Isabel’s War Read Online Free Page B

Helga’s been gone for close to three hours. Are you sure she was okay when she left?”
    â€œOf course she was. You’ve got to get used to the fact that she’s one of those outdoorsy types from Europe. When she says a ‘morning walk’ she probably means aten-mile hike. I don’t see why everyone is so worried. What could possibly happen to her?”
    Ruthie glances at me sharply. “I never saw you in such a mean mood as this summer, Izzie. Anything could happen. Everything could happen. She could fall into a ditch and break a leg, she could start across a cow pasture and be charged by a bull, she could meet up with one of the inmates from the home for the feebleminded over in Boonetown and be...”
    â€œBe what?”
    â€œWell...attacked.”
    â€œYou mean raped, don’t you?”
    â€œNot necessarily. Just, well you know, scared to death.”
    â€œI can’t believe they’d let those people roam all over the place unless they were sure they were harmless.”
    â€œWell, that’s what I mean. They could be harmless but Helga wouldn’t know that. They drool a lot and they hold on really tight when they grab you...”
    My hands go flying to my forehead. This is beginning to sound serious. I can already see Helga screaming with pain in a ditch beside the road where no one can see her or hear her, or clutching her stomach which has been gored bloody by a mad bull, or wrestling with some slimy-mouthed retard in a lonely clearing deep in the woods. How could I be so lacking in imagination, so completely blind to the terrible possibilities lurking in this new world to which Helga has come from so far away to be safe.
    In the midst of all my mental turmoil, Ruthie is suddenly nudging me urgently. “Look, look. Is that him?”
    I take my hands away from my forehead and follow her pointing finger. There, just at the corner of the annex, walking with a comfortable swagger in his dazzling sailors’ whites in our direction, is none other than Roy. And beside him, trotting along rather slowly and with a bandaged left leg, is Helga.
    Other people have also witnessed their approach. “Oh my goodness, it’s our Helga,” Harriette Frankfurter bursts out, tearing across the lawn from the main house. Ruthie and I are on our feet. People are coming together from all directions. Helga and Roy are soon encircled.
    â€œYou brought her back to us,” Mrs. F. exclaims. “Oh, you dear boy. Where did you find her? She’s limping and so pale. Helga, Helga, what happened to you?”
    A chair is brought and Helga is lowered into it. Another chair appears and Roy gently lifts Helga’s bandaged leg to rest on its seat.
    â€œShe wasn’t hurt bad,” Roy, clearly the hero, tells the crowd. “It was a farm dog. They can get pretty mean, though, you know. So when we heard all the barking and growling over at our summer place across the road, I started off for the farm. Sure enough, she was on the ground and he had her by the calf.”
    Mrs. F. is wringing her hands and Mr. F. is trying to steady her. “Helga is so frightened of dogs,” her aunt says.“The Nazis, you know. With their terrible killer guard dogs.” Mrs. F. lowers her voice. “But we won’t speak of that now.”
    â€œNein, nein,” Helga whispers to the concerned faces bending over her. “Not such a big dog as in Germany.”
    Roy folds his arms and looks down on Helga with concern. “Big enough. And he really got his teeth into her. So I borrowed a car and took her into town. Got the doc to stitch her up and give her a tetanus shot. You never know with these farm dogs. He could have had rabies from a raccoon or even a bat. But the doc said no way.”
    By this time, Harriette F. has fainted and is lying on the grass being fanned by my mother and Mr. F. I turn to Ruthie. “Could she really get rabies?”
    Ruthie shrugs.