Bonds(Andrew) Bonds

I smell the foul odor of smoke. I hear the cries and pounding feet of people running to escape the flames. The sky and trees are stained black with smoke and ash. The air is thick and makes it nearly impossible to breathe. Yet I am alive. I am running in the woods away from the fire, the flames reaching out to grab me. I hear my name, or is it just my imagination playing tricks on me? I hear it again. “Hans!” shouted Isabella. I sprinted in the direction of the sound, the visibility was poor from smoke but I find her sprawled on the hot ground, her petite body covered in soot, her long blond hair singed in places. I help her up and we run as far and as fast as we can. We are outrunning the fire. Out of breath, we finally find safety away from the fire.

We fall down in a cool meadow, the grass feels soft, we catch our breath and soon we are deep asleep. When I wake up, I find that night has fallen. In the distance, I see the lights of a small village. We are not too far away, maybe a mile or two. Isabella stirs and wakes, she is as hungry as I am. We have not eaten all day. Our escape from the fire used what little energy we had left. We decide it will be safer to wait until the morning to go to the village.

It is dawn. We are hungry, our clothes are dirty, and we are afraid. We had been in the woods for days before the fire made us run. We find a stream and are able to wash our faces and drink some water. We head for the village. I have a little money to buy a loaf of bread; we smell the delightful aroma of fresh bread baking. We follow the sweet smell of bread, until we reach the bakery in the center of the village. I have enough money to buy one loaf of fresh bread, the crisp outer layer of the crust makes us want to devour it immediately, but we wait. I see the local newspaper on a table in the corner, it is October 1, 1940. We are in Germany near the Austrian border. Isabella asks, “Are you ok?” I replied, “Of course, but you look hungry. We should go back to the meadow to eat.”

We inhale the whole loaf of bread. We should have saved some bread for later. We are nearly out of money. “We need to go, I said solemnly.” “Go where?” Isabella cried. “Somewhere safe”, I explain. We know there are German patrols on the roads looking for people without the proper papers to travel. We had seen them take people away before as we hid in the forest. In the distance, we heard the clang of cowbells, we had loved listening to them on our farm, but that is all gone now. Isabella begins to cry softly. I do not know what to do; we are only twelve years old and were separated from our families when a bombing raid pelted our town.

We ran until we could not run anymore. A German patrol came and took anyone they found. We kept moving, avoiding the patrols, hiding in the forest, eating the mushrooms and plants our parents had taught us to gather. Fall is here and it is getting colder, we cannot light a fire or we will be found. Isabella wants to go home, so do I. We know we can’t go home, the war has reached our quiet little town and friends are now enemies. I need to find some work, what can a boy do? We begin to walk silently back to the village. “Hans, what are you thinking?” Isabella asks. “I am trying to figure out what work I can do, so we can eat.” I reply.

Suddenly, a man came up behind us. He frightened us. In a nice voice, he inquired, “What are you doing on this road alone? You look as if you have been caught in the fire.” Even though we were afraid, we admitted we had been. He too looked as if he had been in the fire. We were all scorched and dirty. He offered to take us home with him; we were reluctant but decided to take a chance, it had been weeks since we had a roof over our heads. We walked past the village and into the hills; we discovered we had run so far that we were no longer in Germany, but in Austria.

His home was nestled in the hills above the town; there were cows, goats and sheep roaming in the meadow. It was beautiful, we were still afraid he would turn us into one of the patrols, but we decided to stay until morning. His family came out, greeted us, and asked if we were hungry. The battered man took us inside and showed us where we could clean up. His wife Anne came and gave us some clean clothing to wear. We had a wonderful supper of chicken soup and warm bread. The whole family was very kind.

In the morning, we asked for our old clothing so that we could leave, but the family wanted us to stay. They offered to give us a place to stay if we would work on the farm. We needed somewhere safe and it looked like we found it. We worked happily alongside the family and they became like our own family. We lived there for nearly two years; until the man said we needed to leave, it is not safe here anymore. War had reached us yet again. The family gave us food, water, blankets and other things to last us sometime. We headed for the forest, we were safe there before. I asked Isabella if she wanted to head toward home, maybe it was safe now. ”The man was very nice,” I said. Bella agreed, “I know, it is so sad we had to leave.”

One long year later, we found our way home. It had been a difficult journey. Along the way, we had made many new friends and nice people who helped us. We could see our farms in the distance, there was smoke coming from the chimney. We leave each other and run as fast as we can home and into the embrace of our families. They thought we had died in the fire. The joy we all felt made us forget all the hardships we had faced over the past three years.

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