A Drop of Rain Read Online Free Page A

says Mr. Dunlop, as I feel my face turn hot and probably purple. “We need all the West Indians, Italians, Vietnamese and Greeks we can get to make this WASP enclave more interesting.”
    â€œMelony is just jealous because Mr. Dunlop picked Naomi’s assignment to read out loud,” says Sarah Smith.
    Sarah sits behind me. She has waist-length blonde hair. She takes modelling lessons. She has gorgeous clothes. Plus she sings with a band!
    â€œI’m not jealous,” says Melony. “I was just stating facts. Naomi looks different, and her name is different.”
    â€œNo more personal remarks, Melony,” snaps Mr. Dunlop. “Such remarks lead to the same intolerance that got out of hand in Nazi Germany. Many people look ‘different.’ I do. You do. What is normal? Naomi is certainly ‘normal’.”
    â€œActually, I am one quarter Jewish,” I burst out. “Supposedly, I look like my Jewish grandmother, my father’s mother. My last name is Polish. My mother’s grandparents came from Poland to Canada shortly after World War II. They were Christians, not Jews. I look like the women on that side of the family too. They also have dark hair and eyes.”
    â€œThanks for taking Melony’s remarks so well, Naomi,” says Mr. Dunlop. “I’ll bet your Jewish grandmother had a lot of stories about World War II. Authentic testimony . . .”
    â€œI never met my Jewish grandmother,” I say. “Shedied before I was born. One of my grandfathers was a war hero. He was a pilot in the Polish wing of the British Air Force. One of my great-grandfathers was a partisan. That’s an unofficial soldier in the Polish underground. My father’s father was a journalist. I don’t know whether he was a war correspondent or not. All these people died before I was born.”
    â€œI see I’ve got myself a first-class history student this year,” says Mr. Dunlop, beaming.
    â€œNot really,” I say, feeling my face getting even hotter and purpler.

    â€œI thought Melony was totally ignorant to pick on you like that,” says Sarah after class as we’re walking home.
    History is our last class on Friday. We have walked partway home together each Friday since the beginning of the school year. Previous Fridays we talked politely about general topics. This Friday, we suddenly talked on a personal level, as though we were friends.
    â€œMelony is as dumb as Bob,” I say. “I hear they’re going out together. They deserve each other. Actually, I was more embarrassed by Mr. Dunlop. Now he’ll expect me to write brilliant essays or something, and I really don’t care about school that much. I’ve got a job now, and I’m into fashion. I want to open a clothing boutique like my grandmother did after her kids grew up.”
    â€œYou don’t have to go to university for fashion,” says Sarah. “But I think you still have to go to a community college.”
    â€œI don’t want to go to university,” I say. “Or college.I’m not an intellectual like my parents and Aunt Hanna. Anyway, there are hardly any jobs for university graduates. It took my mother fifteen years after university to find a full-time job so she could raise me and buy a house. By the time Mom found the perfect job, I was already raised.”
    â€œDidn’t you say that your father is a journalist?” asks Sarah.
    â€œThat’s my grandfather. My father is a translator over in Poland,” I say. “He used to translate for this guy called Lech Walesa. Walesa was a revolutionary leader who won the Nobel Prize for peace about twenty years ago. My parents are divorced.”
    â€œThat sounds exciting,” says Sarah, pausing at my ugly little red-brick bungalow. “I mean, about the Nobel Prize.”
    â€œIt’s not,” I say. “Because I’ve never seen my father. He has another