Uprising by Jennifer A. Nielsen

Author:Jennifer A. Nielsen [Nielsen, Jennifer A.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Scholastic Inc.
Published: 2023-11-09T00:00:00+00:00

September 14, 1943

Three months had passed since the grenade delivery, and I hadn’t been given any special mission by the Polish underground. I still delivered newspapers, as before, and occasionally carried forged papers or even weapons. But they’d promised I’d have the chance to fight, to really make a difference here in Poland.

Until that happened, I was determined to keep up with my schooling. To pay for it, I took a job as a telephone operator for the traffic police. Most of it was so routine, I barely raised a brow at any of the calls that came in. But occasionally, the conversations were of great interest to me. That was how I found out where the black markets were operating and what they sold, where the Germans were traveling in the city. It’s where I learned the mistakes other resistance fighters had made, so that I could avoid making those same mistakes too.

Mine was the evening shift, which meant I had to do my messenger duties between school and work, followed by homework late in the evening, after Mama had gone to bed. School had only been in session for a couple of weeks and I was already exhausted.

“Either quit school or quit the resistance,” Ryszard had told me late the night before. “You can’t do both of them well.”

I’d only frowned over at him. “What resistance?”

“The resistance that you are not part of and neither am I.”

I shrugged. “Never heard of it.”

He’d given up and gone to bed. Which was all the better. I had homework to do.

Maryna wasn’t in school anymore, a disappointment to me, but her family needed money, so she was working full-time to clean the houses of German officers. She hated it, but occasionally brought back some tidy gossip of her own for me to share with Drill for the newspapers.

And though I’d rather have had her with me, at least it made traveling to school a simpler matter. I still took various routes to school, but only ones I considered safe.

Today, I’d chosen to take the trolley. It was worth a few zlotys to get a few extra minutes to rest. There weren’t many stops until the one nearest to my school, but I could hardly keep my eyes open.

“Miss? Miss?”

It took me a minute to remember where I was. The rhythm and sway of the trolley had put me to sleep almost immediately, but that had stopped now, and I was the only passenger on board. It must have been the driver who spoke to me. He was turned around in his chair with a friendly smile on his face.

I sat up and rubbed my eyes, then said, “I’m so sorry. Is it my stop already?”

“Already?” He chuckled. “I’m the one who should apologize to you. I thought about waking you up, but you looked so peaceful, I couldn’t bring myself to do it.”

Now I peered out the windows, trying to orient myself. “Where are we, then?”

“End of the line. I’ll take a short break, then start making the rounds again.

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