Read Online The Plum Tree by Ellen Marie Wiseman - Free Book Online Page B

Mutti wouldn’t notice her quick, short breathing. She’d thought that by the time she wanted to sneak out later, everyone would be fast asleep, but here they were, so engrossed in the radio they looked like they were going to be up all night.
    “You look tired,” Mutti said. “Why aren’t you in bed?”
    “I’m going up now. I just wanted to say gute Nacht .”
    Mutti stood and gave her a hug. “Don’t be worried if you hear the sound of the old radio coming from our room,” she whispered in Christine’s ear. “But let us know if it’s too loud.”
    “I will,” Christine said, wishing her father had burnt the old radio in the kitchen stove. Instead, her parents had hidden the radio beneath their bed, in a small wooden storage box with a folded blanket over the top, to make it look like a chest full of linens. It was just one more thing to worry about. She already felt shaky and out of control, tossed about by the twists and turns of life, like a broken twig swept away on a raging current.
    Pretending to be interested and trying not to fidget, she forced herself to listen for a few more minutes, afraid they would ask what was wrong. When she couldn’t stand it another second, she said good night and went up to her bedroom, crawling beneath the covers in her dress, just in case her mother came in to see if she was all right.
    That afternoon and early evening had been the longest of her life, even though she’d tried to keep herself busy by cleaning out the chicken coop and pulling the dead plants and fall weeds from the garden. Now, peering out into the dark hall, she realized that someone could come out of the living room and catch her sneaking down the stairs. Her heart thumped against her ribs as she waited for her eyes to adjust. Then, holding her breath, she gripped the banister and crept down the flight of steps. Every creak echoed like a gunshot through the empty halls, and she froze with each squeak, ready to run if the living room door opened. Forever passed before she reached the first floor. Behind the bottom staircase, she stood on her tiptoes and reached for the extra key hidden above the cellar door, her fingers blindly searching the narrow lip of the wooden doorframe. Once she found it, she slipped on her shoes, unlocked the front door, and slid outside into the cool hours of darkness.
    At last, she was free in the moonlit night, hurrying down the street on her tiptoes, stealing glances over her shoulder to make sure she’d escaped undiscovered. Her breath plumed out into the cold night air, misty vapors swirling past her as she ran, like the vanishing remnants of lost spirits. Avoiding the pools of yellow light cast on the glistening cobblestones by street lamps, she turned left at the bottom of the hill, then slowed, a safe distance from her house. Here and there, light burned in the windows of half-timbered houses, and she could see hunched silhouettes gathered around radios, smoking and drinking and gesturing, like animated storybook characters drawn on living room walls. She hurried from one tall, gabled house to the next, keeping close to the edges of deep doorways and granite balustrades.
    For the next six blocks, her lone footsteps echoed along the stone avenues. Suddenly, she felt the presence of someone behind her. She slowed and held her breath, ready to turn and run. Then a cat yowled, and she let out a sigh of relief, turning to see the marmalade-colored feline behind her, tail up, back arched, legs stretched, as if padding along the sidewalk on its tiptoes. She shooed it away. It took off across the street and disappeared down a dark alley.
    At the end of the last block, she moved to the other side of the village square, entered the narrow street beside the Market Café, then turned into the shadows behind it. Scattered puddles from the evening’s earlier rainfall gathered in the uneven cobblestone alley, where they shimmered like pools of black oil. Isaac was sitting on the