Butterfly Serials 1.1

The War Diaries of Bibi Jacobs; Butterfly Serials 1.1

© 2024 by Amber Wright

Date: June 6, 1973

Place: Madison, Indiana

They said it would be easy to be a detective. Easy! But once upon a retro time began the story of the butterfly girls, another generation round.

Bibi Jacobs was the youngest of her family, living on a farm that sprawled the banks of the Ohio River. Today the big farmhouse on Highway 7 was bustling and bursting its seams for it was the youngest cousins birthday—hers, Dinah's, Liza's.

“I was born first!” shouted Liza Reno. “I get to blow out the candles tonight!”

“I'm going to!” shouted Dinah Isaacs louder. “It's gonna blow out in one poof and I'll get the wish!”

“You are not!”

It was a terrifically rainy day and the rain was pounding on their black umbrellas. Bibi wished it would rain louder—she was strange like that. It makes her feel giddy and thunderous. A crack of thunder answered her back.

The girls squealed and stopped arguing.

“What do you think we'll get for our birthday gifts?” Dinah twirled her umbrella, flinging droplets of rain about. “I'd like a red umbrella, for one.”

“Probably get more books for our book club,” said Liza as her titan red hair grew more frizzy in the humidity. “Let's pin on our butterfly pins tonight—for good luck!”

“Good luck, phooey—who needs good luck when you're young!” Bibi laughed and did a happy skip in the rain. She landed in a big puddle, mud splashing in all directions. “Help! Get me out!”

“Who needs good luck?” Dinah laughed.

“Damsel is in distress,” added Liza.

“This isn't funny, girls! I think it's quicksand, so quick!”

“I still can't believe our moms gave us those pins from Mrs. Joan,” Dinah helped Liza pull Bibi up. “It must have been exciting back then!”

It was horrible. Mud was soaking everywhere on her. “But we live in an old boring lifetime—nothing fun happens.”

“We're going to Germany next month. Aren't you excited about that?”

“Dunno why Germany!”

“The war's over now,” Dinah answered.

“Peace and love, kid.” Liza added.

“Argue all you want about how wonderful Germany is going to be, kids. I'm cleaning up, I don't want to hear about it!” Bibi raced to the house.

After Bibi showered all the mud off, she found the girls drying off in the living room leafing through magazines.

“Too bad there's not a war going on or I'd be a nurse in a shot. Just look at him!” Dinah stared at the glossy page of a fella with a blue Air Force hat.

“The marine's better,” Liza argued.

Bibi plopped down on the multi colored rag rug with the girls and soon their big sweet sixteen birthday party was underway. She flipped through a magazine. Maybe Germany would be interesting. Maybe something really fun would happen there. Who knew? Later they pinned their butterfly pins on with a flourish.

Supper whizzed by.

It was time to blow out the 16 candles on the big tier chocolate cake, and Dinah and Liza were arguing again.

“I get the birthday wish this year!”

“No, I do!”

“I do!”

Bibi listened with a roll of her eyes. Of the three of them, she was the most clever and usually had to fish her cousins out of verbal fights at school growing up. But those two girls were the best of buddies when it came to solving mysteries. She didn't know what she'd do without them.

All throughout school, the girls had solved one mystery after another—from chocolate pie spewed on the playground to stolen homework. Now High School was over and all three had passed with top grades, and another mystery lay ahead of them. Which nursing school would accept them?

While Dinah and Liza were bickering, Bibi blew out the candles in one big puff and wished the wish. One place she'd always wanted to go to—dreamed of, ever since she'd heard stories from Mrs. Joan.

Dinah and Liza quieted, darting glares at her.

“Uncle Seth, can you tell us about the time you and Uncle Dov were captured by the Nazis?” Bibi plopped on the couch beside him as the cake was getting dished out.

“Please, we won't even ask any questions!” Dinah perked up.

Seth frowned. “You just did.”

“They're sixteen. They should know about the war—might help them grow up a little,” Dov piped up from his perch, playing chess with Dad.

“We are grown up!” retorted Liza.

