A Great Escape Read online

  About the Book

  IT’S A GREAT ESCAPE,

  BUT WILL PETER SURVIVE IT?

  When Peter’s family leaves for a trip across the border, he stays behind. So when the government builds a wall through the city, guarded by soldiers, tanks and ferocious dogs, he’s trapped. Everyone says he might never see his family again.

  But Peter has a courageous plan …

  Set in Cold War Germany, A Great Escape is a story of true-life heroism and the unbreakable bonds of family, by the acclaimed author of Fearless Frederic and The Boy and the Spy.

  Contents

  Cover

  About the Book

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Verräter Traitor

  Opa Grandfather

  Der Westen The West

  Halt! Stop!

  Niemandem trauen Don’t trust anyone

  Der Fluss The River

  Tauben Pigeons

  Fragen Questions

  Fliegen Flying

  Ein Mädchen A Girl

  Geld Money

  Federn Feathers

  Fernsprecher Telephone

  Die Mauer The Wall

  Der Pfeil The Arrow

  Schmerzen Pain

  Die Zeit vergeht Running out of Time

  Goldene Zwanziger The Golden Twenties

  Tanzen Dancing

  Die Schubkarre The Cart

  Rasen Speeding

  Aufstehen! Get up!

  Warum? Why?

  Sie kommen! They’re coming!

  Pfeil und Bogen Bow and Arrow

  Ablenken Distracting

  Flüchten Escaping

  Familie Family

  Hoffnung Hope

  About the Author

  From the Author

  Praise

  Also by Felice Arena

  Imprint

  Read more at Penguin Books Australia

  This book is dedicated to my long-time editor and friend Michelle Madden.

  Verräter

  TRAITOR

  Peter is riding as fast as he can. He stands out of his seat and crunches down on the pedals. He steers his bike towards a long plank of wood propped up on a small stack of bricks. It’s the perfect launching ramp.

  He hollers as he makes contact with the plank and rides up the ramp at top speed.

  ‘YAAAAA!’ Peter yanks the handlebars up towards his chest to get some lift. He keeps pedalling, then he’s airborne! Flying!

  The wheels hit the cobblestones with a bouncy thud. Peter almost loses balances as he kicks back on his right pedal and slams the brakes. The bike skids, the back tyre fishtails from side to side, and Peter drops his left foot and drags it on the ground. He stops and looks back at the ramp set up in the middle of his street.

  ‘Yes!’ he hisses, as his friends Max and Hubert run up to him.

  Hubert takes a piece of chalk from his pocket and scratches a line across the cobblestones. ‘The back wheel hit the ground right here,’ he says excitedly. ‘But Max still holds the record. Just. See!’

  The boys look down, and Peter sees that Max’s chalk line is a few centimetres ahead of his own mark.

  Peter winces. ‘I’ll go again.’

  ‘Give it up, Peter,’ says Max. ‘You’ll never beat me.’

  But Peter is already riding back to take another jump.

  ‘Peter!’ It’s his mother’s voice from a window of his flat. Peter looks up at her. They live in one of the older buildings, one of only a few in the street that survived the bombs and bullets of the war. Its dark grey brick and large criss-cross windows make it stand out from all the others around it. Most of the street is lined with dull-looking concrete slab apartment blocks.

  ‘Time to come in. We’re leaving soon. I won’t tell you again,’ she shouts, before closing the shutters.

  Peter ignores her. He stares back towards the ramp, determined to beat Max’s record. But before he takes off, a car turns into the street.

  Hubert and Max run to grab the makeshift ramp and drag it to the curb.

  The car rolls by slowly, avoiding the piles of bricks.

  Stefan Fischer, who lives in Peter’s building, is in the back seat. He waves at them.

  ‘Bye, Peter!’ he shouts out from the back seat window. ‘Bye, Max! Hubert! Perhaps we’ll see you over there.’

  Peter waves, and watches Stefan and his family drive away.

