Isabel’s War Read Online Free

next morning I’m awakened by the sound of stealthy but distinct movement coming from Helga’s side of the room. I open one eye and glare at her. She’s sitting on her bed fully dressed in very short khaki shorts, a heavy dark green sweater, and is pulling on a pair of leather lace-up hiking boots.
    Her legs are entirely bare and, as she gets to her feet, I can’t help noticing how long, slender and yet well-developed they are. “ Ach . I’m sorry, Isabel, if I woke you.”
    Ach . This is the first expression in German that I’ve heard from Helga.
    â€œWhere are you going?” I ask suspiciously. “It’s barely light out.”
    â€œTo make a morning walk,” she says, as if it were the most natural thing in the world to go tramping across the countryside two hours before breakfast. “You should come. It’s very healthy. Shall I wait for you to dress?”
    I turn over and fling the covers across my head. “No thanks,” I wave at her with one hand. “I’ll see you at breakfast.”
    But somehow Helga has wrecked my early morning sleep pattern. I toss around in bed for half an hour or so. Then I’m wide awake, so I get up and start wandering around our room. I know it’s wrong of me, but I can’t help poking through Helga’s half of the closet and in the drawers of our shared bureau. From the way Helga looked last night in her flowered chiffon dress, I had no idea she was such an outdoorsy type.
    Just as I suspected, she doesn’t have much in the way of dress-up clothing. But she has lots of drab brown shirts, with military-looking epaulets on the shoulders, and short boxy skirts to match. She has several pairs of mud-colored socks and another pair of boots. It’s almost as though Helga’s been living in some kind of uniform.
    And then there’s the sturdy cardboard box in her top drawer that says Schokoladen on it. That’s got to be German for chocolates. But it feels like it’s packed with something much heavier. It would be easy to slip the cover off and take just one peek inside. But I know that would really be going too far. And yet...one peek... How bad would that be?
    I open the door of my room and look out. The Annex porch is empty; the grounds of Shady Pines appear to be deserted. Hardly anyone is up yet. I tiptoe back to the mysterious chocolate box and gently lift up the deep-fitting cover.
    There is an old photo right on top of a family, parents and very young children. Could one of them be Helga when she was little? Other pictures, too. And there are letters, still in their neatly slit-open envelopes, with canceled stamps and with addresses in foreign-looking penmanship. Carefully, carefully, I slide one of the letters out of its envelope. But I can’t make out a word. It must be in German, and so must all the others.
    I’m just sliding the letter back into its envelope when I hear a step on the annex porch followed by a soft knock at the door. I jam the cover back onto the chocolate box, slam the bureau drawer shut much too noisily, jump back into bed, and call out in the sleepiest voice I can muster, “Who’s there?”
    Whoever it is doesn’t seem to have heard me, knocks again, and softly calls out in a woman’s voice, “Helga, are you there?” This time, I get out of bed, go to the door, and open it to find Helga’s aunt, Harriette Frankfurter, standing there with an apologetic smile on her face.
    â€œOoh, sorry if I woke you, Isabel. I need to speak to Helga.”
    Harriette Frankfurter is a bosomy redhead, a sort of little pouter pigeon of a woman who always rings her eyes with black eyeliner. At this hour of the morning she’s already in full makeup, scarlet-lipped and dressed in a bright floral-patterned playsuit.
    I open the door wide to show that I have nothing tohide. “Oh, come in Mrs. Frankfurter. Except that...well, Helga isn’t