Skylark and Wallcreeper

by Anne O'Brien Carelli

  She sits down next to me. “Really? I knew they put a lot of people there, but I had no idea. It’s so weird because we didn’t have power for a while, but that was it. No flooding here.” She looks at my duffel bag, and I can tell that she’s beginning to think I’m pulling a fast one. “Seriously?”

  “Seriously. We brought some food from the nursing home, but the Red Cross took it.”

  Now other people are listening, so I go on. “I mean, the Red Cross needed it because there are little kids there. And they said that food is coming, but I need to bring some back.” I show her the envelope. “I can pay for it, but I’m supposed to try to get some for free.”

  I hadn’t planned on getting food this way, but it seems to be working. One woman puts down her glass of wine and reaches for her purse.

  “Nursing home?” A man turns from his plate that’s piled with lettuce. “There’s a nursing home in the Armory?”

  Now I realize that I’m getting somewhere. “Yes, tons of old people. We had to be evacuated because of the flooding. Some of them have dementia and have no idea where they are. And my granny is eighty and she’s sleeping on a cot. And we need lots of food.”

  That does it. They jump into action. I’m pretty pleased with myself, and am actually smiling as they announce to the restaurant that there’s no more food for customers—it’s all going to the Armory. The chef and servers load up carts and boxes and march down the street, with customers helping to carry.

  “What’s your name?” Tanya shouts to me over the chattering of the restaurant crowd moving down the street.

  “Lily . . . but my granny calls me Lilybelle.”

  “Follow Lilybelle!” She puts her hand out to stop a taxi as we all cross the street and flow into the Armory.

  “Arugula?” laughs Nicole as we deposit the collection of food on the floor in the middle of the rows of cots. “Artichokes?” Now she’s getting hysterical. “Wine!” she shouts, and the nurses suddenly gather around her and grab a box filled with bottles.

  “Hey, it’s food.” I was so proud a moment ago. Now she’s laughing at me.

  “No—no, it’s great!” Nicole hugs me again. “Lily, look! There’s cans of pears here, and fresh tomatoes. And who couldn’t use some mozzarella? It’s a feast!”

  She pulls the restaurant chef aside and starts talking about digestion and special diets. I head back over to Granny, realizing that I never got her a Hershey bar. I almost turn around to go back out to find one when I see that she’s sound asleep. This time, she’s really asleep.

  WM, still in her neck brace, leans back in a lawn chair she’s placed right next to Granny’s feet. She gives me a silent salute.

  Mrs. Sidobeth, always nosy, inspects the pile of food, commenting on how she hasn’t eaten in days. A nurse reassures her that she just had a peanut butter sandwich, but soon there will be more to eat.

  I settle down on the empty cot that’s next to Granny and pull the beach towel around my shoulders to try to get warm. I just want to lie down, just for a minute. I pull off the boots, one by one, and flop down on my stomach.

  My hoodie is bunched up, and I pull down the front to get comfortable. And then I realize—the red box is gone.

  Chapter 7

  Noah’s Ark

  Brume

  Winter 1944

  “Jean-Pierre . . . pssst . . . viens ici!” Collette can hear Hélène whispering for her to come, but can’t see where she is.

  It had been another long night of deliveries. It seemed as if there were clusters of Germans everywhere. They weren’t paying attention to anything but their cigarettes and joking comrades, so Collette could dodge them easily. It was the French police, the Milice, she feared the most. Their dark coats can’t be seen as easily, and they don’t roam the streets in groups, like the Germans. Many times she’s had to press against a wall or duck into an alley as a solitary Milice would saunter by. She’s ready for her bed in her family’s little stone house.

  “Jean-Pierre!”

  Collette finally spots Hélène in the doorway of the shed behind her house. The shed once stored bags of wool and mordants for dyeing. Now it’s empty—or at least it appears to be. Collette steps inside, and Hélène quickly shuts the door and slides the lock.

  It’s so dark that Collette can’t see her own hand. She can hear Hélène breathing softly. “Shhh . . . wait,” Hélène whispers, before Collette can ask what they’re doing there. She smells sweat, but it’s not Hélène’s.

