AbrakaPOW

by Isaiah Campbell

  Judy looked Max in the eye, disbelief filling the space between their pupils. Max felt no need to make Natalie look like an honest person, so she shrugged it off.

  “Is your mom a gardener?” Max asked, feeling the more pressing issue deserved the most attention.

  Judy rolled her eyes. “Well, I was going to invite you in. I took notes during Cover Girl and thought you guys would like to help me learn Rita Hayworth’s lines. But, since you’ve got the Brooklyn Cinderella over here, I guess I’ll give you a rain check.”

  “Brooklyn Cinderella,” Max repeated. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Oh, it’s from Cover Girl, you wouldn’t get it,” Judy responded.

  The fact that she was correct infuriated Max. There once was a time, specifically before they moved to Abilene, that she spent nearly every day catching a movie at the theater. Movie magic was almost better than stage magic, and she loved to see every minute of it she could. Sadly, she hadn’t been in weeks. Not that she’d want to see Cover Girl anyway. It seemed like the kind of movie written and directed for the eyes of GI Joe. She’d pass.

  “So, anyway, your mom’s a gardener?” Max asked again, probably far less politely than the first time. It was hard for Max to tell, considering she was still being far more polite than she preferred.

  Judy opened her mouth to answer, then closed it because the answer presented itself around the corner. Or, rather, presented himself, in the form of a strapping young man with a chiseled jaw and broad shoulders, finishing off an overstuffed sandwich and carrying an empty glass of what Max assumed had been iced sweet tea. All of these facts, of course, went fully unappreciated because Max recognized him.

  It was Blaz, the Nazi prisoner she had seen in Major Larousse’s office.

  Blaz handed his glass to Judy, who seemed to no longer care about the presence of any fairy-tale character from Brooklyn. “Thank you, fräulein,” he said and patted her head. He then nodded at the girls on the porch, stuffed the rest of the sandwich in his mouth, and pulled a pair of garden sheers from his back pocket. “But now I must finish the bushes before they come to get me.”

  “Of course,” Judy said, a smile beaming past the newly birthed pink in her cheeks. “I wouldn’t want to keep you from your work.”

  Blaz walked back around the house. Once he’d disappeared, Natalie and Margaret squealed.

  “What’s his name?” Margaret asked.

  “Blaz,” Judy said. “Isn’t that adorable?”

  “He’s so handsome,” Natalie said. “Like, movie-star handsome.”

  “I know. I told you.”

  They continued dissecting the individual characteristics of Blaz’s handsomeness for a while until Max felt it was more than enough.

  “He’s a Nazi,” she finally said to throw water on their fire.

  “No he’s not,” Judy shot back.

  “Then he has terrible taste in clothes,” Max said. “And he really ought to lose the accent.”

  “He’s an Austrian. He didn’t want to be in the war, but he was forced into it.”

  “He’s not an Austrian,” Max said. “Trust me, they’re all gone, transferred to a different camp. He’s a Nazi.”

  “You’re a Nazi,” Judy spat back.

  “You’re a hypocrite.”

  “You’re not welcome here,” Judy said, then she called around the house. “Blaz! Come here, I need your help.” She cast a smug look at Max, as though she expected her to tuck her tail between her legs and run away.

  Max was not a dog, in case that was not yet established, nor was she scared of a silly finicky eater like Blaz, so she did no such thing.

  Blaz ran around the corner. “Yes, Fräulein Judith? What is the wrong?”

  “I need you to escort this rabble off my property,” she said, pointing at Max.

  Blaz came over and reached for Max’s arm.

  Max stuck her finger in his face. “Touch me and you’ll go back to Germany with a hook for a hand, got it?”

  He nodded, retracted his reach, apologized, and hurried back around the house.

  “I’ll see myself off your stupid lawn,” Max said.

  “Fine,” Judy said. “Go home, Cinderella. Enjoy your world of ash.”

  Max didn’t bother asking what on earth that was supposed to mean and instead spun to walk away. As she did, she glanced down at the place where Blaz had stood on the sidewalk and noticed piles of dirt where his feet had been.

