betty or Trudy talked about church or Sunday school or Jews or Christians, a funny excitement started up inside her, not pleasant or unpleasant, just there.
    “And she says,” Trudy went on conversationally, “it must have been terrible