Cape

by Kate Hannigan

  “I’ve been thinking about it,” said Mae, politely moving the hash around her plate with her fork. “When things get really difficult, that’s when it’s most important to work harder—and smarter. That’s when it matters most of all.”

  “Did your granny Crumpler teach you that?” I asked in between bites.

  Mae shook her head. “No. That one’s mine. I don’t like to walk away from a fight. I don’t go looking for them, that’s for sure. But when the time comes, I’m not one to back down.”

  We sat quietly and stared at our plates. My mind was focused on Akiko and Emmett, and I was sure Mae’s was just the same. She picked at her food but didn’t take a bite. I couldn’t blame her. I lifted a mound of the Spam hash toward my nose, but the smell made me drop my fork and push my plate to the side. I lost my appetite.

  The radio in the dining room was always playing these days, so I’d hardly paid attention to it earlier. But now the latest report from Europe reached our ears. It was bad news.

  “Nazi troops launched a deadly attack today. Explosions could be heard for miles around as Allied American and British forces suffered heavy losses. . . .”

  Heavy losses. That meant soldiers were wounded or dying. Immediately I thought of my dad and felt a sob catch in my throat. I looked across at Mae and saw her bite her lip. I knew she was worrying about her father too. For all of us sitting by our radios, in houses and apartments across the country and around the world, loved ones were fighting on beaches and battlefields a thousand miles away from us. But they were never ever far from our thoughts.

  Thirty-One

  JOSIE, WILL YOU TELL US a bedtime story?” came Vinnie’s voice from behind my chair. “We’re tired from swimming and basketball after school.”

  “I finally beat Vinnie at Parcheethi,” said Baby Lou with a yawn. “That tired me out too.”

  I excused myself from the kitchen, asking Mae to put a kettle on for the two of us once I returned. Then I led my little brothers back to the living room to lie down for the night.

  Pushing aside the mound of comic books—Hauntima, Hopscotch, Nova the Sunchaser, and an old one featuring Zenobia, the Palomino, and the Palomino’s smart wolflike sidekick called Star—I let them fall onto the wooden floor. Maybe it was true what Mae said yesterday, that superheroes could be found only in comic books and statues now. Not in real life anymore.

  I glanced out the window, wishing that Hauntima’s ghost would suddenly make an appearance on the neighboring apartment’s rooftop. Then I would ask her about Emmett and Akiko and whether they were going to be all right, and about the Stretcher and what happened to him.

  “This time tell us about Daddy and the Battle of Midway,” Vinnie began, bringing me back to the living room sofa and bedtime. “And start it the morning the planes came.”

  “Yeth, when Daddy thounded the alarmth that the Japanethe bomberth were coming,” chimed Lou. He rubbed his eyes with his fists, his hands still chubby with baby fat.

  My stories were always full of dangerous deeds and heroic acts, pulled right from the pages of our comic books. But instead of superheroes populating these adventures, I’d tell Vinnie and Baby Lou that it was our dad performing the feats of daring. My brothers would fall asleep wearing smiles, snuggled in together on the living room couch.

  Since our apartment was so small, Kay and I shared one bedroom, and Mam got her own. Which meant my brothers took the sofa. But rather than sleep end to end, they insisted on smashing together like two slices of bread. This way if either of them woke up from a nightmare, the other was close by.

  “When is Daddy coming back?” asked Vinnie. “That bully Toby Hunter stopped by today. He was asking me and Lou about Daddy.”

  I closed my eyes and caught my breath. Like Mam, there was only so much more I could take. I counted to five, then looked at Vinnie and Baby Lou.

  “Don’t listen to anything Toby Hunter says,” I told them, trying to keep the anger out of my voice. “Daddy would come to you in a heartbeat if he could. You know that, right?”

  Vinnie nodded and picked at the green blanket.

  “I don’t feel like telling stories about Daddy and his battles tonight,” I said, the words tight in my throat. “I’m done with those for a while. Instead I want to tell you about Grandpa O’Malley and a stolen motorcar.”

  “Why won’t you tell us about Daddy fighting the dive-bombers?” urged Vinnie, his hair dark against the white pillow. “That’s the story we want.”

