Oh Sadie Pulaski, what are you going to do?

Let’s move on with our sad sad story. The Pulaski family had a nice dinner of …. lettuce …. but now Sadie must drop out of school due to …. the “high rates” Poland was so notorious for.

THREE. A CHANGE OF PACE

The next day, Sadie dreaded going to school and breaking the news to all of her friends. As she walked along, shivering in the dim misty morning, Sadie thought about how she would tell them.

“Oh, by the way, I’m not coming to school anymore … I will not beat around the bush, that I know. It will just make it harder for me to tell them. Oh well, I guess I’ll just have to wait and see and just tell them then.”

Sadie had decided not to make a public announcement of it – just to quietly tell Mr. Balicki and Ruth. She didn’t want all of the other kids to glance at her with pity or keep approaching her saying, “I’m sorry.” That would only make it harder for her to go.

When she arrived at school, she didn’t get a chance to talk to anybody because school started right away. Sadie struggled through a Science exam and an English quiz and was very relieved when Mr. Balicki announced the morning recess. But now she had to tell her teacher.

When the classroom had been completely vacated, and only she and Mr. Balicki remained, Sadie slowly and hesitantly walked to the front of the room and stood in front of Mr. Balicki’s desk. Mr. Balicki looked up with a smile on his pleasant face.

“Yes, Sadie? Can I help you?” he inquired, stacking the exams neatly in a pile.

Sadie somehow could not look him straight in the eye. She wrung her hands nervously. “Mr. Balicki – I – well – I -” she took a deep breath and glanced at the ceiling. “I’m not coming back to school.”

Immediately concerned and surprised, Mr. Balicki stood and circled his desk to face Sadie. “Why – Sadie?”

Sadie gulped and scuffed her well-worn heavy oxfords on the hard wooden floor. “Mama and Papa just don’t have money for all of our needs. We want to go to America but we just can’t manage. We’ve given up a lot but this is the biggest.” She peered anxiously into her teacher’s eyes. “I’m really sorry. I don’t want to leave but I have to.”

Mr. Balicki sighed. “I’m sorry, too. You’re one of my best students. I’ll miss seeing your enthusiastic little hand waving frantically around.” He chuckled, trying to make Sadie smile but Sadie just couldn’t.

“I promise I’ll study at home,” Sadie began earnestly, “but I think I’ll need -” Mr. Balicki saved the embarrassing moment for her.

“I know. You want your books. Well, I’ll be more than happy to lend them to you. If you do return to this school, I will expect you to be on the same level as the other children,” he said with pretended sternness, waggling his index finger in front of her eyes. Sadie managed to grin. Mr. Balicki smiled back and continued. “I can’t really afford to lose a student such as you, so do you promise to study some each day?”

Sadie nodded her head vigorously, vowing to herself that she would do just that. “I promise, Mr. Balicki,” she said sincerely.

Sadie couldn’t think of anything else to say so she just shrugged and sighed. She finally said softly, “Good-bye, Mr. Balicki.”

“Good-bye, Sadie,” he said.

They stood silently for a while and Sadie grew flustered and uneasy. She muttered, “I – I’ll go out for recess” and ran down the long aisle of desks and out the back door. The day was not very cold, but the sun was barely shining, so that everything on the playground appeared bleak and dull. Everything was grey or a dull tan or faded off-white. Nothing was striking, nothing was bright to catch someone’s eye, like a glaring yellow or magenta or bright red or a deep beautiful indigo. Sadie so much wished that someday she would have clothes in those colors. She saw in the village and at the marketplace, bright little girls skipping by with silken ribbons running through their bouncy hair and frilly dresses of every color of the rainbow with lace and dainty pinafores and shiny patent-leather shoes, laughing and calling to one another as if they hadn’t a worry in the world. And most likely, Sadie thought, they didn’t. Why did they get everything so easy? Life was handed to them on a perfect impeccable silver platter. It just wasn’t fair!

