My Brother's Secret by Dan Smith Read Free Book Online

back, wondering what was wrong. She waved me away again, though, so I left her standing there and went to find Opa.
    At the side of the house, Opa had built a shelter against the wall so he could park his car out of the rain. It wasn’t much more than a lean-to made from timber and with a rickety roof, and Oma hated it because their bedroom window looked out onto it. Opa spent a lot of his time under there, tinkering with the Opel Admiral he loved so much.
    Right now, the car bonnet was propped open and he was leaning over the engine, cigarette in the corner of his mouth. Oma didn’t let him smoke in the house, she said it was dirty, which was probably why he spent so much time working on his car.
    He looked like he was busy so I left him to it. Anyway, I was sick of cooking and fetching tools, so instead, I sneaked down to the shed and wheeled out my bike.
    Then I checked to see if Opa was watching and I did something that surprised me.
    I broke the rules.
    Wheeling my bike along the drive that ran up one side of the garden, I opened the gate and went out into theback lane.
    Opa was still bent over the car, head under the bonnet, cigarette smoke curling around his head. I watched him for a long moment, feeling my heart beating harder. It wasn’t too late. I could go back in. I could put my bike away and …
    The gate clicked shut almost without me realising I had done it.
    Swinging my leg over, I pushed the bike away and cycled along the lane. Once around the corner, I followed the cut-through between Oma and Opa’s house and the one next door, then I sped out onto Escherstrasse. Without stopping, I turned and headed in the same direction the girl had gone.
    Something about being on my bike lifted my heart.
    All my anger dissolved away and a great bubble of excitement and happiness and relief grew in its place. It started in my stomach and rose up my throat and filled me so full that it threatened to explode me. I had to open my mouth to let it out, and when I did, the fresh morning air rushed in. It blew around my face and brushed over my short hair and swirled around my knees.
    It was fantastic.
    Amazing.
    Brilliant.
    For the first time in days, I felt free.

WORDS ON THE WALL
    I didn’t know where I was going. My feet just pedalled and my hands steered and my mind became blank. I forgot all about Papa dead and gone, and Mama lying in bed for days. I didn’t have room in my head to think about Ralf and Martin or about Oma and Opa keeping me in the house like a prisoner.
    The people in the street were a blur as I whizzed by. Men and women who hardly paid any attention to me at all. Everyone just going about their business.
    I zipped along the main road, and turned down a side street before racing through a maze of alleyways running along the back of some large houses. The cobbled lanesjiggered me up and down so much that it blurred my vision, but I kept on and on and on. Faster and faster.
    Until I saw the writing on the wall.
    It was right there, on the bricks at the end of the alley, staring me in the face.
    ETERNAL WAR ON THE HITLER YOUTH
    As soon as I saw it, I squeezed the brakes and came to a stop.
    Written in white paint, each letter was at least as big as my hand. I had seen things written on walls before, but they were always about the Jews, never something like this. Perhaps it was Jews who had written this, as some kind of protest. I stared at those letters wondering what they really meant and who had written them, and the longer I stared, the more I felt as if they were saying something to me. I just didn’t know what it was.
    When I closed my eyes, the large white letters seemed to be burnt onto the inside of my eyelids.
    Eventually, I shook my head and pushed off once more, cycling right at the letters as if I were going to crash through them. I turned at the end of the alley, glad to leave them behind, but as I rode along the next lane, there were more letters painted on the wall beside me.
    HITLER
    I