Island of Spies

"The Dime Novel Kids are spunky, spirited, smart, sassy—and so is Sheila Turnage’s writing. It sizzles and sparkles." —Lauren Wolk, author of Newbery Honor Book Wolf Hollow

From the Newbery Honor-winning author of Three Times Lucky comes a middle grade WWII spy mystery with as much humor and heart as high stakes

Twelve-year-old Stick Lawson lives on Hatteras Island, North Carolina, where life moves steady as the tides, and mysteries abound as long as you look really hard for them. Stick and her friends Rain and Neb are good at looking hard. They call themselves the Dime Novel Kids. And the only thing Stick wants more than a paying case for them to solve is the respect that comes with it. But on Hatteras, the tides are changing. World War II looms, curious newcomers have appeared on the small island, and in the waters off its shores, a wartime menace lurks that will upend Stick’s life and those of everyone she loves. The Dimes are about to face more mysteries than they ever could have wished for, and risk more than they ever could have imagined.

“Big, beautifully unfolding adventure and mystery, [and characters] who jump off the page and straight into your heart.” —Kimberly Willis Holt, author of National Book Award Winner When Zachary Beaver Came to Town


“Fast-paced and suspenseful. The story contains many twists, and it’s packed with humor.” —The Week Junior

“Charming and funny, [abounding in] codes and clues, spies, and double agents. —PW

"Smart kids save the day in this engaging WWII spy mystery." —Common Sense Media 

"Lively narration will quickly draw readers into the story, which twists and turns cleverly. —Booklist

“A little-known piece of American history [makes for] an entertaining saga of island life.” —Kirkus

"Funny, crisp, and clever." —The Horn Book

“Stick is the kind of protagonist I wish was my best friend . . . . I can’t get enough of her.” —Gennifer Choldenko, author of Newbery Honor Book Al Capone Does My Shirts | “The Dime Novel Kids are spunky, spirited, smart, sassy—and so is Sheila Turnage’s writing. It sizzles and sparkles. Turnage deftly weaves history with fiction, humor with drama, light with dark to produce a concoction as compelling as its protagonist. There are shades of Agatha Christie in this kaleidoscope of characters and clues. Kids will have a ton of fun when they visit Island of Spies.” —Lauren Wolk, author of Newbery Honor Book Wolf Hollow

“Turnage takes a little-known piece of American history and sets it solidly among realistic characters and an entertaining saga of island life.” —Kirkus Reviews

"Smart kids save the day in this engaging WWII spy mystery . . . a fun, entertaining story that will keep kids engaged while they learn a lot of little-known history and about life in the Outer Banks of North Carolina during World War II. Island of Spies narrator Stick and her two best friends are well developed, realistic characters, each with their own quirks and strengths, who readers will find easy to root for. A Common Sense Selection." —Common Sense Media

“Fast-paced and suspenseful. The story contains many twists, and it’s packed with humor. Be sure to read the note from the author that explains the real-life attacks on American ships that inspired the book.” —The Week Junior

“Turnage’s clever 1942-set mystery [is as] charming and funny as the island setting, the kids’ antics, and the quirky cast. [Stick Lawson’s] passion for equality is depicted through her insistence that girls should be allowed to defend the island and her staunch defense of Rain, who experiences racism on the largely white island. [Amidst] codes and clues, spies and double agents . . . one message is made abundantly clear: “In times of danger, bet on each other.” —Publishers Weekly

"Tried and true: plucky kids outwitting the adults. . . . Funny, crisp, and clever." —The Horn Book

"Turnage, who wrote the Newbery Honor Book Three Times Lucky, bases this historical novel on research into WWII [constructing a] mystery with many characters and motives for readers to consider. Stick’s lively narration will quickly draw readers into the story, which twists and turns cleverly before reaching its conclusion." —Booklist

