Life Behind the Wall: Candy Bombers, Beetle Bunker, and Smuggler's Treasure

by Robert Elmer

Overview

In this three-book collection of historical fiction stories centered on life behind the Berlin Wall in East Germany between 1948 and 1989, middle school readers 8-12 can experience action-packed, suspenseful, and historically accurate stories that bring history to life from a kids’ perspective.

Life Behind the Wall is perfect for:

• kids interested in stories about spies, mysteries, adventure, and friendship
• providing a fun and interesting series that helps readers 8-12 understand history in a real and understandable way
• homeschool or school libraries
• back to school reading, birthdays, and holiday gifts

Included in this three-in-one collection are the titles Candy Bombers, Beetle Bunker, and Smuggler’s Treasure, which together follow a family from the end of World War II to the fall of the Berlin Wall, with each entertaining story highlighting what kids experienced at key moments in history.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780310742661
Publisher:	Zonderkidz
Publication date:	05/06/2014
Sold by:	HarperCollins Publishing
Format:	eBook
Pages:	528
File size:	2 MB
Age Range:	9 - 12 Years

About the Author

Robert Elmer lives in the Seattle area with his wife and their little white dog, Farragut, who is named for the famous admiral. He is the author of over fifty books, most of them for younger readers (but some for grown-ups, as well). He enjoys sailing in the San Juan Islands, exploring the Pacific Northwest with his wife, and spending time with their three kids – along with a growing number of little grandkids.

Read an Excerpt

Life Behind the Wall

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By Robert Elmer, Kristen Tuinstra, Kim Childress

ZONDERVAN

Copyright © 2006 Robert Elmer
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-310-74265-4

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CHAPTER 1

KAPITEL EINS

BERLIN, GERMANY

SUMMER 1948: 40 YEARS EARLIER ...

Erich stopped his carving for a minute, listening to everything going on outside the plane. So far his plan was going almost the way he'd hoped.

Step one, sneak onto the American plane that was unloading supplies at Berlin's Tempelhof Airport. That had been no problem with all the confusion of the airlift—with hundreds of planes coming and going all day and night. In fact, the British and the Americans had been flying in for weeks, ever since the Russians had blocked off Berlin, surrounding it so no supplies could come in or go out by land.

Step two, find a stash of food. Maybe some dried fruit or flour. A few potatoes. Whatever. The Americans would never miss it. They weren't doing this because they cared about the people of Berlin, nein. No, Erich was sure of it. It was just part of their war, this cold war they fought, the English and the Americans and the French, against the Russians.

Step three, slip away without getting captured by the enemy. And if he could pull this off, everyone back in the neighborhood would call him a hero. Erich the Hero. He liked the sound of that. See? The world war might have been over for three years, but thirteen-year-olds could still do risky—and important—things.

But this plane held no food, nothing. So he decided he'd just leave some kind of record behind. Proof that he'd been here, that he'd been brave enough to do what he'd told everyone he would. Maybe his cousin Katarina and the others would never see it, but he would know, and that would be enough. Keeping one eye on the exit, just in case, he crouched low and used the dull point of his penknife to carve a few words into the bottom of the wooden seat.

And no, he didn't feel guilty, or like a vandal, though Katarina would have yelled at him. After all, this airplane belonged to the enemy. Even though the war had ended, the men who flew this plane had rained fire and death on his city.

And on his family.

And on his father.

Yes, Erich Becker was here to try to even the score, any way he could. Even when the knife slipped and jabbed his finger. Ouch! Forget the trickle of blood; he continued for a couple more minutes until he had finished. There. He folded up his knife, crawled to the exit door, and looked around. All clear? He slipped out and landed like a cat on the hard-packed airport runway.

Safe for now. Erich adjusted his cap down lower and wished for a few more shadows so he could blend into the German work crews—men who swarmed over each incoming plane to pick it clean of cargo. No one seemed to notice when he hurried along with everyone else. A truck screeched by him, full of men on their way to unload an approaching C-54. Its pilot followed close behind a guide jeep bearing a big FOLLOW ME sign. If nothing else, the Americans knew how to run an airport.

