Cape

by Kate Hannigan

  Mae clutched my arm, and the hair on the back of my neck prickled.

  Suddenly I knew exactly what building I was looking at: my cousin Kay’s!

  Twenty-Six

  KNOWN ONLY AS PROJECT PX, their mission is to create the world’s first electronic computer.”

  “Computer?” I blurted out, nearly shouting. “My cousin is a computer. What do you mean they’re trying to make an electronic one? Do you mean a robot?”

  “No, Josie, not a robot. They want to eliminate the human computers, since doing all the math calculations by hand takes too long. They want to build an electronic computing machine to handle the mathematical calculations—from what we’ve learned, with Project PX, what has taken their human computers thirty hours to calculate, a machine will solve in just thirty seconds!”

  Mae wanted to know what anyone would do with an electronic computer. “What’s so great about calculating problems that fast?”

  Mrs. B reminded us that with the war on, every minute counted. “If we can calculate with greater speed and accuracy how bombs drop and missiles fire,” she said, “then we will quickly bring an end to the war. And loved ones will return home to us that much sooner.”

  My heart felt like something was squeezing it. Between the worry for Kay and Emmett and the images in my mind of my father’s plane flying over gunners in the Pacific, I couldn’t breathe. Mae’s eyes looked hopeful, and I knew she was thinking of her father driving an ambulance on the battlefields in Europe. The same went for Akiko and her worries for her brother coming home from the fighting. All of us had reasons—important reasons—to want this war over as fast as possible.

  “Our spies have informed us,” Mrs. B said slowly, “that this secret computer is being built in the basement of a building on the university’s campus, at the Moore School of Electrical Engineering. You can find it at the corner of—”

  “Walnut and Thirty-Third Street,” I said, barely able to speak. “We know exactly where that is.”

  Suddenly Akiko leapt to her feet, sending her chair tumbling behind her.

  “That’s not where they’re planning to strike first!” she hollered, waving the newspaper page in the air. “Come look, Mrs. B. I think I’ve got something!”

  Unfolding the front section, Akiko spread the newspaper out flat in the center of the table. We pressed in close to see what the fuss was all about.

  “There are a bunch of words circled,” she choked, trying to keep her excitement in check. “To anybody who looks at this, it seems like nothing. Just some doodling or messing around. Or like Emmett’s coded laundry—something ordinary you see every day and barely give a second thought.

  “But this newspaper,” she went on, pausing for the rest of us to catch up, “is from the table where the Duke was sitting yesterday with this henchmen. So I don’t think it’s ordinary at all. Look what it says.”

  And she pointed to a headline and a story that ran in the far-left column of the page. There were a few words and letters circled in black pen. “ ‘Twenty-seven,’ ” she said. “ ‘Blow.’ The letter M.” Mrs. B jotted down each one.

  “And over here, in this column,” Mae said excitedly, “there are some more things marked. I see these words: ‘Up.’ ‘Pier.’ ‘Ship.’ ” Mrs. B’s pen scratched out the list.

  My eyes raced across the page, tripping over circled letters and numbers as I went. “What does that word there say? ‘Friday,’ I think. The letter P right there, no? And there’s ‘Battle.’ ”

  Mrs. B finished writing and turned the list around so we could all see it. It matched word for word the list Akiko had just scribbled down. In silence, we stared.

  Twenty-seven.

  Blow.

  M.

  Up.

  Pier.

  Ship.

  Friday.

  P.

  Battle.

  We scanned the page for more markings. In a photo in the bottom-right corner, a woman held a drill in her hand, kerchief tied around her hair. She was one of the workers at the—

  “ ‘Naval Shipyard’ is circled here,” I said, a flutter of panic stirring in my chest. Suddenly my heart was a caged bird.

  “And the number ‘one’ is underlined here,” said Akiko, her eyes wide as she tapped the top of the page, “where the date is printed.”

  Mrs. B added them to our list, and in silence we tried to make sense of it all. The headlines and captions on the newspaper page began to swim, so I closed my eyes. But in their place, the words on our list blazed.

