by Felice Arena
About the Book
Leap into the adventure of a lifetime…
Things have never been easy for Antonio, but now it seems like the war will never end. So when Antonio is caught up in the dangerous world of freedom fighters and spies, will it change his life or destroy him?
A thrilling story set against the backdrop of WWII, from the bestselling author of the Specky Magee series.
CONTENTS
il ragazzo
THE BOY
la spia
THE SPY
la marea
THE TIDE
il quaderno
THE NOTEBOOK
la chiesa
THE CHURCH
la ragazza
THE GIRL
il complimento
THE COMPLIMENT
la piazza
THE PIAZZA
il gioco
THE GAME
la pressione
THE PRESSURE
il mare
THE SEA
la resistenza
THE RESISTANCE
il posto di controllo
THE CHECKPOINT
i burattinai
THE PUPPETEERS
i soldi
THE MONEY
la diagnosi
THE DIAGNOSIS
la trasmissione
THE TRANSMISSION
la notte
THE NIGHT
l’elefante
THE ELEPHANT
l’agente
THE AGENT
il caos
THE CHAOS
il pastore
THE SHEPHERD
la zia
THE AUNT
il traditore
THE TRAITOR
l’aereo
THE PLANE
l’invasion
THE INVASION
il ritorno
THE RETURN
FROM THE AUTHOR
For everyone who provided encouragement,
feedback, advice and cups of coffee while I was
writing this story – you know who you are! FA
il ragazzo
THE BOY
The boy is running as fast as he can.
And right behind him is a German soldier.
They charge through a flock of flapping pigeons.
‘Halt! Halt!’ the soldier bellows. He yells at the boy to stop, first in German, then Italian. ‘Did you hear me? Stop, or I will shoot!’
But the boy doesn’t stop. In fact, he runs faster, his scuffed and well-worn shoes pounding hard on the cobblestones.
He smirks, remembering the picture he has drawn and stuck on the windscreen of a German officer’s jeep. It’s a perfect sketch of the leaders of Germany and Italy – Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini – their faces attached to the bodies of plump pigs wallowing in mud and muck.
The boy turns down one of the side streets off the piazza. He charges to the bottom of the street, takes a sharp left . . . and smacks hard into an old fisherman carrying a bucket filled with sardines.
The tiny silver fish slide all over the ground, but the boy regains his balance and sidesteps the fisherman.
‘Disgraziato! Wretched kid!’ he hears the man shout.
He sprints on and glances over his shoulder. The soldier is slipping over the sardines and wet cobblestones and has toppled over the fisherman.
Safe, the boy thinks. Now I’ll lose him!
He takes the coast road that leads out of town. There’s no sign of the soldier. The boy slows to a jog, then a walk. The Mediterranean Sea shimmers in the early afternoon light – turquoise and serene.
But after a while he hears the distant echo of an engine.
A motorcycle appears over the ridge and comes speeding towards him. The boy swears and takes off again. He veers off the road and heads towards the craggy seaside cliffs. Surely the soldier won’t follow him there.
But the German soldier dumps his bike and resumes the chase on foot. For a moment the boy questions his actions. Was a funny drawing worth being arrested for? Or shot?
In front of him is one of the highest cliffs in Sicily – the fishermen call it il Diavolo, the Devil. It has a curved ledge that protrudes over the surf. The men say it looks like the devil’s horns. No one has ever jumped off il Diavolo. No one has ever been that stupid.
But now the boy has nowhere else to go. Could he jump? How could a twelve-year-old boy survive a forty-two metre drop into the sea?
He remembers a time before the Germans arrived. He was only small, but he recalls when a professional cliff-diver from Spain had come to dive off il Diavolo. The whole town was there – they all thought the diver was crazy.
The man had told them that the dive wasn’t the hard part. It was the way you entered the surface of the sea. Enter it the wrong way, and you might as well be diving into solid rock. Do it properly and you’d be all right. But even the diver had chickened out at the last minute.