  “So this is Jean-Pierre?” A man’s deep voice comes from below Collette in the pitch-black. “Let me see if what they say is true.”

  He lights a match, and she gets a glimpse of him squatting on the floor near her dirty boots.

  Hélène quickly stuffs an empty feed sack along the bottom of the door. “No lights yet!”

  He shakes out the match, but lights another one.

  There is something about him that reminds Collette of a rat. She only sees him in a quick flash, but he has a thin mustache and is crouched low to the ground. She half expects to see a tail.

  “Is it true that you can hide anywhere?” he asks, holding the match higher. “Come over here so I can look at you.”

  Collette looks for Hélène’s reaction but can’t see her at all. She leans over, and he lights another match close to her face. She jerks back, but he grabs her coat and pulls her closer to him. She tries to pull away, but his grip is tight. Hélène clears her throat.

  “I have to get home. Curfew,” Collette says as calmly as she can, even though she wants to escape. She’s used to staying alert and being on guard, and this man is too close—she doesn’t trust him. She tries to picture where the bolt on the door is located.

  “You’ll be late tonight.” He keeps pulling until she’s forced to sit on the cold dirt floor, close to his smelly body. “Are you strong? Can you carry something small, but heavy?”

  “Of course I can,” she says without hesitation. For several weeks she’s been gathering Xs, limited to the town of Brume. Maybe this will be her chance to do more for the Resistance fighters.

  “Of course Jean-Pierre can.” Hélène flicks on a flashlight and aims it at the floor. The light is weak, but it’s so much better than the solid black. “It’s not too far, and he’s proven that he can go anywhere. All he has to do is climb the wall and leave the package at the top.”

  “Wall?” Collette pictures the brick-and-stone walls marking off many areas of the village. But there are also the cliffs in the hills around Brume that look like steep rock walls.

  The man pulls a small burlap sack out of the deep pocket of his coat. It’s tied with string and looks like it holds flour or sugar.

  Could he really have sugar? she thinks, covering her mouth to hide a gasp. What her parents could do with a bag of sugar—or real flour!

  “Jean-Pierre.” Hélène sits next to Collette on the floor and points the flashlight at the bag in the man’s hand. “Can you carry this in your coat and climb a wall? Without falling? Or dropping it?”

  “I think so . . .” she says. “But why?”

  The man lifts Collette’s arm up and places the bag on the palm of her hand. “Feel how heavy,” he says solemnly. The bag feels soft, but there’s something in the center as solid and heavy as a jar of jam.

  “Jean-Pierre,” Hélène continues. “This is Panther. He trusts you.”

  Panther! Collette thinks, feeling a rush of excitement. The famous Panther is next to me!

  Panther is one of the best-known Resistance fighters in the Alliance, a strong bond of hundreds of French people who are secretly resisting the German occupation. The Alliance fighters are fiercely loyal to their beloved country and determined to drive the German soldiers out of France. No one’s supposed to know who’s in the Alliance. But everyone knows about Panther.

  The Germans have started to call the Alliance Noah’s Ark because everyone in the Alliance has a secret animal name. Panther is one of the fiercest Resistance fighters i
n southern France and one of the strongest leaders of Noah’s Ark.

  Collette is no longer tired. “What do you want me to do?”

  “Just as Hélène said,” Panther says calmly. “Several miles before Mont Saint-Victoire begins, there are chains of low, steep hills.”

  “I know those hills. I’ve climbed them many times before the war.” Collette pictures the sharp hills that lead to the gray limestone mountains across France, where Resistance fighters are known to hide in pockets and deep caves. She knows that they scale the vertical cliffs like beetles, always scrambling to squirrel away weapons, radios, and explosives.

  “You’ll climb the rock wall at the edge of the Laurent family farm.”

  “Tonight?” Collette is familiar with the once-beautiful farm. The Laurents used to grow lavender and sunflowers at the foot of a steep hill before the Germans came. Now the fields are barren, and not just because of winter. At the end of the empty fields are rough chunks of stones mixed with shrubs and low trees, abruptly changing to a steep wall of sheer rock.