  “Well, it makes perfect sense to me,” announced Mae, squeezing my arm. The sweetness was gone from her face as she took a deep breath. “The Duke and his people—which includes Mr. Hissler—plan to blow up a battleship—”

  “Friday at one twenty-seven p.m.,” said Akiko, slurping down the last of her milkshake and setting it on the table with a noisy thud. “That’s today! An hour away!”

  I shook my head. Something wasn’t quite right. All the marked words fit what Mae and Akiko were saying, except for one: “Pier.”

  “If we go at one twenty-seven today, we’ll be too late.” I ran my finger down Mrs. B’s list. “I think they’re going to try to blow up the battleship at one o’clock. And it’s going to happen at Pier Twenty-Seven at the naval shipyard.”

  Mam! screamed a voice in my head. No!

  Twenty-Seven

  WE HAD LESS THAN AN hour.

  If Room Twelve had been humming with activity earlier, now it seemed to be in full drive as people rushed past us in all directions. Only Mrs. B was standing still, the same cool, calm air about her as when I first saw her yesterday in front of Gerda’s Diner.

  “You say this paper comes from the Duke himself, is that right?” she asked Akiko, who nodded nervously. “Well, we can certainly count on a run-in with Hank Hissler, too. We should prepare for the worst.”

  I gulped. Knowing Mr. Hissler was capable of having the Stretcher vaporized yesterday and setting the fire that put all those innocent people in danger, I shuddered to think of what he might have in store today at the shipyard.

  Mam’s shift should have ended in the early morning. But what if she worked overtime? What if she was in Mr. Hissler’s line of fire today? My knees gave out, and I sat back down in my chair between Mae and Akiko.

  I imagined Emmett’s note too, with Harry’s name burned into my mind. I knew I should take a moment to tell the others, to stop everyone from darting around and make them listen. But I couldn’t bring myself to utter Harry’s name. How could I have been so naive to trust him? I wasn’t as good a puzzler as I thought I was, if a spy like Harry was sitting right in front of me all this time. I winced at the memories—of Harry sharing photographs of his dogs, of Harry teaching me German songs.

  Stupid girl. Maybe Toby Hunter was right all along.

  “Astra, come!” ordered Mrs. B, grabbing her hat and slipping a light jacket over her shoulders. It hung all the way to her knees and fluttered behind her as she raced for the door. Astra was at her heels. “You girls hurry up too! We need to get to the shipyard—fast!”

  Moments later, we were sitting at the back of the trolley, wind whipping our hair as we headed across town. Mrs. B’s voice was steady as she gave us instructions.

  “I am beginning to suspect that Hank Hissler is someone I once knew,” she said, her voice so low, we had to lean in closer. Astra licked Akiko’s cheek, which made her screech. She scrambled to her feet and switched places with Mae. Mrs. B waited, rubbing her weak leg like it was aching. “If this is the case, I’ve got to warn you about him:

  “He angers quickly, and his attack is vicious,” she began. “He will try to hypnotize you with his snakelike eyes. You must resist! You must look away! Whatever you do, don’t let yourself be lulled into a trance. Be wary at all times!”

  Akiko, Mae, and I nodded, looking at one another with bewildered expressions. I could hardly process what Mrs. B was telling us. Not only was she assuming we could tu
rn into superheroes again, but she was telling us how to battle a villain!

  “How do you know so much about Mr. Hissler?” asked Akiko.

  “Let’s just say if he’s who I think he is,” she said darkly, her hand clamped to her bad leg, “then we have a history together.

  “Now pay attention. This is crucial: If you see his fangs bared and his eyes flash red, beware. That’s the moment he’s going to strike!”

  Suddenly the trolley bell clanged, and we jumped to our feet. It was the stop for the shipyard. Mrs. B told us to go on ahead without her.

  “My limp makes me walk too slowly, but don’t worry,” she reassured us. “I and the other Room Twelve agents will be scattered throughout the grounds. We’ll do all we can to protect you.”

  I heard Mae let out a little whimper. “All they can? What if that’s not enough?”

  I grabbed her arm, and Akiko’s, too, and together we pushed through the crowds and hurried toward Pier 27. So many people were here—men, women, grandparents, little kids—to celebrate the completion of another battleship for the war effort. Even the workers took a break to wave out at the crowds from nearby ships: men operating enormous cranes and women holding flaming blowtorches.

