The Madrona Heroes Register: Underneath It All

Chapter 17 - The Unexpected Visitor

Serena smiled as her daughter could barely sit still during her breakfast. “You didn’t let me finish cutting the cherries into your bowl.”

“Oh, sorry Mom.” Penny fidgeted. “Do you know where we’re going?”

“You’ll have to ask your father that.” Serena smiled as she reached for a napkin, wiping some errant yogurt from her daughter’s upper lip.

BING BONG, the doorbell hadn’t stopped chiming before Penny was already out of her seat and running to the front door.

“Hi baby!” Quincy Yang picked up his daughter to give her a big bear hug. 

Only when Penny unburied her head from her father’s shoulder did she notice, there was a strange man standing behind him. “Who are you?”

§

“I wish we had Christmas lights.” Cassie complained.

“This was a smart idea.” Zach said to Zoe.

“We don’t celebrate Christmas.” Binny reminded her sister.

“Thanks. Getting the lights out of the basement was easy. Nobody’s gonna need them until November. Stopping Gabe from telling my Mom what we’re up to is going to be more of a challenge.”

“I know.” Cassie said to Binny.

“You can’t tell your parents about this stuff.” Binny addressed herself to Gabe.

“I know.” Gabe sounded disappointed.

“No, really. They wouldn’t understand. And they wouldn’t let us come here anymore. You wouldn’t want that would you?”

Gabe shook his head, his expression earnest.

Zach had run an extension cord from a socket in the upper ante-room that had been the sole extent of their hideout for the past year until they’d discovered the entirety of the shelter. The white ‘icicle’ lights had been strung from wall to wall in the bigger room covering as much of the space as possible. It wasn’t enough light to read by, but at least you could walk without the fear of bumping into anything or anyone.

“Where’s Penny?” Zoe asked.

Zach finished applying clear tape to the backs of the nine pages he’d printed from his computer. He turned over the poster-sized creation and spread it flat on the lunch table at which they were now sitting.

“She’s spending the day with her Dad.” Binny responded. “What’s this?”

“This,” Zach motioned to the large sheet in front of him, “is a map of Madrona courtesy of our friendly internet.” Zach took out a red pen and put ‘X’s next to each other in the rectangle labeled ‘Madrona Park’. “This X is where we saw the injured cat. And this one is where we saw the bird.

“You need to draw one more X.”

Zoe and Zach looked up from the map to see Binny unfolding a yellow sheet of paper from her pocket.

§

“Penny!” Quincy Yang admonished his daughter. “Don’t be rude.”

“I’m sorry.” Penny shrugged. “But who is that?”

The well-dressed man standing behind Penny’s father stuck out his hand. “Hi Penny. My name’s Jonathan. Your Dad has said about a million nice things about you. It’s really nice to meet you.” He smiled at Penny.

Penny tentatively returned the handshake. “Nice to meet you.”

Penny’s father added haltingly, “Jonathan is my friend. We’ve been travelling together. He’s going to spend the day with us.”