“Stick and the Dime Novel Kids jump off the page and straight into your heart. Sheila Turnage is a master plotter, delivering big, beautifully unfolding adventure and mystery against an historical event. Her skilled use of humor, even in the most poignant moments, is enviable. Sometimes you can tell when a writer loved writing their story. Turnage must have had a heck of a great time!” —Kimberly Willis Holt, author of National Book Award Winner When Zachary Beaver Came to Town

"No mystery goes unsolved on Hatteras Island in 1942 because the Dime Novel Kids are always on the case. . . . The plot gently unfurls the island’s complex dynamics, [and] rather than just capitalizing on the aesthetic of the setting, [Turnage] addresses issues of race in both the treatment of biracial Rain on the island and allusions to immoral actions of the U.S. government." —BCCB

“Sheila Turnage is a master of voice. Stick is the kind of protagonist I wish was my best friend—she makes me laugh out loud, smile to myself, and wish I could sit next to her at lunch. I can’t get enough of her.” —Gennifer Choldenko, author of Newbery Honor Book Al Capone Does My Shirts | Growing up in eastern North Carolina, Sheila Turnage fell in love with Hatteras Island's shipwrecks, secret World War II history, and whispered spy stories--which helped inspire Island of Spies. Sheila is the author of the award-winning Mo & Dale mysteries, including Three Times Lucky, a Newbery Honor Book, New York Times bestseller, and  Edgar Award finalist; The Ghosts of Tupelo Landing, also a New York Times bestseller and recipient of five starred reviews; and The Odds of Getting Even and The Law of Finders Keepers, both recipients of numerous starred reviews. Sheila is also the author of two nonfiction adult books, a poetry collection, and a picture book, Trout the Magnificent, illustrated by Janet Stevens. She lives on a farm in eastern NC with her husband, a very smart dog, a flock of chickens and guineas, one lonely goose, and a couple of sweet-faced goats. She still loves visiting Hatteras Island. | A NOTE TO THE FUTURE IF YOU FIND THIS
There’s three graves hidden in the heart of Buxton Woods, all three held down with ballast stones painted white. We aren’t saying who’s resting in those graves and who’s not. We aren’t saying who dug those graves, or who wanted the bodies to never float up and give their secrets away.
All we’re saying is there’s three graves if you know how to find them.
If you want to know more, everything’s here in this book, which we wrote for Ada Lawson’s library. You can read it as soon as Rain finishes drawing the cover. We’ll add another book to that library bookshelf too—A Thin Book Written by a Spy—as soon as Neb finishes decoding it.
Fact: If you’d asked us Dime Novel Kids eight months ago if evenone mystery strolled our white-sand roads or swam our crystal-blue sea, we’d have said no. “Life on our island moves steady as the breath of the tides,” we’d have told you.
We would have been wrong.
We live on an island of mystery and change, double cross, and spies.

Alphabetically yours,
Neb, Rain & Stick—the Dime Novel Kids
Hatteras Island, North Carolina, August 30, 1942



