Stepping on the Cracks

Gordy saddles Margaret with the nickname “Baby Magpie,” and even Elizabeth calls Margaret a “sissy baby.” Derisively labeling someone a baby implies they are weak, fearful, dependent, and immature. At the beginning of the novel, Margaret lives up to these monikers: She is a fearful follower, worries about breaking her parents’ rules, and looks to others, like Jimmy, for protection. However, Margaret is stung by the others’ ridicule and wishes that “people would stop thinking [she] was a baby” (109). By the end of the novel, Margaret finds her voice and her strength. Others recognize the change in Margaret: Gordy drops the “Baby” and just calls her Magpie, indicating that his opinion of her has changed and that she is growing up.

Cracks represent the girls’ growing knowledge of adult situations and their moral complexity. Cracks start out as a childhood semblance of agency. The children’s rhyme “step on a crack and you‘ll break your mother’s back” corresponds to a jumping game involving the avoidance of sidewalk cracks. Firebrand Elizabeth subverts the game, taking it on the offensive: The girls jump on cracks to symbolically destroy their enemies. As the novel progresses and the girls’ beliefs about the war and others evolve, their enemies fluctuate. They jump on cracks to thwart Hitler, Gordy, Mrs. Wagner, and Mr. Smith.

Meanwhile, new and confusing ideas threaten the girls’ childhood worldview, forming symbolic cracks in it. Margaret, suddenly wondering if Jimmy even wanted to go to war, feels “as if a crack had opened in the solid earth under [her] feet” (81). As Margaret gradually recognizes that Gordy’s personality is informed by his abusive homelife and empathizes with him, she sees that his life “was as cracked as the old platter [she] was drying” (168). Adults, previously infallible, prove imperfect. When Margaret recognizes that Mother’s beliefs about Stuart are fundamentally at odds with her own, Margaret sees that some moral questions have no single, clear-cut answer and again notices cracks “opening everywhere.” Cracks represent Margaret’s transition from childhood to the more complex world of adolescence, and her willingness to “step on” them symbolizes her growing ability to confront difficult issues head-on.

Secrets—and the question of when, if ever, it’s acceptable to keep them—inform the novel’s theme of moral ambiguity. During World War II, the US Office of War Information created the slogan “Loose Lips Might Sink Ships” to caution Americans against careless talk that could give vital war information to the enemy. Likewise, characters frequently pressure each other not to “tattle” in the novel. Gordy graphically threatens the girls not to expose Stuart. Elizabeth bullies tearful Margaret out of confiding her fears to her mother. Mrs. Wagner, the sixth-grade teacher, prohibits any kind of informing in her classroom. The result of so many secrets is a string of deceptions and broken rules. In some cases the consequences are life-threatening. Mother, for example, is complicit in keeping a secret that endangers Mrs. Smith and her children. Telling secrets has its own repercussions and can mean betraying friendships or worrying people. Jimmy keeps his true feelings about the war secret from Margaret in his cheerful letters.

Characters’ motives for keeping secrets vary. Some people stay silent out of fear—the crossing guards fear Gordy’s reprisal if they tell about his assault on Elizabeth’s school supplies—but others believe they are serving a higher moral cause. The girls and Barbara keep Stuart’s desertion a secret from their parents, even though doing so makes Margaret and Barbara uncomfortable. They not only break family rules but flout the law, which demands Stuart’s arrest. Margaret believes that helping Stuart is more “right” than having him sent back to war or to jail.

Regardless of what they choose to conceal or divulge, most of the novel’s characters ultimately have to face the consequences of their decisions. Margaret loses some of Mother’s trust when Mother learns what Margaret has been up to. Mother, meanwhile, regrets her silence on Mr. Smith’s abuse, showing that even adults can struggle to discern the correct course of action. Margaret thus learns that moral rules are not fixed but may vary depending on the situation. Secrets help illustrate this complexity.

With its pristine white color, unspoiled snowfall typically symbolizes innocence and purity. For Margaret and Elizabeth, the heavy winter snow heralds Christmas and a snow day from school, but this year, blood taints the beautiful snowfall, signifying the loss of some of their childhood innocence. For adults like Stuart (suffering in the hut) and Jimmy (fighting in the cold), the snow represents hardship. Margaret imagines Jimmy in a foxhole surrounded by injured, dying men staining the snow red with their blood, their innocence and lives both lost. The girls also witness Mr. Smith beat Gordy, who leaves his own blood on the snow, symbolically showing that Gordy and the girls now face adult knowledge and responsibility. After seeing Gordy injured by his father, Margaret puts away the sled, feeling that for “the first time in [her] whole life [she] hadn’t wanted to go coasting” (145). With her newly mature understanding, she has lost the carefree simplicity of childhood and some of its winter joys.

Blood is not the only thing that stains the snow. When a troop train rolls by, the girls wave at the soldiers, knowing they are going to fight and possibly die. As this happens, Margaret sees that cinders from the train have “blackened the snow around [them]” (145), again symbolizing the loss of ideals as the girls begin to think that the war is not as glorious as it seems.

The American practice of displaying a blue star in the window of a home that has a family member serving continues today. Army Captain Robert L. Queisser created the Service Star Flag in 1917 during WWI (“Blue Star Banner.” The American Legion). The flags were widely displayed during both world wars. The Blue Star Service Flag features a blue star set on a white field and sewn onto a red banner, so that the red borders the white. There may be more than one blue star on a flag if the family has more than one member serving. If the serviceman or servicewoman is killed, a gold star covers the blue star, leaving a bit of blue border around it.

The stars carry great significance to families: They represent not only the lives of their loved ones in service but also the sacrifice the family is willing to make for a higher cause. Mother believes in the moral imperative of the war and takes comfort in the gold star and Jimmy’s medals, knowing with certainty that Jimmy did his duty. The gold star signifies Jimmy’s heroism and his self-sacrifice. At best, however, the gold star is a bittersweet honor, and to Margaret it represents personal loss more than glory.