  ‘That’s the tenth boy from our school who has moved to the West just in the last week,’ says Hubert. ‘Anyone with family to stay with over there is leaving. Are you moving too, Peter?’

  Peter shrugs. ‘I don’t know. My dad works there so I guess we could. They say over in the West you’re free. You can earn more money and buy whatever you want –’ But that’s all Peter manages to say before Max interrupts him.

  ‘They’re all deserters,’ he snaps. ‘Stefan is just another Verräter, a traitor – that’s what my father says. They’re all capitalist traitors. They’ll regret it.’

  ‘That’s not what my brother Ralf says,’ Hubert exclaims. ‘He says that after the war this city should have been divided up between the Americans, the English and the French. Nothing should have gone to the Soviet Union. He said we’ve drawn the short straw – the Soviets hate us Germans.’

  ‘Your brother is wrong,’ Max snaps. ‘How can he say that? Everyone is equal here. Your brother is the biggest Verräter of them all!’

  ‘You take that back!’ Hubert cries.

  ‘Make me,’ says Max.

  Peter shakes his head as his friends break out into a familiar argument.

  It’s all that anyone is talking about these days – the thousands of people moving from East Berlin over to the western parts of the city.

  Max steps up to Hubert and shoves him. Hubert shoves Max back. Their biting words have turned into a scuffle.

  Peter throws down the bike and steps in between his friends – trying his best to separate them.

  ‘Stop fighting, boys. For goodness sake, Peter!’ His mother has now made her way downstairs and is stepping out onto the street. She’s holding Peter’s little sister Margrit’s hand. ‘Komm, sofort! Come, immediately!’

  Margrit nods, her mop of blonde messy curls falling over her rosy cheeks.

  ‘Hang on, Mutti,’ Peter yells, as Max manages to snatch Hubert’s glasses off him. ‘Just give me a minute.’

  ‘Too late!’ she calls. ‘You’ll have to stay home with Opa and Oma. We’ll be back tomorrow night.’

  Peter’s mother turns and Margrit waves to him, before they disappear back inside the apartment building.

  ‘Give the glasses back to him,’ Peter says, turning to Max. ‘Stop being a Dummkopf.’

  ‘I can’t see without them,’ complains Hubert.

  Max steps back a few steps. ‘If you want them, Hubert, you can come and get them.’ Then he turns and bolts down the footpath.

  Peter swings into action. He runs back to the bike and takes chase. He pedals as fast as he can. Max is on foot, but he has a good head start. He turns into the next street, and runs onto a narrow footbridge arching over a storm-water drain.

  Peter makes a swift decision to cut Max off. The road section is shorter than the footbridge so he knows he can get ahead of Max. He will have to jump the drain to cut him off, but he’s pretty sure he can do it.

  He avoids the footbridge and continues to ride the street. The boys race each other on either side of the drain. Peter gets out in front of Max. The drain narrows slightly and Peter knows this is the moment. He takes a sharp turn.

  Here goes! he thinks.

  Peter stands out of his seat, pulls up on the handlebars and … soars clear over the ditch. He lands and skids to a stop directly in front of Max, who is caught o
ff guard. The bike drops. Peter grabs hold of Max and they wrestle each other, first standing, and then rolling around on the ground.

  Peter overpowers Max. He sits on his chest, pinning him down, and snatches Hubert’s glasses out of his pocket.

  Max is gasping, his face flushed. ‘Lass mich los! Get off me!’ he says. ‘I can’t breathe!’

  ‘Say sorry,’ Peter orders.

  ‘They’re not your glasses.’

  ‘Say sorry!’

  ‘I’ll say sorry to Hubert. But not to you. It’s got nothing to do with you. You always think you’re the centre of everything.’

  Peter catches his breath. ‘I do not!’

  ‘If you don’t get your way, you hate it. You didn’t even go home when your mother called you. And that’s not even your bike – it’s Hubert’s. I bet as soon as you get the chance you’ll leave us here and move away and you won’t think about us again. You think you’re such a hero. But you’re not. You’re a rat.’

