My Brother's Secret (15 page)

A second group of boys – another nine marching three abreast – was right behind the flag bearers, but each of these had a drum and was beating it furiously. Behind them, three boys were blowing into trumpets. Their faces were red with effort and their cheeks were puffed out as if they’d been stuffed with bread.

Behind the flag bearers and musicians, another fifty or sixty boys marched, black boots stomping hard on the road. They had been arranged so that the younger boys from the
Deutsches Jungvolk
were at the front and the older, Hitler Youth boys were at the back.

It was the older ones who started singing first.

‘Hang the Jews! Line the fat cats up against the wall!’

The younger ones started to join in, but they didn’t know the words so they just said the same thing over and over again.

‘Hang the Jews! Line the fat cats up against the wall!’

Not so long ago, marching like this had seemed like the best thing in the world, but now I felt a stab of shame that I had shouted such hateful things.

I glanced at Lisa, seeing that she was glowering at the boys and shaking her head.

‘Stupid parade,’ she said. ‘Stupid
Nazis
.’

‘Shh.’

As the flag bearers approached, many of the people at the side of the road stood straight and raised their arms in salute, but Lisa and I kept going, struggling with my bike among the bystanders.

Boots crunched, drums banged, trumpets blasted and the boys continued to sing.

‘Hang the Jews! Line the fat cats up against the wall!’

One group of spectators had clustered so tightly together that they blocked the pavement. To get past, we had to bump the wheel down the kerb and make our way along the edge of the road. Lisa tugged harder on the bike than necessary and jostled past two women as we went. When I looked across at her, her jaw was tight, and her expression was like thunder.

‘Stupid Nazis,’ she muttered again, and I willed her not to say it any louder.

I was taking the weight on the right side of the bike – the side that was closest to the approaching parade – and,
as the boys came closer and closer, I knew there would be barely enough room for them to get past.

‘I’ll take it,’ I said to Lisa. ‘I’ll bring the bike. You get behind me.’ A great sense of urgency was building in me. There wasn’t much time. A few more seconds and the marching boys would be right here.

‘No. Just keep going.’ Lisa raised her voice and her knuckles whitened as gripped the handlebars harder.

The sound of boots grew louder.

‘There’s not enough room,’ I told her. ‘Please. Just get behind me.’

‘Why should I?’ She scowled at the boys who were now only a few steps away. ‘It’s not their road.’

‘Just—’

‘Get out of the way you idiots!’ shouted the flag bearer closest to us.

‘Who are you calling idiot?’ Lisa snapped back at him.

‘Get off the road, Lisa!’

As soon as I heard the boy call her by name, I realised that Lisa would know him from school. In fact, she would know most of them, but that didn’t change anything. She just pulled a face at the boy and lifted the front of the bike. ‘Keep going,’ she said to me. ‘Come on.’

‘No. Wait.’ I let go of the handlebars and hurried around the front of the bike, going to Lisa’s side. The bicycle was like a barrier between us and the parade. ‘Please,’ I said to her. ‘What’s the matter with you?’

‘It’s our road too.’ There was such a frown on her face now that I thought she might explode as she tugged on the bike, trying to make me go on.

‘Salute!’ one of the boys shouted at us, but we could hardly hear his voice over the sound of the trumpets and drums that were now just a few steps away. Their rhythm pounded in our ears like the heartbeat of an angry beast.

More of the boys had noticed us now. As we wrestled with the bike, most of the drummers turned to glare at us as they passed. Their hands worked like pistons, the drumsticks rising and falling like hammers.

To one side of us, the bystanders stood on the pavement with their arms outstretched in salute. On the other, the boys marched and drummed.

Lisa and I were sandwiched between them, and I felt more and more trapped as the boys paraded past and more faces turned to watch us.

‘Move!’ said one as he jostled past.

‘Out of the way, you idiots!’ said another.

‘Salute!’

The closest drummer glared over his shoulder as he passed, and then the trumpeters were alongside us, each of them with his head facing forward, but his eyes turned to watch us.

Lisa nudged me aside and pulled at the handlebars, lifting the front wheel of the bike. ‘Come on,’ she said. ‘Keep going.’

‘Just wait.’ I reached across her and put my hand on hers, but she struggled, trying to snatch away, and for a moment, neither of us was holding the bicycle.

The trumpeters trumpeted. The drummers drummed. The marchers marched and sang with their boots thump-thump-thumping on the road.

And the bicycle toppled.

There was nothing I could do. Even though my eyes saw it in slow motion and my mind knew what was going to happen, my body just couldn’t keep up.

I tried to grab it. I stretched out both arms, but Lisa was too close to me, blocking me. The end of the handlebars brushed my fingertips as the bike went down. It fell sideways, towards the parade, just as the fifth row of
Deutsches Jungvolk
marched past.

The closest boy saw that it was going to collapse right into his path. He was about my age, but smaller, with cropped hair beneath his cap. He had a round face that was mottled with light freckles, and his pale eyes widened as soon as he realised what was happening. He tried to adjust his step, breaking time with the rest of the boys so that he could avoid the falling bicycle. The boy directly behind him hadn’t noticed, though, and he barrelled into Freckles, pushing him hard enough to reach the bicycle at exactly the right time for his foot to come down on top of the front wheel as it collapsed to the road.

His ankle twisted on the spokes and he crumpled like an infantryman cut down on the battlefield. The boy behind couldn’t do anything other than crash into him, falling over his comrade as the next boy stumbled and tripped.

The three of them went down in a bundle of arms and legs, causing the boys in front to turn and wonder at the commotion, while the ones behind toppled over them in a heap.

