S.O.S.

by J. Fallenstein

  At a quarter to midnight Tyrell clicks off the desk lamp. His head throbs, but he can’t take another night of staring at the ceiling. He puts his pillow at the other end of the bed so that he can look out at the Schneider mansion, the creek, and the moonlight. His eyes are heavy. He is just drifting off when something—a gentle burst of light—wakes him. The flashes! He sits up and moves to the window. Yes, the flashes are coming from the building’s third story. Who is up there?

  The flashes are in the same pattern Tyrell’s dad showed him, the international code for S.O.S. Tyrell strains his aching eyes and watches.

  Who could possibly be up there in the burned-out factory, sending a signal? And to whom? There aren’t any businesses or coast guard stations on that side, only the Schneider mansion and a few cottages. And only his cottage is occupied. Is the message meant for him?

  Chapter 5

  On Sunday, at the hospital, Tyrell and his mom push through the swinging metal doors and turn left into a sterile-smelling room.

  “Hey, Champ!” Dad’s voice is gravelly, and his good mood seems forced. He’s sitting up, wearing a light blue and white hospital gown. He coughs and lets out a long, rough breath. A plastic IV tube runs over the top of his hand and connects to an IV bag on a hook.

  Dad has barely any color in his cheeks, and he looks more tired than Tyrell has ever seen him. But he is alive.

  “They say I can go home tomorrow,” his dad says.

  “Really?” Tyrell can’t help but look at the IV bag.

  His dad smiles, trying to look reassuring. “I’ll be back to normal real soon now.” The crinkles around his eyes seem deeper, older. “You’re all better, Ty?”

  “Yeah. I’m fine, Dad.” Tyrell manages a smile. He didn’t have the drowning dream last night, so maybe it was true.

  Mom kisses Dad’s head and sits in the chair. “Once you’re all better we can finish the attic. Ty can’t sleep up there anymore if it’s not insulated.”

  The nurse walks in. “Sorry, folks,” he says, “but we need to take him down the hall to run a couple of tests now.”

  “That was a short visit,” his mom says brusquely. But the nurse stands his ground, and Mom stands up. “Okay, Ty, I’ll drop you at home and then grab some groceries.” She puts on her we-can-do-it face and says, “We’ll have Dad’s favorite meal tomorrow.”

  “That’s right,” his dad says hoarsely. “I’ll be there.” But his smile is weak, and his eyes don’t look so sure.

  *****

  A light mist coats the windshield as they drive down the winding gravel road and pull into the driveway.

  “I’ll be back in a half hour or so,” his mom says as Tyrell unbuckles his seat belt. “Stay in the cottage: the last thing we need is for you to get a chill.”

  He hurries inside as her car pulls away, but he turns to the window to look down at the factory. I saw it last night too. Was it just a short in the wiring, or is someone really sending an S.O.S.? It would only take me ten minutes to bike down to the factory, he muses. I could check out the building and see if someone is in there—if they need help. I could save someone, just like the ferry crew saved me and Dad. Pay it back.

  I’ll dress warmly, he promises himself. Besides, I’m going stir-crazy staying home all the time.

  Wrapped in several layers, he backs his bike out of the shed, careful not to snag any of the garden tools or bump into the old lawnmower. His scarf snags on the old iron key ring hanging by the door, and the ring slips off the nail. He catches it and hangs it up again. It’s kind of cool, full of weird old keys—he found it when his mom told him to hide a spare key to the cottage somewhere and he picked the shed.

  Tyrell shrugs deeper into his jacket as he coasts down the narrow lane. The wind whistles in his ears. They sting with cold. As he rides by the mansion, he glances at the yellow satin drapes that are pulled almost shut all along the mansion’s main-floor windows. Is Miss Schneider really in there in her wedding dress?

  He stops at the end of the lane, a foot before the century-old footbridge that crosses the creek. It’s only about four bike lengths across, but it’s not much wider than the span of his arms, and some of the boards are cracked. You’d never get a car across this, he thinks. It must have been the bridge that the Schneider workers used to get to work at the factory. Is it still safe?