Chapter 1
A Time for Danger
January 12, 1942
Fact: Change rarely shows up the same way twice.
It might stroll up comfortable as old boots, and take a seat on the porch. Or smile at you from across the room, shiny as a new friend. It might attack from the deep of the sea or the dark of the heart and slam your world hard enough to wobble your stars.
No matter how it shows, you can count on this: It never leaves until it’s done.
It first slipped up on us Dime Novel Kids one lazy Saturday afternoon as, downstairs, the door to the abandoned Hatteras Lighthouse scraped open.
My best friends, Neb and Rain, looked up from their work, and I closed my weather journal. Footsteps scuffed across the stone floor below and stopped at the foot of the spiral iron staircase leading to our headquarters in the very top of the lighthouse.
Neb snapped his ragged Boy Scout Handbook shut and straightened his neckerchief. He’s pale as a ghost crab—odd for an island kid. At twelve and a half, he wants to be a man so bad, he can taste it. Rain pushed her crayons aside and closed her latest artwork—Portraits of Island Cats, Volume 2.
She’s only ten, but her shipwreck of a life has matured her beyond her years.
They pointed to me—twelve-year-old Sarah Stickley Lawson, apprentice scientist and pre-FBI agent if the FBI ever writes us back. Everybody calls me Stick.
“You talk,” Rain said. “You’re a scientist. You’re good with the unknown.”
Fact: The unknown calls to me like a long-lost friend. “The Dime Novel Kids are in,” I shouted. “Who’s down there?”
Silence.
I glanced out the window at our homemade flag fluttering from our rusty balcony rail. Beyond it stretched sand dunes, Neb’s house, and the sparkling blue Atlantic Ocean. The flag means we’re in, and everybody knows it.
“Could be a lost tourist,” Rain said, pushing her wild halo of sun-bleached curls from her light-brown face. She’s sturdy, Rain, and graceful as the live oaks along the edge of Buxton Woods. Last year this time, she might have been right about the tourist. But my grandfather, aka Grand, says with a war coming, tourists are rarer than fish lips here on Hatteras Island.
War changes everything. That’s what Grand says.
It’s not changing us.That’s what us Dimes say.
As it turned out, of course, we were dead wrong.
Downstairs, something clunked. “Hello below,” Neb called. He turned to me, his dark eyes glistening. “Maybe it’s arich client,” he whispered, and straightened our poster:

DIME NOVEL KIDS FOR HIRE
Surveillance (after school preferred)
Solving mysteries of all kinds (pre-FBI certified)
Fishnet Mending
Yard Work
Housework
Babysitting (no diapers)

We went into business last year. So far we have two cases. First, we’re closing in on a thief—Tommy Wilkins. Second, we’re trailing Postmistress Agnes Wainwright, a possible spy. We self-assigned both cases to get the attention of the FBI, and hope to go famous nationwide. While waiting for fame we do chores for cash. For fun, we stake out my snotty sister, Faye, and her good-looking boyfriend, Reed Connor. They kiss.
Something rattled downstairs. “They’re touching our fishing gear,” Neb whispered.
“Let me,” said Rain, who’s practicing using good manners while being assertive. They don’t always go together. “Back away from our supplies,” she called, stamping her foot. “State your name. Now! Please!”
A voice floated up to us. “It’s Otto Wilkins the Second. Invite me up, Seaweed Brains.”
The hair on my arms rose. Otto Wilkins II.
Otto’s the meanest boy in sixth grade and also the best looking. I used to think time would make Otto as shiny inside as he is outside, but that hypothesis has proven false.
Fact: Otto’s a bully. He hates anything odd, and here on Hatteras Island we Dime Novel Kids are stand-out weird. Neb’s a fake Boy Scout with a faint polio limp and black hair that spikes up like he bit lightning. Rain draws like the angels kissed her fingertips, and lives in the island’s oddest house. Her skin’s darker than most islanders’—a point of interest for Otto and his mother. Me, I’m a fire-haired, freckle-faced scientist in a world of ghost ships and hurricanes.
In short, we’re walking targets.
“Hey Mollusk Brains, I’m waiting,” Otto shouted, and someone snickered. Otto’s goons!
“Jersey and Scrape, wait outside. Now!” Rain bellowed. “Thank you. Otto, stand by.”
Otto’s goons, who’ve flunked sixth grade twice, hover around him like flies around stink. Downstairs, the door opened and they shuffled out.
“Don’t let Otto up here,” Neb said, his voice low.
“I wanna discuss a paying case,” Otto shouted.
Neb’s dreamed of a real case since we started reading dime novels, three years ago. He says once we start landing paying cases, we’ll be somebody. He looked at Rain. “Otto may have changed. Let him in.”
“He hasn’t changed,” she said. “Otto was a rat yesterday and he’ll be a rat tomorrow. I don’t want his business. Stick?”
I hesitated. On one hand, I trusted Otto as far as I could spit him. On the other hand, science supplies cost money. “I vote yes. We can pump Otto for information on his thieving brother, Tommy.”
Rain sighed. “Otto! Relax in the lobby until I buzz you up!”
“You got no lobby, Seaweed.”
“Sit on the bottom step now please,” she shouted, stomping again.
Technically, Otto had a point. We don’t actually have a buzzer or a lobby. Here on the island, this year looks like every year. But thanks to the brightly colored dime novels lining our shelf, we know modern even if we’ve never seen it. My stuck-up sister, Faye, says dime novels are trashy and pointless. We say they’re full of clues to life beyond the island.
Rain strolled to our Coca-Cola calendar and circled today’s date with her red crayon: Monday, January 12, 1942. She glanced at my sundial and wrote: Meeting—Otto, 4 PM.
“Hide the valuables,” she said, slipping the gold ring she wears on a leather necklace inside her dress. It’s a man’s ring, engraved with the letter M. So far, the M stands for Mystery. She scooped her crayons into a cigar box withTitus & Son General Store written across the top. Titus, aka Grand, runs the store.Son means Papa, who sails up and down the coast, buying and selling.
Faye says Papa stays gone so much, she almost forgets what he looks like. I never do.
Neb shot to our bookshelf and slipped his Boy Scout Handbook behind the dime novels. I stashed our cash box behind my Curious Plant Collection. Current balance, $7.15—enough to buy each of us a suit of clothes and a new hat, if we want them—which we don’t. There’s no dress-up to the island, unless you count church.
Top Secret: Thanks to our hard work, we’re the second-richest kids on the island. We’d bethe richest if we stopped sending off for things: art supplies (Rain), pony supplies (Neb), and science supplies (me). No Secret: Otto isthe richest kid on the island. His preacher daddy married money from the mainland, and Otto makes sure we know it.
As Neb and Rain arranged our chairs and dragged up a Pepsi crate for Otto, I reviewed our second poster:

LIFE RULES LEARNED FROM DIME NOVELS
#1. If you must lie, use true details to avoid slip-ups.
#2. Never give your heart to a suspect.
#3. When undercover, blend.
#4. In times of danger, bet on each other.
#5. Make up new rules as needed.

“We’re in unknown territory. Use Rule Number Five,” I said.
I shrugged into my lab jacket—technically one of Papa’s white shirts, but it looks scientific when I roll up the sleeves. Neb straightened the yellow Boy Scout neckerchief the surf tumbled ashore at his feet a couple years ago, making him the island’s only Boy Scout. Rain adjusted her trim pink-and-white-flowered dress and pulled up her white socks, one of which still had lace.
“We won’t ever look more normal than this,” Neb said.
We put our fists together and whispered our motto: “Non tatum sursum”—Latin forDon’t mess up. 
Everything sounds better in Latin.
“Bzzzzzzz. You may enter,” Rain sang, and Otto began the long trek up our iron stairs.
Neb counted Otto’s steps under his breath—a nervous habit. “Two hundred fifty-five, two hundred fifty-six, two hundred fifty-seven.”
Otto stepped in wearing shiny, store-bought clothes and a smirk.
If the sun swallowed a boy and spit him out golden, that boy would be Otto. Yellow hair, sky-blue eyes, rosy pink cheeks. He’d have what Faye calls Leading Man Good Looks, except for his ears, which stick out like dinner plates, and his soul, which is dark as the inside of a widow’s chimney.
Otto stuffed his hands in the pockets of his new red jacket—$1.29 from the Sears catalog—and checked out our headquarters: Neb’s neat posters; Rain’s bright cat-and-Jesus art; my weather vane, thermometer, bottles, and barometer. He eyed my photos of First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt and scientist Dr. Madame Curie, autographed by me on their behalf.
I followed his gaze to our desk. No! I left my weather journal out!
Otto swaggered over, licked his finger, and ran it down the page. “January 12, 1942. Unseasonably warm. 67 degrees F, SSE Wind 10 mph.”
“Step away from my data,” I said.
“Data. Okey-dokey,” Otto said, turning to the windows. “Nice view.”
Actually, it’s a very nice view when Otto isn’t in it. From our headquarters, you look down on our long, thin island as it stretches north and south—our white-sand dunes edged in sea oats, our fishing village on the sound-side of the island. To the east, the Atlantic Ocean glittered like sapphires, sea and sky melting into a hazy, blue-gray horizon. To the west, a few boats dotted the dark blue Pamlico Sound.
“Otto, please sit,” Rain said. “What can we do for you?”
We quickly took the chairs, leaving Otto to crouch on our Pepsi crate like a frog in a prince’s jacket. Behind him, on the ocean’s horizon, something flashed. Sunlight off a northbound ship, bringing oil or sugar, I thought. Or a southbound ship laden with passengers, machinery, or goods. Fact: All East Coast ships pass along the North Carolina shore. The trade winds and strong north-south currents see to it.
“Tick tock,” Rain said—a line fromDime Novel #5: A Time for Danger.
Otto licked his lips. “So, America’s at war. Pearl Harbor, attacked by Japan,” he said, swooping his hand in like a bomber. “Hitler spreading death and destruction across Europe.” He rose and tugged his red jacket neat. “I hate to think of war coming ashorehere, but . . .”
“Daddy says it won’t,” Neb said, very quick.
“When it does, I figure my brother Tommy will join the navy,” Otto said, like Neb hadn’t said a word. “He’s hero material.”
Tommy Wilkins? A hero? Tommy filches anything unguarded, and sells it on the mainland. Nets, fishing gear, boots. He even stole Mr. Olsen’s tie pin. I smiled. “I hear your hero-material of a brother has a camp in Buxton Woods. Have you seen it yet?”
He ignored me. “Point is,” Otto continued, “I want to buy Tommy a going-away gift. Something nice.”
Rain frowned. “If you came to borrow money, the answer’s no.”
