The Madrona Heroes Register: Echoes of the Past (23 page)

“
And he just let you leave
with them?”

“
He was uh, indisposed
when we left.” Binny offered with a guilty look at Penny and
Zach.

“
Indisposed huh.” Caleb
muttered to nobody in particular as his eyes were still on the
pages.

§

As Caleb continued to examine the
documents, the kids wandered around a bit, inspecting the car,
gathering sticks, and getting antsy. Only Binny remained sitting
right next to Caleb, waiting for him to pass judgment.

“
You’ve done a good job,
Binny Jordan.”

“
A good job?”

“
Yes. A good
job.”

Binny just stared back at Caleb not
quite understanding his meaning. He continued, “you’ve created
quite a little team here. And you did it all to protect your little
sister. That takes a lot of courage and leadership.

“
Leadership? We… I haven’t
really done anything quite yet. Not really. Cassie is still in
danger. I don’t trust Dr. Huitre. And I don’t know if these papers
are going to be enough to prove to my parents that something funny
is going on with Luce Laboratories. All I’ve done is messed up the
recording,” Binny shook her head at herself remembering her
mistake, “where Huitre admitted that even he wasn’t sure about Luce
Labs intentions.”

“
Being a leader doesn’t
mean that you always succeed. It doesn’t mean that the path to
success is ever easy. It means that you try to do the right thing
even when it’s hard. Especially when it’s hard. And you, Binny
Jordan, you’re not just a leader. You’re a leader of
heroes.”

Binny was beaming at the compliment.
“You’re starting to sound like my dad.”

“
Have you thought of a
name for your little group?” Caleb asked.

By now Zach and Penny had wandered
over, listening intently.

Binny looked up at them and then back
at Caleb, not sure what to say.

Caleb continued. “In my day we had a
little band of kids running around these same woods. We fought bad
guys. We protected the good guys. We called ourselves the Madrona
Heroes.”

“
You spent time in these
woods when you were a kid?” Binny asked?

“
You fought bad guys?”
Penny chimed in.

“
You had a power. Didn’t
you. And you still do.” Zach said more than asked.

Caleb laughed loudly. “So many
questions. Which should I answer first?”

“
Answer Zach’s question.”
Binny said quietly looking directly in Caleb’s eyes. “Do you have a
power? Like Cassie?”

Caleb paused in the silence that
followed the question and then answered, looking directly back at
Binny, “No ma’am. I do not have a power like Cassie.” Binny exhaled
as Caleb continued. “But that doesn’t mean my friends and I
couldn’t be heroes.”

“
The Madrona Heroes. I
like the way it sounds.” Penny said cheerily.

“
It’s not terrible.” Zach
added.

“
We’re
not
superheroes.” Binny moved to
tamp down Zach and Penny’s enthusiasm.

“
I
am.” Cassie was triumphant.

“
You’re certainly not
superheroes without a good superhero hideout,” said Caleb with a
sparkle in his eye.

§

Caleb led them from the abandoned car
through the woods. They were no longer on a path. The ground was
covered with vegetation, and the trees seemed to get closer
together. Caleb would point out a funny shaped tree along the way,
or a special rock as landmarks. After they’d walked for awhile, he
stopped in front of a massive tree with peeling bark.

“
This… is the last Madrona
tree in Madrona.” Binny hadn’t noticed how large Caleb’s hands
were. Now one of them, oversized and strong by the looks of it,
held onto the trunk of the last Madrona tree in Madrona.

The tree rose out of a depression in
the hillside. This spot was far from any of the established paths,
and if you hopped over the rim of the crater you were essentially
invisible from even 20 feet away. Caleb hopped over the rim with
surprising ease. The children followed.

Behind the tree, a curving wall rose
into the hillside, covered completely with more of the forest
growth that they had walked over to get to this spot.

“
When people first settled
this hillside, in addition to all the Ash and Maple there were
hundreds of actual Madrona trees covering this area from the lake,
all the way to the top of the hill. Over a hundred years ago most
of them were chopped down, processed at the local mill, and used to
build many of the old houses in this very neighborhood. Even
yours.” He looked at the kids as he said this.

