Gentle reader, whomever you are, here they are today for no particular reason... and as always, subject to change. Hope you like them.

Chapter 1... Fall 1943

Zosia Stanislawska charged up Dogwood Street with a dirty magazine hidden under her shirt. All she needed was some kind of a bag for it. She'd be quick--run in and out of the house while no one was watching. Then on to Emmie’s so they could examine it before the Pilsudskis started their endless Sunday luncheon.

She hadn’t counted on a screaming match in her front yard. Ma stood near a broken bottle, broom in hand, hollering in Polish at the house across the road. Ma had faithfully refused to learn English since her U.S. arrival in 1911. Her one concession to her adopted land was an ability to swear fluently in both languages.

“Frenchy, Frenchy, dupa kręci!”

While it was a given that Ma had above-average swearing skills, she had outdone herself with that little beauty. Zosia couldn't think of any swear--English or Polish--that almost rhymed with “Frenchy.” And calling someone a knotted up, constipated butthole was a first-class insult in any language.

An upstairs window in the Frenchy household scraped opened and Bertie Archambeault appeared. “Aw, shut up, you old witch.”

Zosia gritted her teeth. Ma could not resist a fight, especially when she was wrong.

And now the battle was fully engaged. Ma calculated her coordinates. Her broom launched chunks of broken bottle that landed like mortar shells in the Archambeault’s front yard.

Zosia worked up all her courage. “Ma, how do you know they did it?” Zosia knew—everybody knew—that Pop dropped the vodka empty on his way home the night before.

Ma swung around. “That’s right, stick up for Frenchy--just like Marek! Every Sunday morning, I see broken bottles in front of our house. How do you know those pigs aren’t doing it? ” Ma flipped her middle finger to the now-empty upstairs window and turned on Zosia again. "When your brother Jan--my only real son--gets home, he'll fix those Frenchies good!"

With that, she pitched the broom at her own front door and stomped toward the outhouse. This was unfortunate because the outhouse would renew Ma’s rage at their landlady, who hadn't fixed their one, very backed-up indoor toilet for almost a week now.

Anyway, Ma was gone. Zosia exhaled and adjusted the magazine. She trotted toward the front door, but Bertie was hanging out the window again.

“Hey, Zosia, nothing personal to you or anything, but your ma is nuts.” He twirled his finger in a circle near his ear—the universal cuckoo sign. “And Zo…”

“Yeah?” Zosia tried to stifle the anxiety building up inside of her. The magazine was starting to get sweaty.

“Tell Marek to come get me, ok?”

“I’ll tell him if he’s awake, Bertie, but if he’s still sleeping, you got to take your chances and tell him yourself later. I’m in a hurry to get to Emmie’s.”

“Oh, ok. Hey, does your old lady own a shotgun?”

“Course not. Why would she need a shotgun when she’s got that broom?”

“Oh, yeah. Well, maybe I’ll knock on the door after all. See you around, Zo.”

Zosia put her hand on the doorknob.

“And hey, Zo…”

She wheeled around. “What, Bertie?”

“Next time, don’t let the laundry put so much starch in your shirt.”

Zosia shot a horrified look at her chest to see if the magazine had somehow shown through and fired up Bertie’s sick, fourteen-year-old male brain. Relief washed over her—the shirt was not transparent, although the magazine did give her a certain board-like appearance. She was too unnerved to answer Bertie. She let out a deranged-sounding laugh.
 
Zosia seldom used the front door, but it was closer and her need to disappear was overwhelming. She yanked it open and was hit full in the face with a blast of stink. This turned out to be lucky because the stink came from Pop who had passed out in the front hall. Without it, she probably would have fallen on top of him.

“Holy Mother of God,” she moaned. She looked back out the door to check if Bertie had seen anything. The window was empty again. Zosia shut the door, sealing the darkness of the living room.

She bent down, shook his shoulder and shouted directly into his ear. “Pop! Wake up! You pissed yourself again!”

No answer.

She didn’t have time for this today.

She leapt over him. Marek could deal with it later. She had no idea how he could sleep through the pissy smell and the house's other overwhelming odor—last night’s beet soup. But there he was, her beloved twin, snoring on the couch. She slipped upstairs.
 
Zosia closed her bedroom door, grabbed her bookbag, and dumped it out on her bed. Homework papers, books, and two stubby pencils scattered over the worn quilt. Glancing over her shoulder, Zosia slid the magazine inside. She tiptoed back downstairs and headed for the kitchen door, whispering an apology to Marek for what he would have to face when he woke up.