Fact: Trusting Otto’s like lip-kissing a snake.
Otto smiled a little too long. “I worry about you kids,” he finally said. “Neb, you’re too thin. You should eat more.”
Neb flushed. Lately, somebody’d been robbing Neb’s dinner pail at school. We knew it was Otto, but we couldn’t prove it. Yet.
“And Rain,” Otto continued, “it hurts me the way people talk about you and your batty mother. And this stuff you call art,” he said, glancing at her latest masterpiece on our wall. Rain’s colors shriek and leap across her oceans and skies. Her people and cats walk with their bodies front-ways and faces sideways, like ancient Egyptians from our history books. Her portrait of her father she keeps at home. It’s a work in progress.
“If you ask me, this isn’t art,” Otto said, squinting at her masterpiece. “It doesn’t look like anything I’ve ever seen.”
“Yet it’s true,” I said. “Which is why it’s art.”
“And Stick, my pale, gangly, carrot-top friend,” he continued. “I worry about your good-looking sister, Faye. She walks four miles to high school—alone, some days. With your papa always gone, who’ll keep her safe when the Germans come?”
My stomach dropped. If Faye was a chemistry experiment, I’d dump her down the drain and start over. She’s a self-worshipper, pushy and annoying. Still, she’s blood. “We have that in hand,” I lied. “If you have a case to discuss . . .”
“The Germans came in the last war,” Otto continued. “U-boats sat right out there.” A shiver whispered across my shoulders. “They’ll be back. In fact, I say they are back, and waiting to rush us. Rain, they’ll get you first. Or you, Neb, and your folks. Your daddy was a big man when he was keeper of this lighthouse, but now he’s sick and you’re, well . . . you. Your folks need protection. Yours too, Rain Lawson. Or whoever you are.”
Rain’s claimed the name Lawson since first grade.
Mama had walked Rain, Neb, and me to school that day. “Miss Pope,” Mama had said, herding us into the schoolhouse, “I’ve come to enroll these children in school.”
“We’re a three-fer,” I’d added. “Where do we sit?”
Miss Pope had stared into Rain’s face. It’s a pretty face—square-jawed, and a Caribbean shade of brown. Not a fisherman’s crusty surface tan, but a warm, always-tan. Rain’s zigzag hair’s a tumble of dark-and-light blond curls streaked in brown.
Rain smiled at Miss Pope, her dark eyes dancing. She’d wanted to go to school since she was three. Miss Pope cleared her throat. “Ada, the law says . . .”
“Rainneeds to be in school,” Mama said. “There’s nobody to say she can’t be.”
Except Miss Pope, I thought.
Fact: The law is, white children go to the white school. One drop of Black blood, and you go to a Black school off the island or you don’t go to a school at all. Rain’s mother is white and freckled, and has curly blond hair. Her father’s a lost page in their personal history. His blood’s an unknown.
“Rain reads like she could drink the ink off of the page,” Mama continued. “Rain, please spell something for Miss Pope.”
Rain nodded, setting her curls rocking. “S-o-m-e-t-h-i-n-g.”
Neb shifted to stand like his daddy, Mr. Mac. “Rain and Stick found each other in the sea,” he said. “What the sea gives is yours to keep. Stick and Rain together are a given.”
Miss Pope tapped her pen against her role book and gave Mama the look women share when they’ve hatched a rebels’ plan. She picked up her pen. “Welcome, Rain. Your full name?”
I went still inside. Rain didn’t have a last name, only the ring with the letter M. Rain looked at Mama. “May I? Mama Jonah said I could ask.” My mother nodded and put her hand on Rain’s shoulder. “My name is Rain Jonah Mystery Lawson,” she announced. Her parents plus the second family she’d found at the edge of the sea—mine.
“Good enough,” Miss Pope had said, and that’s how Rain and me became sister-enough.
Fact: There’s two ways to break a rule. Bust it wide open, like I do, or ask an insider to help bend it. People underestimate Miss Jonah’s smarts: She had asked for Mama’s help.
