So the soldiers went out to the woods again and Old Tom whipped over to Miss Macy’s. When he reminded her that she had left an entire Brownie troop stranded in the woods, she said, “Yikes!” and came back with us to defuse the situation. She was fortunate that the soldiers had found them and brought them to our place, because that was where she had told the parents to pick them up that morning. Sina had a word with Miss Macy about giving us a little heads-up next time, which was certainly a small point given the events of the week. Miss Macy had the Brownies all packed up and ready to go with a useful story about how she had left them there to see what they would do, as dictated in the demands of their survival badge requirements, and they’d all passed! Well, all except the one we hadn’t found yet. But she would order the rest of them their badges immediately! Their parents, when they arrived and were told this, beamed. Everyone was prepared to be in a splendid mood, what with the end of the war and all. That is, except for the parents of the Brownie who hadn’t yet been found. But an hour later she was discovered up in a tree where she said she had climbed to escape any wild animals that might be about. We decided not to tell her about the cougar that was spied sleeping on the branch above her.

Miss Macy promised her an especially large badge that she personally would stud with gold sequins, so the last Brownie was happy. Those Brownies would do anything for a badge. And most young girls will do anything for sparkly sequins. Then the soldiers all left to get roaring drunk in town, and no one seemed much interested in the Argot or anything else for the next twenty-four hours.

*   *   *

The commander came over the next day to tell Old Tom and Sina that divers would eventually be looking for a downed plane and the military would be stationed on our property for a while still, as even though we’d licked Hitler, Japan was still a nuisance.

“But it’s only a matter of time, only a matter of time,” said the commander. “And I’d like to thank you again for your forbearance and your war effort.”

“It was nothing,” said Sina.

“De nada,” said Old Tom.

And that was that military-wise. They removed the guard soldier from our house, as they had decided the parachuting Japanese spies, if there had been any, were long gone and they had given up on finding them. Or if they hadn’t, they weren’t informing us. There were a lot of secrets during that time. Not all in the military’s keeping.