Notes: Mari and Sammy – Your feedback, as always, makes me squeal and bounce.

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Hope you enjoy!

Code (A McRoll in the REAL World Story)

Jacob ran past the shelves of new books on his way to the children's area in the library. He looked back over his shoulder and called, "Come on, Uncle Steve. Come on!"

Steve took a few long strides to catch up with him. "Slow down, buddy. The books will still be there, I promise. And I don't think you're supposed to run in the library."

"Oh yeah," Jacob said and slowed.

They kept walking, pausing in front of the children's desk to greet a familiar face.

"Hi, Miss Kristin!" Jacob said, waving enthusiastically with a bright smile.

She smiled warmly in return. "Hi, Jacob." She nodded to Steve. "Commander. No Catherine today?"

"She's in the Navy for a little bit," Jacob said. "But not on a ship."

"Reserve duty," Steve clarified at Kristin's confused look.

"Ahh," she said."

"Just for two weeks. Then she'll be back," Jacob added. "And then we're going rock-climbing!"

"Rock-climbing?" she asked, her eyebrows shooting up.

Steve chuckled. "Well, I think your mom is still deciding about that one, buddy."

Kristin nodded at Steve. "Well, in the meantime, that's nice of the Commander to bring you here while Catherine's gone."

"We're gonna read Elephant & Piggie," Jacob said, nodding excitedly. "Uncle Steve's gonna do Aunt Catherine's parts."

Kristin smiled knowingly. "She's left some big shoes to fill, Commander."

"Tell me about it."

Jacob looked down at Steve's feet and frowned in confusion. "Aunt Catherine's feet are way smaller than yours, Uncle Steve. Yours are really big."

"They're … proportional to my height, but that's not what …" He sighed, shaking his head. "It's an expression, buddy. It means Aunt Catherine is way better at reading out loud than I am."

Jacob thought about this for a second and nodded. "Yeah, probably. But you just gotta try your best. That's what she always tells me."

"And Aunt Catherine is always right."

"Yeah. Like Mom."

Steve smiled and nodded. "Like your mom."

"You'll be good," Jacob said decisively. "You did the rhyming dust bunnies when you stayed at our house. Remember? And in the summer you were the bear, when Uncle Danny was the duck and you just wanted to go to sleep but the duck kept waking you up. Remember, Uncle Steve?"

Kristin hid a grin as Steve nodded.

"I remember," he said.

"So you'll be good."

"Thanks, Jacob. Should we get going then?" Steve asked, motioning toward the tables.

"Wait! I gotta get a word!" Jacob cried, running around the desk toward a display counter with a small basket.

"Walking feet, Jacob," Kristin called.

He slowed to a brisk walk, and Steve turned to Kristin.

"What's he talking about?" he asked.

"Oh, we have a basket of words over there. Different colors for different grade levels. The kids can tells us one of the words and answer a few questions about it to get a sticker."

Steve nodded. "Sounds like a good idea."

"Yeah, and it gives us a chance to interact a little one-on-one. Get to know the kids who come in regularly a little better."

Jacob returned with a small, blue laminated slip of paper. He placed it proudly on the desk in front of the librarian.

"Okay, what's your word today?" she asked.

" 'Would,' "Jacob read confidently.

"I see … and is this the kind of 'wood' that you chop with an axe?"

Jacob gaped in astonishment. "No! Miss Kristin!" he admonished. "This is the 'would' like …" he thought for a moment, "like 'I would like to go to the park."

"Ohhh, you're right. Silly me," she said with a smile. "Then can you tell me some rhyming words?"

He tapped his chin as if he was thinking hard, and glanced up at Steve. Grinning mischievously, he blurted out, " 'Could' and 'should'!" having clearly prepared for this particular question.

"Exactly," Kristin said. She covered the word with one hand. "Now … try to spell it."

Jacob closed his eyes. "W … O …" He paused, biting his lip. "W-O … U … D …"

"Ah–" she started but he quickly corrected himself.

"L-D!"

"One more time," she prompted, winking at Steve.