  Perhaps Judy should hire Felix to come out with his broom, she thought as she marched off the lawn and down the sidewalk, fuming and telepathically firing insults back the whole way.

  Walking home from Judy’s house wasn’t terrible, aside from the heat. It afforded Max the time she so often craved to craft new illusions and revise ones with which she was not entirely pleased. And she knew she’d have to have her repertoire of smaller tricks perfected so she could devote adequate time and attention to training her ragtag group of assistants.

  She was thus so immensely preoccupied that she nearly passed the house of Margaret’s nightmares without giving it a single glance. It would have taken an awfully terrifying sight to break her concentration and force her to run, choking back screams, to her house.

  And indeed it was a most terrifying sight—that pale, thin figure standing in the window, eyes as black as the deepest abyss, hand held high holding a kerosene lantern even though the sun beat down upon the house.

  Max crossed the remaining seventeen sidewalk squares to her house in record time.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Wow, so Judy’s making sandwiches for Hitler’s henchmen?” Shoji asked, his eyes trained on the apple he was attempting to disrobe.

  “Yeah,” Max said, the skin of the apple under her knife falling to the ground in a single, unbroken strand. “And the dumbest part was, she didn’t even see how much worse that is than me liking Madame Herrmann’s magic.”

  “Everyone’s a saint until their own sin is called into question,” her mother said as she rolled out the piecrust on the counter. When Max had arrived at the house, Shoji had been waiting for her, and had thus already been drafted in KP duty because the Larousses were so far behind on the apple-pie-making project. Plus it was a good way for Mrs. Larousse to ensure Max would actually partake of the festivities. For a little while, at least.

  For Max’s part, peeling apples kept her mind off the scraggly old woman in the scary house on the corner. Once she’d gotten her pulse under control, she finally reasoned that there was actually nothing suspicious about an elderly person in an aged house, no matter how many devil-worshipping accusations were levied at the scene. Still, the sight of that face sent chills all over her body, especially when she found a particularly gaunt apple that resembled the woman’s jawline.

  “I can’t wait to see the looks on the Monster Society of Evil’s faces when the whole school finds out about this,” Shoji said faster than Max could kick him under the kitchen table. Which made the kick more punishment than warning. Which was quite unfortunate, because it didn’t deter him from continuing. “Ow! Anyway, this’ll finally put those snobs in their places.”

  Mrs. Larousse dropped her roller onto the crust and spun around. “I’m sorry? ‘When the whole school finds out’? And how would that happen?”

  Shoji, who had now discerned the meaning of the previous three kicks he’d received, suddenly was very focused on peeling the apple in his hand. “I dunno. These things have a way of getting out is all I was saying.”

  Mrs. Larousse glared at Max. “Please tell me you don’t call those girls the ‘Monster Society of Evil.’”

  “I don’t, Shoji does,” Max said and received her own kick under the table.

  “It’s from a comic book,” Shoji muttered, more to the apple than anyone else. “Captain Marvel fights them.”

  “Maxine, it is not your job to fight the bad people, do you understand me?” Mrs. Larousse seemed more upset than Max had anticipated. “Your father fought t
he bad people, and look at what happened to him.”

  Max highly doubted she’d suffer the same fate as the major, whether her mother had been meaning the bullet in the leg or the far more damaging bullet in the soul.

  Max’s face must have revealed her thoughts, because Mrs. Larousse stepped over and raised Max’s chin. “Hey, you know what I meant. You’re not a soldier. You’re a girl. You can’t fight all the Judys in the world. There’re too many and you’ll wind up becoming just like them. Leave the bad guys to the heroes, okay?”

  Max pulled away from Mrs. Larousse’s hand. “So you’re saying I should ask Daddy to shoot Judy?”

  Her mother laughed and went back to the piecrust. “And, anyway, considering the magic show you’re putting on soon, I would watch what sort of scandals you’re spreading. The pot never gets very far calling the kettle black.”

