Uprising by Margaret Peterson Haddix Page A

up!”
    Rahel slumped, and for a moment it seemed that it was Yetta holding Rahel up, not the other way around.
    â€œYou figured it out, then,” Rahel said sadly. “That’s what we thought down at union headquarters, too. The bosses hired those . . . those women. They bribed the police to arrest you.”
    Yetta nodded, not surprised.
    â€œWhat I don’t understand,” Rahel said, “is, why
those
women? Why not just have the police beat you up and keep it simple?”
    She attempted a wry smile, but it failed miserably.
    â€œBecause they’re women,” Yetta said. She remembered the police looking from her to the prostitutes, saying,
You’re a striker, aren’t you?... Then I can’t see much difference.
“They want to say we’re just as low as those women, just as unclean.”
    It was all of a piece, somehow, with the men back in her shtetl praying, “Thank you, God, for not making me a woman.” Men thought women were worthless, stupid, easily cowed. Yetta narrowed her eyes, thinking thoughts she never would have dreamed of back in the shtetl. They weren’t even thoughts that fit with her old socialist fervor. But they were what she believed now.
    God made me, too,
she thought.
And He made me to fight.

Jane
    J ane pulled the comforter up to her chin. There seemed no reason to get out of bed this morning. Ever since Eleanor and her friends had gone back to Vassar a few weeks ago, Jane’s life had felt emptied out and pointless.
    â€œMiss Wellington?” It was Miss Milhouse, sweeping the drapes back from the floor-to-ceiling windows, letting sunlight splash into the room. “You’ve slept quite late enough. You have a dress fitting at half past eleven, and you’ve not had breakfast yet. You’re leaving yourself no time to prepare your toilette. . . .”
    Jane sighed, barely listening. What did a dress fitting matter? The new dress had ruffles where many of her old dresses had bows, and it was a butter-cream color she’d not had in her wardrobe before. But it was really the same as every other dress she owned. Along with her corset, it would pinch in so much at the waist that she’d barely be able to breathe; it would seem not so much an article of clothing as a cage.
    Ever since her father had forbidden her to go to college, everything seemed like a cage.
    No,
some nitpicky, precise part of her brain corrected.
    He didn’t forbid it. He just called women’s colleges preposterous, and you were scared to say anything else.
    Jane sighed again.
    Miss Milhouse whirled around from the windows and marched directly toward the bed.
    â€œReally, Miss Wellington,” she said briskly. “You must expunge yourself of this . . . this torpor.”
    She came to the side of Jane’s bed and reached out as though she were going to fluff the pillows. Instead, she grabbed Jane by the shoulders and began shaking them.
    â€œYou simply must—”
    A look like horror crept over Miss Milhouse’s expression. She dropped Jane’s shoulders and turned away, plunging her face into her hands. Her whole body quivered, as if shaken by silent sobs.
    Miss Milhouse—crying?
    â€œI’m sorry,” Jane said in a small voice, like a small child who doesn’t quite understand what she’s being scolded for.
    Miss Milhouse spun back around, brushing tears away, pretending they’d never happened.
    â€œYou
will
be ready for the dress fitting on time,” she said. “I insist on it. And then, this afternoon, perhaps . . . perhaps I can take you for a treat.”
    An ice cream sundae, probably,
Jane thought.
Who cares?
    But Miss Milhouse was rushing out of the room. She quickly reappeared, carrying a newspaper. She waved it in front of Jane’s eyes, so quickly Jane could only focus on a few words at a time: WILBUR WRIGHT , and then SURE TO FLY .
    â€œHe did it,” Miss Milhouse said.