waists with cords. A gaunt youngish woman with fuzzy black hair, wearing the same costume, stood in the center of the room clacking time with little round black things in each hand while the girls kicked forward and backward.
Maybe this was a school where one could learn to dance like the dancers at the Empire.
I certainly learned a lot today, she thought walking home.
"What do you think, Mother, there's a school where they teach dancing. In the Lode Building. Not fox-trots or one-steps but steps dancers do at the Empire. Stage dancing."
Mae put down a knitting bag used as a subterfuge to carry the food brought after work. Landladies were unreasonable about cooking in your room.
"You don't say, Pussy. Oh, here's the new Mode."
Lucy clasped her hands behind her tousled head and rocked back and forth on the bed's edge.
"I had more fun today. Miss Shaver kept me after school because she thought I didn't have any pants, and then when she saw I did she kissed me. Isn't that something?"
Mae smiled. It was nice that Lucy's teacher was such a nice woman. She took out a Sterno and opened a can of vegetable soup. Vegetables are good for you. During the war she had learned that dark bread is more nourishing than white, and the delicatessen had some lovely fresh roast pork and potato salad.
"Don't forget mustard on mine," reminded Lucy.
Tomorrow was Saturday—Saturday and Sunday they splurged at Childs' because Friday was payday.
After the incriminating evidence was cleaned away and the refuse stored in the knitting bag to be discarded surreptitiously in a street garbage container, they divided a banana, a five-cent Hershey bar, and settled down to catch up on what was going on in the world of Mode.
It was a magical world's monthly greeting overflowing with glittering advertisements and fashions, inspiring designs for Lucy's wardrobe. Sometimes one could find wonderful bargains with which to approximate Mode fashions, clothes which made Lucy appear older than her approaching thirteenth year. Mother's companion.
Mae w'as vaguely aware that Lucy's dresses caused consternation among girl classmates, but dismissed this as envy. Illogically, she
