“Guys, you’ve got to see this.”
Bunny snapped herself out of the little pity party she was having in her head and joined Teddy, John, and Caroline at the window.
“What’s that?” Caroline asked, and pointed her finger at something out across the ocean.
Bunny looked and saw what seemed to be a soft, glowing red light. It was small, a good ways away, but it was there. It didn’t seem like a plane light, though. They had all been trained to identify every existing aircraft that could possibly be in the sky—both domestic and foreign—and this was not anything Bunny recognized. Since everyone was quiet, she knew the others were thinking the same thing.
This light was something else. As they watched, it changed from red to a greenish silver color. Suddenly, it disappeared.
“Hey. Where’d it go?” John asked.
Bunny watched the spot where the light had been, but nothing was there. A chill moved over her body like the slow-moving fog.
“It’s gone,” Caroline said.
Bunny was just about to say that was impossible, when Teddy shouted, “Look! There it is.”
The light reappeared in a different spot, but following the same trajectory. It was as if it had jumped in the air.
“It’s probably some kind of military test again,” Teddy said.
“Maybe,” John said.
But Bunny felt the electricity and tension radiating off of John’s body next to her. All these months of spotting regular aircraft and she never thought they’d actually see anything threatening. She didn’t really think they would come under attack. Was this an attack?
“See how fast it shifted right?” Teddy’s voice was higher than normal.
The light moved quickly again to the right and then seemed to just hover where it was. They all watched as it stayed there, unmoving, like someone had stuck it with a pin up there in the sky. None of it made any sense.
“What aircraft can move side to side like that?” Bunny asked, though she knew the answer, same as the others. None.
No American aircraft anyway. She was almost certain that no foreign power had a plane that could do what she was witnessing, either. She had just read about the B-52 prototype test flight that happened earlier in April. But this was not a B-52.
“Maybe it’s just some kind of balloon. You know, like those fire balloons the Japanese launched during the war?” Bunny said. “I read about them somewhere.” But Bunny couldn’t remember where she had read about them, couldn’t remember if they actually blew up. Maybe it was from a book she’d read and not an actual news account.
“Yeah, that really looks like a huge balloon,” Teddy said sarcastically. “How many balloons do that?”
The light now moved again—making its way straight toward them. As it came closer, the green spread to more of a translucent blue-green.
“It looks more like a radium dial watch,” Caroline said.
“Or like the kelp beds,” John said.
The light streaked across the sky, leaving no fumes trailing. The closer it got, Bunny thought she could see a dark shape that now looked more like the tip of an arrow.
“Get on the phone!” Caroline yelled, waking them all from the spell the light seemed to cast. “The phone! Call it in!”
“It’s a missile. Is it a missile?” John asked.
But a missile would leave a trail of vapors behind. Wouldn’t it? Bunny thought.
“Do missiles just disappear?” Caroline asked.
“We don’t know what they do,” Teddy said. “This could be all new technology. Some kind of military invasion.”
“Um, yes,” John said to the person on the other end of the phone, ignoring the protocol for calling in sightings. “I don’t know how to report this, but there’s some kind of aircraft here. It’s kind of like the shape of a triangle or something—a dark triangle—but with a green, well, sort of greenish or bluish, glowing light. And it’s moving fast. About two miles out, I’d say.”
“Let me see,” Bunny said, grabbing the binoculars.
Even with the magnification, she couldn’t get a great look at it. It blurred and seemed to move at a terrific speed. One moment it appeared solid, like some kind of plane. The next moment, it was translucent, almost like she could see through it in parts. At one point, it looked like a skinny, singular line. In a matter of seconds, it disappeared and then reappeared in another spot. It was like nothing she had ever seen. But she could see, clearly now, that it was heading directly toward them.
“It’s coming—fast!” Bunny said.
John dropped the receiver and pulled Caroline and Bunny away from the window. Bunny cowered with the others in the center of the room, curled up on the floor. The boys covered both girls, as if their bodies would protect them from whatever was heading their way. Probably the only training they remembered from all those films in school—duck and cover. They waited for something to happen, an explosion.
The seconds ticked by in Bunny’s heart.
One . . . two . . . three . . . four . . .
Nothing happened. No boom. No sound at all. But Bunny had an eerie feeling that something had passed overhead.
They waited for the worst to happen.
Minutes passed. Still nothing.
Teddy was the first to untangle himself. He darted to the back window, the one facing away from the ocean and into the forest.
“There,” he said and pointed.
Bunny got up and watched as the light appeared to hover close by, unmoving again. Then she followed with her eyes as it went straight down and was lost among the pines.
5
ELEANOR
Eleanor pedaled down the paved road slowly, savoring the ride. When she got home, her time would no longer be hers. As soon as she stepped through the door, her mother would sweep her up in some kind of domestic task—beyond the learning of how to make a proper meringue. Her mother’s favorite quote, besides “cleanliness is next to godliness,” was “idle hands are the devil’s tools.”
Eleanor wasn’t fond of either saying.
She was thinking of what excuse she could give her mother tonight. She could say she wasn’t feeling well. But her mother would not be able to find a fever. The back of her hand could diagnose a faked illness better than any doctor’s instrument. The best thing to do was oblige. Make the damn meringue. In fact, don’t just make it. Become the best meringue maker. Better than her mother. That would show her. Yes, that would be the way to get her mother off her back. Because if there was one thing Rose Marie hated, it was to lose, even to her own children.