"W-O-U-L-D!" Jacob said and opened his eyes expectantly, waiting for her to lift her hand. When she did, he raised his arms triumphantly. "I got it, Uncle Steve!"

"Good job, buddy," Steve said, smiling at his exuberance.

Kristin handed him the paper. "Go put this back in the basket, please, then you can get your sticker. And walk," she said as he was about take off running.

When he returned, a small basket of stickers was waiting for him. Steve folded his arms as he watched the young boy sift through the basket.

"Are there any new ones?" Jacob asked as he compared Chase from Paw Patrol and Michelangelo from the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

"I don't think so," Kristin said. "Not since last week."

Jacob's lips twisted thoughtfully as he continued looking through the various stickers.

After thirty seconds, Kristin said, "Okay, Jacob, ten more seconds."

"Okayokayokay," he said hurriedly, bouncing on the balls of his feet and digging faster through the small basket.

"Five, four, three, two, one," she counted down.

"This one," he said, holding up the Michelangelo one he had first picked up.

"Good job," she said, putting the basket back in a drawer. "You can do another word next time."

"Okay!" Jacob said, putting his sticker on his shirt. "Come on, Uncle Steve! Let's go read!"

Kristin held her hand out for his trash and he promptly dropped it in her palm, smiling broadly. "Thanks, Miss Kristin," he said.

"You're welcome," she said. She looked between the two. "Let me know if I can help you at all."

"Thanks," Steve said, giving her a nod before following Jacob toward the seating area.

Jacob hurried to a particular table and bent over, spreading his arms out across the top. He turned his head toward Steve.

"This is me and Aunt Catherine's table," he announced.

Steve folded his arms. "I see. Can I sit here?"

Jacob straightened quickly, looking incredulous at the question. "Uncle Steve," he cried.

Steve grinned. "I'm just making sure it's allowed. Since it's you and Aunt Catherine's table," he teased.

"For today, you can sit here," Jacob said seriously.

"Well, thank you, Jacob."

"Now you wait here," he said, pointing to a chair. "I'm gonna get the books."

"Are you sure you don't want some help getti–"

"No, I always do it," Jacob insisted.

Steve held up his hands in acquiescence. "Okay. I'll wait here."

As Jacob walked over to his get his favorite series of books, Steve took a seat facing the entrance of the children's area so he could see as much as possible. He watched as Jacob returned with an armload of books and set them on the table.

"Aunt Catherine always sits there, too," Jacob observed offhandedly before taking his own seat.

Steve nodded, unsurprised. He looked at the stack. "So this is Elephant and Piggie, huh?"

"Yeah, the elephant's name is Gerald, and the piggie's name is Piggie. They're best friends."

Steve nodded. "Okay, got it. Gerald and Piggie. Best friends." His brow creased slightly. "Though I don't know when an elephant and a pig would ever …" he trailed off as Jacob looked up at him questioningly. He shook his head. "Never mind."

Jacob shrugged unconcernedly and pulled the top book off the pile. "Usually Aunt Catherine is Piggie and I'm Gerald, but … maybe you should be Gerald 'cause …"

" 'Cause we both have big feet?" Steve deadpanned.

Jacob snickered and slapped a hand over his mouth. "Uncle Steve!"

Steve grinned, then nodded at the book. "You read whichever part you want, Jacob. Don't worry, I'll read whatever you want me to read."

Jacob smiled happily. "There's a snake in this one, too," he said. "He's really funny. I'll be Gerald and the snake."

"Okay."

They started reading Can I Play, Too?, and when they reached the part where Piggie informed the snake that he doesn't have arms and the snake reacts with feigned disbelief, Jacob cracked up laughing even as he read the snake's dialogue.

"See, Uncle Steve? Told you he was funny. He knows he doesn't have arms. He's a snake!"

Steve chuckled. "You were right."

They continued reading, finishing that book and moving on to the next, Should I Share My Ice Cream?

"I usually read Gerald's parts," Jacob began, "but when we read this book, Aunt Catherine does the best job. So you gotta try it, too."

"Okay," Steve said, examining the cover illustration with Gerald in a pose reminiscent of Rodin's The Thinker, though the elephant was gazing pensively at an ice cream cone in his other hand.