After that, the parade collapsed into chaos.

EDELWEISS PIRATES

B
oys were bumping into boys. They were falling over one another and jostling for space as the march came to a confused halt. The trumpets petered out with a few squeaks and squawks and the drums stopped banging. The air was filled with the cursing and shouting of angry boys and there was a sharp intake of breath from the crowd behind us, followed by a long moment of silence that was punctuated by one or two giggles and people stifling their laughter.

Lisa and I could only stare.

‘You!’

I shook my head and looked across at one of the older boys pointing right at us.

‘You! Lisa Herz!’

He was a big boy, probably seventeen years old, almost a man really. Taller than Stefan and thicker set. His uniform was pristine, making him look like a real soldier.

‘You did this!’ he shouted as he began to work his way through the collapsed boys who were trying to get to their feet. He took off his cap as he came, gripping it hard in his left fist, and I knew what was on his mind. He wanted to hurt someone for ruining his parade.

I started to look around, searching for a way out, but there was nowhere to go. The road in front of us was blocked by the chaos that had once been a well-organised parade, with many of the boys now looking at Lisa and me – and they didn’t look happy. Behind us, the crowd of bystanders was jostling for space, trying to see what was happening.

There was no escape route.

The boy was coming closer now, pushing others out of his way, his eyes fixed on us like he couldn’t see anything else. Anger burned in his eyes. He stepped over boys still on the ground, his head lowered like a bull about to charge. His thick shoulders were raised and his face was set hard like concrete.

Beside me, Lisa planted her feet firmly on the ground and waited for him to come. She was preparing to fight him, but she was a girl. She wasn’t supposed to fight.

As the boy came closer, I stepped in front of Lisa and put up my fists.

He was far too big and bullish for me, though; I didn’t stand a chance.

‘You stupid weakling,’ he said as he stepped over the nearest boy and swung his fist.

To my surprise, I deflected the first strike. I feinted to the left and knocked his fist aside, sending it swinging wildly into thin air. His other fist came in right away, but I leaned back and managed to deflect that too, then I stepped towards him and punched straight up at his face.

He was too tall for me to reach my intended target, but I was shocked when my fist connected with the underside of his chin. There was a clatter of teeth for him and searing agony for me. Pain exploded in my knuckles, ballooning out across my hand and right up my wrist.

The boy stepped back to steady himself, and I shook my hand to wave away the pain, but it blinded me. It was like my hand had been plunged into a furnace. I looked at my fingers, half expecting to see flames licking about them, and that’s when the boy came at me with his third punch.

It was like being hit with a steel bar. The Führer would have been proud of that boy’s strength. His fist caught me on my left cheekbone, jarring my head to the right, shooting pain down my neck and shoulders. I spun to one side as my legs gave way and there was a moment when my head filled with darkness. The shadow swallowed me up, and when it spat me out again, I was lying on the floor beside my bicycle and the big boy was standing over me.

I looked up at him, wondering, for a moment, who he was.

As it came back to me, the boy lifted one foot and cocked his leg back as if he was about to kick a football.
Except instead of a football, his boot was aimed at my head.

‘No!’ There was a cry from behind me and Lisa came into view, flying at my attacker, flailing her fists in front of her. Slamming straight into him, she forced the boy backwards so that he bumped into one of the
Deutsches Jungvolk
who was struggling to his feet.

The boy who had hit me lost his balance. His arms whipped out in front of him as if he might be able to grab Lisa and stop himself from falling, but he was too heavy and too far gone. His fingers raked along the front of Lisa’s dress as he dropped, his right hand catching in her pocket and ripping it off, and then he hit the ground.

Even from where I was lying, I saw the carved flower spin away from Lisa’s torn pocket.

Up and up, it went, round and round, turning in the air as it arced upwards before tumbling towards the ground. Except it didn’t ever reach the ground.

Instead of hitting the road and bouncing away where it could cause no harm, the small wooden edelweiss dropped right onto my attacker’s chest.

For a moment, Lisa stood over him, triumphant, while I lay behind her, dazed and shocked.

Then the boy noticed the flower lying on his chest, and some kind of recognition flashed in his eyes.

He lifted a hand and picked up the carving, holding it between his finger and thumb so the petals were pointing towards the sky.

He stared at it for what felt like a very long time, then looked at us once more as a clear expression of distaste
spread across his face. His lip curled and he took a deep breath before pointing a finger and shouting two words.

‘Edelweiss Pirates!’

He might as well have shouted ‘British soldiers!’ or ‘Russians!’ or even ‘Spies!’

First the boys around him looked at their comrade lying on the floor at their feet. Then they looked at his finger pointing in our direction. Then they looked at us.

Lisa took the chance to help me to my feet as the boy who had hit me drew himself up to his full height. He held the carved flower out towards us as if it were some kind of accusation, and spat the words again.

‘Edelweiss Pirates.’

He threw the wooden flower at me so that it bounced off my chest and landed on the road at my feet.

Lisa put a hand on my arm and together we stepped back so that the kerb was against our heels.

The crowd pressed up against us, blocking our escape and I glanced left and right, seeing no way out.

Other boys fell in behind the one who had hit me. First two, then three, four, five, six, until it was impossible for us to count how many boys were standing in a semi-circle around us.

The world closed in on me. My heart pounded like a blacksmith’s hammer. My vision swirled and brightened and became crystal clear. It was as if there were nothing in the world but me, Lisa, and those boys in front of us. My body was preparing itself for what was about to happen. There were only two things for me to do. I could either run or I could fight. But there was nowhere for me to run.
No way out.

I would have to fight.