AbrakaPOW

by Isaiah Campbell

  “Wait, where exactly is ‘about this high’ on a ruler?” he asked.

  “Five or six feet high.”

  “Five? Or six? Which one?”

  She attempted to kill him with laser vision she hadn’t yet developed, and then she moved on. “Six feet high, maybe four or—no, four feet deep.”

  “What’s the material?” He attempted to hide, unsuccessfully, how much he was enjoying this conversation.

  “Wood.”

  “What kind of wood?”

  “Wood wood,” she said. “And there’s a hidden door inside.”

  Shoji, now throwing caution to the wind, took another bite of his grenade-apple and leaned back in the chair, smug as a Roman god watching mere mortals flog themselves for his pleasure. “A hidden door, eh? And I suppose you know how to build that, too?”

  Max had endured enough of his toying. “Can I see the puppy head?”

  He handed it to her. She promptly beaned him between the eyes with it.

  “Fine, we need a blueprint,” she said with a sigh. Admitting this fact meant most likely declaring defeat. Where would one find a blueprint for a magical apparatus?

  “The library?” Shoji asked, somehow reading her mind. Perhaps the lump that was growing on his forehead where the apple had bounced off was giving him new mental powers.

  “No, because of the Magician’s Code,” she said. “Nobody would put a design like that out for public knowledge.”

  “I’ve seen books of magic tricks at the library before.”

  “Of course. Everybody has. Which means everybody could figure out how we do the trick.”

  “Do they sell them? Blueprints for tricks, I mean?”

  She grunted. “Do you have money?”

  He breathed out a long breath of defeat. “Man. It’s too bad you only just moved here.”

  “Why?”

  “Because, if you’d lived here longer, I’ll bet you’d have made friends with all sorts of talented people. What with you being so good with people and all.” He stifled his snickering with the last few bites of his apple.

  Max didn’t notice. Rather, she was focusing on the growing glow that filled her mind—the glow of an idea. Not a lightbulb idea, like she’d had at the piano earlier, which comes to you instantly and can be just as easily shut off. Rather, this was a sunrise of an idea, one with an inevitable arrival and an undeterred momentum that would not disappear until it had run its course.

  “Come on,” she said as she stood.

  Shoji froze midchew, chunks of apple dangling from his mouth. “Should we let your dad know we’re leaving?”

  “He’s busy,” she said without the prior knowledge of that fact and yet with complete assurance that it was true.

  “Okay,” he said. “Where are we going?”

  She didn’t answer. He’d find out on his own. Besides, he might not come if she told him.

  And so he blindly followed her to the prisoners’ hutment.

  Chapter Fifteen

  The sun was barely still illuminating the walkways through the camp as they went down narrow rows between the dark-brown boxy buildings in which the prisoners lived. Long shadows were cast across the dirt, thick enough to trip over, silently screaming to Max and Shoji that they were in a place they should not have been. Max ignored them. Shoji did not.

  “Are we supposed to be over here?” he asked when she stopped him at a corner so the evening patrol wouldn’t see them.

  “No,” she said.

  He opened his mouth, then closed it. There was nothing he could say to that.

  “This is where the prisoners live,” she said. “But they’re harmless. Sort of.”

  “Harmless Nazis,” he said. “I’m pretty sure those words don’t go together.”

  The GIs on patrol turned down a path and walked out of view.

  “They are, though. They wouldn’t do anything to get themselves in trouble, especially with the major’s daughter.” She motioned for him to follow her and they ran across the road to the other side, between yet more brown huts. Where she was going, she wasn’t entirely certain. She had a feeling, though, that her goal lay in this direction.

  “That’s great for you,” he said. “But I’m just a Japanese kid. For all they know, I’m running from the cops or whatever in here.”

  “Then you’re one of their allies,” she said. “Trust me, we’ll be fine.” So strong was her confidence that she stepped out onto another road without checking around the corner first. As he went to follow her, she grabbed him and pushed him back into the shadow.

  “Dang it,” she said. “The guards are right there.”

