A Tiny Piece of Sky Read Online Free Page A

something.
    Hermann wore an eye patch for a couple of months after and then was fitted for a glass eye the color of an emerald, which was close, but not an exact match, to his real eye. His glass eye wasn’t immediately noticeable to others if they didn’t know to look for it—but because the iris didn’t move in concert with the
good
eye and could “look” only straight ahead, never up or down or side to side, it became obvious soon enough.
    While Elizabeth had her eyes on the program during the opening hymn, Frankie shifted in her seat to relieve herself from the increasing irritation caused by her petticoat. “When do we go on?”
    Elizabeth pointed to the place in the program where it said “The Baum Girls.” Right after Reverend Martin’s homily and just before the offering. “Not until then?” Frankie said, because she really wanted to get this over with.
    â€œShh,” said Elizabeth, and then she nodded at the hymnal to let Frankie know she should be singing and not talking. If they weren’t in church right then, Frankie would’ve given her an earful about how Elizabeth wasn’t the boss and should stop acting like she was. But instead, Frankie just stared at the paintings on the arched ceiling.
    Reverend Martin’s homily was about the troubles overseas and the Golden Rule. And he asked God to bless the people in Europe, in particular the Jewish people who were on a ship called the
St. Louis
, who were trying to get away from the Germans but were turned away from Cuba and then weren’t permitted to come here. Reverend Martin also blessed President Roosevelt. And it made Frankie wonder why the president wasn’t doing something more to help those people.
    The reverend finally said “Amen,” and that was Elizabeth andFrankie’s cue to take their places at the altar. Miss Fisk looked over the organ at them with raised eyebrows, and Elizabeth nodded at her. She started playing, and Frankie glanced nervously at all the people she knew. There was Mother and Daddy right there, smiling. Well, Daddy was smiling. Mother was watching with intense scrutiny. There was Mr. Wexler, a few pews back, nodding off. Behind him, Inky and Fritz, Daddy’s best friends, all done up in vests and bow ties. Also Aunt Edith, Uncle Hal, Ava, and Martha. Ava was crossing her eyes and sticking fingers up both nostrils like a lunatic, trying to make Frankie laugh. And all the way to the right in the second row was Robbie McIntyre, staring absolutely bug-eyed at Elizabeth.
    When Miss Fisk came to the end of the introduction, she looked up at Frankie and Elizabeth and started to mouth the first word, which happened to be “Oh,” so they knew when to come in.
They knew when to come in.
That wasn’t the problem. The problem was that when they did come in, they came in on notes that together produced a sound that was, well,
unnatural
. And the thing about singing is that when you started off in that sort of place, it was really hard to go anyplace else.
    Still, it was nearly impossible to tell what people in church were really feeling, because you were not allowed to clap or holler. That was a rule that wasn’t written down anywhere, but it was a rule that everybody knew and was expected to mind. You were also not allowed to wish you were someplace else or think about how much you’d like to kick Leroy Price in the shins for pulling your chair out from under you in the lunchroom. You had to be quiet and still and proper and for a whole hour think about God and about allthe bad things you’d done, and sometimes even longer if there was communion.
    Mother had her own set of rules about acting proper in church. She didn’t even like her girls to sneeze or cough. Crying was permitted. As long as it was the quiet sort without sobs or mucus. Mother said that the Baum girls should always act like ladies—something Frankie didn’t give a