July 6, 1947—2:07 p.m.

If Dibs is the Jimmy Olsen to my Superman, Graciela Maria Delgado is my Lois Lane.

“Is she looking now?” I ask Dibs, slicking my cowlicks down with as much spit as I can muster.

Dibs stretches his neck. “Nope.”

“How ’bout now?”

Dibs stretches his neck. “Nope.”

After lunch, Dibs and I head to Corona General for a cold pop. Well, he’s there for the Coke. I had another mission in mind.

I sneak a peek, eyeing her between the cans of Campbell’s Tomato Soup and Bush’s Best Pork and Beans. The Corona General Store smells sweet from fresh baked goods and a little bit tart from fruits ripening in the heat. She’s perfect.

Graciela Maria Delgado.

I watch her over the cans. She’s reading a book on a stool next to the cash register while her aunt Beatrice rings up Mrs. Manuela. Gracie’s dark hair is pulled back with a barrette but there is one long strand by her ear that she twists and untwists around her pointer finger, her lips moving as she reads. She’s wearing a sky-blue button-down shirt and jeans with bobby socks and saddle shoes that have a sprinkling of mud on the toes.

I know what book it is without even seeing the cover.

I know it because every Saturday night Dibs and I go to the Roswell library on Third Street while Momma, Daddy, and Baby Kay go visiting in town. My most favorite librarian, Mrs. Bishop, works on Saturdays and always has a very special book ready for me. And each Saturday, I carefully print my name on the card under Gracie Delgado and Mrs. Bishop stamps it with her date stamp and I go on my way.

“She’s reading L. Frank Baum’s Oz series,” she told me weeks ago.

That’s how I know what book it is without even looking. She’s reading number eleven, The Lost Princess of Oz. And I’m on number ten, Rinkitink in Oz.

Gracie’s daddy is a general at the Army Air Force Base in Roswell and they live in a big brick house three blocks off Main on Kentucky Avenue, but she spends her summers at her aunt and uncle’s farm to care for her horse, Betsy Bobbin.

Dibs puts a cheek next to mine, trying to get a look between the cans, and then shakes his head.

“What’s so great about her, anyway?” he asks me.

“What’s not so great about her?” I say.

“Well…” He thinks about it. “I bet she can’t even field a baseball.”

“So?”

He shrugs. “So we need a shortstop.”

“Did you know she has a horse named Betsy Bobbin after a character in a book by her favorite author?”

“What’s the big deal about that?”

“She’s smart.” I shrug. “I like that about her.”

“I’m hungry,” he says. “You think we have enough for a snack? I don’t know if I’m going to make it all the way to dinnertime without some sort of snack.”

“What do you think it’d be like to kiss her?” I wonder out loud.

He turns to me with an ugly scowl stuck on. “Are we getting the Cokes or what? And did you hear what I said? I’m starving.”

I put my hands on my hips. “You had two breakfasts and a lunch already today,” I tell him. “How can you still be hungry?”

He shrugs. “My stomach has a mind of its own and it’s decided it needs more in there to be happy.”

I check my pockets for coins, and he does the same.

“How much do you have?” I ask.

“Let’s see…I’ve got two, four, six, seven cents,” he says, fishing out coins. “And…these, too.” He reaches into the bib of his overalls and pulls out two marbles, an Eddie Stanky baseball card, and an empty Wrigley’s spearmint gum wrapper. “What’ve you got?”

“One nickel and five pennies.” I count from my palm.

I add it up in my head. “I think that’s enough for two Cokes and one pack of chocolate Neccos to share,” I tell him.

“Yeah, except my tongue is tired of chocolate Neccos.”

“How about Cracker Jacks?” I ask. “Your tongue okay with Cracker Jacks?”

He smacks his lips, considering. “Yep, I think both my tongue and my stomach would be happy with Cracker Jacks,” he tells me. “Here.” He pushes the hand with the marbles closer to me. “You can have these and the prize at the bottom, since you’re paying three cents more. Even Steven, okay?”