Now Rain rose. “Otto, you know who I am and you know my name.”
“Rain, Rain, go away,” Otto sang. He swiped at her hair, and she slapped his hand away.
Otto picked up the unmarked bottle of distilled water I keep for my experiments, and tossed it hand to hand like a baseball. “Put that down,” I said.
Otto glared. “Say please.”
“It’s nitroglycerin,” Rain said, her voice even. “You could blow us all up.”
Nitroglycerin. A reference toDime Novel #12: Boom Times. Rain might look waifish and naïve in her homemade, pink-flowered dress and hand-me-down Mary Janes, but she’s a thunder-clap thinker.
Otto gingerly lowered the bottle to the desk. “Listen, Seaweeds. Our men will go to war, and you’ll need me to keep your families safe. I’ll let you in now—at a reduced rate.”
So that’s it. He wants us to pay protection money.
“A paying case—us payingyou. No thank you. Bzzzzt, meeting over,” Rain said.
“Two bucks a month buys your safety. You can afford that. I hear you fixed up that shack for Postmistress Agnes Wainwright,” Otto said. “She pays good, right?”
Fact: Miss Agnes pays great. She also swore us to secrecy, maybe because cleaning up a guest shack without tourists is flat-out stupid. “What shack?” I asked.
He sneered, trotted down the stairs, and slammed the door behind him.
“Two dollars a month?” Neb said. “Who has that kind of throwaway money?”
Faye does, I thought. In her secret box under her bed, with her diary. So far she’d saved forty dollars in get-away money—a fortune. She plans to leave for Hollywood the day she finishes high school. In fact, lately she wanted us to call her that—Hollywood Faye Lawson.
Faye would never tell Otto about her cash, but she tells Neb’s sisters everything. Gossip flies around the island at the speed of a gale-force wind.
I jumped up. “Let’s go. Otto will shake Faye down too. We need to warn her.”
“She’s with the sisters,” Neb said. He never saysmy sisters. Only the sisters. “At least Otto won’t be hitting my folks for money,” he added, like that would be a good thing.
Fact: Neb’s family is dead broke, from Neb’s daddy being sick for so long. Faye says the sisters have elevated Making Do to an art.
I grabbed my spyglass and swept Neb’s whitewashed brick house fifty yards up the beach. No Otto. I turned to Rain’s house.
Rain and her mother, Miss Jonah, live in a giant wine cask that rolled off a ship in a storm. It’s just bigger than a pickup truck—small for a house, huge for a barrel. It lies on its side with a door cut into one flat end and a window cut in the other. It’s tall enough to walk around in and nice if you don’t crave corners, but Miss Jonah prefers to sleep outside beneath the stars.
“No Otto at your place,” I said as Rain stepped up beside me.
As I searched for Otto’s red jacket, two men darted from the dunes—one man blond and slender, one bulky and dark-headed. The Island Bus, which chugs up the island once a day, stopped and they hopped on board. “Strangers,” I said, frowning.
Rain took the spyglass. “Worse than strangers. Kinnakeet’s invited two outsiders to play on their baseball team. One’s smart and one’s big. They’re brought-in talent. Ringers.”
Ringers. The word sounded shiny and dangerous as a switchblade.
Baseball means everything on the island, where each village has a team. Kinnakeet is mad to win. So are we. I spied Otto cresting a dune. “Otto’s at Buxton Woods.”
The woods are dark and swampy—a herpetologist’s paradise. They’re flush with deer and raccoons, birds and frogs. And a-slither with snakes—some deadly poison, others pink- bellied and bite-happy. “I knew it. Tommy Wilkins does have a hideout in the woods,” I murmured.
I gave the broad Pamlico Sound, on the other side of our narrow island, a sweep. A sloop with red sails sliced through the bright blue water. “It’s Papa!” I shouted, snapping my spyglass closed. “Papa’s home!”


