Romeo Blue (10 page)

“I’ve heard all the stories,” I said.

Soon Miss Elkin started whispering to me, “I’d really like to ask Mr. Bathtub to be my chaperone partner! You know the tradition at Babbington. Would you mind doing me a tremendous favor and seeing if he’s at all interested in the dance? I mean, discreetly. I mean, does he ever do anything like that?”

I didn’t answer Miss Elkin right away. I knew Uncle Gideon loved to dance because he and Auntie were
always cutting a rug, as Derek called it. But I wasn’t sure what to tell Miss Elkin. I began to feel suddenly quite heavy with other people’s secrets. Honestly, I did. I did not want to encourage Miss Elkin. I knew Uncle Gideon still loved my mum Winnie, even if he hadn’t been with her in thirteen years. He still loved her. I did not think he would ever go to a dance with anyone but Winnie.

When I came home from school that afternoon, Mr. Bathtub was in the library, grading papers. He looked over the tops of his reading glasses at me and said, “What ho, Fliss! We meet again! To what do I owe the pleasure?” I leaned against the back of his big green stuffed chair and I tried to think of a way I could ask him about the autumn dance coming up and Miss Elkin. I was also trying to see what paper he was grading. In a very casual way, I tried to peer over his shoulder. The report said across the top of the page,
The Vicious Mighty Shark by Charlie Tabbet
. At school, all of Charlie’s reports were about sharks. Mr. Bathtub had given Charlie an A minus. Mr. Bathtub brought sandwiches into school every day for a group of children who didn’t have any breakfast or lunch. I think Charlie was one of them.

“What are you reading these days, Fliss?” Mr. Bathtub said to me. “No longer the expert on Frances Hodgson Burnett?”

“I’ve read
The Secret Garden
eight times and I will
not
be reading it again. I am way too old for that book now,” I said.

“I see, that’s a shame,” he said. “By the way, we’re having some visitors this month. Bill Donovan will be
here in a few days and he is bringing along a Canadian fellow named Bill Stephenson. They are great friends and we call them Big Bill and Little Bill. Little Bill will be very pleased to meet you.”

“Why is Mr. Donovan coming back?” I said, running my foot along the tassels at the bottom of the chair. “Wasn’t he here already? Can he tell us where my Winnie and Danny are?”

“Oh, Fliss, can I ask you not to question all this? I know you are a bright girl and you’ve noticed so much. And I’m very proud of you for that. But for your own sake and for your own safety, please don’t poke around. Don’t ask any questions.” My father put his arm round me as I stood there next to his chair, leaning against him, looking right into his eyes, which seemed to be full of sweetness and sadness again. Right then I should have broken my word to Derek. Right then I should have told him about Mr. Fitzwilliam at the Eastland Park Hotel, snooping round, trying to find out about Derek’s dad. I should have told him about the invisible-ink letter. And I should have told him about Derek’s father and his visits. Right then I should have spoken.

How easy it is to think later,
Oh, what I should have done!
But how hard to think clearly when you are smack in the middle of the soup of your life. Instead of telling my father everything, I skipped towards the kitchen singing a jump-rope song I learned from Dimples.

“The man in the moon sang me a tune,

Then he handed out sweets on a silver spoon.”

I finally tossed the invisible jump rope aside and threw myself into a chair at the blue metal table. The Gram was making bread. She was rolling and turning the yeasty, sweet-smelling dough on a breadboard. She let me poke it with my finger and it was soft and springy. Finally, she pulled off a part of it and let me roll it and work it along with her. As we rolled and pushed, I started talking. I was not at all good at being quiet. Ideas inside me were always pushing to pop out. Danny always said so. Winnie always agreed. Words and ideas inside me were just as jumpy as my feet, even though I was twelve years old and should have been by now very proper and grown-up and polite and quiet. “The bread dough feels as though it’s alive,” I said.

“Well, Flissy, because of the yeast, it is alive in a way,” said The Gram. “Until we cook it, of course. We’re having some visitors, you know.”

“Yes,” I said, “I know. But why? Why is Mr. Donovan coming back? Does this have anything to do with my Winnie? And what about the Butterfly Circuit? Isn’t that what it’s called?”

The Gram dropped the dough on the floured breadboard. She tapped her fingers up and down, leaving white floury fingerprints on the blue metal. “Felicity, your father and I very much would like you to stop poking around. We are living in very dangerous times. We Bathburns are doing the best we can to help fight against the Nazis. Danny, Gideon, myself, and your mother, Winifred. Although I do not like Winifred because of the way she hurt my Gideon, I do admire her for her work. You must protect her by not asking questions.” The Gram put her flour-covered hand against my cheek. “We so love having you with us, Flissy McBee. Perhaps you should not be here. Perhaps we are fools to keep you with us at this time. But we have waited so long for you. We have waited and waited and longed to have you with us. And suddenly here you are amidst all this.” She hugged me and I could feel her whole being rising and falling against me, crying in a silent, tearless way.