It’s a solid green one and a real cool clear one with sky-blue swirls.

I start to reach for them and then stop. “Keep ’em,” I say.

“Really?” he asks. “Even Steven?”

“Yep.”

We grab two frosty Cokes from the way back of the cooler and pop the caps off with the opener on the side, grab the box of Cracker Jacks, and head up to the front counter, where Mrs. Delgado is standing in a crisp, flowery dress, fanning herself with a fancy lace hanky. Gracie doesn’t even look up.

“That was some monsoon we had last night,” Mrs. Delgado is saying, smoothing a loose black hair back into place with the others that are already slicked close to her head and twisted tight in a bun that sits right at the back of her neck. “We lost some pieces of roof off our barn from the winds. Mr. Delgado is out there today, nailing up new boards.”

Mrs. Manuela shakes her head. “You know what some people are saying, don’t you?” she asks.

“No, what?” Mrs. Delgado asks.

“Flying saucers,” Mrs. Manuela says.

I drop my Cracker Jacks.

Gracie peers up over the top of her book.

Mrs. Delgado snorts. She smiles like Mrs. Manuela just gave a punch line to a knock-knock joke. “Nonsense,” she says, shaking her head and loading a bag of Gold Medal Flour into a paper sack.

“You know me.” Mrs. Manuela waves a hand in the air. “I’m never one to gossip, but that’s what I’m hearing. The papers have been reporting an increase in sightings around the U.S. this summer. It’s got people wondering, is all I’m saying.”

Dibs gives me a pointy elbow in my side and raises his eyebrows at me.

“Oh, yes, I’ve read about the sightings,” Mrs. Delgado says.

“You’re not a believer in those Mars men, I gather?” Mrs. Manuela asks her.

“A Martian invasion?” Mrs. Delgado smiles. “I most certainly am not.”

“Uh-huh,” Mrs. Manuela says, and then turns to Dibs and me. “Has your daddy said anything about it?” she asks, staring right at me.

I look at Dibs and then back at her. “Me?” I ask, pointing to my chest.

“Yes….Well, you know it’s none of my business, but I’ve heard your daddy was involved in that incident in California a few years back. Right before he left the military. The Battle of Los Angeles, I think the papers called it?”

“What was that?” Dibs asks.

“It happened February 25 in 1942,” Mrs. Manuela starts. “In the early-morning hours over Redondo Beach, California, everyone awoke to the air raid sirens going off. People fled from their beds to see what was happening.”

“A Martian invasion?” Dibs asks.

“Well, first came a complete blackout over the city,” Mrs. Manuela says. “And then…everyone saw it.”

I swallow. “Saw what?” I ask.

“The lights in the sky,” she says.

“Were they green and blinking like a big fat eyeball?” Dibs asks.

Everyone looks at Dibs.

His cheeks flush and he stares at his bare dirty toes. “I—I was just…I mean, I didn’t know…sorry,” he says. “Go on with your story.”

“Well.” Mrs. Manuela begins again. “You know at that time it hadn’t been three months since the attack on Pearl Harbor, and of course the United States had just joined the fight in Europe, so I imagine that was the first thought…that we were under attack. So the military sent their planes to circle whatever it was that was flying up there, and they responded by land, too, shooting some fourteen hundred antiaircraft rounds into the air at whatever it was flying overhead. At least, that’s what the papers reported.”

“Did they hit it?” Gracie asks.

“Not a one of those bullets could penetrate it,” Mrs. Manuela answers. “Then whatever it was just shot out of the sky faster than any of our planes could fly. It just disappeared”—she flicks her wrist in the air—“into the stars as fast as it came.”

Mrs. Delgado shakes her head, adding canned beans and a bundle of fresh green beans to Mrs. Manuela’s paper sack.

“Did they ever figure out who it was?” Gracie says.

“That”—Mrs. Manuela points a finger at Gracie—“depends on whom you believe, young lady.”