  “My mother is one of those,” I said, nodding up toward a row of women wearing welding masks pushed back on their heads. I had to swallow before I could get the rest of my words out. “She works the night shift. I hope she’s not here today for the celebration.”

  Mae and Akiko exchanged a look, then turned to me. “We’ll try our best . . . ,” they began. But I waved them off. Who knew what was ahead for any of us?

  As we pushed on through the crowds, Mae warned that we should be on the lookout for anything suspicious. And for clues in the obvious places—like Emmett’s laundry message. “The Duke, Mr. Hissler, their henchmen, even that blond computer Ursula could be here. Though they might be dressed in disguise.”

  I nodded. “You’re exactly right. Their trick is to keep things in plain sight. What might seem ordinary to us is something else entirely when it comes to them.”

  We hurried along as fast as we could through the throngs, past women in work clothes as well as those in everyday dresses. There were so many men wearing similar fedora hats that I felt like I was seeing Mr. Hissler at every turn. Kids were there too, some nibbling cotton candy, others eating peanuts.

  “Those squirrels stole my snacks!” wailed one little boy as we passed a spilled bag of nuts. Bushy-tailed squirrels were filling their cheeks and making off with nearly the whole bag.

  “There sure are a lot of rodents around here,” said Mae as we passed under the arching gateway that read PIER 27. “Take a look at those rats! Have you ever seen them so big? Chicago has a lot of rats, but ours aren’t nearly as fat as these!”

  I looked to where Mae was pointing and felt the urge to run. I hated creepy things like rats and spiders. We had mice living in the walls of our apartment, and just the sound of them gnawed on my nerves. And these rats Mae had spotted, tucked behind a few crates on each side of the gangplank up to the battleship, were the stuff of nightmares. And as if their size and spindly tails weren’t enough, they didn’t seem to be afraid of anything either.

  “Look at them,” said Akiko, her nose crinkled in disgust. “You’d think with all the people around here, they’d get scared off. But look how they just sit there, staring at us with those glassy eyes. They’re not scurrying away or anything!”

  She jumped at them, stomping her foot on the wooden dock. “Yah! Shoo!”

  But not one rat so much as flinched.

  “Come on, Akiko,” I said, my eyes scanning the crowd. “Let’s keep looking for Hank Hissler and the others. We’ve got bigger rats to find, if you know what I mean.”

  The battleship was enormous as we gazed up at it from the pier. I looked ahead and saw two more wooden gangplanks angled up and leaning into the ship. Crews were busy carrying crates up and down the planks, and people both in uniform and out cheered from the ship’s railing.

  We pressed ahead, all three of us searching the crowd for familiar faces. As we passed the second gangplank, Mae spotted another rat and pinched her nose. “Disgusting!”

  I turned away and nudged Akiko’s shoulders, urging her to keep moving. But she wouldn’t budge any farther.

  “Look at that thing,” she said, studying the revolting rodent. “Why doesn’t it move? Or blink?”

  This time Mae tried to shoo it away. But the rat sat immobile, its dead-looking eyes fixed on some spot in the distance. When I looked ahead, toward the next ramp angling up into the battleship, I strained to see whether more rats awaited us there. Just the thought of all these creepy vermin made my skin crawl.

  But what I saw up ahead brought me right back to our job.

  I squeezed Akiko’s shoulder at the same time that I grabbed Mae’s arm. “Take a look over there! Under the next ramp—near those boxes!” I whispered, though in my mind I was shouting. I shivered in disgust. “There’s someone planting something there, and it looks round and furry and brown!”

  “Rats!” Mae gasped in disbelief.

  “The animal kind,” Akiko added, “and the human kind too!”

  I tugged them both under the nearest ramp to hide. Even though the idea of getting closer to these rats made my stomach turn somersaults, we had to find out what was happening.

  “Go ahead, Akiko,” I urged. “You’re not afraid of anything. See if it’s dead or alive.”

