Cloud and Wallfish Read Free Page A

visa?”
    “Official permission to enter a country,” said his mother. “Visas can be very hard to get for a place like East Germany. Lots of forms. And you can’t just jump up and decide you want to go there. First you have to apply to get a fellowship from this outfit in Washington, D.C., called the International Research and Exchanges Board — they’re the ones who fund this kind of trip. Did I mention I’m being paid? Actual money? To do research?”
    “Well, it’s a great topic,” said Noah’s father. “Right, Noah?”
    “Sure,” said Noah. His mind, however, was a great big tangle of swimmers and cake.
    “Thanks!” said his mother. “So that’s how it went. First I got the fellowship, and then the East Germans needed to think about whether to give us our visas. They dig into everything. They ask all sorts of questions. But now we’ve got the visas, so we can go.”
    “When are we coming back?” asked Noah. He didn’t want to miss any more soccer practices than he had to.
    “We’ll have to leave the GDR in six months,” said his mother, with what seemed to be regret. “That’s when the visas run out.”
    “Six months?
”
said Noah. “Did you just say
six months
?”
    He couldn’t believe it. He could
not
believe it. It was unbelievable. He could feel his mouth hanging open, and he didn’t even care.
    “Now, now, think of it this way,” said his father. That was one of Noah’s father’s favorite phrases, a signal that something over-the-top and extravagant was probably on its way. “It’s kind of like a trip to fairyland, right? I mean, because almost no one gets to go there, and it’s sort of sealed away behind tall walls, you know? Some people visit, sure, but almost nobody gets to live there, and certainly nobody your age from here. You are one hundred percent sure to be absolutely the only kid in the whole place who comes from Virginia.”
    “
Fairyland?”
said Noah
    “Not the kind of fairyland with fairies,” said Noah’s dad. “More like the places Alice goes in that book you’re reading. A fairyland with lots and lots and lots of rules.”
    “East Germany, a fairyland? Hmm!” said his mother, swerving back onto the highway and making a beeline for the fast lane.
    “It will be fun!” said his father. “It’s all about attitude, people; we just have to learn to think about things a little differently.”
    Noah’s mother winked at him via the rearview mirror. Noah’s own attitude was feeling a little battered and bedraggled just at that moment, to be honest.
    “More than just merely fun,” said Noah’s mother. “Even those scientists going to the South Pole that your father’s so fond of don’t head off that way just because it’s
fun.
A trip like this to
the other Germany
is guaranteed to be better than fun: it’ll be
highly
educational.
”
    Better than fun?
    Noah was highly dubious.
    Secret File #2
    “TWO GERMANIES? WHY?”
    When Noah asked this question, which had been simmering in his brain ever since he had heard he was going to the “
other
Germany” instead of the “
usual
Germany,” his father told him the following story:
    Once upon a time there was a very terrible war. . . .
    In 1939 the Germans invaded Poland, and that was the beginning of the Second World War. Germany looked pretty unstoppable at first, as it pushed on through Europe, occupying country after country, terrorizing and murdering those people who didn’t fit into Hitler’s warped ideas about “racial purity.”
    But once the Soviets and the Americans joined the war against Germany in 1941, the tide began to turn. Slowly the Soviets pressed the Germans back out of Russia and Ukraine and then back through Poland toward the German capital, Berlin. The Allies on the Western Front — the Americans, the British, and the Canadians — pushed east through France, which had been occupied by the Germans since 1940. In March 1945 the Allies crossed the Rhine River, which marks a