  Peter says nothing, his knees digging into Max’s shoulders. Finally he hops off him.

  The boys stare at each other, before Max turns and runs off, leaving Peter standing in the street feeling angry and bewildered.

  Opa

  GRANDFATHER

  ‘Wash your hands, bitte,’ Peter’s grandmother tells him when he gets home.

  ‘They’re clean,’ Peter says.

  ‘Aber jetzt! Now!’ his oma orders.

  Peter does as he’s told and returns to take a seat at the kitchen table next to his grandfather. He’s reading the newspaper as usual. Oma puts a plate of bean salad and potatoes in front of him. She takes her seat and pours herself a beer.

  ‘Your mother was not very happy with you,’ she says to Peter.

  He shrugs. ‘So what’s new. But I wasn’t doing anything wrong, just playing in the street.’

  ‘That’s what I told her,’ Oma says, taking a swig from her glass. ‘Children need to be outside running, and climbing and riding – that’s how they grow strong. But there’ll be no backchat from you while I’m in charge.’

  Peter nods. He always thinks that Oma looks as though she could be out there running and climbing. Looking after Opa keeps her fit. And her rosy cheeks and her ice-blue eyes make her seem much younger than she is. But Opa has lost weight since he had a stroke earlier that year. They have to help him with almost everything.

  ‘Oma, are Mutti and Vati serious about moving to the West?’

  ‘I believe so,’ Oma tells him. ‘If you ask me, I think we should just stay put. Why would I want to move to the West and have to start all over again? How can that be a better life? I don’t want to be a refugee in my own city.’

  Opa looks up. Peter can tell that he’s annoyed with Oma. His face is scrunched up more than usual. So often these days his eyes and big bushy eyebrows have to do the talking for him. Words are hard for him – they come out sounding all mushy and slurred, so he doesn’t often talk.

  ‘Wir gehen! We’ll go!’ he slurs. He bangs his fist on the table and tips his plate on himself.

  ‘Oh, mein Schatz! My darling!’ Oma says. She grabs a cloth and starts wiping up the mess on Opa’s shirt. ‘Look what you’ve done.’

  Peter sighs and shrugs at Opa.

  I know, he thinks. I know you hate being looked after like a helpless baby.

  ‘Yes, Ernst, my love,’ says Oma, trying to calm Opa. ‘We will go. We’ll move to the West and all our troubles will disappear.’

  Peter knows what a stroke is now – when your brain doesn’t get enough oxygen and some of the cells that affect your movement or speech die. But he didn’t know that the morning he found Opa collapsed and helpless on the floor of his bedroom.

  Oma purses her lips at Peter as she sits back down, as if to say, ‘Let’s not get him worked up!’

  After dinner, Peter helps Opa into bed. The left side of his upper body is almost useless, and he shuffles when he tries to walk. This is a first for Peter. Usually Oma or his father helps out. Peter places Opa’s arm around his neck and lowers him down onto the mattress.

  ‘Wir gehen,’ Opa says again.

  ‘Yes, Opa,’ Peter says. ‘When Mutti and Vati get back tomorrow night, they might have found somewhere for us to live in the West.’

  Peter thinks about what Max said. If his parents go, he’ll have to go as well. He tries to imagine leaving Hubert and Max behind. Would that really make him a traitor? A rat?

  Early the following morning Peter wakes up to a banging at the apartment door. His grandparents are still asleep. When he swings open the door he is surprised to see Hubert standing there.

  ‘They’re putting barbed wire up,’ he says in a panic. ‘A barbed-wire fence!’

  ‘What? Slow down. What are you talking about?’ Peter asks.

  ‘The army! The police! They’ve put up a barbed-wire fence right through the middle of the city. No one is getting through. They’re saying people can’t get to the West any more!’

  Der Westen

  THE WEST

  Peter, Hubert and Herr Ackermann push their way as far as they can into the crowd. Border guards and construction teams are rolling out barbed wire and planting concrete poles.