Jacob opened the book. "Oh yeah, I'll be the penguin," he said when he turned to the page with the penguin selling ice cream.

Steve read the elephant's dialogue as Jacob followed along in rapt attention until they reached a manic Gerald vowing to eat the ice cream.

"No, you gotta read it like Aunt Catherine," Jacob interrupted.

"How does she read it?" Steve asked.

"You gotta yell it and shake your hands, but you can't really yell, 'cause it's a libery. Like this," he said and demonstrated, shaking his fists in the air and whisper-screaming, " 'I will eat the ice cream!' "

Steve looked at him and quirked an eyebrow. "Aunt Catherine does that?"

Jacob nodded vigorously. "Yeah, 'xcept she does it lots better."

"I don't know, that was pretty good, Jacob."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. In fact, I think we should start over and I should be the penguin and you should be the elephant."

Jacob looked excited. "Really?"

"Really." Steve flipped back to the beginning. "Let's do it." He read the penguin's opening line, " 'Ice cream! Get your cold ice cream for a hot day!' "

Jacob grinned and began Gerald's dialogue. " 'Oh, boy!' "

When they finished the sweet ending, Jacob sat back proudly. "That was fun!"

"Yeah?"

"Yeah!" He eagerly reached for the next book in the stack. "Let's do another one!"

"You don't want to switch it up a little? Try a different book?" he asked, glancing toward the shelves.

"No, these are good." He was already opening Pigs Make Me Sneeze!

Steve gave a little inward sigh, but smiled and readied himself for more Elephant & Piggie.

After they had read about three-quarters of the pile, Miss Kristin approached their table, book in hand.

"Hey, guys, how's it going?" she asked.

"Great!" Jacob announced. "Uncle Steve's doing really good."

Steve chuckled at that, and Kristin smiled. "That's great. Looks like you've gotten through most of the books there."

Jacob nodded enthusiastically while Steve's nod was a little more weary.

"Well, we just got this book, I thought you guys might like it," she said, setting a large, colorful book down in front of them. She winked at Steve, nodding to the pile on the table, and whispered, "Give you a little break from Elephant and Piggie."

He gave her a grateful look and mouthed, "Thank you," as Jacob pulled the book closer, staring at the flags surrounding a sailboat on the cover.

"Alp …" he said, trying to sound out the title. "Alp-ha …"

Steve pointed. "That P-H makes a–"

"Fff," Jacob cut in, remembering. "Al-ph-a … Alpha?" He looked up at Steve questioningly. "Like alphabet?"

"Exactly," Steve said. "Looks like this is a book of nautical codes."

Jacob's eyes widened excitedly. "Codes? Awesome!"

"It is pretty awesome," Steve said, flipping through the book. "Looks like it shows you different ways sailors communicated at sea using signal flags, Morse code, and semaphore."

"You're a sailor, Uncle Steve," Jacob said. "Do you know the codes?"

"I do."

Jacob's eyes widened even further. "Does Aunt Catherine know the codes?"

Steve smiled. "She does."

Jacob looked back at the book in awe. "Wow."

Kristin grinned. "I think my work here is done."

"Thank you," Steve said, and she nodded before heading back to her desk.

"Look, Uncle Steve, it's like real flags in here," Jacob said, turning to see entire pages colored as signal flags.

"And you can use those signal flags in two different ways," Steve explained. "Each one represents a specific message like, 'I am carrying dangerous cargo,' " he said, pointing to the red BRAVO flag, "but each flag also represents a letter so you can spell a message out if you need to."

"Wow," Jacob said again. "That is so cool."

"It is."

"So you could spell out a whole word?"

"Yep. You could spell out a whole sentence if you needed to."

Jacob gasped suddenly. "You know what we could do, Uncle Steve?"

"What?"

"We could make a flag message for Aunt Catherine."

Steve smiled. "I think that's a great idea. Maybe Miss Kristin has some crayons or something …"

Before he'd even finished speaking, Jacob had jumped up. "I'll go ask her!"