  “Did they see you?”

  “I don’t think so,” she said, but then the voice of one of the guards asking the other if he’d seen something move proved her wrong.

  “What do we do now?” Shoji was already backing away from the road, but if they ran there was no way they wouldn’t be seen by the guards coming to check the alley.

  Max looked down at the bottom of the hut next to them. All of the buildings were on cinderblocks, and there was a two-foot space between the floor and the ground. She dropped down and rolled under. Thankfully Shoji did the same.

  Not even five seconds later, two sets of combat boots walked past the very spot where they had been standing.

  “You say you saw something in here?” one of the GIs said.

  “Yeah, could have sworn,” said the other.

  Max closed her eyes and tried to devise some magical spell that would force them to move along. But, of course, no such magic existed. And now she could feel ants beginning to discover her calves.

  “It’s just your nerves, I’ll bet,” the first GI said. “Here, take a breather.” Max heard the tap tap tap of a Pall Mall pack, then the crackle of a match.

  “Thanks. Maybe you’re right,” the other GI said. Max’s pulse started racing. Somehow, recognizing the voice as Gil’s made her even more terrified of being caught. “I don’t know, watching these Krauts really gives me the creeps.” The building moved ever so slightly as the two guards leaned against the wall.

  “Eh, without weapons, they’re just a bunch of harmless idiots.”

  Max glanced at Shoji. A beetle was crawling on his lip. He was putting forth a gallant effort to not move. She was especially impressed when it went into his nostril and he barely even flared it.

  “Harmless, sure, but idiots? I don’t think so.” Gil dropped something on the dirt and ground it with his heel. “I was talking to a buddy over at the hospital—you know Duncan?”

  “Oh yeah. Is he back already?”

  “Got his arm blown off, so yeah. Anyway, he was telling me about this thing called Auschwitz. Said the Krauts are putting people in ovens over there. Women, children, all of ’em. They’re heartless and crazy, if you ask me.”

  They stood in silence for a few moments, just long enough for their words to sink in to Max’s and Shoji’s ears. Then the first GI spoke up.

  “Yeah, but it’s only Jews, right? That’s what I heard, at least.”

  “Sure, yeah, but what does that matter?” Gil asked. “It’s still psychotic. I mean, would you kill a Jew and toss him in an oven?”

  “Depends on if I owed him money or not,” the GI said and started chuckling.

  “That’s not funny, Private,” Gil said. He did not sound amused.

  “Okay, Private. What are you going to do, court-martial me?”

  “No, but I might punch you in the mouth.”

  The GI dropped his own Pall Mall to the dirt and ground it with his boot. “Alright, alright, Mrs. Roosevelt, I’m sorry. Jeez, let’s finish patrol so you can get some joe. You’re on edge something fierce.”

  Their boots finally walked back to the road, and the sound of their steps faded away. Max and Shoji waited a minute longer, just to be safe, then they rolled back out from under the hut. Shoji then proceeded to blow the bugs out of his nose while Max knocked all the ants off her legs. There were
quite a few.

  “Did you see that?” Shoji finally asked after squishing the snot-covered beetle between his fingers.

  “See what? Us very narrowly escaping getting caught? Yeah, I was there.”

  “No, under the huts.” Shoji pointed to the row across the road from them. “I saw two guys under one of them, just like how we were. But then they disappeared.”

  “Disappeared as in they got out from underneath it?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe. I couldn’t really tell.”

  Max pondered this for a moment and felt, in her gut, that her goal lay in that direction. “Okay, show me,” she said.

  He nodded and took the lead. Cautiously, they crossed the road and went down the next row of huts.

  The sun was fully gone from the sky, and Max was pretty sure that her mother would be looking for them at this point. Which meant they’d have to swing by the PX on their way back to Major Larousse’s office to acquire an alibi. Which would take even more time, so they really needed to hurry.

  Of course, it was dark now and the patrolling guards were even more difficult to anticipate, so hurrying wasn’t really an option.

  They made their way to the third row of huts. Shoji dropped down and looked underneath.