"Let's go, gentlemen!" A man in uniform wind-milled his right arm at the approaching truck, pointing to a place on the pavement where he wanted the work crew to wait. Another man wearing dark green coveralls and white gloves stood at attention in front of the plane parade, directing the latest arrival with twirling hand motions. The plane taxied into position, its four propellers spun down, and the side hatch popped open—all at once. Erich tried not to stare at the finely tuned ballet, where each dancer knew just when to jump, and how high.

Instead, he studied the pavement and held on to his hat as a final gust of propeller backwash hit him, hunched his shoulders, and did his best to look ten years older and six inches taller. Only, which plane would have food in it? Which could he try next? Not the one at the end of the lineup, where the crew raced to unload bin after bin of coal. He skirted around that one while still trying to look as if he were going somewhere on purpose. And that might have worked fine, if he hadn't rounded the next plane ... and run square into a brown-uniformed soldier.

"Bitte, bitte." Erich choked out an apology as he caught his balance. "Excuse me."

But that wasn't enough for the soldier, who grabbed Erich by the shirtsleeve and waved a friend over to join them.

"Bitte bitte nothing." The soldier scowled and didn't loosen his grip. "You can't be wandering around here. Which crew are you with, anyway?"

Erich tried to back away, couldn't, and decided the safest answer would be rapid-fire German. He was going over to the flughafen, headquarters just as ordered, he said. In a terrible hurry. Schnell! But the soldier only held up his free hand, motioning for him to stop.

"Whoa, whoa. Around here we speak English, fella. Verstehen? Understand?" He looked a little closer, and his eyes widened. "Hey, wait a minute."

This time Erich did everything he could to wiggle away, twist out of the grip. But the more he tried to flee, the tighter the man squeezed his arm.

"Hey, Andy!" That must have been his friend, now trotting over to join them. "Look at this. This ain't no worker. I just caught me a street kid! How do you think he snuck in here?"

Erich knew he was dead. Take him back to the kirchof, the graveyard next to the airport, and bury him.

"Beats me," answered Andy, a dark-skinned man wearing dark green coveralls and a baseball cap with the bill turned up in front. "But you better get him out of here before the captain finds out, or we're going to have some explaining to do."

"Yeah." The first man frowned again and began to drag Erich toward the main terminal building. "You speak English, kid?"

Erich wasn't sure he should answer yes. But he couldn't help staring at the dark soldier as he stumbled away from the airplanes. He'd seen black men before a couple of times, mostly Africans, but only from a distance. Never this close up. Erich had to focus his ears to understand what this man was saying. The edges of the words sounded as if they'd been rounded off, and Erich liked the smooth warmth of them.

"What's the matter, kid?" Andy flashed him a smile. "You look like a deer caught in the headlights."

Erich swallowed hard and nodded, not sure how a deer could find itself in such a place, or he in this one.

"Out this way." The first guy pointed at a gate in the fence where trucks and jeeps came and went past one of the airport's main terminal buildings. "And don't you ever let me catch you trying to sneak in here again, you hear?"

"I hear." Erich finally managed a couple of words, which made the man named Andy laugh.

"You probably understand every word we've been saying, huh?"

"Not every word." Erich shook his head as he hurried out the gate, rubbing his arm where he'd been squeezed by the first guy. But Andy called after him.

"Hey, wait a minute."

Erich didn't wait.

"You like Hershey bars?" asked Andy.

Erich froze but wasn't sure if he should turn around. It was a trick. Had to be.

"Hershey's?" the man repeated. "You know, chocolate?"

That did it. Erich looked over his shoulder, just to be sure. The tall man reached out, offering a brown-wrapped candy bar. Erich couldn't ever remember having a Hershey bar all to himself. A bite, once. Never a whole bar. His stomach danced at the thought.

"Come on," said Andy. "Take it before I change my mind. You've got to be hungry, right?"

Erich could already taste the chocolate, sweet and warm and rich. He turned back to accept the gift, expecting the man to pull it away at the last second. But no.

"Dankeschön." Erich looked up at the man whose skin seemed as dark as the chocolate he offered. "Thank you."

"Andy!" someone yelled from inside the flughafen. "Need you back here!"

