Isabel’s War by Lila Perl Page A

introduce Helga, who by the way has retreated toward the playground fence, as though she wasn’t even the reason for the fray. Which has kept me tracking Helga like a nervous puppy dog, while keeping one eye trained on Sibby.
    Suppose Danny took it into his head to punch Sibby back. I couldn’t let her fight Helga’s battle alone because, even though she started the fight, Helga is my responsibility. So it isn’t until Danny and his gang have disappeared through the playground gate that I am able to bring them together and say, “Sybil this is Helga, Helga this is Sybil.”
    Sybil enthusiastically grabs both of Helga’s hands, which have been hanging limply at her side. “I’m so glad to meet you after hearing so much about you from Izzie. Well, um, a lot anyway. Gosh, what you must think of us here in America. First that stupid Mr. Lockhart puts you in seventh grade and then that ape, Danny, yells out those disgusting words in German.”
    â€œ Ach , it’s no matter. I am happy to meet you, too.”
    â€œWhat do you mean it’s no matter?” Sibby asks in a peppery tone. “It certainly does matter. Both things matter...a lot. You’ve got to learn that here in the U.S. we fight for our rights. And there’s no Gestapo, no secret police, no marching Storm Troopers to shut us up.”
    Helga has withdrawn one of her hands to brush a long lock of hair from her cheek. “I think it is better that we do not speak of these things.”
    Sibby instantly frees Helga’s other hand, and we all head toward home in an embarrassed silence. Sibby and I only talk to point out various landmarks so that Helga can find her way without us if she has to. I can’t imagine that they will keep her in seventh grade at Singleton for more than a few weeks. Helga is fourteen and she should be in ninth grade.
    At the apartment, my mother is waiting impatiently for Helga so that they can set off for the hospital to visit Mrs. F. who is still pretty weak following her operation, which is said to have lasted six hours.
    As soon as they’re gone, I’m down at Sibby’s, where Mrs. Simon has just come off the early shift of her new job at the shipyard. She is wearing overalls, a bandana that covers her hair, and heavy men’s work shoes. Mrs. Simon looks tired and her voice is hoarse from yelling, she says, over the noise from the machinery. But she stillsets out milk and gingersnaps for Sibby and me, and sits down at the table with us, her head in her arms.
    â€œSo,” I say to Sibby. “do you see what I mean about Helga? She’s very hard to talk to. If you say one wrong thing she shuts up like a clam. And you never know what that’s going to be until you say it. Then it’s too late.”
    Sibby sips her milk, crunches on her gingersnaps, and nods. “Something terrible happened to her. You have to find out what it is, Isabel.”
    â€œMe? All I ever do is get into trouble over her. Don’t ask me to interfere.”
    Mrs. Simon lifts her head from the table. “All right. Tell me what happened.”
    We give her a rundown of the events at school this afternoon and the way Helga reacted when Sibby tried to stand up for her. “She refused to even talk about it,” I add. “Did she want to be put in seventh grade with a lot of twelve-year-olds when she should be in ninth? Was it okay with her that stupid Danny Brill yelled out Sieg Heil at her? It’s almost as though she likes being insulted. That’s crazy.”
    â€œLet me ask you,” says Mrs. Simon, “what do you know about Helga’s family in Germany? Are her parents still there? Does she have sisters and brothers?”
    â€œTwo sisters, I think. And I know she has letters, written in German...” I stop myself short. I haven’t told anybody about that morning at Moskin’s whenHelga went on a hike and I snooped around among her