  “I mith Daddy,” complained Baby Lou in a hoarse whisper. “Pleathe, Jothie.”

  I stared down at the two of them, their heads nearly touching on the pillow, messy hair blending together. A warm breeze lifted the curtain beside us, but I shivered anyway. Sometimes it was hard to remember how it was before our father went off to war. My stories brought Dad back home. And made him a hero.

  But I just couldn’t do it tonight. I ignored their badgering and began an old family story of our grandfather and a motorcar that went missing. Curling up with a cushion on the floor beside them, I could see Mae in the yellow light of the kitchen. She sat at the table quietly reading the newspaper and ignoring the Spam hash.

  I went on with the familiar tale, but Vinnie and Baby Lou stopped my story before I could even get to the best part. Tears were in Lou’s eyes as Vinnie made one last plea for a story about our father’s brave deeds.

  “Please, Josie. If you won’t tell us about the Battle of Midway, at least tell us the one about Daddy at Pearl Harbor.”

  “I told you that one last night.” I rolled my eyes and let out an exasperated sigh. They already knew every detail of that story: how Japan’s early morning attack drew America into World War II, how more than two thousand people had lost their lives and more than one thousand were wounded. President Roosevelt’s “date which will live in infamy” speech was seared into our memories.

  But it was our father they wanted more than anything. When I told them about his heroics, stories about how he’d saved the men around him and faced down danger without flinching, they took comfort. “He’d be with us if he could,” Vinnie liked to say, “but he’s saving other soldiers.”

  My stories made Dad’s absence easier for them.

  “Okay, okay, I’ll tell you this time,” I whispered, glancing again toward the kitchen to make sure Mae was still at the table. “But remember—”

  “We know,” Vinnie said impatiently. “Don’t talk about it in front of anybody else. Because it makes them miss Dad too.”

  “Now thtart it like you alwayth do, Jothie,” urged Baby Lou, patting my arm affectionately. “Daddy was having hith breakfatht—two poached eggth, a thlice of toatht, and black coffee, jutht like any other morning—when he heard . . .”

  “ . . . when he heard the low drone of airplanes in the distance,” I picked up. “Suddenly the air-raid sirens began to blare, warning the men on his battleship that an attack was underway. Still wearing his pajamas, Daddy raced upstairs as enemy fire strafed the quarterdeck. Dodging bullets and bombs, he rushed to an injured crewmate and threw him over his shoulder. Daddy carried him to safety, then ran back to help the others. . . .”

  “Can you speak a little louder?” came Mae’s soft voice. She was standing at the edge of the living room now. She leaned quietly against the doorframe and urged me to go on. “I want to hear it too.”

  I stared at her, blinking for a moment.

  This was our story. It belonged to Vinnie, Baby Lou, and me. I didn’t want to share it with anyone else, especially not Mae or even Akiko if she were here. All of us wanted to protect our families from hurt and harm. This was my way of protecting my little brothers.

  “Go on, Josie,” said Vinnie, his voice pleading in the blue darkness. “Daddy went back to help the others. . . .”

  But I couldn’t.

  “Mae,” I whispered. “I’ll meet you in the kitchen once I’ve tucked them in. But until then, would you mind giving us a few minutes?”

  Th
irty-Two

  WHEN I RETURNED TO THE kitchen a while later, the radio was still broadcasting the same terrible news about Allied losses in Europe. I took a seat at the table and sipped my cold tea as Mae nibbled on a shortbread cookie.

  After a while she spoke. “You don’t trust too many people, do you?”

  I shrugged. What could I say? The war made it hard to believe—in people and in ideas.

  “Well, if I’m supposed to fly around beside you,” she said, “risking my life and fighting bad guys, I need to trust you. And you need to trust me. So that means we have to learn a little bit about each other.”

  I got up and put the kettle on for more tea. I made sure my back was turned to Mae, so she couldn’t see my face. I was afraid my eyes would give away my sadness.

  “I can’t, Mae” was all I could get out. “I’ll share things with you, but not now.”