Soon enough, my father came bubbling into the kitchen with a cheerful smile. “What ho, Fliss! Has The Gram fallen into a heap? What shall we do? How
about we all go out for dinner tonight? We’ll go to the place along the wharf. What’s it called, the Boiling Pot? We haven’t done anything like that since Fliss has been here. What do you say, old bean?” said Gideon, patting me on the back and then putting his arm round The Gram.

“Oh yes, please!” I said, jumping up and down.

“We’ll take the whole clan and we’ll even ask Bob Henley along,” said Uncle Gideon.

“And what about Miss Elkin?” I said. “I think she would be ever so pleased to be invited as well.” Gideon frowned and didn’t answer me. He sat down at the blue table and opened the newspaper. He started whistling and turning pages. The Gram and I began tucking the soft, pliable bread dough into buttered baking tins. Soon, five fat little loaves were sitting all ready to be popped into the cooker.

I left the room and went upstairs and when the loaves had baked, the delicious smell drew me back downstairs. I stood in the hallway for a moment and I could hear Gideon talking quietly to The Gram. “I’ve heard from Donovan, actually. Unfortunately, our sources tell us there’s a rather important German agent in the area.”

It was as if someone had taken a basket of laundry and dumped it all out into the wind. Shirts and skirts and sheets and towels were let loose, flying every which way. Every idea in the world popped in and out of my mind. Was Mr. Fitzwilliam the Gray Moth? Was that why the man at lunch had planned to mail that letter to Cape Elizabeth? Never before had I ever met anyone who seemed so dark and dangerous as Mr. Fitzwilliam. How long had he been living in that big house on the cliff walk? Not long, I should imagine. Wouldn’t we have run into him around town before if he really lived here? And one day recently, though he didn’t see me, I spotted him down on the rocks below, staring up at our house, studying it, watching for something. What about that story of the architect who had been murdered? I should have realized right then that there was something wrong. And what had this to do with Derek’s father?

Oh, I so hoped Derek would come home soon. We were to begin dance practice at seven and he was already late. I needed to talk to him. I wasn’t going to tell Uncle Gideon anything until I had talked with Derek.

I put on a little jacket and went out the back door into the garden. The full moon cast an oddly bright light on
the sleeping wild roses. In the fields beyond there were seas of drying goldenrod bending and rustling and glowing yellow with the wind and moon.

Then I saw a shadow of someone up on the road, walking briskly towards the house. It startled me at first but soon I realized it was Derek. I ran up as fast as I could to the road. We stood there in the stark moonlight, our long, pale shadows shimmering on the road before us. “Derek. Oh, Derek. I just heard Gideon say there is a big German agent in the area,” I said. “Don’t you think we should tell Gideon about your father and Fitzwilliam?”

Suddenly, Derek grabbed me. He wrapped his one good arm round me and he held me really tightly. I was pulled in close against him and I could feel him trembling. He kept on holding me like that and he pushed his face against my cheek. His lips brushed across mine and I felt as if I were swimming in a warm blur. Then he whispered, “Fliss, don’t say anything yet. It has nothing to do with my father. We have to figure this out on our own. Don’t say anything. I want to get to know my father first. I
need
to get to know him. My father is
my
business. No one else’s.” Then he let go of me and rushed on into the house, leaving me standing alone in the shadows.

Yes, America was losing many, many ships along the coast. German U-boats were everywhere, lurking, and when supply ships or even convoys went through the eastern waters, U-boats torpedoed and sunk many of them. It was like an epidemic. Gideon was dark and gloomy about this and he had gone off to talk with a friend who was on sub-watching duty up on the hill in a cement tower with open windows all round the top. It was tucked away in the pinewoods but if you looked up at the hill, you could see the eye of the tower poking out of the trees.

It was another one of those windy, rainy days and Derek had built a fire in the fireplace. Everyone was out of the house that day, as planned, and Derek’s father had just arrived. He was standing in the hallway with an umbrella that the wind had ripped to shreds and turned inside out. He was quite wet. The water rolled off his macintosh and he stamped his boots. Then he shook off the macintosh and shuddered. “Oh, I’ll keep this on,” he said, touching his hat. “It loses its form if I take it off when it’s wet. It will dry to a perfect shape this way.” He smiled at Derek, and Derek looked proud and pleased. Derek’s father was happy to see the fire in the fireplace
and the two of them settled down together in front of it, like old friends.