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For a little while, she'd had nothing to do with whether she lived or died. If
that wasn't enough to scare somebody, she couldn't think what would be.
"What are we going to do?" she said, not so much because she thought Mr.
Snodgrass had the answer as because she had to let it out or burst.
"Well, I'll tell you one thing I aim to do pretty darn quick," he said. Beckie
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made a questioning noise. He went on, "I'm going to get the spade out of the
garage and dig me a good trench in the back yard. Maybe another one in the
front yard. Cover over part of it with some corrugated sheet iron I've got and
it'll make a tolerable shelter. Better'n ducking under the kitchen table,
that's for sure."
"Sounds like a good idea," Beckie said, and then, "Can I help?"
He started to say no. She could tell. But she also watched him change his
mind. "Well, maybe you can," he said. "I'm not as spry as I used to be. You
don't mind getting dirty and sweaty, you don't mind blisters on your hands, I
expect you'll do all right."
Beckie looked down at her palms. They were soft and smooth. Why not? What had
she ever done that would toughen them up? She hadn't thought she would get
stuck in the middle of or even on the edges of a war, though. "I don't care,"
she said firmly. "Better my hands than my neck."
"Now that's a sensible thing to say." Mr. Snodgrass looked around to make sure
Gran was out of earshot. He didn't see her, but lowered his voice anyway:
"You've come out with a good many sensible things lately, you have. Makes it
hard for me to believe you're really Myrtle's granddaughter, no offense."
"I'm not mad I know what you mean," Beckie said. They traded conspirator's
grins. She went on, "Maybe I got it from my dad's side of the family I don't
know. But I'll tell you something: my mom doesn't get along with Gran,
either."
"Can't say I'm surprised." Mr. Snodgrass looked around again. "Back when
Myrtle lived here, nobody got along with her."
"Some things don't change, do they?" Beckie said.
"I reckon not," he answered. "Come on, then. Let's get to work."
It was just as hard as he said it would be. Digging a long, deep slit in the
ground was no fun at all, not when the temperature and the humidity were both
in the nineties. That was how Mr. Snodgrass put it, anyway. To Beckie, who was
used to Celsius instead of Fahrenheit, it seemed about thirty-five. It was hot
and sticky either way. One of them would dig for a while, then stop and pass
the shovel to the other. Beckie didn't let Mr. Snodgrass be a hero she didn't
want him keeling over.
And she didn't feel much like a hero, either. Sweat made her clothes stick to
her like glue. She figured she would have to wring out her blouse after she
finally took it off. Antiperspirant or no antiperspirant, before long she
could smell herself. She did get blisters. They stung. She could go on working
in spite of them. She could, and she did.
Mr. Snodgrass got blisters, too. "Haven't tried anything like this in a
while," he said while Beckie took a turn with the spade.
"It's tearing your lawn to pieces," she said.
"Well, I can set it to rights one of these days," he answered. "That'll give
me something to do. And you notice we aren't the only folks digging in."
Beckie let fly with another shovelful of dirt. She had noticed. Several other
people up and down Prunty Street were making shelters. One house had taken a
direct hit. That made as good an argument for digging in as any she could
think of.
Then Mr. Snodgrass said, "Don't know what we'll do if they start throwing
poison gas at us. I couldn't begin to tell you where the gas masks're at. Have
to dig 'em out, wherever they are."
"Why do you have gas masks?" Beckie asked.
He paused to wipe sweat off his forehead before answering, "Well, you never
can tell." He seemed to think that was reason enough. In a place like this,
not far from the border between two states that didn't like each other, maybe
it was.
Travel was supposed to broaden you. It sure was teaching Beckie things she'd
never known before. The main thing it was teaching her was how lucky she was
to live in Los Angeles, a city far from any border, and in California, a state
too strong for any of its neighbors to bother much. Before she left for this
trip with Gran, she took all that for granted. As she started to dig again,
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she knew she never would again.
Most of the time, Justin and Mr. Brooks had been the only guests in
Elizabeth's only motel. They weren't any more. Virginian soldiers filled the
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