The boy slides to a dusty stop only metres from il Diavolo’s edge. He looks down and immediately feels dizzy and sick – deep blue swells and rolling foamy waves crash up against the cliff wall far below him.
He takes a wobbly step back and waits for the soldier to reach him. On the ground in front of him he sees a silver pendant glinting in the sun. It’s about the size of a thumbnail. He bends to pick it up and brushes off the dust – on it is an image of a saint and propped on the saint’s shoulder is the baby Jesus. It’s San Cristoforo, Saint Christopher.
The boy scoops it up and shoves it deep into his front pocket – for luck and protection.
The soldier is only metres away. He has fair skin, straw-like blonde hair and blue eyes. For the first time the boy realises he’s not much older than he is. He looks too young to be in uniform.
‘So you thought you could outrun me,’ the soldier says in heavily accented Italian. He pulls out his pistol from his belt. ‘You think you’re so funny! You do realise that we are on the same side, don’t you? Italy and Germany, the pact of steel. Unless you’re a traitor and you want the enemy to win?’
The boy doesn’t answer. His heart is thumping. There’s nowhere to run except for a steep narrow craggy path that leads all the way down to the sea – but then what? Be shot as he tries to climb down? The boy decides to stay put and face his destiny, whatever that will be.
‘Answer me!’ says the soldier, raising his pistol and pointing it at the boy. ‘Don’t make me shoot you.’ His voice is almost pleading. ‘All you have to do is say sorry, and we might let you go with a warning, va bene?’
The boy feels a flash of anger. Why should I say sorry when I’m not? And then he thinks of his mamma. What would it mean to her if he were caught? Even if they let him off. The boy sighs. He didn’t think it through when he drew the picture.
This would surely put his mamma in danger, or at least put her under scrutiny by the Germans. They were already judged by everyone in town, seen as different from everyone else. How much worse would it be after he was marched back to town and accused of being a traitor? Was he really prepared to bring more shame on his mother?
The boy steals a glance over the edge of the cliff. Yep, it’s a long way down.
‘Verstehst du mich? Capisci? Do you understand me?’ The soldier moves slowly towards him.
The boy is gripped by an intense, familiar feeling of frustration and impulsiveness. It washes over him.
He takes a deep breath, turns . . . and jumps.
la spia
THE SPY
The boy falls.
He remembers what the cliff-diver said: ‘You must keep your body straight and stiff like a spear, and pierce the water with as little a splash as possible.’
He
tenses his body, glues his arms by his side, and points his toes at the water . . . And harpoons through the surface of the sea.
A whooshing jet of bubbles envelopes him, making his skin tingle, his ears ring and his face vibrate. His heart feels as if it’s been shoved up into his throat and his head begins to throb as he shoots downward towards the dark deep below.
His chest tightens. His vision blurs.
And then . . . there’s nothing but blackness.
The boy blinks. At first everything is blurry but things slowly begin to come into focus.
He sees a shadowy figure above him and immediately tries to scramble away.
A man’s voice says something in a language that the boy doesn’t know. It sounds a little like German, choppy and clipped. Could it be English?
‘It’s okay! Shhh!’ the man says, now in Italian. ‘It’s okay! I’m not going to hurt you. No need to panic.’ His voice is gentle. He’s trying to be calming.
He’s tall, taller than most of the men in the boy’s town. He’s not young, but not old either – he has flecks of grey through his mousy-coloured hair and there’s stubble on his chin. His eyes are marble-grey and his expression is friendly.
The boy stops and looks around. He’s in a sea cave, a grotto of some sort. The late-afternoon sunlight is streaming through the entrance. He doesn’t answer the man. He’s wondering whether to make a run for it or not.
‘I don’t know why I thought you’d understand English,’ the man says. ‘Wishful thinking on my part, I guess. But we can communicate in Italian. And as long as you don’t expect me to speak your Sicilian dialect, we’ll be able understand each other. Okay?’
