The Boy and the Spy by Felice Arena

Author:Felice Arena
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction
ISBN: 9781760142933
Publisher: Penguin Random House Australia

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THE PUPPETEERS

‘Is this boy your son?’ the soldier asks.

Simonetta’s parents are caught off guard. Lucia turns to look at Antonio.

‘Yes, yes. He is,’ says Filippo slowly. ‘How do you know him?’

Antonio winds down his window. ‘Heil Hitler!’ he says, pulling a face as if to say, ‘Fancy seeing you again!’

The soldier tells Filippo about Antonio’s offensive drawings of the Führer and il Duce – and of his incredible jump off il Diavolo.

‘I couldn’t believe it,’ adds the soldier. ‘I assumed no one could survive a leap like that.’

It dawns on Antonio that this unexpected reunion might help to distract the soldier from the trunk. ‘Well, I might not survive my father, now you’ve told him. Thanks very much!’ he says boldly. ‘You know I’m in huge trouble now, right?’

Simonetta’s mother immediately realises what Antonio is up to.

‘I’m so sorry, Corporal!’ she says, noticing the soldier’s ranking on his uniform. ‘We didn’t know. Offensive drawings, you say? I’m outraged!’

‘Son, what were you thinking?’ says Filippo. ‘What have you got to say to Corporal . . .?’

‘Schneider,’ says the soldier. ‘It’s Corporal Schneider.’

This time, Antonio can bring himself to apologise. ‘I’m sorry,’ he says, trying to sound sincere.

‘What’s going on?’ groans Simonetta sleepily, pretending to wake up and getting into the act. ‘What’s my stupido brother done now?’

Antonio shoots Simonetta a look. Stupido? Really?

‘As a part of your punishment, I think you should offer to polish the Corporal’s boots,’ says Simonetta’s mother.

‘Okay,’ sighs Antonio, opening the car door.

‘No, not now,’ says Corporal Schneider as another car pulls up behind them. ‘Not now. But come back tomorrow – I’ll have plenty of boots for you to shine. I tried to tell him – we Germans and you Italians, we’re on the same side.’

‘That we are, sir,’ says Filippo, getting back behind the wheel. ‘That we are.’

The Corporal seems to have forgotten about opening the trunk. He waves them on and directs the next car to roll up beside him.

Lucia sighs as they drive off. ‘That was too close for comfort.’

‘Did you really jump off a cliff?’ Simonetta asks Antonio, as her father drives them through the back streets of town.

Antonio nods. A little embarrassed now. ‘I didn’t want to apologise to him. And I thought he was going to shoot me.’

The car pulls up alongside a small rundown theatre on a little piazza. Antonio recognises it immediately. When he was younger he’d often sneak in to watch puppet shows here. One of the side doors swings open and a beefy bald man gestures for them to step in.

Simonetta’s father helps Chris out of the trunk and Lucia takes the cloth sack carrying the German field radio.

The man hurries them through the door and leads them through a labyrinth of corridors. Another door opens onto the backstage of the theatre.

As the man shakes Chris’s hand, two other figures step out from the shadows of the wings. Antonio is startled.

‘This is American agent Chris Cooper,’ Filippo tells them.

‘I’m Dino,’ says the bald man. ‘And these are my brothers, Pino and Gino.

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