“What does that mean?” I ask.

“Well, my sister Thelma and her husband, Roger, live in El Segundo, right near there, and she says everyone was talking flying saucers. Why, the next morning there was shrapnel everywhere you could see. It had hit homes and cars and landed in backyards and in the middle of the streets. In fact, six people died that night from all those rounds we shot up in the sky.”

Dibs pokes me in the side. “Agents from a strange and foreign planet,” he whispers.

Mrs. Manuela’s eyes meet Dibs’s again. “Exactly, but that’s not what the military said. No, sir.” She shakes her head.

“What did they say?” I ask.

“The military came out with a statement telling the public it was just a weather balloon.” She picks up her sack of groceries and sets it carefully in her wire shopping cart. “You can read it for yourselves and see it, too. There was even a picture of it on the front page of the Los Angeles Times. And I’ll tell you what, that was no weather balloon. Anyone who has eyes can see that.”

“You mean those dumb balloons the Army Air Force is always sending up and they’re always falling down and getting stuck on the water tower in town?” Dibs asks. “Those weather balloons?”

“One and the same.” She nods.

“Fourteen hundred rounds and we couldn’t take down…a weather balloon?” Dibs looks at me. “It’s balsa wood and tinfoil. Who in the world would believe something so dumb?”

Mrs. Manuela scoffs. “Everyone, dear.” She grabs the handle of her cart. “Especially if it’s in the newspaper. No one is going to question it.”

“But what if it isn’t true?” I say.

“The military doesn’t lie,” Mrs. Delgado snaps at me. “If the military says it was a weather balloon, then that’s what it was.”

We all stand in silence for a moment.

“Well then, you all have yourselves a nice day now,” Mrs. Manuela says over her shoulder as we all stand and watch her pull her cart toward the door.

“Good-bye, Mrs. Manuela,” Mrs. Delgado calls after her, shaking her head again. “Is this all for you boys?”

“Yes, ma’am.” I lay our coins out on the counter for the Cokes and the Cracker Jacks.

Mrs. Delgado pushes buttons on the register until it dings and the drawer flies open. “Don’t you two let her fill your heads with crazy stories,” she tells us, dropping our seventeen cents into the proper compartments.

Gracie’s eyes meet mine.

“You want a sack for that?” Mrs. Delgado points to the box of Cracker Jacks, pushing the register drawer closed.

“No, thanks,” I tell her.

“Don’t you go dropping kernels in the back while you’re reading those comics. Mr. Delgado doesn’t like having to sweep up popcorn kernels after you kids.”

“Yes, ma’am,” I promise her. “We won’t open it until we’re headed on home.”

“All right then.” She smiles.

Dibs and I head toward the back, past the boxed pastries and the store-bought breads where there are tall wooden shelves and round wire racks of magazines, books, and comics.

“Is she looking?” I whisper to Dibs.

He stretches his neck. “Nope. How about what Mrs. Manuela was saying?”

“Yeah,” I say.

“Why would she think your daddy knows anything about it? He’s not even in the military anymore.”

I shrug.

“Has he ever talked about that thing in California?”

“He never talks about anything he did when he was in the Army Air Force,” I say, leaning back to catch another glimpse of Gracie.

She’s back to reading and twirling and untwirling her hair around her finger.

“You know Mrs. Manuela,” I say. “She’s always gossiping about something. She’s probably got it wrong. Did you see the way Gracie looked at me?”

He shrugs. “You think they have the new Planet Comic yet?” he says.

“She has the prettiest eyes I’ve ever seen.”

“They look like plain old brown ones to me,” Dibs says, scanning the shelves of comic books.

“They’re not just brown,” I tell him. “They’re the color of Hershey’s Kisses with flecks of Bit-O-Honey mixed in.”

He rolls his eyes. “That’s the most disgusting thing I’ve ever heard of….Ooh.” He reaches for the latest Planet Comic from the shelf. “They got the new one.”