The boy nods warily.
He notices the man wincing as he crouches. His shirt is tightly wrapped around his left thigh – it’s soaked in blood.
‘So, kid,’ the man says. ‘I’m hoping you’re not the son of a fascist or a Nazi, or I might as well kiss it all goodbye right now.’
‘Are you English?’ the boy asks, finally mustering up some courage and allowing curiosity to get the better of him.
The man shakes his head. ‘No, I’m American,’ he says, pressing his hands against his injured leg and grimacing. ‘So, if you’re not going to turn me in, do you think you might help me?’
The boy can’t believe it, an actual American. His mother’s best friend always talks about her cousins who moved to America years ago in search of a better life but no one he knows has ever been there and come back.
‘Why should I help you?’ the boy asks. ‘You’re il nemico, the enemy.’
‘That’s a fair question. I’d ask the same if I were in your shoes.’
There’s a long pause.
‘I’m asking you to help me because I saved your life,’ he replies softly.
The boy is taken aback.
‘I’m a spy,’ the man adds bluntly. ‘But I guess you ‘ve already figured that out – why else would an American be in Italy? And because of this unexpected twist of circumstances, my life is now in your hands. So it’s up to you to decide whether you owe me and will save my life. What’s my fate? Are you going to turn me in?’
The boy sighs heavily and shakes his head.
The man exhales. ‘Thanks a lot, kid,’ he says. ‘I’m Christopher . . . Chris.’
‘You’re called Cristoforo?’ asks the boy, remembering the pendant in his pocket.
‘Yeah, I suppose – that’s how it’s said in Italian.’
‘Here! A Cristoforo for Cristoforo,’ the boy says, handing it to him. ‘Keep it.’
‘Well, I’ll take that as a sign of trust between us,’ says Chris, smiling. ‘And as Saint Christopher is the patron saint of travellers, I’ll pray he helps me get out of this mess and gets me back home safely. So what’s your name?’
‘Antonio,’ the boy replies. ‘What happened to your leg?’
But before Chris can answer, Antonio shushes him.
From outside the entrance to the cave comes the sound of a motorboat.
la marea
THE TIDE
Antonio sits on the rocky ledge outside the entrance to the grotto watching a small patrol boat headed towards him.
He looks nervously behind him – the tide is coming in and soon the entrance to the grotto will be under water and hidden, but it’s not rising fast enough. Soon Antonio will have to swim to get inside, but for now if anyone steps onto the rocky ledge that leads to the cave, they’ll be able to wade right in.
Antonio squints at the boat, expecting to see the young German soldier. He takes a deep, nervous breath as the boat glides under the rocky cliff.
With relief he sees that the soldiers on the boat are Italian, wearing tan-coloured jackets with the usual two pleated breast pockets. Their trousers are tucked into their black boots.
‘Hey, boy!’ yells one of the two men on the boat, cutting the engine. ‘What are you doing down here?’
‘I’m catching my breath,’ Antonio lies. But he has a plan. He’s hoping to keep the soldiers distracted long enough for the tide to come in. The grotto will flood but the water level won’t reach the back of the sea cave, which slopes upwards – Chris can retreat there, remaining safe and dry.
‘Really?’ says the other soldier, glaring at Antonio. ‘How did you get here? I don’t see a boat.’
‘I don’t have one,’ Antonio answers, looking up at il Diavolo. ‘I jumped. Could I catch a ride back to town with you?’
The two soldiers burst out laughing as if they’ve been told the funniest joke ever.
Antonio recognises them. He’s seen them around town – it’s Vitti and Morelli. Vitti is tall and skinny, his slim face punctuated by a bushy mono-brow. He seems out of place in his uniform. Morelli has an athletic build – broad shoulders and giant hands – and he looks every bit the soldier. He has a very fashionable moustache. Both look in their mid-twenties.
‘Jump! Yeah, right. Nice try, Rota,’ says Morelli.