“
Other tree species took
over, and now this is the last one left. It’s been hiding in these
woods, right here in plain sight, for decades. Keeping watch.” His
last words came out almost in a whisper.

“
It’s beautiful.” Penny
was slowly looking up the peeling bark on the trunk all the way to
the top of the towering tree.

“
What do you children see
behind the tree?”

All three looked and couldn’t see
anything other than the thicket of moss and vines that lined the
far wall of the depression.

“
Look closer.” Caleb
encouraged.

Zach stepped forward using his hand to
push aside some of the ground covering. “It’s a door.” Zach knocked
gently with his fist hearing the metal sound echo back to him. He
felt for the door handle, giving it a tug. “It’s
locked.”

“
Twist the handle upward
and then pull.” Caleb suggested calmly.

Zach twisted and the heavy metal door
swung open slowly. The children’s eyes widened with
wonder.

Before them was a long, seemingly
endless, dark hallway encased in concrete. Caleb reached over the
children’s gawking heads to flip on a light switch on the wall. A
series of fluorescent lights hanging every 15 feet or so coughed to
life, illuminating the hallway. Caleb strode past the children
without even turning his head. Not knowing what else to do, the
children followed.

§

“
In the 1950’s, this
country was obsessed with nuclear war with what was then known as
the Soviet Union. Now you kids refer to what remains of the Soviet
Union as Russia.”

“
What’s nuclear war?”
Cassie piped up.

“
It’s when countries shoot
really scary weapons at each other.” Zach explained, trying not to
alarm her.

“
Exactly. And back then,
this country built bomb shelters to shield its people from those
scary weapons. Bomb shelters, the last Madrona tree, they’re all
echoes of the past.” They’d reached the end of the hallway that had
taken them deeper into the Madrona hillside which rose above them.
Caleb flipped one additional switch to reveal the expansive
windowless concrete room in which they now found themselves.
“You’re standing in one of them now.”

Additional fluorescent bulbs covered
in dust flickered to life in long rows, shedding light on the
contents of the room. The sounds of the bulbs coming back to life
after a long slumber echoed in the large space and down the hallway
from which they’d entered.

“
Why is this here? I mean,
I know they were scared of nuclear war, but why here? In Madrona?
Are there bomb shelters everywhere?” Binny’s mouth was agape. There
was a secret room hidden under her favorite woods that she hadn’t
known was there. And without Caleb’s help, she never would have
discovered it.

“
This is a lot better than
the crawlspace.” Zach grinned at Binny before wandering off to
explore.

“
What crawlspace?” Cassie
asked, before tottering off after Zach.

Penny had also started exploring the
room.

“
I don’t know how many of
these exist. Probably more than anyone’s ever admitted publicly.
But needless to say, even at the time, this shelter couldn’t
contain that many people so I’m not even sure what the point was.
Maybe they built it just to make themselves feel better. Feel like
they were doing something about a potential threat,” Caleb
said.

“
But how is hiding in a
bomb shelter doing something about a potential threat?”

“
It’s not, really. It’s a
place to keep people and things safe. Things that might get hurt
out there.” Caleb pointed his eyes in the direction of the hallway
they’d used to enter the room. “To really confront a threat, to
really solve a problem, you need to do leave the safety of the
shelter and deal with it head on. Still, it’s a good place to hide
out, get some rest, and make your plan, until you’re ready to put
that plan into action. But remember, a secret hiding place is only
good if you keep it a secret.” After a moment, Caleb continued,
“Keep up the good work Binny. You’re doing a great job. Your sister
is in good hands.” With that Caleb turned on his heel and walked
out of the room towards the outside.

