please put ideas for this in the comments; i'm stumped!

journal of a teenage girl during ww1.

5/16/1917  

Miz Rollins is insistent that we keep a journal for the rest of the year.  Our old teacher, Mr.Hubermann, was a jolly old German man.  He was here one day, and the next the principal was in our classroom, telling us under mysterious circumstances that he was sorry to inform us that Mr. Hubermann would no longer be our teacher.   So Miz Rollins is new, adamant about Miz-not-Missus, and “excited to get to know us”, which is the supposed purpose of this journal.

Not much has happened today worth reporting.  It’s break at the moment, and we have several minutes longer.  So, I may as well introduce myself, since I doubt anything will happen in the next, oh, two minutes, say, it takes to describe me in all my glory.

I am not interesting.  Let us get that point across now.  I have long brown hair that is useless for any of the new styles the girls in my year are desperate to try; I stick with my little-girl braids.  I have green eyes, but everyone says they’re either blue or gray, so I suppose they are somewhere in between.  But I prefer to think that I could have it worse.

However, Richie Parnell disagrees.  Right now, at this very minute, as I write down his name, he is reaching forward to grab my braid.

There! I just slapped his hand away, which will be effective for all of three minutes.  One time I didn’t notice him in time and he dipped my hair in his inkwell.  I whipped my head around and splattered ink all over my face.  He irritates me so much!  His mission in life is to make mine miserable.  I truly think so.  How can high school boys be so juvenile?  I thought they’d have grown out of it by now.  But that just shows what I know.

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      Libby Killian and I walked home together today, as we do often.  Her family lives next door to mine, and what a lively bunch they are.

      Libby’s mother works as a laundress.  People from all over the city bring her their soiled shirts and sheets and she charges five extra cents for ironing.  I would not want to spend my time surrounded by other’s filth, but if it puts food on the table, who am I to object?  And it’s so difficult to do that nowadays, you must admire Mrs. Killian’s determination. 

      The Killians all have frizzled brown hair, warm brown-sugar eyes, and freckles by the hundred.  There are six children, and Libby’s father, who works at the post office.  Her oldest brother Martin, who’s 21, was drafted last month.  Now a new draft has gone out asking for men as young as eighteen, and Sam, her next eldest brother, turns seventeen next week.  Almost eligible in his eyes, almost vulnerable in Libby’s and mine, that is.  

      For as long as we can remember, it has been me and Libby and Sam.  My father works for the government.  I’m not positive what he does, every time I ask he says it isn’t women’s business.  My mama is part of the Lady’s Society, and when I was younger, was constantly telling me to “run along”.

      So I did, straight down to the Killians.  I and she and Sam would do all sorts of things that my mother would find improper and even sometimes ---horror of horrors! ---held spitting contests.  But when I was in the refuge of the laundry room, Mother’s rules did not apply, and I could be as coarse and common as I chose.  That lasted until about last year.  Now Sam has deemed himself above us, and as much as I am and want to continue to be angry with him, I hope to God he has the sense not to apply.

      Even the boys at school have been talking about applying.  A seventeen year old pretending to be eighteen is one thing, a fourteen year old is quite another!  Again, as much as they annoy me, I don’t want them to die.  And that’s what happens when you get drafted.  We all know it.

      My brother has it better, born in ’07, he has no worries about any of it.  As far as he knows, the only effect of the war is that he can’t go to Church camp this summer.  My mother and father have no intention of telling him otherwise.  I can’t say I plan to either.

 

5/17/1917

      Mother wanted to buy a liberty bond today.  She asked Father about it during supper, and he said absolutely not.  Are you becoming one of those crazy suffragettes? The government has already raised our taxes enough, he said.  I’m not sure what to make of any of it.  This war isn’t women’s business, I’ve been told that thousands of times.  But if it affects us, isn’t it our business as much as anyone else’s?

     

5/18/1917

      Today President Wilson passed the Selective Service act.  Now the federal government can draft as ruthlessly as they wish.  And oh, they have; they have.

      After supper, I went over to Libby’s.  Sam has officially signed up for the military.  He’ll be cowering in a trench in Europe as soon as possible.

      As we sit on Libby’s bed, Sam ambles into the room and suddenly I’m so furious I wish he would just die in a trench.  Doesn’t he realize how stupid he’s being?  The stress he’s causing his family?  He opens his mouth to say something, but with the weight of my glare it closes. 

      Libby extemporaneously jumps up and voices what I am thinking.  She hollers at him until he seems to shrink into a little red ball of shame, and for the first time I can see Libby’s mother in her.

      After Libby’s tirade, Sam straightens up; pulls back his shoulders, and stands tall and soldier-like.  His lip curls to the side in disdain as he says coldly, “I am the selfish one?  I am the one who thinks of no one but himself?  Look at you! Do you realize that by fighting in this war, I am trying to make the future better for you?  You call me selfish�"look at yourself.”  He leaves the room without a glance back, and I decide that this would be a fine time to take my leave as well.

