“Don’t tell Mommy!” Margaret begged. “Promise!”
Gus blinked up at Dorothy, who shook her head and whispered, “Don’t tell!”
Their mother knelt beside Gus before he could answer. All they could do was hope he wouldn’t say anything.
“Don’t worry, Mommy! I’m okay,” Margaret told her, though herchin wobbled. She pointed up at the tree and started explaining, but her mother didn’t appear to be listening.
That’s when Dorothy saw Gus’s eyes were shining. She crouched beside him, concerned.
“Oh, Gus,” their mother said. “You poor thing. I’m afraid you might have broken your wrist. I’ll call the doctor at once.” She glared at the girls. “How did this happen?”
“I fell,” Margaret said. “He’s okay, though.”
Dorothy didn’t know what to say. It was Margaret’s fault. She shouldn’t have been showing off. But she would never tell on Margaret.
“You and that tree,” their mother muttered, helping Gus sit up. “Are you all right, dear?”
The girls held their breath, waiting to hear what he would say.
“He’s okay,” Margaret assured everyone again, though she was a little worried since Gus hadn’t said a thing.
Gus sniffed. His attention shifted to Margaret then came to rest on Dorothy. He had a small cut on his forehead, and Dorothy felt an urge to run and get him a bandage, but she had to make sure he was all right first.
“I am okay,” he told their mother. “It was my fault. I got in the way.”
oneDOT— June 1942 —Oshawa, Ontario
Dorothy Wilson tucked a strand of blond hair behind her ear and scowled at the mystery novel in her hand. The author’s latest reveal didn’t seem plausible, and it made the character seem so much more dim-witted than Dot imagined he was. On the other hand—
“Dot!”
She glanced up. Her twin sister was leaning over Mr. Meier’s black Chevy truck’s engine, groaning as she stretched for something. Dot could type a mile a minute, add six-digit figures in her head in no time flat, and speak three languages like a native (not including Morse code), but she’d never been interested enough in engines to bother learning what was inside them. She didn’t mind coming out here, though. The garage was poorly lit by one hanging bulb, and the rain outside the closed door chilled the air, but she always liked to be near Margaret.
In contrast to Dot’s navy-blue dress with its spotless Peter Pan collar, her sister was clad in a grease-stained, exceedingly unladylike pair of overalls, and her thick black hair was tied into a haphazard ponytail. Most people shook their head in wonder, seeing how different the Wilson twins were. Different, yes, but also inseparable.
“Yes, Dash?” Dot asked.
Everyone, except their mother, called Margaret by her nickname. Considering the way Dot’s sister always rushed around, it suited her to a T.
Dash twisted around, her cheek smeared by a thick swipe of oil. “You didn’t hear me? I’ve been saying your name for five minutes at least.”
Dot was aware that she missed out on a lot of what people said if she was engaged in a book, but often she felt—somewhat selfishly, she allowed—that whatever they might be saying couldn’t be as interesting as what she was reading. This time, however, she was contrite. Dash was annoyed. Not with her, but with the truck.
“Désolé. Que veux-tu?” she asked. The novel in her hands was a French translation, and sometimes the words overlapped in her head. Her mother had gotten her started on mystery novels a few years back, but this was the first one she’d read that wasn’t written in English. Her father had found the book hidden away in a bookstore and given it to her, knowing she’d enjoy the challenge. She was already wondering where she could find more translations.
“Hand me the half inch, please?”
Setting one finger on the page to hold her place, Dot scanned the scattered assortment of tools on the table beside her. She picked up a wrench, eyed it for size, then placed it in her sister’s hand before returning her attention to the book.
“That should do it,” Dash said to herself, sticking her fingers into the engine and checking the tension of whatever it was before climbing into the driver’s seat. The engine gave a noisy series of clicks, but that was all. “Damn,” she whispered under her breath as she marched back to the hood.
Dot’s mouth twitched. She loved when her sister swore.
She understood Dash’s determination. There was nothing Dot liked better than solving puzzles, and engines were her sister’s idea of puzzles. Her mother often said that Dash’s fascination with mechanics and Dot’s puzzle-solving skills came from their father’s side of the family, then sherolled her eyes and finished with, “Thank heavens you inherited my practicality.” Usually, their father popped in at that point and added “and your beauty,” making their mother glow. Dot figured her mother was right. Her father was a whiz at math, and he almost always had a crossword puzzle going. His brother, her uncle Bob, was a solid man with a devilish grin who always had engine grease under his fingernails.
Uncle Bob, Aunt Louise—Lou for short—and Dot’s cousin Fred came over for dinner often, since they lived close by. Dot still fondly remembered the night more than ten years ago when the whole family had been celebrating the girls’ very first day of school. Her mother had made the grand concession of allowing them to sit at the grown-up table for the evening. At age seven, Fred and Gus were practically adults, so they got to sit there as well. Dorothy was always happy when Fred came over, because he and Gus were friends. It was good, she thought, that Gus had a friend who was a boy, not just Margaret and her.
After supper that night, her mother and aunt had gone to the kitchen, leaving the children with her father and Uncle Bob.
