“You have a blue skirt and so do I. That’s just the kind of thing the princesses would wear. And we both have white blouses and blue sweaters…”
“You could borrow a pair of my blue knee socks,” said Emily.
“Okay!” said Molly. “Come on! Let’s put these clothes on.”
Molly was dressed in a flash. She watched as Emily carefully buttoned her sweater all the way up to her chin. “How come you always button every button?” she asked Emily.
“I keep forgetting how warm your houses are here,” said Emily. “In England houses are much colder.”
“Even Windsor Castle?” asked Molly.
“Yes,” nodded Emily. “Especially castles. The princesses have to make sacrifices because of the war. Their rooms are cold. They can put only a few inches of hot water in the bathtub. They even have to eat dreadful things like parsnips and turnips.”
“Turnips!” said Molly. “We have to eat those here!”
Emily smiled. “You see, you’re like the princesses, too. Did you ever think that your name starts with M like Margaret Rose—”
“And your name starts with E like Elizabeth,” finished Molly.
The girls smiled at each other in the mirror. “Before you came here, I thought you might look like Princess Elizabeth,” Molly said to Emily.
Emily grinned. “I rather expected you to look like Shirley Temple, the film star!” she said. “You know, big brown eyes and blond ringlets!”
Molly lifted her braids so that they stuck straight out of her head. “Not exactly blond ringlets. More like long brown sticks,” she said.
“I think your hair is very nice, just as it is,” said Emily.
“Well, it sure doesn’t help me look like a movie star or a princess,” sighed Molly. “Of course, if I really wanted to be like one of the princesses, I would have to get a dog. The princesses always have dogs with them, don’t they?”
Emily bent over to pull up her knee sock.
“We’ll just have to pretend we have dogs,” said Molly. She snapped her fingers and said, “Here, boy!” She pretended to pat a dog at her feet. “Good dog!”
Emily looked down at the imaginary dog.
“Let’s go for a walk,” said Molly. “Don’t forget your dog, Em—I mean Elizabeth.” She led the way out of the room.
They bumped into Ricky in the hall. When he saw the girls, Ricky smirked. “Why are you two dressed alike?” he said in a disgusted voice. “It makes you look twice as drippy as usual. What stooges!”
Molly put her nose in the air. “Ignore him, Emily,” she said. “He only wants attention.”
But Emily was staring at the poster Ricky was tacking to his door. It showed fighter planes from different countries. Ricky had cut the pictures out of magazines and labeled them all. “That one’s wrong,” Emily said quietly.
“What?” said Ricky.
“That plane,” said Emily. She pointed to a small picture in the corner. “You’ve labeled it an enemy plane, but it isn’t at all. It’s an American plane. I’m sure.”
Molly crowed with laughter. “Who’s a stooge now, Ricky?” she asked.
“Huh!” said Ricky. He crossed his arms on his chest and looked at Emily. “What does a girl know about fighter planes anyway?”
“Oh, I’ve seen hundreds of fighter planes flying over England,” said Emily.
“You have?” asked Ricky. He had never seen a single one.
“Of course,” Emily said patiently. “Look here. See these white bands over the nose and the tail? That’s what tells you it’s an American plane. Besides—” she squinted at the blurry picture—“if you look very hard, you can tell that’s a star, not a swastika, there near the tail. All the American planes have stars on them.”
“I know that,” snapped Ricky. He frowned at the poster and started to take it down. Without turning around he said, “Do you see any other mistakes?”
“Not right off,” Emily said airily. “I’ll look more carefully later though. Molly and I are going for a walk now.” She and Molly floated down the hall, down the stairs, and outside.
It had rained during the night, and the girls had to skirt around mud puddles as they strolled along dragging their jump ropes. They were using the jump ropes as leashes for their imaginary dogs. Molly had a fine time pretending her dog was frisky.
“No, no!” she said. “Don’t go in that puddle! Bad dog!” Molly yanked her jump rope through the water. Then she pretended to trip. She giggled, “Ooops! My dog twisted the leash around my legs! This is fun, isn’t it?”
“Mmmhmm,” Emily answered in her usual soft-spoken way. Her dog seemed to be well behaved and as quiet as Emily was herself.
“Of course, it would be better if we had real dogs,” said Molly. “Do you like dogs, Emily?”
Emily’s eyes were shining. “Oh, yes,” she said. “I love dogs.”
“Me, too,” said Molly. “I think puppies are cute. And dogs are so much fun to play with.”
“Yes,” said Emily.
“Even before I was a princess, I wished I had a dog,” Molly went on. “A dog can really be your friend. Don’t you think so?”
But Emily didn’t answer. Her imaginary dog must have tugged on its leash because Emily quickly moved a few steps ahead of Molly.
During the next few days, Molly and Emily took their imaginary dogs for a walk every afternoon. Everyone in the family got used to seeing them in their matching princess outfits, dragging their jump rope leashes and playing with their invisible dogs. The two girls liked to share Molly’s roller skates, each wearing one, and skate down the sidewalk pretending their dogs were running behind.
“It’s too bad we can’t get a pair of skates for you,” said Molly to Emily one afternoon. “But they’re not making skates because of the war.”
“Oh, I don’t mind,” said Emily cheerfully. “Remember, we’re princesses, and princesses never complain about the sacrifices they have to make.”
Molly joked, “I wonder if the princesses ever skated with their dogs? I bet there’s lots of room to skate in Windsor Castle.”
They giggled as they skated up the driveway.
Mrs. McIntire was kneeling in the flower garden. She was pulling dead leaves away from some daffodils that were beginning to bloom. “Hello, your highnesses,” she said. “What’s all the giggling about?”
“We were thinking about skating in a palace,” said Molly.
“I