  Shoji had given up on actually peeling the apple and was now attempting to sculpt it into a skull. Mrs. Larousse’s statement made him pause with his knife in the eye socket. “Wait, what? What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Oh, it’s a saying, maybe not so common in Japan,” Mrs. Larousse said. “The pot calling the kettle black. Because both the pot and the kettle are black, so—”

  “No, I got that,” he said. “I mean, why would putting on a magic show make Max a hypocrite like that?”

  “Mom,” Max said, trying to stop the oncoming unwanted information. It was too soon for him to hear. Unfortunately, Max’s attempt came too late.

  “Because she’s performing for the prisoners,” Mrs. Larousse said. “So if one Nazi in the garden is un-American, getting a standing ovation from a thousand of them probably makes you Mussolini’s cousin.”

  Shoji set the apple on the table, knife still protruding from its eye socket. “We’re performing for the Nazis?”

  “We?” Mrs. Larousse questioned. “Max, are you going to have your friends help?”

  Max knew a proud parental moment was happening over at the piecrusts, but she was too busy attempting to salvage her precariously teetering partnership with the Gremlins to celebrate. “I was going to tell you guys, I swear,” she said.

  Shoji stared at the skull-apple for a moment in silence, then resumed his efforts of whittling the poor thing a proper smile. “So the Gremlins will entertain the Gestapo. Yeah, that sounds about right.” He glanced at Max and grinned. “And it takes the pressure off in case we stink.”

  She hadn’t felt so relieved in a long time. “Thanks,” she said. “But we will not stink. We just need to practice. Practice makes perfect, you know.”

  “Practice?” Mrs. Larousse yelped. “Oh no! I completely forgot that your piano lessons started today.” She grabbed the kitchen towel and dried her hands, then took off her apron and tossed it onto the table.

  “They did?”

  “Yes. Up, up.” Mrs. Larousse grabbed her purse and patted her hair. “We need to hurry or else we’ll be late.”

  “Who’s my teacher?” Max asked as she creaked her weary bones up off the chair. She hadn’t planned on moving for at least another hour.

  “One of those soldier boys who helped us move in. I can’t remember his name. Dave? Reggie?”

  “Gil?” Max could feel her cheeks turning an entirely new shade of red, and no manner of mental curse could catch it in time. Shoji noticed and snickered.

  “Yes, Gil.” Mrs. Larousse checked in her purse for her keys and wallet. “He volunteered this morning. Said something about feeling ‘inspired by your playing.’ I found it rather touching.”

  “Should I go home?” Shoji wasn’t quite sure whom to ask, so he asked the air.

  “No, no, you’re coming with us. I need these apples peeled, and if it has to be done in Major Larousse’s office, that’s where it will be done.” Mrs. Larousse handed him a bushel to carry. “Have you ever been on base before?”

  He nodded. “While my dad was still here. But it’s been a while.”

  “Hopefully they don’t take too much time at the gate. They shouldn’t.” Mrs. Larousse rushed them out the door and into the car.

  The gate guards almost did take too much time checking Shoji, but Mrs. Larousse’s death glare was a universal danger sign, so they only patted him down twice and then let him proceed.

  They dropped Max off at the rec hall before heading over to Major Larousse’s office, and Gil was already there waiting.

  “Heya, Half-pint!” He put his arm around her and walked her to the piano. “Surprised?”

  “You have no idea,” she said as she sat on the bench. He sat beside her and placed some music on the piano.

  “Well, don’t you go thinking I’m like the crotchety old lady who used to teach you,” he said. “I’m not gonna let you off easy just ’cause you’re cute. Got it?”

  “I’m cute?” She didn’t mean to sound as happy about that as she did.

  He grinned. “As a button, of course.” He tapped the music. “Now, let’s get going.”

  With Gil stomping to keep time, it was impossible for Max to ignore the lesson or distract the teacher as she had with Mrs. Elderberry back in Brooklyn. For better or for worse, with him as a teacher, she would be forced to learn how to play. And it felt a little better than worse. Which made her feel undeniably worse.

  To help stem the onslaught of horrifying good feelings, she decided to find some level of control over the situation and resolved not to be forced to focus wholeheartedly. And so she didn’t.