“Open your gifts first, girls.” Aunt Di commanded them with a grin.

They tore open their gifts—books, books and more books!

“Should've put my ear plugs in. Talk about the war!” Dad had to shout to be heard. “Girls, quiet down!”

“What are these?” Liza looked from one plain covered book to the other. “They don't have any titles to them. Just typed paper with what looks like glued inside a piece of leather or something. What is it?”

“The answer to all of your questions, girls.” Uncle Seth let out a low, long whistle. “Now I can actually have some peace of mind during family events such as these. Zip it and read it.”

Liza put her hands on her hips with a huffed expression. “Dad!”

“They're all of our diaries—ours and the people we knew during the war,” Aunt Sandy explained. “We made them especially for you girls!”

“So you girls could relive our stories,” Mom sliced the three tiered chocolate cake with the dark fudgy icing. “Di, where did the saucers go?”

“Broke them all while you were singing happy birthday, Nan. Seth was shouting so loud, nobody heard.”

“Di, I'm sure you were hearing things.” Mom and Aunt Di laughed.

Seth shouted away as he tried getting the three birthday girls' attention as their noses were buried into the diaries. “I thought you wanted to know how me and Dov got captured by the Nazis, little snippets!”

Bibi hid her smirk. Uncle Seth could keep his answers to himself this time. They had these diaries—and they were getting more fascinating by the second. Who was the Dr. Holtz? He sounded exciting.

After eating cake, the three bookworms carried off their loot into Bibi's bedroom—which is one of the four places of their book club. Their three bedrooms and Dinah's tree house which Aunt Di had demanded Uncle Dov make for the girls. After all, they were the babies of the grandkids.

“Ooh, listen!” Bibi read, “June 6, 1944.”

“Our birthday!” Liza and Dinah closed their diaries.

“Every day is a battle,” Bibi paused reading.

Tick, tock went the clock.

“Every mind is a battleground. Fight smart. Endure bravely. Conquer with heart. The good is worth it.”

Tick, tick, tick the clock strangely went.

“It was D-Day—the unforgettable day of June 6, 1944—when the guys were swarming in on the rafts while I was up in the air doing my fight. A heavy fog lifted as the greatest airborne armada of all time descended upon a land that was defeated and darkened by brutal power...” Bibi felt a gust of wind.

The landscape turned into a huge foggy shoreline with warships. Thousands of planes made a great hum from the skies. Everything was a big chaos of excitement and fear. The sea crashed under them on their flimsy raft. Could have at least been a sturdy one.

“I'm all wet!” Liza was panicking.

“Be glad you're not the one going into that battle to get mowed down by the Nazis,” Bibi said through clattering teeth, drenched to the bone. “Why are we on this raft though? It isn't safe.”

“I'm sure this will be the death of me,” Dinah blew out her breath and it frosted. “Dad always told us our questions would get us into trouble. Look at us! On a tiny raft in the middle of the ocean! We're gonna die!”

“At least we don't have to go to Germany now!” Bibi shouted above the noise.

“Don't be stupid—we're in German occupied territory! Which is worse?”

“I'm getting wetter—Dinah, Bibi! How do we get off? I want to go back!”

“Watch out!” Dinah grabbed onto the sides of the raft as they clung to her, screaming. The water was right below those shaking boards. They hit another sandbar and salty sea water flew everywhere.

“This isn't even funny, Bibi, wish us back!” Liza was in a panic. “Is this really what you wished for? Trapped in the past forever?”

“We've read too much history!” wailed Dinah.

“We're almost to the beach, girls. Three, two—one!” Bibi dragged them onto the shore and duck down to miss a shower of bullets. “I think there's a little ditch over there. Come on!”

They were right in the mix but the ditch proved helpful in keeping them alive. But they were time travelers. They can't die, right?

“Next birthday, I'm getting the wish!” Liza's fiery curls were drenched in mud and she looked ready to murder Bibi.

“It's still our birthday. So I wish we go back to Bibi's bedroom this instant!” Dinah glared at the piles of mud everywhere. “I think we're invisible. None of the bullets are hitting us.”

