This is chapter two. Chapter three will most likely be posted in two more weeks
Chapter Two
Rebecca and Jacob walked home from the park with James and Dot, the cloaks now safely tucked away again in Rebecca’s backpack.
“We need superhero names,” Dot said. “James, you can be Dash because you’re so fast.”
Rebecca grinned. “Dot and Dash? Dot, your nickname fits already.”
Dot frowned. “Does it? Why does Dot go with Dash?”
“They’re the two Morse code symbols, Dot,” Rebecca explained. “Dash and Dot. You can encode any words or numbers that you want using just dots and dashes.”
Dot grinned. “Maybe James - I mean, Dash - and I should learn it then.”
“You don’t have to call him that all the time,” Rebecca said.
“Does your mum know about the cloaks?” Dot asked.
Rebecca was silent for a moment. Hers and Jacob’s parents did know about the cloaks, and they did know that Rebecca had found them stuffed away in her cupboard. But they didn’t yet know that the cloaks gave superpowers to those who wore them. And they definitely didn’t know that Rebecca suspected the cloaks to have come from another world.
“Becky? You there?” Dot asked, waving her hand in front of Rebecca’s face. “Do your parents know about the cloaks?”
Rebecca nodded. “Yeah, they do. But they don’t know that the cloaks give us superpowers.”
“Where did you get the cloaks from?” Dot asked. “You wouldn’t tell me last time I asked.”
“They were in my wardrobe,” Rebecca said. “You know how big my wardrobe is, right?”
Dot nodded. “It’s huge.”
“Well, they were right at the back. Up the top, in one of the corners. In a big - uh, box. My mum thought that they might have been left there by the last people who lived in our house. There was a whole lot of junk in the wardrobes when we came.”
“So you don’t know where they came from?” Dot asked.
Rebecca was silent again. “No, I don’t,” she said slowly. That was the truth. She didn’t know where they had come from. But she had cleaned out her wardrobe only the day before she found the cloaks. And she was absolutely, absolutely sure that they hadn’t been there then.
They stopped just outside the home of Dot and James. Rebecca and Jacob waved goodbye as the nine-year-old twins ran up their front path and in the front door. Rebecca waited until they entered the door and then turned away, holding Jacob’s hand tightly. They crossed the road and then walked down to their house at the end of the block. Jacob pattered on incessantly, but Rebecca didn’t take much notice of him.
“Mum? We’re back!” Rebecca called as she opened the door of her house and slipped inside with Jacob. Jacob disappeared into the kitchen through a door on the left. Rebecca let out a sigh of relief as she heard her mother greeting Jacob. Now Rebecca wasn’t responsible for him anymore.
“Did you have a good time at the park, Becky?” her mother asked when she entered the kitchen after putting the cloaks away in her bedroom. “You met Dot and her brother there, didn’t you?”
Rebecca nodded. “Yes, they were there,” she said. She perched on the edge of one of the five seats surrounding the table. Her mother, at the opposite end, put down the book she had been reading while checking from time to time on Samuel, Rebecca’s baby brother.
“Are you alright, Becky?” her mother asked.
“Yeah,” Rebecca said. “I’m fine.”
“Did you take the cloaks to the park?” her mother asked.
Rebecca blinked. How did she know? “Yes, I did,” she said.
“And did you wear them while you were there? You weren’t away very long.”
Rebecca nodded. “Yes, we did. The blue one fitted James - that’s Dot’s brother - perfectly. And you said we could only go for a few minutes.”
Her mother nodded, smiling. “I know. Thank you for being responsible, Rebecca. Now, go and look after Samuel, please. I need to make the dinner.”
Rebecca knelt down with her two-year old brother and helped him finish the jigsaw he was working on.
“When you wore the cloaks, did you notice anything unusual?” Rebecca’s mother said after a few minutes.
Rebecca’s heart raced. “Like what?”
“Well, anything.” She shrugged. “Like super powers?”
“Uh … well, yes,” Rebecca said. She glanced up at her mother. How did she know all this? “How did you guess?”
Her mother sighed. “I’ll have to talk to Caleb first, and then we’ll decide what to tell you.”
“So you know where the cloaks came from?” Rebecca asked.
“I’ll have to talk with your father, and then we’ll decide what to tell you,” Rebecca’s mother repeated. “He’s working until late tonight, so it won’t be until tomorrow. But I’ll tell you - and maybe Jacob - what we decide before church tomorrow. I promise.”
Thoughts? I pondered over this scene for a while. I didn't want this to be yet another story where the parents aren't involved at all.