Chapter 2
Danger Knocks
We sprinted downstairs and out into the blinding afternoon sun. “Wait,” Neb called. “The Matchstick Alert!”
The Matchstick Alert is a state-of-the-art security technique borrowed fromDime Novel #16: Danger Knocks. As the firm’s tallest member, I hold a matchstick high on the door jamb and Neb tugs the door closed. If the matchstick’s there when we return, headquarters is secure. If it’s not there, we’ve got trouble.
“Alert set,” he said, pulling the door closed. “You two warn Faye about Otto, and I’ll get Babylon. We’ll ride to the dock.”
Neb and Rain love riding his pony, Babylon. I hate it.
I squinted across the ocean. Far offshore, something glinted, and a shiver skated my spine. “I saw that flash from headquarters. Somebody’s watching us. I feel it.”
“You feel it? That’s not very scientific,” Rain said, reading the sea. “Porpoises,” she said as three graceful, gray-blue creatures rolled in the water, their broad backs glinting.
“U-fish,” Neb teased.
“Porpoises are mammals. Race you!” I said, and we took off.
We blasted past Neb’s picket fence and across the compound of whitewashed buildings. Neb veered toward his pony, Babylon, who grazed beyond the clothesline. Rain and me pounded up the steps, startling the cat. We zipped across the porch and skidded into the parlor. Faye and the sisters walked around the room like teenage zombies, books balanced on their heads. “Eerie,” Rain whispered.
Faye let her book slide off, and caught it in one hand. “We’re walking like movie stars, kiddos. You should try it.” She frowned. “You look like something a gull hacked up.”
I glanced in the mirror. Rain and me both washed our hair before school. Hers hung in accordion waves just past her shoulders. Mine hovered around my head like an orange cumulus cloud. My hair’s a perfect hygrometer. I know how humid it is by how big my hair gets. Sometimes I tell people I have a head for science, but so far nobody gets it.
Fact: Faye’s movie-star pretty. Hair the color of cedar bark, violet eyes. She looks sweet, but then, so do crabapples. “Why are you wearing Papa’s shirt?” she demanded.
“It’s my lab jacket. Listen—”
“You think that looks like