  I stood at the stove until the kettle began to whistle. After pouring a cup for Mae and then myself, I took my seat again. Mae gave me a weak smile that told me she could wait. I knew I’d probably hurt her feelings. But her patience made me like her even more.

  We stared at our teacups, lost in our own thoughts as the radio went on about casualties and bombing attacks.

  “You can listen to depressing news like that all day,” came a gravelly voice at the window, “but if you really want to stop this evil, you’ve got to get back out there and fight!”

  And then two scrawny legs poked into the room from the fire escape.

  “Akiko!” I half whispered and half shouted, astonished by the sight of her. “You’re safe!”

  Mae jumped to her feet too, and we both rushed to help her climb inside, throwing our arms around the most wonderful, most cranky asthmatic in the world! And we squeezed tight despite her complaints about too much sentimental fussing.

  “Let a kid breathe, would ya?” Akiko choked, though I could tell she was just as happy to see us again.

  “We were so worried,” Mae said, plucking a few leaves from Akiko’s hair. “Sit down and tell us everything that happened.”

  “And how you got away from the Hisser,” I said. I pulled out a chair for her to sit down at the table and grabbed the Spam hash and an extra plate. “Did you outsmart him?” Then, dropping to a whisper so Vinnie and Baby Lou wouldn’t hear, “Did you shape-shift?”

  “As a matter of fact,” Akiko said, looking annoyed, “there’s a little detail you both should know about. I think when one of us transforms from caped hero back to everyday kid, it happens to all of us. At the exact same time!”

  Mae squinted. She looked doubtfully at Akiko.

  “Really?” she asked. “What makes you think that?”

  “The fact that one minute I was just flying along, having escaped the Hisser’s grasp,” she said a little huffily, “and the next I was falling out of the sky!”

  I knocked over the container of milk for the tea, and Mae dropped into her chair with a thud. “What?” we both exclaimed. “Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine,” Akiko explained, nudging away the plate of Spam. “Luckily, I was flying pretty low, so a weeping willow broke my fall. But I had to walk the rest of the way here. I’m just glad I remembered how to find your apartment. Your front door’s buzzer is broken, by the way,” she added, pointing at the fire escape. “Which is why I climbed that.”

  I was glad she remembered how to find it too! What if we’d transformed earlier, while she was still in the Hisser’s clutches? That could have been a disaster.

  “So how did you get away from that horrible snake man?” asked Mae, looking a little shaken by Akiko’s news. “Did you shape-shift into a leaf and blow away? Into a puddle and drip out of his hands? Into a squirrel and race up a tree?”

  “No, no, and no, though I like all of those ideas,” Akiko said, sounding a little mysterious. Then she leaned in close and whispered, “I discovered another superpower. And let’s just say it makes having allergies a lot less annoying.”

  Mae and I named every power we could think of: invisibility, X-ray vision, elasticity, superspeed, superhearing . . . The list went on and on. But Akiko shook her head at every one.

  “Here’s a clue: In some cultures, fried snake is a delicious treat.”

  Mae and I raised our eyebrows, clearly stumped.

  “Fried,” Akiko said proudly, “as in, I can control fire! Though maybe ‘control’ is too strong a word. The fire seems to happen when I sneeze. So that’s how I got away.”

  Pyrokinesis. Thank goodness for Akiko’s allergies.

  Mae and I were full of questions. About Emmett, where the Hisser’s hideaway was, who was there with him, what Akiko saw and heard and understood, and if she’d come across the other puzzlers.

  Just thinking about Emmett sleeping away from his home tonight made my heart sink. He must have been so scared. And his poor little sister, Audrey, too—all I ever thought about was protecting my family from the bad things in this world. I shot a look into the living room, grateful to know that Vinnie and Baby Lou were safe.

  But Kay? A shudder of fear whispered down my spine as I thought of Kay and the other human computers. I tried to remind myself that she was okay. Please don’t worry, she’d told us. Very few people know about this place. We’re safe.

  “What do you think he’ll do next?” I asked, dreading Akiko’s answer. “Mrs. B mentioned the computers. Do you think he knows about Kay and the other women?”