"Walk, Jacob," Steve called, but the boy was too excited to slow down. Steve smiled as he watched Jacob bouncing in front of the children's desk, waving his arms and explaining his plan to Kristin. She happily provided a box of crayons and a stack of the small pieces of scrap paper the library used for patrons to write down call numbers and notes at the catalog computers.

Jacob hurried back to the table. "I know what message I'm going to send!"

"What?"

" 'I miss you, Aunt Catherine, and I want to see you again soon,' " he stated proudly.

Steve smiled. "That's really nice, but that's also pretty long. Remember each letter is a different flag."

Jacob's eyes widened. "Oh yeah. That is pretty long." He ran his thumb along the edge of the stack of papers as he thought. He looked up suddenly, eyes bright. "How 'bout, 'See you soon'?"

"Perfect," Steve said with a genuine smile. He flipped through the book as Jacob took his seat again, opening the crayon box. "Let's see if there's a page with all of the flags … yep, here we go." He set the book open to one of the index pages.

"Then we don't have to keep flipping," Jacob said.

"That's right."

"S, S, S," Jacob said, his finger running down the rows until he found the letter he wanted. "S!" He grinned at Steve. "That's easy 'cause the paper's already white."

"Yeah, you just need a blue rectangle in the middle."

Jacob took out the blue crayon and began coloring diligently.

When he was halfway through the flags needed, he sat back and said, "Whew! I'm glad we picked a shorter message. That other one would have taken forever!"

Steve chuckled. "It would've taken a long time, yeah." He nodded to the flags. "What's next?"

Jacob pointed to each flag, saying the letters quietly. "S-E-E Y-O … U!" He found the right flag in the book and got out a red crayon to make it. He kept going until the final letter. When he made the last little blue rectangle on the 'N' flag, he raised the crayon with a flourish. "Done!"

"Nice job, buddy. How 'bout you put them in a pile? Make sure they stay in the right order."

Jacob picked up the flags carefully one by one.

"How's Aunt Catherine gonna get the flags?"

"I thought about that. You know our friends Carrie and John?"

"Yeah."

"They both work at Pearl, where Aunt Catherine is right now. I'll drop your message off and one of them can take it to her tomorrow morning."

Jacob smiled, nodding approvingly. "And you're sure Aunt Catherine will know what it says?"

"She will definitely know what it says."

"Even without the book?"

"Even without the book."

"She's really smart."

Steve smiled. "Yes, she is."

"Do you think she'll like it?"

"She's gotten phone calls, emails, and texts, but I guarantee this will be the only message she gets by signal flag. She will absolutely like it. In fact, she'll love it."

Jacob smiled happily, tapping the pile against the table to get all the papers straight. He looked over at Steve. "You gotta send one, too, Uncle Steve."

"Me?"

"Yeah," Jacob said seriously. "You just said, she'll love it."

Steve chuckled. "I did say that, didn't I?" He glanced at the book and smiled. "Okay. Gimme one of those papers."

Jacob bounced excitedly, handing him one. He watched as Steve folded the edges and tore them off so that the rectangle was more of a triangle shape with a blunt end. Steve quickly colored it, and Jacob studied the book until he found the matching flag picture.

"Nine?" he asked, looking up in confusion.

"Nine," Steve confirmed.

"What's that mean?" he asked. "Wait! Don't tell me. Codes are 'pposed to be secret."

Steve nodded, hiding his smile. "Okay."

"But are you sure Aunt Catherine will know what it means?"

He smiled. "She'll definitely know what it means."

"Oh yeah, 'cause she's really smart."

"That's right."

Steve was proven right the next day when he received a text from Catherine:

9 more days, sailor

He smiled and typed out a quick reply:

9 more days

Hope you enjoyed!

Books mentioned:

Can I Play, Too?, Should I Share My Ice Cream?, and Pigs Make Me Sneeze! (Elephant & Piggie books), by Mo Willems (Hyperion, 2010, 2011, and 2009)

Alpha Bravo Charlie: The Complete Book of Nautical Codes, by Sara Gillingham (Phaidon, 2016)

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