CHAPTER 2 EXPLOSION!

Penny’s first thought was to accost the two girls and correct the misstatements. But sober reflection convinced her she could make no graver mistake. Far better, she reasoned, to ignore the entire matter.

She quickly washed her hands, purposely making enough noise to draw attention to her presence. Elda and her friend became silent. A moment later, coming through the inner door of the powder room, they saw her, but offered no comment. Penny hastily returned to the newsroom.

For the remainder of the day she worked with deep concentration, only dimly aware of what went on about her. Seemingly there were endless numbers of obituaries to write. Telephones rang constantly. Work was never finished, for as soon as one edition was off the press, another was in the making.

Now and then Penny caught herself glancing toward an empty desk at the far corner of the room. Jerry Livingston had sat there until a year ago when he had been granted a leave of absence to join the Army Air Force. Unquestionably the Star’s most talented reporter, he had been Penny’s best friend.

“I wish Jerry were here,” she thought wistfully. “But if he were, he’d tell me to buckle down and not let this job lick me! Dad warned me it would be hard, monotonous work.”

Penny worked with renewed energy. After awhile she began to feel that she was making definite progress. Mr. Jewell, the assistant editor, made fewer corrections as he read over her copy, and now and then she actually saw him nod approvingly. Once when she turned in a rewritten “hand-out”—a publicity story which had been sent to the paper in unusable form—he praised her for giving it a fresh touch.

“Good lead,” he commented. “You’re coming along all right.”

Elda heard the praise and her eyes snapped angrily. At her typewriter, she slammed the carriage. No one noticed except Penny. A moment later, Mr. DeWitt called Elda to his desk, saying severely:

“Watch the spelling of names, Elda. This is the third one we’ve checked you on today. Don’t you ever consult the city directory?”

“Of course I do!” Elda was indignant.

“Well, watch it,” Mr. DeWitt said again. “We must have accuracy.”

With a swish of skirts, Elda went back to her desk. Her face was as dark as a thunder cloud. Deliberately she dawdled over her next piece of copy. After she had turned it in, she returned to the editor’s desk to take it from the wire basket and make additional corrections.

“Just being extra careful of names,” she said arrogantly as the assistant editor shot her a quick, inquiring glance.

Thinking no more of the incident, Penny kept on with her own work. She took special care with names, even looking up in the city directory those of which she was almost certain. When she turned in a piece of copy, she was satisfied that not a name or fact was inaccurate.

Late in the afternoon, she noticed that Mr. DeWitt and Mr. Jewell appeared displeased about a story they had found in the Five Star edition of the paper. After reading it, they talked together, and then sorted through a roll of discarded copy, evidently searching for the original. Finally, Mr. DeWitt called:

“Miss Parker!”

Wondering what she had done wrong, Penny went quickly to his desk.

“You wrote this story?” he asked, jabbing a pencil at one of the printed obituaries.

“Why, yes,” Penny acknowledged. “Is anything wrong with it?”

“Only that you’ve buried the wrong man,” DeWitt said sarcastically. “Where did you get that name?”

Penny felt actually sick, and her skin prickled with heat. She stared at the story in print. It said that John Gorman had died that morning in Mercy Hospital.

“The man who died was John Borman,” DeWitt said grimly. “It happens that John Gorman is one of the city’s most prominent industrialists. We’ve made the correction, but it was too late to catch two-thirds of the papers.”

Penny stared again at the name, her mind working slowly.

“But Mr. DeWitt,” she protested. “I don’t think I wrote it that way. I knew the correct name was Borman. I’m sure that was how I turned it in.”

“Maybe you hit a wrong letter on the typewriter,” the editor said less severely. “That’s why one always should read over a story after it’s written.”

“But I did that too,” Penny said, and then bit her lip, because she realized she was arguing about the matter.

“We’ll look at the carbons,” decided Mr. DeWitt.