Antonio tenses. Hearing the term rota is like getting a knife deep in his guts.
‘I’ve seen him around town,’ Morelli says to Vitti. ‘Always roaming the alleys like a stray dog.’
Antonio wishes they’d stop talking about him as if he’s invisible and worthless.
He knows that the word rota will follow him his whole life. It means he was an unwanted baby, left in a wooden wheel attached to the wall of the local convent. Antonio was lucky – his Mamma Nina adopted him. But the town did not accept him as Nina’s son. He would never be anything more than a rota to them.
‘Move aside!’ Morelli barks, preparing to jump off the boat into the shallows. ‘I’m going to have a look inside the cave.’
‘What are you looking for?’ asks Antonio, blocking him.
‘An enemy plane crashed off the coast a couple of nights ago and we’re checking the area,’ says Vitti.
Morelli shoots Vitti an aggravated look. ‘The boy doesn’t need to know that!’ he says.
Antonio feigns excitement. ‘Were there any survivors? Was it English? Was it a spitfire? Can I help you look for them?’
‘No!’ Morelli snaps. ‘Get out of the way.’
‘Well, don’t waste your time. There’s nothing in there,’ Antonio says. He knows he has to stall them a little longer.
He sighs. ‘I wish I’d been found by the Germans,’ he says. ‘I can’t believe you guys won’t give me a ride back to town. The Germans would’ve helped me. No wonder they think their army is better than ours.’
‘We’re on the same side, stupido!’ Morelli snorts.
‘Yeah, but they still think they’re better than us Italians . . . Maybe they’re right. Maybe the tedeschi are just superior – and really can do everything better than us.’
‘Well, they’re not better at soccer!’ Vitti cuts in. ‘We’re the best in the world!’
‘Huh, soccer,’ Antonio says, pretending to consider it. ‘I hadn’t thought of that.’
‘And food!’ Morelli declares. ‘
Our food is way better than the sour mush they eat.’
‘I suppose you’re right.’ Antonio shrugs, noticing that the tide has now covered over half the entrance to the grotto. ‘Food and soccer – viva Italia!’
Morelli shakes his head. ‘Smart alec,’ he hisses. ‘Let’s go, Vitti! The tide’s come in anyway.’
‘What about me?’ Antonio asks. The sea is lapping up around his ankles, even on the ledge. ‘Come on – take me back to town!’
‘If you really expect us to believe that you jumped off that cliff and survived then you don’t need our help – you can swim back!’ Morelli shouts, as Vitti steers the boat away and motors back towards the shore.
As soon as the Italian soldiers disappear around the cliffs, Antonio dives into the sea and swims underwater through the entrance of the grotto.
‘That was close,’ says Chris, as Antonio surfaces inside the cave. ‘I thought for sure that I was a goner. But it sounded as if you kept your cool out there. You know what, kid, you have the makings of a top spy. I think we’ll make a great team.’
Chris smiles, but Antonio is thrown by the compliment. Apart from Mamma Nina, he can’t remember anyone saying anything kind to him before. He smiles back awkwardly, not sure how to react.
He’s relieved when Chris asks about the path leading back up to the top of the cliff.
‘Can you climb it?’ he says. ‘I noticed it when I first made my way in here but with this injury there’s no way I can make it.’ He points to his injured leg. ‘I need your help, Antonio. Bandages, medical aid, food and water . . . whatever you can get your hands on. And I need to get out of here before the next patrol. You know they won’t stop searching until they find something.’
The American winces in pain again and Antonio takes this as his cue to go. He nods before he dives back into the water but it seems like an impossible task – where on earth is he going to get medical supplies?
il quaderno
THE NOTEBOOK
‘Figlio mio! My son! Is that you?’ asks Mamma Nina.
‘Sì,’ Antonio bellows, slamming the front door.
Home is only three small rooms in a stone house in the centre of town, but Antonio is grateful for it. He knows that without Mamma Nina, he’d be on the street or in an orphanage.