Chapter VIII – The Message

The kids went back to Regan’s house.

Regan put the piece of twisted metal on a table in the sitting-room. They all looked at it in silence for a few minutes.

‘Come on, do something,’ Regan said to the piece of metal. Nothing happened.

‘Do you want it to talk to you?’ Tom asked.

‘I want it to help us,’ Regan replied.

Ten minutes later, the piece of metal hadn’t done anything.

‘Oh, come on!’ Regan said. ‘Let’s go into the kitchen and get a drink.’

Soon, they were all sitting round the kitchen table with cans of cola.
‘We’re going up in the old plane tomorrow,’ Tom said. ‘I’m glad about that. If I can’t take any more photos on the airfield, I’ll take some from the air above it.’
‘We won’t be able to use the metal detector, though,’ Frankie said sadly.
‘Oh, let’s just forget about the project,’ Regan said angrily. She got up suddenly and went back into the sitting-room. A moment later, the others heard her screaming.
‘Come here! Come here quickly!’ Regan shouted. ‘It’s moved! The metal has moved!’
Frankie, Jack and Tom ran into the sitting-room. They all stared down at the table. One word had been scratched into the shiny wood: TRAITOR.
‘Was there a traitor at the airfield?’ Jack said. ‘Was someone there helping the Germans? Is that what Glen is telling us.’
‘Let’s go back into the kitchen,’ Tom said. ‘The message probably isn’t finished yet. Perhaps the metal will write some more, if we don’t watch it.’
‘It might write some more, but not on this table!’ Regan replied. ‘My parents paid more than two thousand dollars for it in New York City. I’m taking the metal upstairs, to my bedroom.’
She picked up the piece of mental carefully and the others followed her upstairs. Regan put the piece of metal on a desk near the window in her room.
‘We’ll leave it alone now,’ she said. ‘We’ll go back to kitchen and I’ll cook some pizza.’
During the next two hours, Regan went up to her bedroom several times. The metal hadn’t moved.
At last, it was evening. Jack and Tom had to go home. But Frankie decided to stay at Regan’s house for the night. She phoned her mother with this news.
Late in the evening, Jennie St Clair came home. She had been out of the house for most of the day. Now she went straight to her own room.
‘The Blonde Bimbo will be watching TV all night,’ Regan said. ‘She doesn’t care what I do. Why does my father pay her?’

After that, the two friends went up to Regan’s bedroom again. The piece of metal still hadn’t moved.
There were two beds in the room, and each girl sat on one. Later, they heard Jennie go downstairs. Soon the house was quite again.
Then the piece of metal began to move! It moved slowly over the top of the desk – scratch, scratch, scratch. The girls watched it from their beds. They couldn’t speak – they were terrified.
Suddenly, the bedroom door was opened wide.
‘You stupid, stupid kid!’ Jennie St Clair shouted. ‘You’re crazy, that’s what you are. You’ve wrecked that table in the sitting-room. It must have cost your parents thousands of dollars. I’m going to phone your mother about this – now!’The piece of metal had stopped moving at the moment when Jennie came into the room. Regan was glad about that. She didn’t want the au pair to see it.

It was an accident, Jennie,’ Regan said. ‘Someone can repair the table. I’ll pay for the work myself.’ Suddenly her voice was angry. ‘Don’t phone my mother, Jennie,’ she said. ‘If you do, I’ll tell her a few things about you. You watch TV all the time and phone people in the US. You don’t look after me at all. I’ll tell my mother that!’
Jennie was very angry. She went towards Regan’s bed, but then she saw the scratches on the desk.
‘You’re wrecking the furniture in here too!’ she shouted. She ran to the desk and picked up the piece of metal. Then she turned and left the room with it. She closed the door behind her with a loud noise.
‘Come back here! Give me that!’ Regan shouted. She opened the door and ran downstairs after Jennie.
Frankie got up and walked over to the desk. She wanted to see what the piece of metal had written now.
She saw a line of letters, scratched into the wood. HELPMERESTSAFEUNDERTHEAR
‘Help – me – rest – safe – under – the – air,’ Frankie read.
‘What does that mean? I don’t understand,’ she said to herself.
She heard the front door close with a loud coise. Regan was coming back upstairs. A moment later, she came into the bedroom.
‘Do you know what Jennie has done?’ Regan shouted. ‘She ran out of the house. Then she threw that piece of metal into a truck that was passing. Can you believe that? The metal has gone for ever. How can we help Glen now?’
‘Well, the metal did write several words,’ said Frankie. ‘They might help us. Come and see.’
Regan looked at the letters on the top of the desk.
‘I don’t understand,’ she said. ‘I’m tired. Let’s go to the bed now. We’ll phone the boys about this in the morning.’