They had been taken from the spindles by copy boys, but the editor ordered the entire day’s work returned to his desk. Pawing through the sheets, he came to the one Penny had written. Swiftly he compared it with the original copy.

“You’re right!” he exclaimed in amazement. “The carbons show you wrote the name John Borman, not Gorman.”

“I knew I did!”

“But the copy that was turned into the basket said John Gorman. Didn’t you change it on the first sheet?”

“Indeed I didn’t, Mr. DeWitt.”

Scowling, the editor compared the two copies. Obviously on the original sheet, a neat erasure had been made, and a typewritten letter G had been substituted for B.

“There’s something funny about this,” Mr. DeWitt said. “Mighty funny!” His gaze roved about the typewriter table, focusing for an instant upon Elda who had been listening intently to the conversation. “Never mind,” he added to Penny. “We’ll look into this.”

Later, she saw him showing the copy sheets to the assistant editor. Seemingly, the two men were deeply puzzled as to how the error had been made. Penny had her own opinion.

“Elda did it,” she thought resentfully. “I’ll wager she removed the sheet from the wire basket when she pretended to be making a correction on her own story!”

Having no proof, Penny wisely kept her thoughts to herself. But she knew that in the future she must take double precautions to guard against other tricks to discredit her.

At the end of the day, the newsroom rapidly emptied. One by one, reporters covered their typewriters and left the building. A few of the girls remained, among them, Penny and Elda. Editor DeWitt was putting on his hat when the telephone rang.

Absently he reached for it and then straightened to alert attention. Grabbing a sheet of copy paper, he scrawled a few words. Eyes focused upon him, for instinctively everyone knew that something important had happened.

DeWitt hung up the receiver, his eyes staring into space for an instant. Then he seized the telephone again and called the composing room.

“Hold the paper!” he ordered tersely. “We’re making over the front page!”

The news was electrifying, for only a story of the greatest importance would bring an order to stop the thundering presses once they had started to roll.

Calling the photography room, DeWitt demanded: “Is Salt Sommers still there? Tell him to grab his camera and get over to the Conway Steel Plant in double-quick time! There’s been a big explosion! They think it’s sabotage!”

The editor’s harassed gaze then wandered over the little group of remaining reporters. Elda pushed toward the desk.

“You want me to go over there, Chief?” she demanded eagerly.

DeWitt did not appear to hear her. Seizing the telephone once more, he tried without success to get two of the men reporters who had left the office only a few minutes earlier.

Slamming down the receiver, his gloomy gaze focused upon Elda for an instant. But he passed her by.

“Miss Parker!”

Penny was beside him in a flash.

“Ride with Salt Sommers to the Conway Plant!” he ordered tersely. “Two men have been reported killed in the explosion! Get everything you can and hold on until relieved!”

Seizing hat and purse, Penny made a dash for the stairway. No need for DeWitt to tell her that this was a big story! Because all the other reporters except Elda were gone, she had been given the assignment! But could she make good?

“This is my chance!” she thought jubilantly. “DeWitt probably thinks I’ll fold up, but I’ll prove to him I can get the facts as well as one of his seasoned reporters.”

Penny was well acquainted with Salt Sommers, who next to Jerry Livingston was her best friend. Reaching the ground floor, she saw his battered car starting away from the curb.

“Salt!” she shouted. “Wait!”

The photographer halted and swung open the car door. She slid in beside him.

“What are you doing here, Penny?” he demanded, shifting gears.

“I’m your little assistant,” Penny broke the news gently. “I just started to work on the paper.”

“And DeWitt assigned you to this story?”

“He couldn’t help himself. Nearly everyone else had left the office.”

The car whirled around a corner and raced through a traffic light just as it turned amber. Suddenly from far away, there came a dull explosion which rocked the pavement. Salt and Penny stared at each other with alert comprehension.

“That was at the Conway Plant!” the photographer exclaimed, pushing his foot hard on the gas pedal. “Penny, we’ve got a real assignment ahead of us!”