Free Shanghai Shadows by Lois Ruby

that’s you, will go to all the families in this area and warn them to hide their shortwaves. Bury them, if necessary.”
    â€œThat’s all?”
    â€œIlse, don’t you see? It’s a test. Gerhardt wants to check how well you handle this mission. You think it’s easy? There’s an art to it. You have to convince each person that it’s vital to maintain secret communication with the Allies, and you have to do all this without scaring anyone, and above all, you can’t tell a soul who put you up to this job and how you know this piece of intelligence directly out of Japanese headquarters. Do you understand?”
    Then it was starting to sound a little more complicated, but I nodded in agreement.
    â€œGood, so I’m instructed to send you off, right away. Zigzag. Don’t go house to house in a straight row. Only go into a house when the guard turns his back.” He pulled me to him for an awkward hug. “Be careful.” Pushing me away, he looked at his watch. “I will go to the telephone down the block and tell them when you start. You have two hours to finish. Beyond that it begins to look suspicious. When you’re done, I telephone to Rolf with your report.”
    â€œOh, so that’s what Madame Liang means by ‘contact my butler, Sheng, with details’?”
    â€œCoded, of course.” He handed me the map and rushed me out the door, and that’s how I began my first assignment as a saboteur.
    The two hours raced by, and I was totally frustrated by my neighbors who just didn’t see the importance of my mission. I slunk home to report my pitiful progress.
    â€œI covered thirty-three families in seven buildings, and only six promised they’d hide their radios. Most didn’t have radios, and the rest acted like I was a lunatic.”
    Erich digested my report soberly. I followed him to the telephone two blocks away and crowded into the booth with him, thrilled by the sound of real coins jangling down the throat of the phone. When had I last had more than one coin in my hand? Erich wouldn’t let me see the number he dialed, and what I heard on his end told me nothing:
    â€œAlready thirty-three people have applied for jobs at the Peking Road Pencil Factory, but unfortunately, there are only six positions open. Um-hmn. Um-hmn. Yes. I will.” And he hung up. “You passed the test. Tomorrow you hit Frenchtown, same story.”
    Not even a week passed before Japanese signs went up all over the place and messages blasted from megaphones up and down the streets:
    A TTENTION! A TTENTION!
    A LL R ESIDENTS A RE C OMMANDED TO T URN I N
    S HORTWAVE R ADIOS I MMEDIATELY.
    V IOLATORS W ILL B E I MPRISONED. N O E XCEPTIONS.
    REACT was right on the money. I began to feel I was truly part of something important, that even a girl like me could make a difference.
    I came home from the Kadoorie School one day and found Mother curled on her bed. A tentative tap at the door woke her before I could. “It’s probably Mrs. Kazimierz from across the street. Back again,” Mother said under her breath. She got up and tidied her hair.
    But it wasn’t Mrs. Kazimierz. It was a man as bald as a watermelon, wearing plaid suspenders that hitched up his trousers nearly to his armpits.
    â€œMrs. Span?” He was an American, judging by the way he pronounced our name—Span, like it was the span of a bridge, rather than Shpohn .
    â€œYes?” Mother was wary; strangers seldom came to our door, and Americans, never.
    He showed Mother a blue air letter with USA on it. “May I come in?”
    Mother went pale. “Yes, of course.”
    I edged forward to see that the letter was from M. O., but all sorts of postmarks and scribblings cluttered the envelope after months, and thousands of miles, of travel.
    Mother offered the man the other chair at the table. I stood between them.
    â€œMrs. Span, I am Joseph Foley. I am in the employ