Cloud and Wallfish Read Free

all travelers: don’t draw attention to yourself, ever.”
    “It’s just a picture,” said his dad, but at least he sounded a little sad about it. None of this made sense. Then Noah caught a glimpse of a neon-yellow zipper in the garbage can.
    “That’s my backpack,” he said. “It’s
new.
”
    And it had excellent Batman logos on the many pockets. It was a terrific backpack.
    “Can’t be helped,” said his mother. “It has to go. It has your name scrawled right across the top in indelible marker.”
    Why was that a problem? If you didn’t have your name on your backpack, you couldn’t bring it on the aquarium field trip: his mom knew that. She had written that N. KELLER there herself, just last month. And now they were throwing the whole backpack out?
    “It’s because of where we’re going,” said his father. “We have to be very careful about everything. Come on, let’s get back in the car.”
    “People can’t have Batman backpacks in Germany?”
    “It’s not just the usual Germany we’re headed to — it’s
East
Germany,” said his father. “That’s the one behind the Iron Curtain.”
    “East Germany?” said Noah. His mind was having trouble with the image of a curtain made out of iron. Curtains were supposed to ripple in the breeze.
    “Remember the Olympics?” prompted his father.
    That’s right. There had been two Germanies at the Olympic Games last summer. His parents had pointed that out to him then. One Germany was friends with the United States; the other Germany was somehow connected with Russia — now also called “the Soviet Union,” just to make things more complicated.
    “Swimmers,” said Noah. “Didn’t they have a lot of swimmers?”
    “You got it! East Germany — the Communist one — the German Democratic Republic. Home of some very strong swimmers! So here’s the thing. You know how your mother has been studying to be a teacher?”
    “Sure,” said Noah. Secretly he thought she would be an excellent and terrifying teacher.
    “And so she’s doing research on —?”
    Noah knew this part, too: “Kids who have trouble speaking,” he said. “What does that have to do with swimmers, though?”
    His mom hooted a little, like an amused owl.
    “Nothing!” said his dad. “Stuttering, not swimming!”
    “‘Differential Approaches to Elementary Education for Children with Speech-Production Impediments in East and West,’” said Noah’s mother. She said that title so fast it sounded like one impossible thirty-three syllable word. “Because I figured my thesis needed a comparative angle. A unique, comparative angle. Not just American schools. Schools from somewhere different, from a different system. So! Brainstorm! Bingo!
East Germany!
They’re quite interested in special education there, it turns out. And it’s hard to get more different than East Germany!”
    They were all already back in the car. Noah’s mother turned the key with gusto, and the engine roared awake again. Noah looked back at the bright-yellow strap of his Batman backpack, poking out of the garbage can, and felt very strange about everything that was happening.
    None of this sounded even the slightest bit like visiting the Black Forest and eating cake.
    He was sorry about the cake, but on the other hand, Noah’s mother had been working on her graduate degree in special education as long as Noah could remember. Mostly that seemed to mean reading books with very plain covers and long titles, and sometimes using Noah as a guinea pig for all the various tests she had to learn how to give. Noah and his dad both took a lot of pride in being the Most Supportive Family Ever about Noah’s mother’s doctorate.
    “There you go,” said Noah’s father. “It’s going to be an absolutely terrific thesis. But it turns out we have to go now.”
    “Before schools let out there,” said his mom. “And other reasons: change being in the air, the visas having come through.”
    “What’s a