The 39 Clues: Cahill Files: Silent Night by Riley Clifford Read Free Book Online Page A

Cahills — it was too dark and they were hidden by the trees — but they all froze anyhow.
    “Wer ist es?”
called one of the soldiers.
    Marie pressed her hands over her mouth, like she was afraid that she wasn’t in control of any noises that would come out. Major Thompson fingered the gun at his belt. Rupert had seen guns before, of course. Hunting ones, and then the artillery and the guns at the front. But he had never seen the faces or heard the voices, up close, of the enemy soldiers that they’d shot at. This soldier had blond hair and he spoke with a slight lisp. It seemed wrong to kill a person once you knew what color their hair was and whether or not they had a lisp.
    “Es ist nichts. Es ist nur ein tier,”
said the German soldier’s companion. He waved the other one over, and they settled down to a game of cards.
    “They think we’re an animal,” said Marie.
    “Two-thirds right,” said Rupert.
    “Well, we can’t go this way now,” hissed Major Thompson. “Some kind of help you are.”
    “I am,” Marie snapped back. “How should I know that they would be here?”
    “Your whole reason for being here is that you said you knew things,” snarled the major.
    “Quiet!” said Rupert. “Obviously, crossing here isn’t going to work. We’re going to have to find another place.”
    “Follow me,” said Major Thompson. He pointed downstream, toward an old wooden bridge, and then wasted no time leaping silently through the forest. For such a large man, the major was remarkably agile. Marie and Rupert followed, slower and suspicious.
    The water under the bridge was ripping past much faster than it had been a little farther upstream. “We’ll go across with the bridge,” said the major.
    “They’ll see us if we do that, you idiot,” hissed Marie. “We should go back down and cross over the river. We can handle two or three guards. It is no problem.”
    “We’re not going
over
the bridge,” said Major Thompson, as if this idea were pure genius. “We’re going under it.”
    And that was just about the stupidest thing that Rupert had ever heard. But Major Thompson didn’t give them any time to question his decision. He went right over to the supports holding up the bridge. It was a web of wet and cold logs, crossing one another the whole way over. Rupert had an uneasy feeling about this. How very like a Tomas, to pick the most impossible way across a bridge. No one could do this and make it over alive. But Major Thompson grasped a log and climbed up into the trusses.
    Rupert shook his head. Marie was already plowing ahead, muttering something in French. Rupert didn’t need a translation — he could get the gist of it from her tone.
    Rupert grimaced and put his hands to the supports. And he began to hoist himself up into the dark, wet space beneath the bridge. The wood was cold and covered in icy patches. His hands slid numbly over the wood, and he tried to ignore the splinters and slime. He was shaking with tension, hoping above anything that he didn’t fall. The water would sweep him away and then he would die a no one, washed up on the side of a nowhere river.
    Major Thompson was already on the other side, urging Marie and Rupert to move faster. Rupert gritted his teeth. Of course it was easy for the major — but for those of them who weren’t hulking monsters capable of superhuman physical feats, it was going to take just a moment more.
    Every muscle in Rupert’s body strained to hold tight to the wooden beams. Beneath him, the river splashed and sprayed icy water onto his clothes, and his hands prickled and burned with what he hoped was not frostbite. Overhead, he could hear footsteps and horse steps and the gravelly rumble of the few cars that came and went.
    It was terrifying. But at the same time, he got a thrill from it. If he could risk taking a hand away from the bridge, he’d thumb his nose at those stupid soldiers who thought they were smart and skilled enough to mess with