  “Are you kidding?” Akiko exclaimed, her eyes on me rather than on the rat. “I’m scared of plenty of things: my old piano teacher, bumblebees, dogs of any size, creamed corn—”

  “Creamed corn?” shouted Mae. “Who in their right mind is afraid of corn, no matter how it’s cooked? I’ve got to tell you, Josie, this kid is crazy! She’s a few doughnuts short of a dozen!”

  There was too much at stake for me to laugh, though at any other moment I probably would have been howling. And it seemed clear that Akiko wasn’t about to touch that rat to check on its current state of health.

  “Okay, then,” I said, turning to Mae. “You touch it. We know how much you love animals.”

  “Me?” she gasped, nearly shrieking. “I love animals, Josie, but not dead animals! You do it.”

  “Mae’s right,” Akiko agreed. “You don’t seem afraid of much, Josie, so you should be the one to do it. You shouldn’t be pressuring us to come in contact with those disease-infested creatures.”

  “Josie can make up her own mind, Akiko,” said Mae, sounding a little exasperated. “She doesn’t need you ordering her around.”

  “Well, she’s been pretty bossy since we met,” snapped Akiko, “so if she’s making herself the leader of us three, then she’d better lead!”

  This was becoming a regular thing, it seemed, finding myself caught in the middle between Akiko and Mae. And from the looks on their faces, I wasn’t getting out of it. I turned to face the rat and squatted down on my knees. Its whiskers were long, and its black eyes were beady. My stomach lurched like I was on a swing set, and I had to squeeze my eyes shut for a moment just to keep my breakfast down.

  “Give me a pencil or something, Akiko,” I ordered. “Quickly! Whatever you’ve got in your bag!”

  Despite some huffs and puffs, Akiko poked around in her Hauntima pouch, then passed me a pencil. With my hand trembling just a bit, I held the pencil out like a short stick. Then, leaning my body back as far as I could, I poked the rat.

  It didn’t flinch.

  I poked it again.

  Again, it stayed in the same crouch, beady black eyes unblinking.

  “It’s really dead,” uttered Mae, a tremor in her voice.

  “Not only is it dead,” I whispered. “It’s stuffed with something!”

  With one last poke of Akiko’s pencil, the stiff rat fell over onto its back. And that’s when we saw what was packed inside:

  “Dynamite!”

  Twenty-Eight

  SUD
DENLY A SHADOW FELL ONTO the dock’s wooden slats. I looked up and was only a little surprised to see Harry standing there, his back to us as he looked nervously into the crowd.

  I signaled for Mae and Akiko to be silent, edging backward until we could slip out the other side. And then we ran—partly to put distance between ourselves and the explosive rat. But also to find a place to talk.

  “Why didn’t we tell Harry what’s happening?” Akiko said, her chest heaving as we came to a stop on the other side of a supply shed on the long pier. “If he’s your friend, he should know what the Duke is up to, don’t you think?”

  “Dynamite! Exploding rats! This is getting serious,” I panted. “I’ll explain about Harry later, but for now we’ve got to do something to stop these bad guys! Something big, like we did yesterday!”

  Waves lapped beneath us as we caught our breath. A few shrill seagulls complained about our sudden appearance at their hangout, sending up white feathers as they flapped and shrieked.

  Mae suddenly gasped and pointed into the crowd about twenty feet away. Akiko turned and saw it too.

  “Harry’s not the only one we know here. Josie, I see your mom,” whispered Mae, pointing into the crowd. “She’s got your little brothers with her, and they’re right there, waving those flags.”

  “And look who’s right behind them,” added Akiko, her voice a gravelly groan.

  Finally I spotted them in the crush of people near the battleship—Mam looked happy, and Vinnie and Baby Lou were munching on pretzels and waving miniature versions of the Stars and Stripes. But when I looked just behind them, my stomach dropped like I was on a roller coaster.

  Toby Hunter stood watching them, a sneer on his face.

  “We’ve got to do something fast,” Akiko reminded us, “before the Duke and his men act.”

  “Before anybody gets hurt,” I added, my eyes still fixed on Toby leering at my family.

  “But we don’t have the pieces of the Stretcher’s costume,” Mae said, her expression frantic. “Our power came from the boots, mask, and cape!”