"See you around." The man winked at him as he turned to go. "Only next time, you stay outside the fence, okay?"

"Andy!" The voice did not belong to a patient man.

"Aren't you going to eat it, kid?" Andy asked as he started back through the main gate. "I thought everybody liked chocolate."

"Ja." Erich fingered the treasure, knowing how wonderful it would taste. It had been given to him, had it not? Didn't he have every right to enjoy it? He paused. "Yes. But it will be for ... Oma, Grandmother."

And before he could change his mind, he slipped the precious Hershey bar into his shirt pocket, turned, and sprinted away.

CHAPTER 2

KAPITEL ZWEI

GOOD EXCUSE

"I told you, I didn't steal it." Erich pedaled up Pots-damerstrasse, Potsdamer Street, as fast as his old bike would let him. "I can't believe you would even think that of me."

"Sure." Katarina checked over her shoulder and slowed down as they entered the spooky wasteland of the Tiergarten—once a beautiful, green city park but now sheared of all its trees by bombs and firewood scavengers. Some of the grand statues still stood, headless, high on their columns, ruling over rubble and ruins. Others had long since toppled to the gravel pathway. "But I don't think your story's going to help us explain what took us so long to get home."

"We'll just tell them the truth. A big green lizard monster grabbed me and wouldn't let me go. I was ... kidnapped!"

Katarina wasn't buying it.

"Okay, then how about a big American soldier in a brown uniform?"

"And then are you going to explain why he stopped you?"

"Well—"

Katarina led the way on a rusty old bike with warped wheels and a chain that fell off every other block. Which was actually fine, since it gave them a chance to catch their breath. Meanwhile, Erich did his best to keep up on Frankenbike, a monster he'd wired together from the skeletons of several dead or smashed bicycles he'd discovered in bombed-out buildings. At least traffic seemed lighter now, after dinner, so that was good. Shops had closed for the day. But his front tire—the one that didn't fit quite right—wiggled a little more than it had earlier that evening, and he had to keep jiggling the handlebars to keep it lined up right.

"You going to make it?" she asked him. They had skirted the Soviet sector of the city, districts to the east where Russian soldiers were in charge. Here at the eastern edge of the American sector, jeeps with American soldiers—like the ones at Tempelhof—passed them every couple of blocks. The cousins would reach Oma Poldi Becker's flat in a minute or two.

"Yeah, I'll make it. It's just this stupid wheel." He gave it one more good shake, jerking back his handlebars and planting the wheel squarely on the pavement. That should fix it.

And it did—sort of. The next thing he knew the front wheel bounced out ahead of him, even as he continued to pedal. Without a front wheel, the front end of his bike nosed down and jammed the fork into the street, launching him chin-first to land—OOMPHH!—spread-eagle on the pavement. The frame of the bicycle tied itself into knots around his legs, bending him into an impossible pretzel.

"Erich!" Katarina kneeled next to him, but her words only buzzed in his ears. "What happened?"

What happened? He slowly untangled himself from the bike and tried to sit up straight.

"Wheel decided to go solo, is all." And sure enough, it still bounded down Bernauerstrasse. "It wanted a new life as a unicycle."

"Quit being silly."

"Who, me? I'm all right." By that time he'd collected himself enough to stand up. That seemed to be a good sign: all his arms and legs worked. His elbow and right knee looked a little scraped. The worst part: his jaw.

That, and the warm red stain on his shirt.

"No, you're not." Katarina pointed at his chin and wrinkled her nose. "Oooh, gross. You're bleeding all over the place."

Nicht so gut. Not so good. He cupped his chin in his hand, trying to keep from making more of a mess all over everything. That helped a little, but he had broken open his chin more than just a little. Good thing they were only a half-block from Oma Poldi's place.

"Can you walk?" Katarina wanted to know.

He nodded, still cupping his chin tightly. And he supposed they looked a bit odd, him holding his chin and dragging what was left of Frankenbike, her juggling his runaway front wheel while pushing her bike.

"Don't make a big deal out of it," he told her. "It's just a little scrape."

