Otto and Danger

… We climbed the two steps to his [Otto Herman’s] veranda. It was painted black and ran the width of the house. Crossing it, I knocked on the front door. The door was red with a triangular peep window trimmed with gold molding. If I remember what we learned about Germany, their flag was a black, red, and gold tricolor.

We waited, but nobody came. I knocked again, this time a little louder. “Maybe he’s out in the back, or in the barn,” Nat observed. “He owns a couple of horses. I’ve seen him riding the brown mare with the long mane a few times.”

I nodded. “Yeah, that’s probably it.”

Carrying the bags of potatoes, which were getting heavier by the minute, we walked around the side of the house. As we passed the first window, which was raised half way, we heard two voices arguing. I recognized one as Otto’s, but the other wasn’t familiar. I crouched beside the house, and beckoned to Nat. She looked at me kind of funny, heard Otto roar something in a foreign language, and she ducked in front of me.

Now she looked frightened. She raised her eyebrows in a question. I held a forefinger to my lips to say Be quiet, and whispered, “They’re speaking German.”

Shuddering, she whispered, “I’ve never heard Otto speak German.”

I raised my finger again. The two voices argued in German for a minute, getting louder and louder. Finally, the second voice declared, “Heil, Hitler!” At that moment I heard something click together.

Suddenly the men stopped like someone had clamped their mouths shut. We looked at each other as Otto declared, “Stop talking! You’re standing close to the open window, and your voice carries. Let’s go to my office.”

I looked up, afraid of being seen, but the window stayed open. We heard the sound of footsteps fading away. A few seconds later, a car honked on the road out front. It occurred to me that someone was beeping Hi! to Otto.

Slowly I stood up. Peeking around the window edge, I looked in but couldn’t see anyone. Suddenly the same idea hit us, and we looked down at the bags of potatoes which we had set down. Bending over, I grabbed my bag, and Nat, taking the cue, took hers too. I tilted my head toward the front porch. We slipped around the corner and placed the bags on the second step.

I whispered, “Let’s go.” We walked to the driveway, and nobody called out. It seemed to take forever to reach the road, and when we got there, I breathed a sigh of relief. I was thinking We heard something today we weren’t supposed to hear…

Teen Spies can be ordered from Amazon, bookstores such as Barnes and Noble, and the authors