  She’s never climbed those hills at night, and certainly not the steep side of a mountain. She’s not even sure it’s possible without a bright moon. But if there’s too much moonlight, she could easily be seen.

  “Go to the far side of the farm and climb straight up the mountain wall. Leave the bag in the empty tree stump at the top. Go down the other side.” The man gently slides the bag into her coat pocket and helps her stand up.

  Hélène shines the light on Collette. She makes sure Collette’s thick scarf is tight, and the coat buttons are fastened. Then she presses the package farther down in Collette’s pocket. “Don’t hit this pocket on any rocks,” she says. As she looks at Panther, the flashlight reveals her worried face.

  Collette freezes. This is not a mountain climb for a routine night delivery, she thinks, her mind buzzing. She slides her hand down to feel the edges of the bag. It seems to be jammed tightly in her pocket. “What is it?”

  Hélène grabs Collette’s arm and faces her. “Be very careful. It’s a bottle of nitric acid from Marseille, protected by fleece. Don’t inhale it. And if it spills, it can burn you badly.” Panther snaps his head around, astonished that Hélène has told Collette what she’s carrying. The Resistance fighters share as little information as possible. Then if they are tortured, they’ll have nothing to tell.

  “It’s safe if you are safe.” Panther makes an attempt to smile, which makes him look even more like a rat.

  But instead of being afraid, Collette feels flushed with determination. She’d heard whispers that nitric acid can be mixed with other chemicals to blow up German trains. She’d heard how the chemical has been sprinkled on food supplies on the German freight trains, poisoning the troops. And now she’s been charged with secretly delivering this dangerous tool for the resisters. “Of course I’ll be safe.”

  Hélène unlocks the door. “Do your best hiding.” She motions for Collette to leave the shed.

  Panther follows her and laughs softly. “We’re hunted down like animals.” He scans the street and steps out into the alley. “But they don’t know that Wallcreeper is among us.” He gently pushes Collette forward. “Now go, Wallcreeper.” Before she can ask any questions, he’s gone. She walks quickly along the cobblestones, staying close to the sides of buildings.

  Wallcreeper—he called her Wallcreeper! She’s an official member of the Noah’s Ark network, with her own secret animal name. It’s a good name, she thinks proudly. She’s watched the wallcreeper birds in the cliffs near her town. They are quiet, grayish birds that build nests high in the mountains around Brume. They silently duck and hide, whistling only when something comes too close. Sometimes they show a flash of red under their wings.

  She is a wallcreeper—taking roundabout routes to the nest, mostly silent, staying hidden.

  She reaches the edge of the village quickly, but not without evading soldiers who are eagerly searching for strays. She stays bundled up against the harsh cold, but sweats under heavy layers of clothing when she hears the stomping and chatter of the Germans. She has to resist patting her pocket to make sure the bottle is still secure in the soft fleece wrapping.

  There’s just enough light so that she can make out the brush and rock croppings along the Laurent farm and the steep cliff that juts out of the sloping hillside. She passes the stone cottage, keeping her distance so that the sleeping Laurent family isn’t awakened by skittering rocks and footsteps in the night.

  She crosses the vacant fields, stumbling over clumps of frozen mud. The rocky soil had been plowed under, ready for spring seeds that never came.

  As Collette starts up the slope of the hill, at first she can follow an overgrown footpath and scramble over flat rocks. Then the ground changes to sharp rocks laid out like uneven steps, and finally, a steep mountain wall with crevices just wide enough for her boots. She can barely see a row of scraggly bushes at the top. If I climb steadily, she thinks, I can reach the drop spot in less than two hours, just after midnight.

  The wind starts up and burns her face and ears. Her hands are numb from the cold, but she needs her fingers free of gloves so that she can hold on tightly as she steadily pulls herself up the rough limestone wall. She can climb quickly if she can find toeholds and grab bushes that somehow grow in the thin cracks. She makes fast progress at first, focusing on the wall and not on the danger.

  “Halt!”