Bullets whizzed right through them and Liza panicked even more, “I am never reading another silly history book as long as I live! At this rate, I'm gonna lose my mind!”

“Already have,” Bibi turned toward some sort of commotion. “Hey, look, isn't that Brad Dinar? From the photos?”

“Looks like.” Dinah followed Bibi's gaze to the stretcher with a soldier on it. “Let's make sure. He might be one of the guys who die. There's a big list of those, too.”

“Aren't you the optimistic one?” Liza glared at Dinah. “Bullets going everywhere and you remember the big death list in detail!”

Dinah led the way. “Don't lag, girls. I think his name tag does say Brad.”

“It might not be the same Brad though,” Bibi said as the bullets went whistling all around them. “Noisy, isn't it?”

“I'm still stuck, Dinah!” Liza kept pinching her cheeks.

“Of course, I thought we figured that out minutes ago!”

“We're probably the first girls on the planet to relive our parents adventures!” Bibi followed them closely. “Might find out all their secrets, too.”

“Now that's worth getting trapped back in time for,” Liza was in a positive mood now. “My, Brad is sure looking pale. Can't we go any faster?”

An army truck rumbled past, missing them by hairs.

Liza shouted at it, “You almost killed us!”

“They can't hear us—we're invisible!” It was so strange.

“That's nothing new,” Dinah marched on. “We're always invisible. Follow close, girls!”

The French village was in shambles. But there was this huge old building still standing where the stretchers were being carried into. Sounded like there was a doctor shouting away. Dr. Holtz?

A faded sign on the building said it was an opera house—in its day—but chipped paint showed it had long been unused until now.

They followed the stretcher into the wards. A Mrs. Combe was at the desk with her name tag nicely showing. So many wounded soldiers and white clad nurses everywhere. Mrs. Combe was directing them all where to go.

A guy with black hair and a blue air force uniform stood talking to Mrs. Combe. “Anyone I know in here? I'd like to cheer up the fellas. Can I go in?”

“You may,” Mrs. Combe replied with an English accent, arching one eyebrow. “One of my girls is a bit strict about ward rules—she has blonde hair, is about 5 feet 7, and is usually singing.”

“Cheerful challenge then.”

“Watch your step, love.”

The soldier's laugh filled the hallway as he strode down the hall, his cheerfulness lingering behind him. Dinah followed him—her father—young Dov Isaacs in all his youthful glory and good looks. How exactly did Dinah's parents meet? Bibi trailed on behind Dinah.

Dov Isaacs sat on the messy cot beside Brad who looked as weak and bloodless as ever. His voice carried and Bibi listened as he repeats some wild tales about his flights, how the gears jam and they barely have time to do an emergency landing on a newly ploughed field. He'd blown mud from his nose for days afterwards. Brad laughed until he cried.

“Sir!” Diana MacArthur faced Dov with crossed arms. “The patients should not be over excited. He's lost a lot of blood.”

“Ma'am,” Dov shrunk back on the cot. “Only trying to cheer him up.”

“Rules are rules. I need to make that bed, too. Please get up?”

“Who's Hitler, right, Isaacs?” Brad laughed.

Diana scowled at Brad. “Sit right back down, Dinar, and not another compliment—shall we?”

Diana rushed through her job and rushed out of the room again. Dov leaned against the wall instead of sitting back down, staring at the empty doorway where Diana had gone from.

“In love already?” Brad teased. “Hurry up and finish your story before she tells you off again.”

They giggle. So that's how Dinah's parents met.

“What's that noise?” Brad's eyes bulged.

“Just wind whistling through a window,” but Dov looked confused, too.

Bibi held back a laugh. It won't do to scare them. After all, they weren't ghosts. They left the room and told Liza what they'd seen. “Let's take a peek around the wards,” she loved hospitals for some reason.

“Better keep quiet,” Liza warned. “Thought they couldn't hear us.”

