The Romeo and Juliet Code

by Phoebe Stone

  Yes, Romeo and Juliet were a bit like Winnie and Danny. But wasn’t Gideon too a kind of Romeo, even if his Juliet had found another? I was musing about all this as I rolled out pie dough with Aunt Miami on the morning of Thanksgiving. Every time I dusted the pastry board, I thought about Romeo and Juliet and all the ways they truly reminded me of Winnie and Danny. Lily Jones told me one day that she thought my parents were like two stars. “Very glamorous-looking, the both of them,” she had said as we were paging through one of her movie magazines.

  We had been expecting enough relatives for Thanksgiving that we had made place cards for the table. I had made the place card for Cousin Brie, a girl just Derek’s age. “You’ve never had a real Thanksgiving, Flissy?” said Derek earlier. “I love it because of the turkey and because my favorite cousin, Brie, comes over after dinner for pie. And she’s pretty.”

  “Oh, how very nice,” I said, trying to not to make that word nice sound prickly like a spiny sea urchin. But somehow it came out prickly anyway, because none of my words ever did what I wanted them to. But in the end, the arrival of Cousin Brie turned out actually to be another blessing in disguise.

  I heard that phrase over and over again through the year. That’s what Danny had said of my having to go live in America with his family. “It’ll be a blessing in disguise. She’ll love it. I did. No, really, it will be like giving her a great gift. The best gift we could ever give her.” Winnie had cried and cried and then Danny had put his arms round her.

  Yes, Cousin Brie did turn out to be a full-blown blessing in disguise. A terrible one. She and her mum showed up after we’d had Thanksgiving dinner. We were just serving the pies we’d made. Mine looked rather sorrowful because I had forgotten about it in the oven and it was a bit singed. But it was still quite edible. Uncle Gideon had two pieces and he kept saying over and over again, “Flissy, you’ve done it again. This pie has a marvelous smoky flavor. I’ll have another!”

  Cousin Brie pointed to my pie and said right away, “Ooh, who made that pathetic-looking thing?” But already I had misgivings about her anyway, because in England, Brie is a kind of stinky French cheese.

  After dessert, Derek and Brie and I went off to the parlor alone. We could hear all the relatives talking in the next room. Brie told us that she was wearing brand-new expensive saddle shoes that came all the way from Marshall Field’s in Chicago. Then she said, “Cousin Derek, where did the little creep with the snooty accent come from?”

  I did think that her saddle shoes were ever so lovely. They had a blue saddle on them instead of brown or black, and the laces were twists of many colors.

  She was much taller than me, about the same height as Derek, and they stood back to back to see if either of them had grown taller than the other since they’d seen each other last. I had to get up on a chair and put a book over both their heads to see if it was level, meaning they were still the same height. And they were. Then they patted each other on the back like they were club members after a special meeting.

  “Does the little creep have a real name?” said Cousin Brie, dropping back down on the sofa and putting her feet up on the low table in front of her so she could look at her saddle shoes. “I mean other than Fleecy or Flossy or whatever. And how long is she going to be here?”

  And Derek said, “Maybe forever.”

  And Cousin Brie said, “Oh, swell.”

  Being British, I tried to pretend that I hadn’t heard her at all. Then I thought of Danny. When I used to be sad when we were down in the tube in London, all crowded in, waiting for the bombers to pass, Danny would look over at me, and just with his sweet Danny eyes, he could make me feel better. He could say just with his eyes, “Love you, little think tank.”

  Cousin Brie was a dreadful thing. She usually rode horses with Derek when she came here because there was a stable a mile down the beach on the other side of the White Whale Inn. But today, Derek said he couldn’t go riding with her because it was Thanksgiving.

  “Too bad you hurt your arm,” she said, retying her shoelaces. “Will it be better by next week?”

  Derek said, “Oh, maybe.”

  We ended up playing Parcheesi at the card table by the window. The whole game, Brie kept sending my green people back to the beginning and pushing her red people farther along and trying to sit ever so close to Derek. They laughed a lot and he told her all about Sir Gawain.