  Instantly she flattens against the wall, her arms and legs spread out like an X. Her feet are stuck in crevices, and she grips pieces of rock that can break off at any moment. She can’t look around and risk losing her balance and falling.

  “Halt!” Again, the sound of the sharp voice smacks against the wall.

  Collette sucks in her breath and holds it. Frozen against the wall, she listens to see where the sound is coming from. She’s holding the rocks so tightly that her arms begin to shake. Will they shoot me? she frantically wonders, her heart pounding.

  There’s more shouting, gunfire, then louder yelling. Her foot slips and broken pebbles tumble down the side of the rock wall. She concentrates on how she’ll protect the bottle of nitric acid if she falls. Should she toss it below right now?

  The voices continue nearby, but they’re not shouting at her. As she clings to the side of the rocks, she realizes that the sounds are echoes from the village, off in the distance.

  Letting out her breath, she carefully lifts her right foot to find the next crack in the wall that can sustain her, and pulls her body up. The wall may be high, but now she knows for sure that she’ll make it to the top.

  Step by step she sticks her foot into a hole in the sheet of gray, drags herself up, and moves the other foot. All she can think about is the next foothold, the next place to grab. She is determined not to slip.

  “I am Wallcreeper,” she whispers to the wall.

  Finally she is able to clutch a juniper branch and pull herself over the top of the cliff. The tree stump is visible a few feet away. It rests on the side of the cliff, almost as if someone has moved it there. It seems to be waiting for her—a Noah’s Ark drop spot that no one would ever expect.

  Most drops that the Resistance fighters use are hidden spots behind fence posts and under benches. This one is part of nature, hollowed out as a mailbox. Will anyone ever know that it was Wallcreeper who dropped off the package, sent there by Panther?

  Collette scans the area and gently places the bag in the bottom of the stump. She doesn’t ever want to be seen, but especially now, at the top of the ridge. I’m a perfect target, she thinks as she crawls across the cliff to the other side. I can’t call attention to Noah’s Ark.

  Climbing down takes longer. It’s hard to see footholds, and her strength begins to wane. Just before the sun rises over the mountains near Brume, she slinks under the thin quilts on her bed. She keeps her coat on. She has to be ready. Panther may need her again.

  Chapter 8

  The News

  Brooklyn
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br />   October 2012—Day 2

  How will I ever find my granny’s special pen? I figure if I retrace my steps—I hadn’t gone very far—it could be on the ground somewhere. Maybe under the table outside the restaurant.

  But when I’m finally able to escape the Armory late the next afternoon, the pen isn’t there. It isn’t anywhere.

  The restaurant where I got the food is closed, but I can see there’s someone inside. I bang on the front window, but the man moving furniture is listening to music and dancing with the chairs. I remember his black dreadlocks with the yellow tips. He was the one pushing a cart to the Armory that was loaded with loaves of fresh bread and boxes of butter.

  I race down a thin alleyway to the back of the restaurant and spot a door propped open. The kitchen is gleaming, everything shiny stainless steel, no food in sight. No one is cooking.

  “Hello?” I cut through the vacant kitchen and step into the dining area.

  The man jumps in surprise and pulls out an earbud. “Sorry, we’re closed!”

  I scan the floor of the empty restaurant, hoping I’ll see Granny’s little red box shoved in a corner, or maybe hidden under one of the wooden tables. On the top of the long bar is an arrangement of glass mugs catching the sunlight, but no red box. No pen.

  “Oh, hey, it’s the Armory girl!” He finishes shoving chairs under the tables. “What’s up? Sorry, we’re all out of food, so can’t help you there. Maybe you’d like some crème brûlée? I saved some—got to eat it before it goes bad.”

  I’ve never heard of crème brûlée, but at this point I’m so hungry that I’ll eat anything, even if it’s gone bad. Everyone at the Armory had feasted on peanut butter and jelly sandwiches while I was gone, and was probably eating pears and mozzarella right now. “Sure—but that’s not why I’m here.”

  I follow him to the kitchen, and he yanks open a large steel door to a walk-in freezer. The shelves are empty except for big tubs labeled SHERBET and stacked trays of what looks like empty cupcake shells made out of chocolate.