  Akiko shook her head. “The Hisser is plenty smart,” she said, “but I didn’t hear anybody mention the word ‘computer.’ He did tell the Duke that he’d overheard one of the Caped Kiddies, as he calls us, give away a secret. But I have no idea what he thinks he heard. None of us would have given anything away. Right?”

  My breathing seized up in my chest. Did I let something slip about my cousin? About the Moore School? What if I’d messed up again, like I’d done with Emmett and my talk of milkshakes?

  “So I think we can assume Kay and the others are safe for now,” Akiko went on. “When it comes to the Moore School and their secret project, the Hisser didn’t appear to have a clue.”

  They’re safe, I told myself, my teacup rattling in its saucer as I set it on the table. They’re fine, I repeated again and again in my mind. They’re inside the Moore School, safe and fine, and nobody knows what they’re up to.

  “Josie, your hands are shaking,” said Mae gently. “What’s got you so afraid?”

  I closed my eyes. How could I even begin to tell them about my mom and her secret? Our secret. And how much it made my bones ache with sadness. Mae talked of trust. But I didn’t want to betray Mam’s trust. And to think that Toby Hunter might be the only other person who knew our secret made me feel furious and frightened.

  Powerless.

  “I worry about my family too, Josie. When we had to leave our home in San Francisco for the internment camp, I thought it sounded like a summer camp—an adventure. But it’s nothing like that. With summer camp, you get to go back home after a couple weeks. My family has been there for more than a year—my grandfather even died there. They said it was pneumonia, but I know it was a broken heart.

  “After he died, the government let my parents send me here to be with my cousins. And Tommy, he signed up to go fight—despite what happened to us. My grandparents, my parents, my brother, and me, we didn’t do anything wrong. We were locked up in prison just for being Japanese. It makes my heart hurt so much, sometimes I can’t eat, can’t sleep.”

  I tried to picture it in my head. I’d read about those camps. And even worse, the ones in Germany where the Nazis were rounding up Jewish people.

  Akiko’s breathing was fast, and she stared at her hands on the table.

  “We’re all human beings. Why do people treat each other this way?”

  She took a sip of tea, then wiped at one of her eyes. Only this time, I knew it wasn’t allergies to blame.

  “I can’t sleep sometimes either because of all the worrying,” sai
d Mae, her voice barely above a whisper. “Every time I hear a report on the radio, I picture my daddy on the front lines and wonder if he’s ever coming home. I don’t like to use the word ‘hate.’ But I hate this war. I hate the guns and the bombs and the fighting.

  “I just want my dad.”

  I took a breath and tried to stop the sob that was building in my chest. I knew that if I tried to utter a single word, I might never stop crying. So I reached my hands out to each of theirs and squeezed. It was all I could do.

  “So, do you want to hear what happened to me or not?” said Akiko, her voice returning to its usual strength. I knew she wanted to change the subject as much as I did.

  “Yes, tell us what happened,” urged Mae, scooting her chair closer. I nodded and moved mine in too. Akiko gulped more tea, then perched on the edge of her seat.

  “When I came to, I wasn’t sure where I was. It seemed like an ordinary office, like Room Twelve with Mrs. B. Only, I could hear the deep foghorns of ships going by, so it must have been near the waterfront. Maybe close to the naval shipyard, I figured.

  “Emmett and the other puzzlers—I think I counted five of them in all—were kept busy at tables. They couldn’t escape or anything because a couple of thick-necked goons were keeping watch. Emmett and the others were wearing headsets over their ears, connected to radios, and they had to write down what was being said. It seemed to me like they were being used to crack coded messages, but I’m not certain.”

  “How did Emmett seem?” I asked. “W-was he all right?”

  Akiko nodded, but her face looked concerned.

  “He passed me a note. I haven’t had time to try to make sense of it,” she said, pulling a scrap of paper from her Hauntima bag and laying it out on the table between us. “I think it’s written in one of your secret codes.”

  In block letters, it read:

  GARDEN RANGED GANDER!

  EXPORT JACKY P.

  HEN WOKS.

  Just then Vinnie slipped into the kitchen and over to the pantry. He tucked what was left of the Lorna Doone cookies into his pajama top and tried to sneak past us unnoticed.