Cassie had written her name in the
dust on the paneling on one of the walls. Zach and Penny were
trying out switches, and seeing what still worked. Binny just stood
there watching Caleb walk out of their new hideout. The ‘Madrona
Heroes’ secret hideout. What a ridiculous thought. Now Penny had
joined Cassie at the wall and was writing “Madrona Heroes” on the
wall with her finger. In between the ‘a’ in Madrona and the ‘H’ at
the beginning of Heroes, Penny was drawing a tree – the Madrona
tree that obscured the entrance to the shelter.

Binny breathed easier for a moment.
Her friend and siblings were enjoying the relative safety of their
new space. Nothing to worry about in here, buried deep under the
Madrona woods. Binny looked down the hallway briefly seeing that
Caleb had disappeared to a pinpoint, and then scanned the
room.

In a dark corner that the others
hadn’t yet explored, Binny spied a set of shelves containing old
unused equipment, and still more dust. At the top was a battered
milk crate. She stood on her tippy toes, pulling the crate down. It
contained a stack of identical notebooks. They looked ‘old timey’.
Each was covered with a fake wood pattern. Binny took the top one.
In the center of the cover was a sticker filled with text: “DAILY
REGISTER OF PUPILS. For use in the Public Schools of Washington.
Adopted and issued by authority of The Board of State School
Commissioners.” Underneath that auspicious title were spots to fill
out the “School No.” the “Commissioner District No.” and the
“County”. All were blank.

Maybe it wasn’t so ridiculous after
all. They had felt kind of like a team of superheroes when they’d
escaped getting in trouble at Luce Laboratories. And Cassie clearly
had a super power, though it wasn’t clear what they could do with a
seven-year-old who could only turn invisible when she was stressed
out. Binny wondered, did Zach have a power? He certainly performed
an impressive feat with Dr Huitre’s alarm code. And what about
Penny? Binny was pretty sure breaking fragile stuff wasn’t exactly
a super power. The lock on Dr. Huitre’s back door must have already
been on its last legs. That appeared to be the limit of the power
inventory – super or otherwise. Binny herself certainly didn’t have
any unique skills to offer. Of that she was sure.

Binny opened the old book. Dust flew
off the pages. She moved her face, avoiding the tiny clouds she’d
created. Inside the book, the pages were all identical. They were
designed to let the teacher take attendance, write down who’d
handed in their assignments, and assign grades.

Before she even realized what she
intended, Binny took a pencil that had been rolling around at the
bottom of the milk crate and started writing on the book’s cover.
She crossed out the “Daily” in “Daily Register” and replaced it
with “Madrona Heroes”.

Then she opened to the first page,
wrote the date at the top, and started filling in everyone’s name.
In the first column she put the person’s full name. In the second
she put their contribution to the new superhero team.

Cassie Jordan. Random
invisibility.

Zach Jordan. Good at remembering alarm
codes.

Penny Yang. Good at breaking
stuff.

Binny Jordan. ___

What should she write after her name?
She didn’t know. Maybe Caleb was right. Heroes didn’t need special
powers. But what was she even good at anything? She drew a big
question mark.

While she wondered about her own role,
it had felt good to write down what everyone else did well. She
hated to admit it, but her mother had been right. Writing down good
things about people felt a lot better than writing down their petty
crimes and injustices.

“
There’s no cell phone
service in here. If Mom and Dad are trying to call us, we won’t
hear it. We should go.” Zach had wandered over to where Binny was
scrawling in the notebook. “Whatcha got there?” he
asked.

Binny looked up, startled. “Oh, just
doodling in this old notebook.” Binny closed the book and shoved it
back in the milk crate which she quickly put back on the shelf.
“You’re right, we’d better go before Mom and Dad get
worried.”

Zach and Binny gathered up Cassie and
beckoned Penny to follow them out. Binny recounted their
accomplishments as they walked the long corridor. “I messed up the
recording, but Huitre admitted that he’s suspicious of Luce
Laboratories. It’s not much, but these papers do show that Luce
Laboratories, and Dr. Huitre, are interested in Cassie. That’s
better than nothing. Now we just need to convince Mom and Dad that
they are up to no good, and I think we’ll be ok.”