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

teacher was a short woman with her hair tied back in such a tight bun that it stretched her face. Her clothes were modest and smart – a dark skirt to her calves and a jacket that matched. As soon as she spotted me, she began marching across the yard in my direction, shouting, ‘You! Boy!’
    I wasn’t supposed to be out. I wasn’t even supposed to exist . Not here. Not in this town. I was breaking so many rules it made my head spin and I froze to the spot. I’d just been thinking about reporting Oma and Opa, and now the reality of being caught was so close, I saw the truth of what might happen if the teacher stopped and questioned me. Maybe she would call the Gestapo and Oma and Opa would get into serious trouble. Maybe the SS would take us all away to a camp like they had taken Stefan.
    ‘Boy!’
    Now everyone was looking at me. All the children had turned to see what was happening, and the man who had been instructing the boys was starting to come over, too. As the teachers marched towards me, and all the childrenstared, an image came into my head. It was like the films we sometimes saw at the theatre, except Oma and Opa were the stars of this one. They were sad; shoulders hunched, hands in chains, as they shuffled to the truck to be taken away to a camp. All because of me.
    I glanced at Lisa Herz, the girl who had waved, and noticed that she was doing something with her hands. It was hard to focus because so many things were going through my head, but she was doing something .
    What is it? What is she trying to tell me?
    She kept her hands low so no one would notice, but she was flicking them at me as if shooing away a cat.
    ‘Go,’ she mouthed. ‘Run.’
    And that was it. The spell was broken.
    I grabbed my bike and began wheeling it away as fast as I could, putting one foot on the pedal as the teachers came closer to the fence.
    ‘Stop!’ the man shouted.
    I swung my other leg over and used the momentum to push down hard on the pedal.
    ‘Come back!’
    I was rushing away now, the wind flying about me once again, my heart racing and thumping in my chest.
    I pedalled hard and fast, but this time the excitement was long gone. Instead, I was filled with feelings I hardly understood as my thoughts twisted together; the fear of being caught; of Oma and Opa getting into trouble; the shame of imagining myself reporting them.
    I put my head down, hunched over the handlebars and worked and worked and rode and rode and pedalled andpedalled and went faster and faster and faster.
    I raced away from the school without glancing back, turning this way and that, hurtling through the streets and rushing down a cobbled alley that shook the bike and rattled my bones. The walls flew past on either side but I hardly noticed them as I bumped and jostled and headed for the end of the alley and shot out into the road.
    The blast of the horn snapped me out of my confusion.
    A loud, sharp, long blast that was too late to warn me.
    Then everything was slow motion.
    To my right, I saw a black Mercedes car heading straight for me. It was shiny and sleek, with a glimmering silver bumper that reflected the morning sunshine.
    The driver’s eyes opened wide in surprise and he leaned back in his seat, arms outstretched, fingers gripping the wheel as he jammed on the brakes.
    The car screeched towards me and I closed my eyes and felt the shock of the bumper smashing into my bike.
    Then I was in the air.
    For what felt like a good ten seconds, I touched nothing and nothing touched me.
    I was flying.
    Floating.
    Falling.
    Hitting.
    I landed on the road with a sickening crunch.
    My hands touched the ground first, then my elbows and my knees as I skidded across the hard surface, scraping my skin and collecting tiny pieces of grit in my flesh. My chin cracked against the kerb, clattering my teethtogether, and I came to a stop with an ‘oof’ that shot the air out of my lungs.
    ‘… all right?’ someone was saying. ‘Boy?’
    I opened my eyes