Sadie sighed, thinking of her two school outfits and one Sunday dress, the only clothes she owned. One of the school outfits was a faded dirty pink shirt and a brown wool skirt with box pleats. The other was a tan jumper with enormous pockes and under that she wore a greyish-blue shirt with mends on the elbow. With both of these she wore black heavy stockings and brown shoes. Her Sunday dress was made by Mama when times were better. But it was steadily growing smaller. It was tan with little pink flowers sprinkled on it and pink buttons went down the front and a pink sash was sewn on, which was faded and dirty by now. Over all of these she wore a wool maroon sweater which was all right in the fall and spring but practically unbearable in the icy winters. Were things ever like this in America? Sadie doubted it very much. Oh, but Ruth was lucky!! Sadie knew she shouldn’t be jealous but she just could not help it.

She felt ashamed of these thoughts about her best friend, so Sadie just shoved them out of her mind as she approached Ruth, who was sitting on a rather large rock, eating a shiny red apple. Sadie smiled as she scrambled up to sit next to her friend.

“Hi there,” Ruth said cheerily. “Do you want an apple? Tedeaus didn’t go to school today because Auntie and Mama needed so much help at home about expenses and arrangements for the boat and the flat in New York so I got his apple, but I want to give it to you.” She gasped for breath and held out an apple.

Sadie gratefully took it and sunk her teeth down into her cold hard apple. As she chewed she glanced at her friend, pondering over how to tell Ruth. She decided finally to just get it over with quickly. Sadie swallowed her apple piece, took a deep breath and blurted, “Ruth, I’m leaving school.”

Ruth choked on her apple and spluttered, “Why, Sadie?”

Sadie shrugged, very tired of explaining the situation. “We don’t have enough money. You know how it is.”

Ruth nodded solemnly. “Yes. Oh, Sadie, how awful for you! Well, maybe if you save up enough money, you can come to America! But – oh, Sadie, I’m really sorry. You’re the best student in class and I know how you love school. I always envied all of your ‘As’. I won’t be able to go to school in America for a while. We have to get settled and let Tedaeus and Jan, my other older brother, find jobs and get all straightened out.”

Sadie smiled at her pretty, rosy-cheeked friend. Ruth had this special way of making a person feel better. She took a bite out of her apple. Ruth did too. As they chewed on their apples, they smiled at each other. Sadie put her arm around her friend, knowing that no matter how far apart they were, their friendship would be strong and would never die.

When school ended Sadie gathered all of her books together in her arms and walked out of her classroom for the last time. Sadie didn’t turn it into a sentimental occasion or anything. She jus tlifted the top of her desk, scooped out the four big books lying there, looked around, sighed, and stalked out.

That afternoon she went home with her friends Ruth, Sylvia, Felicia, Annie and Tess. They went to Sylvia’s brownstone apartment in town. Annie had a bag of jacks and a small lime-green ball, so they spent a long time sprawled on the front steps playing jacks. Sadie was the school champion. She had already made it up to “eight-sies” when they decided to jump rope instead. Sylvia ran inside and soon returned with a sizable length of clothesline. Felicia was admired by all with her jumproping skills. She jumped 87 times until the rest of the girls begged for a turn. Tess produced a leather bag of marbles and a circle was scratched into the sidewalk and soon the marbles were divided and they all took turns shooting at the marbles in the circle. Sadie loved to play marbles. Although it was considred “tomboyish” by many of the girls in class, Sadie’s crowd loved to play.

When they tired of that, Annie suggested that they go down to the soda shop.

“I can’t. I never have pocket money,” Sadie said wistfully.

“Neither do I. And you know that, Annie,” Ruth added.

“But look!” She dug into her smock pocket and brought out [Here I left an enormous blank space. I am sure that is because I didn’t know what the currency in Poland was, so I needed to do some research before I filled it in.] The five other girls’ eyes bugged in surprise. Hardly any of their friends ever had any spare money.

“Where did you get that?” Sylvia breathed.

“I’ve been saving. I get a [Again: space left for proper currency once 12 year old Sheila did her research] a week for pocket money and I save it! If you want, we can all go and have a soda,” Annie explained proudly.

Now, who could refuse? For once, temptation took over pride. It had been so long since Sadie had had a soda. She could almost taste the cold delectable drink in her mouth. Sadie glanced at Ruth and saw that she too was dreaming of the refreshing drinks. Ruth looked at Sadie and they both nodded.

“I’ll go,” Sadie said, trying not to sound too eager or greedy.

“Me too,” the other girls chorused.

So the six friends headed down the sidewalk, talking and laughing. Sadie did her best to feel as if she hadn’t a care in the world, but deep down inside she knew she had many.