The Romeo and Juliet Code (24 page)

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.

“What’s the secret President Roosevelt mentioned?” Miami said.

“Come on, Flissy, you can tell
me
,” said Derek.

“Be a good sport, Fliss, spill the beans. What’s the secret?” said Uncle Gideon.

And all I could do was say, “No. I just can’t say. It’s a secret.”

I took the letter with me to rehearsals. The gold seal on the stationery seemed to shimmer. The letter got passed round the room. Even Mrs. Boxman saw it, and soon everyone, everyone, even Mrs. Fudge and Mr. Henley and the Balancing Bottlebay Boys and the group that would be singing “Say Au Revoir But Not Good-bye,”
everyone
wanted to know what secret I shared with the president of the United States. But I just shook my head and said, “No, I can’t. I won’t.” And I didn’t.

We were just taking a break. Mrs. Fudge had brought in a key lime pie and we were all sitting at the table eating the pie, when Mrs. Boxman said, “Oh tra la la, we are going to have the best variety show this town has ever seen! I’m just so pleased with all of you. The show is almost perfect, but I do want to finish with a child singing. That will offer something forward looking for this Christmas season. Do you know a young person who can sing while I play the piano?”

Derek’s good arm shot up and it was a long, strong arm that no one could miss. “Yes, Derek?” said Mrs. Boxman.

“Flissy. Our Flissy can sing. She sings all the time,” he said.

And then I said, “I do sing Christmas carols, actually.”

And Mrs. Boxman said, “Ah. Could you sing while I play the piano?”

“Yes,” I said. “I think I can. What should I sing? ‘Once in Royal David’s City’?”

“No, Flissy,” said Derek. “Sing ‘I Think of You,’ my favorite song. She knows all the words.”

Mrs. Boxman looked pleased. “Oh, isn’t that an old jazz song?” Mrs. Boxman said, sweeping over to the piano. I looked at Derek and then I looked at Aunt Miami and then the three of us followed Mrs. Boxman and stood together in a small widening circle round the piano.

So it was on December 1, 1941, at eight o’clock in the evening that I was recruited into the Bottlebay Women’s Club Variety Show at the town hall in Bottlebay, Maine, United States of America, and it was on that very day too that I had received a genuine letter from President Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

As we were leaving the hall and heading out into the cold, with me sandwiched between Miami and Derek, someone called out in the darkness, “Hey, Flissy Bathburn, next time you talk to the Prez, tell him I said hello.”

Upon arriving home in the car that night, I noticed that the Bathburn house seemed to glow. So many lights were on in so many rooms all at once that it had a sort of warm jack-o’-lantern look to it. It seemed then like a great luminous beacon standing up high on the dark point, taking the wind on easily.

As I approached the back door, I was making up my mind about something again and so I walked quickly though the kitchen and on to the library. Uncle Gideon was writing at his desk in the corner. I walked over to the piano and I laid my hands on the lid.

Uncle Gideon looked up. “Hello, Flissy,” he said, “what are you doing?”

“I’m here to ask you something. I am supposed to sing at the town hall and I was wondering if, I mean, I think it would be ever so lovely if you would, if you could, um, accompany me on the piano that night?”

“Oh, you do, do you?” he said.

“Pretty please? Winnie always said we
must
follow the things we are meant to do at
all
costs.”

“She would say that,” he said.

“I think your students at Babbington El might benefit from hearing you play,” I said. “Truly.”

“Oh, Flissy,” he said, “I can’t.”

“Why not?” I said.

“Because,” he said, “just because. I just can’t.”

The next day, I took the letter from President Roosevelt to school. Uncle Gideon helped me frame it and we showed it to the librarian, who hugged me when she saw it. Everywhere we went, someone came rushing over to congratulate us. Mr. Bathtub and I went round to every class and showed the letter. We talked about Winston Churchill and Franklin Roosevelt. We even fashioned a kind of conversation between the two, which everyone thought was ever so interesting and a bit funny. Mr. Bathtub and I were rather a famous team all that day.

And so the Christmas season began with its extra week of shopping and the wonderful letter from Washington and “I Think of You” that I sang under my breath with every step I took. I tried not to look out across the sea and think of Winnie and Danny and what they were doing. I tried not to think about the German factory where Winnie was working. I tried not to think of Danny in his hidden office, making false passports. I tried not to think of the lines of downed RAF pilots in hiding, waiting to be smuggled back to England and I tried not to think about the letters that hadn’t arrived. I pulled my curtains shut against it. Every time any of it floated into my mind, I tried to think of something else.

I thought instead about Christmas and the American Santa Claus and wondered if the British Father Christmas was the very same man. Bottlebay had already put up its town Christmas tree, and all the shops had pretty tinsel and candles in the windows. I knew Auntie Miami wanted a pair of nylons for Christmas, stockings that were not made of silk anymore and were cheaper. It was the newest rage and they were hard to come by. I was hoping I could find some for her. I was making my secret Christmas list in the dining room while Derek and Uncle Gideon and I listened to Sammy Kaye’s
Sunday Serenade
on the radio.

Then, as soon as the show was over, a news bulletin broke in.
“From the NBC newsroom in New York, President Roosevelt said in a statement today that the Japanese have attacked Pearl Harbor in Hawaii from the air.”
Uncle Gideon turned up the radio.
“There will be more reports later as news comes in.”

“That’s it?” said Uncle Gideon. “Nothing more?” And then it cut to the next program.

“That’s it?” said Uncle Gideon again. “My God. They’ve attacked us. Now it’s done. We’re at war. It’s done. That seals the deal. America is at war.” And he fell back into the fat, green stuffed chair in the corner and he put his fingers over his eyes to hold them tight so that no tears would fall.

I believe Uncle Gideon sat by the radio all afternoon and he stayed up most of the night waiting for reports to come in. He seemed very tired the next day at school and his hair looked rather messy. He brought his radio to class and at twelve fifteen, President Roosevelt made his speech to Congress declaring war on Japan, and at the John E. Babbington Elementary School, Mr. Bathtub’s sixth-grade class heard every word.