“It might have been the wind whistling—or they could have heard something else what we couldn't hear. I really don't know how this time travel works.” Bibi paused in the hallway, seeing that fascinating creature she fell in spite with on Diary page 1. “That has to be Dr. Holtz!”

Dr. Holtz was in a roar. “We've ran out? Go chase down that supply truck, you weak minded female! Now—before I discharge you!”

A brown-haired girl in a white nurse's dress sniffled and stumbled down the hallway. “That's my mom!” Bibi squealed.

“Shh!” Dinah hushed me. “If we're discovered we might wake up too soon and miss all the fun and action!”

Bibi glared at Dinah as young Nan MacMillan disappeared through a door.

Low rumbles shook the building and everyone scrambled to the ground. Paintings on the walls moved out of place and a general panic filled the air.

“We still following Nan?” Liza was as white as the nurses' dresses rushing around them.

“She's not dead, is she?” Bibi's voice trembled.

“How can she be? She became your mother!” Dinah marched on. “Let's go find out what's happened. They didn't tell us this part.”

“Dr. Holtz, a word?” a middle-aged doctor motioned Dr. Holtz into a room off the hallway.

“You girls go after Nan,” whispered Dinah. “I want to hear what they say.”

“It's about my mother—I need to hear,” Bibi insisted.

“Tell me later!” Liza dodged between people until her fiery red head was out of sight, chasing after Nan MacMillan.

They listened at the door where the doctors had went in. From the crack of an opening, Bibi saw them in the tidy linen closet. Something else she loved about hospitals. The crisp and cleanness of everything and such a productive atmosphere.

“This war isn't a bed of roses!” roared Dr. Holtz. “But of fighting and battles and winning victories!”

“We are here to ease the suffering, not add to it.”

“Dr. Henson, I am not suggesting—”

“That nurse is not well,” Dr. Henson interrupted him sharply. “The least you can do is show her a little kindness—or you'll be discharged!”

“Sir!”

Bibi felt the door opening in their faces.

“The door seems to be stuck,” Dr. Holtz sounded puzzled.

They choked back giggles and rushed away.

They found Liza hiding behind some bushes and Nan MacMillan wringing her hands at the side of the road. An army truck came along and a big burly guy with a big smile dangled a brown-wrapped package to her.

“Thank you!” Nan hugged the package and ran back inside the hospital, looking as if she'd been crying.

“She's not well, a Dr. Henson just told Dr. Holtz.” Dinah informed Liza.

“What's wrong with her?” Bibi bit the side of her mouth. “Sicknesses are hereditary, they say.”

“It's probably anxiety because you're always as anxious as a cat on a hot tin roof, Bibi Jacobs!”

“You wouldn't even get a closer look with me. Scaredy cat!”

“Liza, I was afraid she would see me—since she is my mother. Then we'd leave all this and not find out about what really happened.”

“We'll have to wake up sometime, Bibi. And Liza, calm your little red-headed temper down, sugar plum.”

“Got that from Lola from Georgia, didn't you?” Liza was humored. “Oh, where is Lola? Wasn't she always fussing about her plain old nurse's shoes?”

“Let's peek in all the windows outside first,” suggested Dinah. “We'll be able to talk louder and they still won't see us.”

“Are you sure?” What if their veil of invisibility wears off?

“Stay here if you like—and meet Mrs. Joan's tomcat Hitler.”

“Where is everyone?” Liza's unruly hair flew in all directions as she peered into windows, making a spectacle of herself as usual. Good thing they were invisible. “There's Teddy! The Teddy!”

“Okay, so you'll like Teddy Archibald, Liza. I'll like Dr. Holtz and, Bibi, you're stuck with Dr. Henson.”

“But they're all married now,” Bibi argued. She would have preferred Dr. Holtz. He was more fascinating, irritating as the man was.

“Take a joke,” Dinah frowned. “They're single now. We're back in time, Bibi. Anything can happen!”

“I'd rather not.”

“There's Flo Robinson!” Liza flattened her face against a dirty windowpane. “I think it's time to go inside now. You can't hear a thing!”

Dinah opened a window and the patient closest to it looked alarmed.