  Instead, while she gave a fraction of her mental capacity to slowly reading the ledger lines and finding the corresponding notes on the keyboard, the majority of her brain began to imagine the program for her performance, which would take place on that very stage.

  “PUM-pum-pum-PUM-pum-pum,” Gil sang as she went through the scale on the page, yet in her mind he wasn’t keeping time with the music at all. Instead he was giving ebb and flow to the tide of applause when she was announced to the room. And as she took her place at the front of the stage and made a dove appear out of a hat. And when she set fire to a paper tube and turned it into a rose.

  “Max, next page,” he said. She nodded, her eyes moving on to the twelfth measure of music, but her ears tuned to the subtle click of the lock on the apparatus. The giant apparatus that stood in the center of the stage.

  What was it? The showstopper, that’s what it was. But what would it do?

  “Max, you’re slowing down. Keep up.”

  She nodded and found his tempo again.

  She’d spin that giant apparatus—a box, yes, it’d be a box as big as a man—around in a circle and tap it three times. And then what? What would happen?

  “Max? Max?” Gil snapped his fingers in front of her face. “Hey, where’d you go?”

  She shook her head and looked at him as a man from the desert looks at an oasis. “Where’d I go?”

  “Yeah, you just disappeared on me.”

  “I . . . disappeared on you,” she said, feeling the desire to shout grow in her belly.

  Gil tapped the music again. “Come on, we don’t have much time.”

  “Sorry,” she said. “I wasn’t paying attention.”

  “You’re right, you weren’t.”

  She resumed the scale with a wide smile on her face. “Nobody ever does.”

  There was no fighting the joy now, for Max had discovered her great apparatus, her big finish.

  And it was going to be a doozy.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Avanishing trick?” Shoji asked from the fluffy green chair that Max would have been sitting in if he hadn’t been there first. “You’re going to finish with a vanishing trick?”

  “Yes, I’m going to vanish myself,” she replied, trying to make the hard folding chair as comfortable as possible while she peeled the last of the apples in the bushel. Her mother had left to go to a Ladies Auxiliary meeting, which meant Shoji had been unsupervised. He had crafted many things with the apples. Batman’s symbol, a grenade, a puppy’s head. He wa
s surprisingly good with a knife. Unless you were hoping he’d actually peel something. In which case he was basically useless.

  “Okay,” he said. “Sounds great. How do you do it?”

  “You just need to have the right equipment,” she said. “You barely even need any showmanship.”

  Shoji watched the unbroken skin of the apple that Max was peeling slide off with almost no fruit still attached to the underside. “And you have the right equipment?”

  Her knife slipped and she cut the strand early, taking out a divot of apple along with it. “Well, no. But we can build it.”

  Shoji nodded, picked up the grenade, and took a big bite. “Sure, Carl can. He can build most anything, honestly.”

  Max was glad to hear that, though she didn’t let on. She had almost gotten anxious about her grand idea, and anxiety and magic do not mix at all.

  “You have the blueprints, right?” Shoji asked and her heart dropped.

  “No. But I can describe it to Carl.”

  He took another bite. “No you can’t.”

  This was not the sort of thing a sane person would say to someone bearing a knife. Max noted Shoji’s insanity and sat the blade on her leg. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “You can’t describe it to Carl,” he said. “At least, not so he could build it.”

  “Why? Because I’m a girl?”

  He grinned and nodded, then saw her hand inch closer to the knife, so he retracted. “No, because that’s not how it’s done.”

  “And you know this how?”

  “I just know it,” he said.

  She aimed an eye roll at him that would make a sailor seasick.

  “Okay, fine,” he said. “Try describing it to me. Tell me how to build it. If I can’t get it, then there’s no way Carl can.”

  Max clenched her teeth, feeling oddly defensive over Carl. “He’s not an imbecile.”

  “Didn’t say he was,” Shoji replied. “But he is slower than most kids his own age. And even some our age. I’m just acting on the facts.”

  She sighed. “We build a box, about this high—” She held her hand out a little above her head.