  “I don’t know, it’s hard to tell,” he said as he crawled farther under it. “But, maybe there’s something under here.”

  “Like what?” she asked. She dropped down to peer into the darkness, just in case her night vision was better than his.

  “I don’t know exactly. A broken plate? Yeah, I think that’s what I see.”

  She sighed. “Really? We came all the way over here for a broken plate?”

  “That’s not all that’s down here, though. I’m going to crawl in a little farther.”

  “Why? So you can find the broken coffeepots?” She stood, feeling suddenly very frustrated. “Or maybe—”

  A hand on her shoulder spun her around, then covered her mouth to block her scream.

  “I suppose I should start shopping for hooks,” said Blaz. “Or you should learn to stay away from places where you are not welcome.”

  Blaz was not alone. He had two friends standing with him. All of them seemed angry to see her. None of them were Felix.

  Blaz nodded at one with a beard and glasses, who grabbed Shoji by the ankles and dragged him out from under the hut. It took Shoji a few seconds to fully come to grips with the fact that they were neither alone nor in the presence of guards, but once he saw Max’s predicament, he seemed ready to faint.

  The bearded man grabbed him by the arm and stood him up next to Max. The third, who had a nasty scar on his cheek, checked the road for guards. Once they saw they were in the clear, the men marched Max and Shoji over to a hut nearby and pushed them through the door.

  There were eight more Nazi prisoners seated inside.

  Chapter Sixteen

  The men pushed Max and Shoji toward some chairs and made them sit. The bearded one and the one with the scar stepped behind them and held them in the chairs. Max noticed that each of the men in the room had a white cloth tied around their right bicep, and on the cloth was a black drawing of a hand.

  The Black Hand. These were the ones that had been antagonizing the Austrians. Max’s stomach sank even lower once she realized that, even among Nazis, these guys were considered the bullies.

  Blaz crouched down in front of them.

  “Now then,” he said to Shoji, “I believe you owe me an explanation.”

  Shoji was sweating giant beads from his forehead. He shot Max a look that was filled with I-told-you-this-would-happen thoughts. She nodded.

  “We don’t owe you anything,” she said. Blaz laughed and turned his attention to her.

  “Oh, so you are the one in charge? I see.”

  “No, I’m not,” she said. “But my father is. Major Larousse. And he will not be happy to hear that you laid a hand on me.”

  The man with the scar who was holding her loosened his grip significantly, but not completely. Blaz stopped smiling.

  “You are the major’s daughter? Ah, yes, I remember you, sitting outside his office like an unwelcome visitor,” he said. “And you do not know that these huts are our living quarters?”

  “Of course I know that,” she said.

  “And yet you came here and trespassed.”

  “You’re prisoners,” she said, quite adamantly. The grip on her arm tightened. She lowered her tone. “You don’t own this place.”

  “Neither do you.”

  She realized arguing with a prisoner was not a step in any direction she wanted to take. “Let us go and I promise I won’t tell my father that you grabbed us.”

  The other men in the room began to speak among themselves. One of them whispered something to Blaz in German. He stood and stepped over to a table set up in the center of the room. He picked up a metal cup and took a sip, then stepped over to Shoji. He set the cup on top of Shoji’s head.

  “And what of this one? Is he the major’s child as well?”

  “No, but he’s my sidekick. Let us go.”

  Shoji shot her a look at the word “sidekick.” But then Blaz bent down so his nose was inches from Shoji’s face, and he forgot all about it.

  “And why was he crawling underneath our huts? What was he planning?”

  Max took a deep breath. “We don’t have to answer to you. Let us go.”

  Blaz didn’t move. “Why was this boy underneath our huts?”

  “I said we aren’t going to answer you. Let us—”

  He stood and slapped the cup across the room. It crashed into a plate and broke it.

  “WHY WAS HE UNDER OUR HUTS?!” he screamed.

  Shoji didn’t look like he was about to cry, but he did look like he was about to look like he was about to cry.

  She took another deep breath. “Please, just let us go.”