Flo shook her head. “I told Amy to shut it. That girl!”

They found Lola Hill in the mess hall where Teddy Archibald was passing out little pies. Dinah snatched three of them, one for each of them. Bibi's stomach rumbled with hunger as they sat down—a ways away so they could talk but close enough to listen in to what Lola was saying.

“Looks like the Nazis took a real beating, gals. Churchill says it's the beginning of the end!”

“He said, the end of the beginning,” a girl with frizzy light brown hair corrected her.

“Now Gertie sweetheart,” Lola glared. “None of that sass today.”

“Sir!” replied Gertie with a salute and a smirk.

Lola glared harder.

“MacMillan, MacDonald, Hill...” a familiar voice called from the doorway.

Bibi's stomach went into flips. A blur of confusion followed.

“Girls?” Aunt Di called from the doorway from the Jacobs house.

“Yes, Aunt Di?” Bibi blinked and looked around her bedroom. Apparently, they'd come back to the present. So soon!

Aunt Di looked excited. “We have another surprise for you girls, come back in the living room!”

They raced to hear what the big news was.

“Girls,” Aunt Di ceremoniously pulled out three envelopes from her bright red purse. “We got these today at the post office today! Happy birthday again!”

“The Florence Nightingale Hospital!” Dinah squealed.

“We get to live in London!” Liza shouted.

“But I wanted Ireland,” Bibi muttered.

The phone started buzzing and Mom rushed to pick it up. “Hello? Long distance calling—yes, this is Mrs. Jacobs—yes, we're all here, the Mac trio.”

Bibi watched her mother's face drain. “How is she?”

Aunt Di and Aunt Sandy circled the phone round Mom. From the distance, Bibi could hear a British accent on the phone talking in hurried tones. She couldn't catch all of the words but it sounded serious.

Eventually, the phone call ended and they found out the news. Mrs. Joan had been hospitalized with a broken hip and concussion from a car wreck.

Mom hung up the phone with a concerned expression. Mrs. Joan had been their second mother, her mom had always told her. Like an aunt, a friend, a guardian angel.

Bibi looked back to the orange flowered tablecloth on the big dining room table. Somehow it comforted her, the color and vibrancy of it.

What would happen to Mrs. Joan? She'd seen her a few times but that was a long time ago. Mrs. Joan didn't fly any more and Bibi's family had stuck around the USA on road trips. Dad said he'd flown enough in the war and was done with it, and Dad could be very stubborn when he wanted to be.

“Isn't there anything we can do?” Aunt Sandy paced the floor, silver strands of hair curling out of her red braid. “We can't just let her rely on unfamiliar nurses!”

“But she'll have nurses from her daughter in law's hospital, won't she?” Aunt Di arched an eyebrow higher, her face all tensed with worry.

“That won't be the same, Di.” Mom spoke up, twisting a piece of her colorful tiered skirt. “We need to send her nurses who will look after her properly—as much as she looked after us. I'd go myself, if it's necessary.”

Dad surprised us all when he spoke. “We'll all go, and Bibi is getting trained at the hospital in Ireland where she knows people. It's things like this that I won't let happen.”

No one said a word. When Danny Jacobs had made a decision, Danny Jacobs had made a decision.

Bibi felt her heart soar despite the morbid occasion. She was going to Ireland!

“Don't look so bitterly depressed, Bibi!” Dinah scowled at her. “How dare you look so happy at a time like this!”

Bibi blinked. “What's wrong with you?”

“Wherever you go, our parents will make us stick together like always!”

“I wanted to go to London,” Liza whined, tossing her red curls with an angry bounce.

“We can still go to London to see it.”

“Still won't be the same,” Liza pouted.

“I get the wish next year!” Dinah poured herself a big glass of pink lemonade and guzzled it down like she'd just walked through the Sahara Desert.

Bibi took some iced tea and went to a corner of the living room to sort out her thoughts, sipping the drink slowly, slowly thinking about what all was happening. Strange how wishes came true in the most unlikely of ways, and not quite what she'd had in mind. But it was a toe in the right direction.