  Tentatively he rolls forward. The gray boards wobble and creak. Well, if I fall in, the stream is only a few feet down and it isn’t that deep. But it will be cold, and I can’t afford to get cold again.

  At last Tyrell bumps over the bridge’s metal threshold and rides slowly up to the three-story factory. It is a rectangle, long and narrow. All of the windows are boarded up except for one in the corner of the third floor: that’s where the flashing light comes from. The letters molded deep into the concrete block above the oversized front entrance read Schneider Wearables 1917. The black iron handles of the huge wooden doors are chained and padlocked.

  There must be a way in somewhere—someone was definitely signaling from the third floor. He rides around the perimeter of the building. The basement windows are all barred, and the smaller windows on the second floor in the back are boarded over as well—except for one. It is in the back, facing the bay. A big, gray metal pipe with smaller pipes branching from it runs up the wall nearby.

  Tyrell rides back to the front, dismounts and parks his bike, and then stands below the open third-floor window. “Hello?” he calls. He looks up at the gray sky and then at the window. Icy raindrops dampen his face and cloud his vision. I should go home. I don’t want to end up in the hospital just as Dad gets out. But what if nobody had helped us just because it was cold and wet on the Sound? We would have died. I have to try.

  “Is anybody there?” he shouts.

  No one calls back. He cups his hands around his mouth. “Do you need help? Talk to me.”

  The wind carries his voice out to the bay, where it is absorbed by the sound of waves crashing on the rocky embankment.

  “Hello? Let me see you so I can help you.”

  He glances back at the Schneider mansion. The yellow curtains sway. Is someone watching him?

  Beyond the mansion he sees his family’s small wood and stone cabin. If Mom comes back and finds me gone, she will freak and I won’t be allowed outside for a week. He heads home through the light rain. But when he looks back at the factory, a shadow shifts behind the window, as if someone has just walked by.

  Chapter 6

  Tyrell has just walked through the door and taken off his wet jacket when Mom’s car pulls up the slight hill near the shed. Mom will definitely notice that my jacket is wet. There’s only one way to hide the evidence.

  He throws the jacket on again and rushes out to the car, calling, “I’ll help you.” He grabs the two paper bags of groceries and runs back into the cottage.

  “What’s on your agenda today?” Mom asks once the groceries are put away. He can tell that she’s worried about his dad but is trying to hide it. But she’s pacing, which is a dead giveaway.

  “I’ve got that civics paper due,” he says. “The one on workers’ rights.” He heads for the narrow attic stairs.

  “Turn on the space heater, but remember to unplug it when you’re done,” his mom says.

  Tyrell pages through the newspaper copies Ms. L gave him about the fire in the Schneider Wearables Factory. Many German and Irish immigrants worked there. Some writers claimed that building was a sweatshop, a place where poor people worked nearly as slaves making garments. He skims the article:

  BELLEVUE, Sept. 14 – Fire of unknown origin partially destroyed the third floor of the Schneider Wearables Factory in Middleton Friday night. The materials and sewing machines are a total loss.

  The factory is owned by Max Schneider of Middleton and managed by Herbert Zinn of Seattle. A general alarm was sent out to which all fire departments in the city responded, but the fire had been extinguished by Zinn and two other workers by the time firefighters
arrived. Zinn said no workers were in the building during the fire and no one was injured. It is not known when the factory will reopen, but Zinn said operations will be moved to a new building nearer the city and away from the Schneider estate, which was spared from the fire.

  Weird, Tyrell thinks. If only part of the third floor was damaged, why would they move the whole factory downtown? It’s like the manager wanted to get out of the Schneider factory as fast as possible. Maybe he wanted it closer to his home or something.

  Tyrell closes the file. If no one died, and if he can’t prove that it was a sweatshop, then the Schneider fire will not work for his paper on workers’ rights. Too bad, because with the factory so close it would have been interesting to interview Miss Schneider, if she would let him, about the company and her father. Plus, then he’d find out if Miss Schneider really did roam the mansion in her wedding dress.

  The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire will just have to be the focus of his paper. But I won’t get extra credit unless I come up with a second example of a workers’ rights violation. What can I do?

