Stepping on the Cracks

In these opening chapters readers meet the first-person narrator, Margaret, and experience what her life is like under the waning shadow of WWII. Although little has visibly changed in Margaret’s small town, the war has impacted family dynamics, friendships, and people’s sense of right and wrong. These rich historical details help the reader connect with Margaret and understand the era in which she lives while also introducing themes of morality and family.

Unlike her feisty friend Elizabeth, Margaret admits she is “a chicken through and through” (22). Margaret’s imagination, evidenced in her colorful descriptions and figurative language, feeds her worries. She fears crossing Gordy, breaking parental rules, getting blood poisoning from a rusty fence, and encountering the rumored “crazy man” in the woods. Her timidity earns her Elizabeth’s cutting mockery, but Margaret nonetheless supports her friend in her schemes, revealing herself to be more of a follower than a leader, at least in these early chapters.

One of Margaret’s private fears is losing Jimmy, her older brother and protector. She dreads the idea of their family receiving a gold star, which recognizes—and symbolizes—the death of a serviceman. Fears for Jimmy affect everyone in Margaret’s family in different ways. Margaret’s mother is testy, and her father is distant, no longer joking or laughing. Margaret blames Hitler for the changes to her family.

Margaret’s understanding of the war is limited to her personal experience, which revolves around Jimmy. She knows Jimmy is a good, loving, funny person, and she cannot understand why or how anyone could hurt him. Margaret likens Jimmy to Private Willie Gillis, a character artist Norman Rockwell created for his paintings in the Saturday Evening Post. Gillis represents the young, fresh-faced “kid next door” soldiers like Jimmy (Denny, Diana. “Rockwell’s Willie Gillis.” The Saturday Evening Post, 15 May 2009). Gillis appeared on the magazine cover from 1941 to 1946, but Rockwell notably never portrayed him engaged in battle. Margaret’s comparison of Jimmy to Gillis therefore shows her naivete, which Jimmy’s letters enable. Jimmy shields Margaret from the harrowing realities of the war by giving her a sanitized, comical description of his life as a soldier—one that suggests he is as safe as Gillis, away from visible conflict.

The fact that the war has not yet negatively affected Margaret allows her to feel removed from it. Margaret thinks that even her mother’s soap operas seem more real “than the battles [her] parents talked about” (4). Still, Margaret recognizes that if Butch, the star high school quarterback, can die in the war, so could Jimmy.

World War II is historically known as “the good war” because the United States and the Allies fought for ideals of democracy and freedom against the threat of Axis power fascism. The war unified the nation and was considered morally justified. In Hahn’s novel, the girls wave at the soldiers in the troop train, confident that the soldiers are “making the world safe for them” (21). Everyone in town does their part for the war effort—whether collecting scrap like Gordy or working in a Victory Garden like Margaret’s mother—because by helping the country, they help their sons, brothers, and fathers. The townspeople are unified in their conviction in their cause and in their hatred of the enemy.

The war’s seemingly black and white morality influences even the children’s play. Gordy and his friends pretend to be commandos, and Elizabeth and Margaret riskily break rules to spy on their enemies. Their personal skirmishes echo the distant international conflict. Elizabeth and Margaret characterize Gordy as the “enemy,” likening him to the Nazis for the way he fights and picks on more helpless victims. Gordy is dirty and disagreeable, qualities the girls find repulsive and contrary to their values. Casting Gordy as a threatening “other” puts the girls in a morally superior position. Elizabeth, especially, seems to take their conflict personally.

Both sides also resort to physical violence in their interactions. Gordy grabs Elizabeth and tries to forcibly kiss her, and she in turn kicks and hits him. Margaret considers the boys such a threat that she truly believes that Gordy, Doug, and Toad would kill her and Elizabeth with their air rifles if they caught them. While Margaret admires Elizabeth for her bravery, Elizabeth’s passionate need for revenge and her refusal to avoid Gordy alarm her.

Hahn uses historical and cultural details to deepen the reader’s immersion in the novel’s setting. Margaret’s parents, for example, exemplify the traditional gender roles of the era. Mother is a homemaker; she spends her days ironing, cooking, cleaning, gardening, and listening to romantic soap operas. Daddy is the breadwinner and holds a conventionally masculine job. Hahn subtly illustrates the historically different expectations and standards for women and men, which today’s readers would likely find discriminatory. Mother, for instance, rebukes Margaret for unladylike behavior, while Gordy’s sexual aggression and disrespect towards Elizabeth goes unpunished. Mother is also wary of Elizabeth’s influence: Her impulsive behavior has led Margaret astray before.

As this section ends, Gordy’s disinclination to talk about Stuart, Elizabeth’s curiosity about it, and Margaret’s sighting of the strange man all foreshadow events to come.