  “Go ahead, your turn, L.C.,” she said to me. L.C. was short for Little Creep. I kept thinking how Derek had said I might be here forever.

  And then Derek got on the subject of codes and secret messages and I was afraid Uncle Gideon might pop his head in the door and say, “What are you talking about, old thing?” But he didn’t, thank goodness. The grownups were all too busy in the kitchen arguing about President Roosevelt and Mr. Winston Churchill and the Far Eastern situation.

  “Codes,” said Brie. “All I can say is, when Mother was little, she used to play with Uncle Gideon and Uncle Danny and they always sent messages in code to each other.”

  “Yes?” said Derek.

  “Yes,” said Cousin Brie. She went on to say that her mother told her the best way to do that was for both people to decide on a passage from a book beforehand. But you don’t tell anyone the name of the book or what the passage is. Then you write numbers in order from one to two hundred above each letter in the passage. “That’s your key,” she said. “When you go to write a note, you use the numbers above each letter instead of the letters. It works.” Cousin Brie rolled the dice and made a blockade with two of her red people on the Parcheesi board. “It’s impossible to crack if you don’t know which passage is being used. And you’re blocked, Derek. You lose a turn. What do you say?”

  But Derek didn’t answer. He just looked at me and nodded his head up and down. I felt shivery all over like I might call out or cry or jump up and down, but I hoped it didn’t show. I felt like tossing myself in the air or kissing Derek on the cheek or squeezing Wink. But that was the least likely to happen because Wink was all the way upstairs, and besides, once I had turned eleven, I had learned it was better not to hug a bear in public.

  Something about the Bathburns and hearts and Parcheesi, they never lost. Derek’s purple men rallied and came up from behind like knights on horses and began to win. Just steps away from the final defeat of the stupid red people, Cousin Brie knocked over the Parcheesi board, saying, “Geez, sorry, I was just trying to tie my shoe.”

  Her mum called from the hall, “Brie love, we should be going now.” Then the awful, terrible, dreadful Cousin Brie flipped her hair about and stepped up and kissed Derek good-bye. He looked rather sheepish and blushed as red as one of the Parcheesi pieces from the red team. Then Brie looked at me and said, “See you later, L.C.”

  And her mum said, “L.C. Is that your new nickname, dear?”

  And Cousin Brie said, “It stands for Little Cutie.” And she gave me a fake smile.

  Everybody, except for Derek and me, went out on the porch to look at the sunset. We heard Uncle Gideon say, “Well, we are going to be getting into the war any day now. Should have done it sooner. I don’t know what we are waiting for.” And everybody went down the steps towards the beach.

  I was running round the room like a piping plover or a laughing gull, diving back and forth in front of the fireplace. Derek was lying on the sofa, looking up at the ceiling, “Thank you, Cousin Brie. Wasn’t she wonderful! Wasn’t she super? We’ve got it now, Flissy. I can barely wait until they leave. She did it. She did it. She gave us the key.” He sat up. “We have to go try it as soon as their car is out of the driveway.”

  And so we took Juliet’s speech and the copy of the first letter and we went all the way to my tower room. The moon had come out again and it was even more huge and yellow this time, floating above the ocean. I always loved now to see the moon because I soon realized it was the very same moon that hung over England every night. All countries share the same moon. It hung over England every night whet
her bombs fell or not, whether sirens screamed or not. The moon was always there.

  We got the Juliet speech out and we sat on my bed and Derek wrote the numbers over each letter in each word so the speech looked like this:

  And the Par Avion message looked like this.

  It took Derek and me two hours to write down all the letters that were under each number. When we were finished, this is what we had:

  We are in France. Unable to use wireless. Direction finding devices have located most of them. Also unknown double agent in ranks. Letters to you via courier and guides to Portugal as safe alternative. Butterfly setting up contacts and safe houses in Lyons. Bear has set up office to falsify papers and plan escape routes. B and B will be taking four children to Spanish border in two weeks. Arrangements on that side to be set up by SOE and COI.

