“A blackout!” He jumped up from the table. Emily shrank back in her seat.
“Oh, dear,” sighed Mrs. McIntire. “A surprise blackout. All right, everyone, let’s get going. Jill, you close the blackout curtains. Ricky, turn off all the lights. Molly and Emily, you take Brad downstairs. I’ll get some blankets and be right down.”
Molly was halfway to the stairs with Brad when she realized Emily wasn’t following her. She was sitting at the table, as still as a stone.
“Come on, Emily,” said Molly. “Hurry up!”
Emily didn’t move.
Molly spoke louder. “Emily, you can’t just sit there. It’s a blackout. We all have to go downstairs. We have to hurry.”
“Don’t be scared, Emily,” said Brad. “No bombs will come. This is only pretend.”
Molly looked hard at Emily. Was Brad right? Was that the problem? Was Emily scared? She certainly looked scared. Her face was white. Molly’s voice softened. “It’s okay, Emily,” she said. “It’s just practice, really. I promise.”
Emily didn’t say anything. But she got up from the table and followed Molly downstairs.
“We have these blackouts every once in a while,” Mrs. McIntire said to Emily when everyone was gathered in the basement. “They’re a drill for us. There’s not much chance of being bombed here, but we want to be ready just in case. So we practice turning out all the lights in town, so no one could see our houses from an airplane. But I imagine you know all about blackouts.”
Emily was sitting in the darkest corner of the basement, a little apart from everyone else. Even though it wasn’t cold, Emily was wrapped up in a blanket. Molly went over to sit next to her. She couldn’t see Emily’s face.
“Sometimes they tell us beforehand about the blackouts. Then Mom makes a thermos bottle of hot chocolate…” Molly stopped. She saw that Emily was shivering. “Emily? Are you okay?” she asked.
Emily sniffed. Molly realized she was crying. “What’s the matter? Are you scared?”
Emily shook her head no. “I hate this,” she said suddenly. Molly sat very still and listened. “I hate sitting in the dark, waiting. In England, back during the Blitz, almost every night we had to do this. You’d hear an awful noise, then one split second of silence, and then the explosion.” Emily shuddered. “The whole house would shake. If we were on the street when the siren went off, we’d have to make a dash for the tube station—the subway, you call it. We sometimes had to sleep there, with all the other people, all crowded together.”
Molly 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.
