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slow and read it carefully. It had not been an easy thing to arrange, Estelle confided. She felt somewhat guilty, as if she were going off on a vacation while the rest of the world fought against the enemies of peace, but the war seemed to be tipping in favor of the Allies and it could not continue forever. Her mother had sensed Estelle’s restlessness, and she had encouraged her to take a trip. Frankly Estelle had not been faring too well, she confessed, and her parents agreed a change of scenery might be the needed thing. So the plans, while still tentative, seemed promising. She couldn’t wait to see her friend Collie, she wrote, and she wanted to experience everything Collie had written about: the funny horse rides, the grim German prisoners, and the bright forests of New Hampshire. She wanted most of all to take mountain walks and to have long conversations with her dear friend. She closed by extending her best wishes to Collie’s father.
    Collie read the letter twice before she folded it carefully and returned it to her pocket. Estelle! How she longed to see her friend! Collie felt an eager thrill in her stomach. Plans rushed it like a mad torrent: things to do, walks to take, small adventures to pursue. She would show Estelle everything, confide in her about every element of her life, and, in turn, hear all the many thoughts and emotions that had been stored in her friend’s days. She patted the letter in her pocket and promised herself that she would read it again at lunch. Finally, reluctantly, she stood and began walking toward the camp in a quick march.
    She had not gone far when she heard a siren begin to shriek. It built slowly, cranking until it filled every hollow space in the world. She knew immediately what it meant: someone had escaped, or had gone unaccounted for, and the siren meant the camp had been locked down. It had gone off twice before, both instances terrifying, but each time it had proven a false alarm. Once, in fact, a young American guard had said he had seen a German Messerschmitt, or a Japanese Zero streaking at them in a deadly line. The boy had been relieved of duty a few days later, sent back to Rhode Island, where he made his home.
    But this time the siren conveyed more seriousness. By the time Collie reached the camp, the guards ran about like hornets. The Germans had not been sent out for work; they lounged in apparent amusement, watching the Americans hurry to establish who was present. The siren died as Collie passed through the front gate, and she saw her father step out of the administration building, a cup of coffee in his hand.
    A pair of strange thoughts assaulted her at that moment. The first was that her father did not look particularly alarmed at the possibility of an escape. He resembled a man going out to check on a delivery that had disturbed him at his breakfast. Her other thought was that her father had grown gray. It may have been the angle of the sun, or his placidity in the face of the turmoil caused by the siren, but he looked considerably older suddenly. She wondered how she had missed such a thing. She went to him quickly, as if she could somehow prevent his aging by staying near him. But he turned and smiled, then took a sip of coffee.
    â€œSeems one of our birds has flown,” he said. “It’s a wonder it took them this long.”
    â€œJust one?”
    â€œApparently so. He slipped off into the woods from a cutting crew. That’s the current theory. The two guards on his crew each say the other fouled up. It’s hard to know what happened exactly. We’ll sort it out eventually.”
    â€œWhat’s protocol?”
    â€œWe’ll put out a bulletin. Lieutenant Peters has already taken care of some of that, but there are still calls to make. It’s doubtful the prisoner will get very far, but you never know. If he can get on a train and pass himself off as a Dutch soldier, or camouflage himself somehow, he might make