  Standing by, B and B

  There, sitting on my bed in the widow’s peak room at the top of the house with the wind pounding on the windows and the moon frowning and flying through the clouds, I was to discover and to understand that my parents, Winnie and Danny, were British intelligence agents, having dropped into occupied France by parachute or boat, working against the Nazis under cover and in secret. My mum was the Butterfly and my dad was the Bear. And I cried that night in front of Derek and he cried a little too for me. I cried because I feared for my parents. I cried because I longed for them. I cried because I was angry at my parents for leaving me. And I cried because I was very, very proud of them.

  It took Derek and me several days to decode all the other letters from the Bear and the Butterfly. We wrote them out in order. We read them over and over again. “We probably won’t ever be able to understand the parts that seem to be a code within the code,” said Derek. I nodded quietly.

  Letter #2:

  Butterfly and Bear housing 5 downed RAF pilots. Creating papers and passports. Arrange for passage from Portugal. Please send funds to Dr. R and departure dates. Magnolia wind and Mute Swan circuit.

  Bear

  Letter #3:

  Butterfly back from Lyons. Has met American agent Delphine and has been asked to send word to SOE she needs some new bearings at the articulation where her wooden leg meets the foot. No prosthetist in Lyons. Also send new radio tubes for piano player in Green Heart circuit. Have intercepted and decoded German orders to move Le Garcon and Le Fou to smaller prison in Limoges. Working on escape plans. Nov 14. Code ABZ and awaiting lake gardenia.

  Bear

  Letter #4:

  Met “the Priest.” Please check background. Courier to send film from German factory where Butterfly is employed. Should arrive by July 16. Have collected ration books, stamps, and seals for forgers. Send delivery instructions. Mute Swan circuit alert. Code A.

  Bear

  Letter #5:

  Guide G to walk 5 more children over the Pyrenees. Butterfly staying in convent in Aubeterre until G’s arrival. Paperwork in place. Awaiting drop of clothing and shoes for downed RAF. Gestapo has got the Monkey. Hoping for silence.

  Bear and Butterfly

  Letter #6:

  Children have arrived in Portugal. Butterfly courier for Maquis in mountains till yesterday. Back with two more RAF needing papers. Direction finding devices have picked up Pierre’s piano. Send replacement.

  B and B

  I was never to think of butterflies in the same way again. The yellow swallowtails and the migrating orange monarchs came to the spent rosebushes by the porch that late autumn, and because winter was nearing, I wanted to reach out for them. I wanted to catch them and bring them in the house and feed them, but of course they were better off left alone. Perhaps that was true too of Winnie and Danny. They were better off left to be the Bear and the Butterfly. It was wrong of Derek and me to intrude. They were doing important things. They were in France working behind the scenes and they were helping all kinds of people: downed English pilots, children, members of the Resistance, other agents, wireless operators. But the Gestapo had caught the Monkey. Who was the Monkey and what did that mean?

  I looked out at the sea and I felt ashamed that I was doing nothing and that I was here longing for them to come home. Instead, all along, I should have been pleased that my parents were doing something extraordinary, even if it meant I would be lonely for them. But now their silence seemed larger, wider, darker.

  And then I thought of Uncle Gideon and how I had been rather wrong about him, doubting and worrying about what he was doing, why he had been keeping all this from me, when all along, he had been waiting for Winnie and Danny’s letters and transmitting the messages for them, probably making telephone calls for them, helping them, helping the people Winnie and Danny were helping. He had been going out to Peace Island all alone and climbing that old staircase to the top of the lighthouse to send word for them. And the friend from Washington, Mr. Donovan, must have known about their work. He must have been a part of their arrangements. He must have come to advise Uncle Gideon. Perhaps he even came to get the roll of film.