  Just after eight o’clock he finishes a rough draft and takes his laptop down to the tiny kitchen for his mom to proofread it. Mixing bowls are out, and a sweet, warm scent wafts from the oven. Dozens of cupcakes, a chocolate cake, and two pies sit on the counter. Mom must be distracting herself from worrying about Dad. She hands him a broken cupcake, and says, “Can’t let the ugly ones go to waste!” before she reads his paper.

  The rich chocolate cupcake is still hot and totally delicious, but the flashing light in the factory won’t leave his mind. Is someone up there?

  “Mom—” he starts.

  “Hmmm?” She doesn’t look up from his laptop.

  If there is someone trapped in the factory, why didn’t they call out to him? Are they hurt? Tied up by some kidnapper?

  He has to tell her. “I think there’s someone . . . ”

  “Yes?” she says distractedly. “Someone what?” She glances up at him.

  But what if it’s just a short in the wiring? She’ll call the rescue workers and they’ll find nothing, and everyone will look at me like I’m crazy.

  “Someone who could really use a cupcake,” he recovers quickly. “Can I take a couple to school?”

  “Sure, Ty.” She goes back to his paper.

  I’ll watch and see if it happens again. If it flashes S.O.S., I’ll tell Mom and we can check it out. He finishes the cupcake and after a few minutes grabs another one.

  “Looks pretty good,” his mom says, turning his laptop to him. “You’ve got a couple grammatical errors, and you repeat this part about how the immigrants were undocumented and didn’t speak English. And the jumping to their deaths is mentioned, I think, four times—might be overkill. Wow. That fire sounds terrible.” She bites her lip and manages a smile. “And it looks like you’re not quite done.”

  “Yeah,” Tyrell says. Maybe she’s thinking again about how I almost died. He tries to comfort her, saying, “They were really helpless, taken advantage of. But the good thing is that after that fire there were many more laws to protect people like them.” He yawns, closes the computer, and gets up.

  “Going to bed?” Mom motions for him to wipe the corners of his mouth.

  “Yeah.” He licks away the chocolate. “But I set my alarm to wake me up so I can finish this paper.”

  “When is it due?”

  “Friday.”

  “Good boy. I’ll just wait for this last cake and head to bed too.

  Upstairs, Tyrell lies down on his bed and sets the alarm. The space heater hums, and it is warm under the thick down comforter. He double-checks his alarm. He will wake just before midnight and watch for the light.

  His eyes do not want to stay open, and he pulls the pillow over his forehead as another raging headache starts. After what feels like ages, his muscles unclench and he sinks into the bed.

  Then someone is in his room, watching him. He tries to open his eyes, but they are stuck shut. Something heavy is on his chest, pinning him to the mattress. He tries to call out, but no sound comes out except a breathy gasp. Through the tiny slits in his eyes he peers out from under the pillow.

  A tentacle of moonlight unfurls like smoke through his window, and suddenly a girl, maybe fourteen or fifteen years old, appears at his desk, writing a letter. Her hair is up in a big, loose bun, and her shirt is white with a tall collar. She is in a long skirt. She turns to him.

  “Who— Who are you?” he manages to whisper.

  “Hilf mir,” she says, her sad eyes pleading. “Hilf mir.”

  “What?”

  “Ofen,” she says.

  “I don’t understand.” Tyrell focuses on his legs, telling them to move and get out of bed, but they do not respond. She lifts her arm and points out the window.

  “Ofen,” she says again.

  *****

  “Tyrell.” His mom shakes his shoulder. “Time to get up.”

  He sits up, and the pillow falls to the floor. The attic is full of daylight. The girl is gone.

  “Where’d she go?” Tyrell rubs his face and looks about the room.

  “Who?”

  “That girl. She was here, at the desk.”

  “Wow. Sounds like quite a dream. You must have slept deeply.”

  “Mom, why are you up here?”

  “Didn’t you say you wanted to go back to school today?” She smiles.

  He turns to the window. He missed the signal. “My alarm.” He reaches for the clock.