  ‘This is an anti-Fascist protection barrier,’ comes a voice blaring from loudspeakers propped on a van. ‘Please, step back! Go home! If anyone attempts to cross over without the correct papers they will be arrested!’

  Army trucks and jeeps roar in with more troops to keep the crowd at bay. Soldiers with big scary-looking dogs pace up and down along the boundary.

  ‘Judging by the number of armed troops and the guard dogs, they really mean business,’ says Herr Ackermann. ‘Damn Ulbricht! He said he wouldn’t put up a wall. Mark my words this is just the start. We’re trapped.’

  Peter knows that Walter Ulbricht is the head of the East German state. He’s always in the news reports. Just the mention of his name gets Opa riled up.

  ‘But the West can’t just let this just happen,’ says a man standing beside them. ‘My wife is over there. I need to get to her.’

  ‘I’m trying to get to work,’ says the man next to him. ‘I’ll lose my job if they don’t let me through.’

  Peter turns to Hubert. ‘My mother and father are over there, and Margrit! Can they come back?’ he says, his voice cracking with panic. ‘Can I go to them?’

  Hubert shakes his head. ‘I don’t know.’

  Peter’s breath quickens. I have to do something, he thinks. He runs towards the border checkpoint but doesn’t get anywhere near it. A border guard, wearing an olive-coloured uniform and a Kampfgruppe cloth cap, steps in front of him.

  ‘Halt!’ he barks. ‘Don’t get yourself in trouble, boy.’

  Peter looks nervously at the soldier’s rifle. ‘My mother and father are over there. You’ve got to let me through. Please!’

  ‘No one gets through,’ snaps the guard. ‘Step away!’

  ‘No!’ cries Peter, and without thinking he bolts past the man and runs towards the barbed wire.

  After only a few steps he’s tackled by another guard. He hits the ground hard, and the breath is knocked out of him.

  He hears the crowd around them boo and jeer.

  ‘He’s only a kid! Let him go!’ shouts Herr Ackermann, pushing through the crowd behind them, with Hubert close behind.

  The guard clasps Peter by his shirt and yanks him to his feet. ‘Try another stunt like that and we’ll lock you up and throw away the key,’ he growls. ‘Now go home.’

  Hubert’s father hurriedly pulls Peter away. ‘Are you trying to get yourself killed?’

  Peter looks at Hubert, who seems close to tears. His own face feels flushed and his chest is heaving.

  He turns and runs. This time away from the barrier. Peter can hear Hubert calling after him. ‘Don’t do anything stupid, Peter! Be careful.’

  Stupid? thinks Peter. Stupid is putting up a barrier around a whole section of Berlin. Stupid is stopping people coming and going in th
eir own city. Stupid is not going with Mutti when she told me to.

  Peter runs towards the Brandenburg Gate. Just yesterday his parents and little sister would have driven freely along the road there. Guards might have stopped them to check their papers, but most people would have been able to come and go as they wanted over the border.

  When Peter reaches the border crossing, the crowd is huge. He looks up at the gate with its imposing columns and large sculpture on top of a chariot drawn by four horses. It reminds him of a giant pitchfork stuck in the ground with the handle snapped off.

  There are even more soldiers on the road here. Everyone on the East Berlin side is eerily quiet, as if they are in shock, stunned into silence. But through the columns over on the west side – just a few hundred metres away – people are shouting and chanting angrily.

  There has to be a way through, thinks Peter.

  He runs and runs for over an hour – from crossing point to crossing point. But every checkpoint is blocked.

  I’ll take a train, he thinks, making his way to the Friedrichstrasse train station.

  But when he gets there he sees hundreds of people milling around. No one seems to know what to do. The TraPos, the transport police, have blocked the ticket halls and stopped all the trains going to the West. Standing side by side with guns slung over their shoulders, they are also blocking the entrances to the platforms.

  Some bystanders are loud and angry, and the TraPos are busy dealing with people who have been removed from the trains. An elderly woman in front of Peter pleads with one of the officers.