  I had been so wrong about my uncle. And he had been such a good teacher. I thought I would hate being in an American school and having my uncle for a teacher, but I had actually liked it. Mr. Bathtub was quite dramatic as a teacher. Once, he even stood on his head to demonstrate a point during science class. And the way he taught math was rather inspiring. He had us all get up and be numbers and get added and subtracted and divided into each other, and we made lots of jokes and got awfully silly. I had noticed recently my own improvement with numbers.

  Through all that, I had been doubting Uncle Gideon. I should have thought more of his loving and losing my Winnie. He had given up playing the piano because he had been hurt by her. He lost her to his brother, Danny, of all people, the one who always beat him at all the races, the one who always threw his rock farther, the one who always hit the ball harder.

  The Gram said Uncle Gideon had something that Danny would never have, really. What was it? What did Gideon have that was a blessing in disguise? It seemed my stay in Bottlebay, Maine, was still to be lost in fog and mist, like that familiar fog that rolled in here every morning. Sometimes when I woke up, I couldn’t see the ocean for the mist, and everything was hidden as if in a strange, complicated dream.

  Now that I had an answer about Winnie and Danny, I felt the worse for it, as if I might break apart like the SS Athenia that cracked and shattered and sank to the bottom of the ocean when it was hit by Nazi torpedoes on the way to America.

  I decided to go down on the beach and make a chair out of sand. It was chilly and windy and I had to wear a coat and mittens. I sat there in my sand chair on the beach and I stared at the water all afternoon.

  I shall never forget December 1, 1941. It was a cold day and our first snowfall. The windows in my tower room were iced over from the sleety snow that fell that day. I was sitting up in bed, not wanting to get out onto the chilly floor. But whenever it snows, I get a feeling of Christmas, and there it was all through the air in my gray tower room. Then I heard the doorbell ring at the kitchen door downstairs, the door nearest the driveway and away from the sea. That bell only worked sometimes when you poked and punched it, but when it did work, it was quite loud and jarring. “I’ll get it,” called Aunt Miami. Then I heard her rip down the stairs.

  “A herd of buffalo could have done that more quietly,” called The Gram from her bedroom. I heard doors opening and snapping shut and voices in the back hall.

  Of course I was out of bed in a flash and dressed and halfway down the stairs when Auntie Miami called up, “Felicity Budwig Bathburn, you’ve gotten a letter. A real letter. Bob has kindly brought it right to the door.”

  Derek came screeching round the corner from the parlor and nearly collided with me, and Uncle Gideon emerged from the library, looking hopeful with his glasses propped up on his head.

  We all pushed into the kitchen, where Mr. Henley was standing in his snowy winter gear, a blue woolen cap, matching woolen jacket, his cheeks red with cold. “Look, Fliss,�
�� said Aunt Miami, “Bob’s got a letter for you. Take it. Open it.” She smiled at Mr. Henley and he smiled at her.

  I stepped towards him praying it was a letter from Europe, hoping Winnie and Danny had finally sent me a Christmas card or a note. I reached out and took the long, white envelope. It was addressed to me and came from Washington, DC. I quickly opened it with the letter opener that Uncle Gideon had on hand. “Don’t tear the return address,” he said, putting on his glasses to see the envelope better.

  Inside was a lovely letter on cream-colored stationery. I unfolded it quickly and read:

  Dear Miss Felicity Bathburn Budwig,

  Thank you for your charming letter. I receive letters from many youngsters, but yours particularly touched me. I always enjoy hearing from British children and it was pleasant indeed to hear you approve of my helping your country. When I speak to Mr. Churchill, I will indeed give him your regards and of course your secret will remain safe with me.

  Very sincerely yours, President Franklin Roosevelt

  The president of the United States had written to me. All that afternoon in spite of everything, I walked on a pink cloud. Nothing could touch me. I floated from room to room. I played a round of Parcheesi with Uncle Gideon and almost won. And then Aunt Miami and I formed a team and beat him at Hearts. I practically sailed to rehearsals with Aunt Miami. But all the while too, Miami and Derek and Gideon pestered me.