  Blaz grabbed her from the chair and picked her up by her arms. “You do not tell me what to do! In this room, I am in charge. You will tell me—”

  The door to the hut flew open.

  “Stoppp!” Felix yelled into the room. “Sind sie ein narr?” He rushed in and grabbed Max out of the man’s grip. Max noticed that tied onto Felix’s right bicep was a white cloth with a black hand drawn on it. Blaz took a step toward her and Felix put his hand on his chest and shoved him away. Blaz stumbled into the table and knocked it over.

  Felix took Shoji by the hand and ran with him and Max out of the hut and down the road, as far away as they could go while still in the prisoner’s hutment. Finally, when they were three roads away, they stopped so they could catch their breath.

  “Fräulein,” Felix said between gasps. “What were you doing in there?” He took the white cloth off his arm and stuck it in his pocket.

  “Looking for you,” she said, realizing as she said it how preposterous it sounded.

  “Wait, we were looking for him?” Shoji asked. “I saw him, about a minute before we went rolling under that hut to escape the guards.”

  “You did?” She suddenly wished she knew a trick to make even more beetles crawl into his nose. “Why didn’t you say anything?”

  “Why didn’t you tell me you were looking for him?” In this match of accusing questions, he won the point on that serve.

  “It’s not as though you would have known who I was talking about.” Max desperately tried to at least get on the scoreboard.

  “Sure I would have,” Shoji said, denying her paltry efforts. “You could have just said, ‘I need to find Felix, the guy who sweeps the hallway,’ and I would have known. We met while you were in your lesson.”

  Felix was straining to hide the smile under his mustache. “Your friend is a terrible apple peeler,” he finally said to her.

  “Oh, I’m the worst,” Shoji concurred.

  Max accepted her verbal defeat with a sigh and moved to a more pressing question. “So, are you one of them? Are you a member of The Black Hand?”

  Felix chuck
led. “They make good coffee. If I have to wear an armband to get it, I’ll wear an armband.”

  “But they’re a bunch of bullies.”

  He shrugged. “They may be. But their coffee doesn’t taste any worse for it.”

  She decided that was an acceptable answer. “Anyway, Felix, I need to ask you a favor.”

  Shoji smacked his forehead. “Oh, of course you were looking for Felix. Because he used to be a builder for a traveling vaudeville act, and then he was a carpenter in New York.” Shoji shook his head in disbelief at his own density. “Gosh, it makes so much sense now.”

  “He told you all that?” Max was in disbelief as well, but of an entirely different sort. She glared at Felix. “You told him all that? And you just met him today?”

  Felix shrugged. “He’s a terrible apple peeler, but an incredible conversationalist.” He glanced up the road and pulled them both into an alley, just before the guards passed into view.

  Hidden by the shadows, he whispered to Max to hurry up with whatever it was she had felt was important enough to risk life and limb over. With all wind gone from her sails, Max proceeded to lay out her idea for the grand finale of her show to Felix, and the challenges that lay between her half-baked team of assistants and the construction of the Vanishing Box. He nodded along and, midway through, knelt down and began to draw in the dirt. This encouraged her quite a bit, and she finished her description with a smidgen of the flair with which she hoped to perform the trick.

  “It’s a terrible idea,” Felix said. And the flair fizzled out.

  Shoji noticed the mortified look on her face. “Well, it’s not a terrible idea, right? I mean, I think it’d be pretty neat.”

  Felix stood and brushed the dirt off his knees. “Perform that at a talent show or one of your bar mitzvahs and, yes, it would indeed be ‘neat.’ But this isn’t a talent show. You have to do everything with the audience in mind.”

  “You people are prisoners,” Max blurted. “You’re starving for decent entertainment. I feel like I could come in and do an hour of card tricks and nobody would complain.”

  “Erst denken, dann handeln, fräulein.” Felix said. “First think, then act. Are they entertainment starved? Certainly. But these men have also been forbidden from any contact with a woman for a very long time. And you would make your last trick to take yet another woman away from them?”