Or not. Five minutes later their Oma Poldi dabbed carefully at his chin with a damp washcloth and told him it most certainly was not just a scrape. Katarina turned green and looked the other way.

"Does that hurt?" Oma studied him with her sharp blue eyes. Everything else in her body had wrinkled or twisted: her face and her hands, for instance. Her knees, she said, from spending so much time on them, praying. Her cheeks had aged even more in the last few years, like prunes that had been left out in the pantry too long. And at times she coughed so hard and so long that Erich and Katarina thought she might never be able to take another breath. Just a little tickle, she told them, but Erich's mother had called it chronic bronchitis, which sounded a lot more serious than just a tickle.

But she had nursed her share of children and grandchildren back to health, patched plenty of skinned knees and broken arms. She caught her breath and repeated the question.

"No, Oma." He shook his head and winced. Not as long as he didn't move or breathe or try to open his mouth. Otherwise, no problem.

"Then what were you doing out on the street at this time of night?" Of course she wanted to know everything as she patched up the gash on his chin with a slice of medical tape, cut into careful little pieces, just like a doctor would have done. And maybe she wouldn't tell her daughter-in-law, Erich's mother. Or maybe she would. But her question reminded him of something, and he reached down into his shirt pocket.

"I went to get you this." He presented the prize—a little broken, a little squashed, but all there. And for just a moment her eyes widened, the same way Katarina's had.

"Where did you get that?" she asked him, but she had to know the answer. Only the Americans—

"A soldier gave it to me." Erich still held the Hershey bar out to her, hoping the wrapper had stayed clean. "He was as dark as the candy. You should have seen him."

"He gave it to you?" She raised a knowing eyebrow and looked over at Katarina just to be sure. Katarina nodded.

"Take it, Oma." He held it out. "When was the last time you had chocolate?"

For a moment she let herself gaze out her apartment's single window, with her view of the tall steeple of the once-beautiful Versöhnungskirche, the Reconciliation Church, not much more than a block away.

"When your father was still—" she began, and her voice trailed off. Even she could not say the word alive. "Well, he would work on his sermons, and on his way home Saturday afternoon, a half bar of chocolate for his old mother he would bring."

It hurt Erich to smile as she shook her head and came back to the here and now.

"But that was before you were born, of course. Before the war ... and all this."

All this. A city in ruins, where most of the men were dead or disappeared, and where women worked all day shoveling rubble and clearing collapsed buildings, bucketful by bucketful. Rubblewomen, they called them. Like Erich's and Katarina's mothers.

"Then you should have it, Oma." He held it out once more. She wasn't making it easy. "Please."

"On one condition only." She finally held out her hand, then took the chocolate and divided it into three parts. "That you kids will share it with me."

Of course there was no arguing with Oma Poldi, and no way to get her to nibble more than a couple of squares of the rich chocolate. Erich closed his eyes and let it roll over his tongue, again and again, before he finally had to swallow. And when he opened his eyes again they watched the Russian soldiers on the street below. One of the thick-armed guards had stopped a row of people as they stepped off the S-Bahn streetcar. He rummaged through their shopping bags and removed what he wanted: a loaf of bread, several packages of cigarettes, a kilo of coffee. They meekly took back their empty shopping bags, stared at their shoes, and hurried off.

(Continues...)

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Excerpted from Life Behind the Wall by Robert Elmer, Kristen Tuinstra, Kim Childress. Copyright © 2006 Robert Elmer. Excerpted by permission of ZONDERVAN.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

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Table of Contents

Contents

Prologue, 14,
1. Berlin, Germany, 18,
2. Good Excuse, 25,
3. Erich Becker's Private War, 34,
4. Under the Fence, 40,
5. Cornered, 48,
6. The Deal, 54,
7. The Story, 65,
8. Just an Accident, 74,
9. First Meeting, 84,
10. Head-to-Head, 91,
11. Luther's Key, 100,
12. Emergency Call, 110,
13. Helmut Weiss, Churchmouse, 120,
14. Border Standoff, 130,
15. The Announcement, 139,
16. Last Good-Bye, 148,
17. Come Alone, 157,
18. Celebration, 166,
How It Really Happened, 172,
Questions for Further Study, 174,