      Sam will go to Europe the day after tomorrow.  He gets no formal training; they just place him in a trench, put a gun in his hand, and say go. 

      I cannot fall asleep.

 

5/19/1917

      School was a bore today, but what happened after it was most exhilarating.  I was at Libby’s again, and Sam was in the next room, sitting pensively on his bed.  After awhile he came over, and I admit I wanted to slap his look of superiority off his face.  Libby determinedly avoided his eyes.

      “I must enlist the help of you two girls,” he began, and that made Libby pause in braiding my hair and look up.

      “You see, once I am in Europe I have no control over this predicament.  Do you….Perhaps the best way to tell you is to show you…”

      He led us out the back door and we scrambled after him into the woods behind the house.  We followed a twisted path that wasn’t really a path for about ten minutes, and Sam stopped us in front of a heap of branches and stones.  No, it’s not a formless heap; it’s a shelter.  And it must contain something.

      Sam strode straight up to the makeshift teepee and cautiously called, “Hello?” 

      And to Libby’s and my shock, a voice weakly replied, ‘Hello, yourself, Killian. What did ya bring me today?”

      Sam chuckled.  “No food today, sorry.  But I brought something else.”  He takes me and Libby’s arms and prods us forward. 

      A hand presumably attached to the voice extended from the brush.  It hesitantly, almost disbelievingly touched my wrist, and then expanded and elongated into a scruffy, shabby, and strangely, already catalogued in my mind, person.

      It was Eddie Meminger.  His father owns the grocery, and he’s the same age as Martin Killian.  But in that case, shouldn’t he have been in Europe?

      The realization came so slowly, and I was surprised I didn’t realize it before.  Eddie was wearing a tattered uniform, a army-issue canteen, and a week’s worth of stubble.  He had deserted.

      Libby understood a few seconds after I did, and Eddie being as much her brother as I am her sister, she let him have it. “And why, pray tell, Mr. Meminger, did you feel that you were an exception to the rules?  Why is it that you can’t fight like any honorable man would?”

      Eddie grinned.  “You see, Missy, your answer’s right there in your question.  Did you hear my name?  It’s as German as sauerkraut.  Those American men in the trenches would kill me as soon as look at me.  And to answer your second question, since when is it dishonorable not to believe in war?”

      Sam nodded superiorly at Libby.  “So now, I’m afraid I can’t babysit you anymore. These fine young ladies will now be your connection to the outside world.”  His sugar-coated words can’t hide the barbed, stinging truth.  Being a ‘fine young lady’ can’t get us very far when we’re being interrogated for hiding a deserter. 

      But stupidly, we have agreed to help.  Our job, in theory, is simple.  We bring food, drink, and news once a day.  On our way home from school, we take a ‘shortcut’ through the woods, and perform our elite duties.  Lucky us.  But we’ve promised, and I suppose we must keep it.  At least two of us have to be honorable.

      Sam left after that.  Most likely for good.

 

5/20/1917

      Not much to report.    We did our job, and now I’m sitting on my bed thinking that we may just actually get away with this.

 

      5/21/1917

      I just reread yesterday’s entry.  How wrong I was!  Someone knows.  First day on the job and they may as well fire us.

I cannot believe the nerve of that Richie Parnell! Before today it was what I now consider to be harmless stuff, pulling hair and such.

      But yesterday after school, he decided to follow me home.  Of course, Libby and I didn’t go straight home.  I didn’t know until he hissed in my ear during English, “Think I’ll stop by the grocery after school.  Whatever happened to that boy who always used to hang around there?”

      At break, Libby and I held a grand scale Spanish Inquisition, with only one victim.  Richie has been sworn to secrecy, so help him God if he tells. 

      And so help us to keep the fifth commandment.

 

     

5/22/1917

Today the Killians received a telegram. That’s always bad news.  Libby came to my door when they got it and said I should be there to have it opened.  They assumed it must be Martin.  They were wrong.

Your son Samuel Arthur Killian’s transport to Europe was cut short when his ship was sunk by a German u-boat.  The war bureau regrets to inform you that your son is most likely deceased.  We thank you for your services. 

They regret it?  They enforced it!

We sit numbly for a while.  We muse over the words most likely.  We cry, I suppose.  I don’t remember much.

Now we must keep Eddie safe.  He’s our substitute brother now.

 

5/23/1917

I’ve reread this journal and realized a few things.

One, I cannot hand this in.  I’ll have to write another.  “Today, I wore a pink pinafore.  For tea, we had jam and biscuits.  Tomorrow, I shall wear a yellow pinafore.”  What fun!

Two, I cannot throw this journal away.  While I know I’ll never forget the contents of this book, having it in writing makes it feel more like a story, that I can read and feel bad for the characters, but experience no real pain.  I suppose I’ll just shove it in the trunk upstairs; who knows, maybe some girl my age will find it in a century or so.

 

     

     

     

     

 

 

 

Author's Note

i had to write this for a school project, so it was written in the space of about two hours. all the loose ends dont tie in perfectly, so if you have any ideas or comments or constructive criticism (note the word constructive), feel free to put it here!