Island of Spies, page 1
Dial Books for Young Readers
An imprint of Penguin Random House LLC, New York
First published in the United States of America by Dial Books for Young Readers,
an imprint of Penguin Random House LLC, 2022
Copyright © 2022 by Sheila Turnage
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Ebook ISBN 9780735231269
Cover art © 2022 by Tom Clohosy Cole
Cover design by Kristin Boyle
Design by Cerise Steel, adapted for ebook by Michelle Quintero
This is a work of fiction. All incidents and dialogue, and all characters with the exception of some well-known historical figures, are products of the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Where real-life historical persons appear, the situations, incidents, and dialogues concerning those persons are entirely fictional and are not intended to depict actual events or to change the entirely fictional nature of the work. In all other respects, any resemblance to persons living or dead is entirely coincidental.
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CONTENTS
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
A Note to the Future if You Find This
Chapter 1: A Time for Danger
Chapter 2: Danger Knocks
Chapter 3: A Screaming Turn
Chapter 4: Danger Takes a Second Look
Chapter 5: The End of the World
Chapter 6: Clues at Daybreak
Chapter 7: Now You See Us, Now You Don’t
Chapter 8: A Time for Heroes
Chapter 9: If the Shoe Fits
Chapter 10: Twin of Darkness
Chapter 11: Trouble Travels in Threes
Chapter 12: Low Life in High Places
Chapter 13: Storm’s Restless Heart
Chapter 14: Guilt Forgets My Name
Chapter 15: The Widow Wears White
Chapter 16: Heels of Last Resort
Chapter 17: The Creature in Us All
Chapter 18: Triangle of Lies
Chapter 19: Dangerous as They Come
Chapter 20: No Escape
Chapter 21: Poison’s Perfume
Chapter 22: Grief’s Ambush
Chapter 23: Under Cover of Darkness
Chapter 24: Ill-Starred Events
Chapter 25: Dressed to Kill
Chapter 26: Double-Cross
Chapter 27: Nothing Sweeter Than Breathing
Chapter 28: In the Wind
Chapter 29: Fate’s Many Faces
One Last Note to the Future if You Find This
From the Author to You
Thank-Yous
About the Author
For my mother, Vivian Taylor Turnage,
a 1940s science kid,
and my sister, Allison Turnage,
who left us much too soon,
and for Rodney, as always.
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 even one 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 a rich 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.
&n bsp; “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 with Titus & 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 be the richest if we stopped sending off for things: art supplies (Rain), pony supplies (Neb), and science supplies (me). No Secret: Otto is the 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 for Don’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 from Dime 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 ashore here, 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 . . .”
