Suddenly, a siren screeched.

“Hurray!” said Molly’s brother Ricky. “A blackout!” He jumped up from the table. Emily, the English girl who had just come to stay with the McIntires, shrank back in her seat.

“Oh, dear,” sighed Mrs. McIntire. “A 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, 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 Emily scared? 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, 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 of hot chocolate. . . .” Molly stopped. She saw that Emily was shivering. “Emily? Are you okay?” she asked.

Emily sniffed. Molly realized she was crying.

“I hate this,” Emily said suddenly. Molly sat very still and listened. “I hate sitting in the dark, waiting. In England, 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 afterwards, 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 closer. “In England the bombing isn’t exciting at all. It isn’t a game. It’s terrible. People... get hurt. They get killed. You Americans don’t know.”

Molly 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 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.

“But... but even the princesses of England had to leave London,” Molly said. “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 love to see them in the newsreels and magazines. I even have paper dolls of them.”

“You do?” said Emily. Her face looked bright. “I have a scrapbook full of their pictures.”

“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.

...Mrs. McIntire walked in the back door, looked at Molly, looked at the plate, and knew immediately what had happened. “Well, Molly,” she said. “I see we had the first turnips from the Victory garden for dinner tonight.”

“Mom,” said Molly, “I hate turnips. I know I do. And Mrs. Gilford says I can’t leave the table until I eat them. I’ll be here until I die, because I will never eat these. Never. I really mean it.”

“I see,” said Molly’s mother. “Do you mind if I join you for a while? Not until you die, of course—just while I have a cup of tea. And while I’m heating up the stove, why don’t I reheat those turnips for you? They certainly don’t look very good when they’re cold like that.”

“It won’t help,” said Molly.

But Mrs. McIntire scooped up the turnips and put them in a frying pan. “I’ll just smooth out these lumps. And I think we can spare a little bit of our sugar and butter rations to add to the turnips,” she said, almost to herself. “And a little cinnamon, too.”

Soon a delicious, spicy aroma filled the kitchen. The kettle whistled, and Mrs. McIntire made her tea. She spooned the turnips back onto Molly’s plate and put the plate in front of Molly.

The hot steam from the turnips warmed Molly’s face and clouded her glasses. She took a deep breath, raised a small forkful to her lips, and tasted it. It wasn’t so bad. In fact, it was pretty good—sweet, cinnamony, and kind of like applesauce. It felt good going down, not at all like old, cold, moldy brains. She ate another forkful.

Mrs. McIntire sat down with her tea. “When I was about your age,” she said, “my mother made sardines on toast for dinner one night. Little oily dead fish on toast! I refused to eat them. But my mother said I could not leave the table until the sardines were gone. Gone was exactly what she said. So when she wasn’t looking I put each sardine, one by one, into my napkin. Then I stuck my napkin into my pocket. When my mother saw my empty plate she was surprised, but she excused me from the table.

“I used to play checkers with my father every night after dinner. That night it was very hard to concentrate on the game. Our two cats, Bessy and May, yowled and meowed and climbed all over me. They smelled the sardines. Finally, when I had one hand on Bessy and the other hand on a checker, May pulled the napkin out of my pocket. The sardines spilled out all over the rug. Bessy and May gobbled them up.”

“Oh, Mom!” laughed Molly.

“Oh, Molly,” sighed Mrs. McIntire. “Sometimes we have to do things whether we like it or not. There aren’t always cats around who will eat the sardines.” She reached across the table and brushed Molly’s bangs out of her eyes. “I know this war is hard on you children. And I know you miss your father. I miss him, too.”

“Everything is so different with Dad gone,” said Molly. “Nothing is the way it used to be anymore.”

“The war has changed things,” said Mrs. McIntire. “But some things are still the same. Isn’t Ricky still Ricky?”

“He sure is,” said Molly. “Still dumb old Ricky.”

“And you are still my olly Molly,” said Mrs. McIntire. “And I am still me.” She gave Molly’s hand a squeeze.

Molly smiled. The turnips were gone. Mom was not mad. Mrs. Gilford wouldn’t think that Molly was ruining her war effort.