  “Oh, I came up here to turn off the space heater after I took the cake out of the oven, and you were so sound asleep I turned it off.”

  “But Mom—”

  “The doctor said you needed rest. Since the nightmares have finally subsided, I thought it was best to let you sleep.” She looks confused. “Why are you so worried about that paper? It’s not due until Friday, right?”

  “Yeah.” Slowly he gets out of bed. The desk is just as he left it, with his computer and civics book. But the room is chilly, like the window was open and a cold draft came in.

  “Brrr,” his mom says and rubs her arms. “Get dressed and I’ll drive you to school.” She heads to the stairs. “I’m sure you’ve been bored silly here at home.”

  He glances out the window, past the Schneider mansion to the factory. Who is up there?

  *****

  “Hello, Ty,” Ms. L says as he walks into the library. “How’s the paper coming?”

  “Good. Thanks for the book. It was super helpful.”

  “Oh, I’m glad. How’s the remodeling going? Catch any sightings of Miss Schneider?”

  “No. But what else do you know about the Schneider Wearables Factory?”

  “Well, let’s check the database.” She motions for him to follow her into her office.

  They find a couple of old stories, including one announcing the hiring of Mr. Zinn, the new factory manager. In a black-and-white photo next to the article, Max Schneider is handing over a large ring of antique keys to Mr. Zinn. The key ring is just like the set that hangs in the shed.

  Are they the keys to the factory? If they are, it would be easy to get inside.

  Should I tell Ms. L about the signal that comes at midnight from the old building?

  No. Because she might tell Mom, and Mom is already so worried about Dad that she’s doing crazy things like baking a month’s worth of cakes at night. And if Dad is really coming home, she’ll have enough on her hands caring for him.

  “Oh, look,” Ms. L says, pointing to her screen. “Back in the 1970s people used to boat to the peninsula and hang out by the old factory. It looks like something strange happened.”

  “What?” Tyrell leans over to look.

  “Some kids started saying the place was haunted, that they’d been chased out by a madwoman with a pair of scissors.”

  A chill creeps up his spine.

  Ms. L grabs her folder of copies and pulls one out. “Here’s an article from last week, so
me city council notes. Oh, Ty!” She points to a line in the text. “It says that the old factory is slated for demolition next week.”

  “But what if there is . . . ” He stops. No. I can’t tell Ms. L. He forces a smile. “A madwoman with scissors? Ha.”

  “Ha is right!” She slaps the desk. “The things kids will tell police so they don’t get into trouble for trespassing.”

  Trespassing. The person up in the factory is trespassing. But is it still trespassing if you live on the property and have a key? I will find out. Tonight.

  Chapter 7

  After school, as they pull up the drive, Mom’s phone rings. Tyrell gets out of the car and steps into the shed. The old key ring is still on the nail just inside the door. He takes a closer look: there are four big, antique keys and two smaller keys on it. One small key has a hollow barrel, maybe for a padlock.

  “Tyrell?” Mom calls from the car.

  It’s a big ring, and he can’t quite fit it into his pocket.

  “They said Dad can come home today!” Mom says excitedly from the car. “I’m leaving now to get him.” She beams. “Do you want to come along?”

  “No, I’ll wait here,” Tyrell says. “With the baked goods. To protect them.” He gives the ring a hard shove, and it slides into the pocket.

  “Protect them?” Mom questions, “From what?”

  “From someone else eating them,” he says.

  “Okay,” Mom says with a real smile. “Stay put.” She gives him a wink and drives off.

  When Dad walks through the cottage’s small front door he looks like a zombie, with dark circles under his eyes, gray skin, and stiff, unnatural movements.

  Tyrell holds the door and reaches out to help, but Dad shakes him off. “I can do it,” Dad says. Tyrell’s stomach sinks. It’s as if Dad doesn’t trust me. Does he think I failed him, that day in the water? Tyrell’s eyes fill with hot tears. If only I could have reached Dad, gotten him out of the water and back onto the kayak, then he wouldn’t have gotten hypothermia, wouldn’t have had to go the hospital. But instead I came out okay, and Dad might have permanent damage.