Resist

by Alan Gratz

  But this magical place was about to be defiled by a horrible atrocity. Unless Samira could do something about it.

  Samira waited until she thought she was out of sight of the guards and sprinted from the protection of one big tree to the next. She leaned back against the new tree, breathing heavily, but froze as she heard a familiar voice call out to her.

  “No! Love of my life, you should not be here!” her mother cried.

  Samira gasped. Her mother had seen her! She had called out to her in Arabic, guessing that the Nazis couldn’t understand what she was saying. But had the guards seen her too? Samira couldn’t peek around the tree for fear they would find her. Instead, she held her breath, listening for the sound of German boots, for her mother’s voice.

  “Run, Samira. Run far, far away from this place,” her mother called in Arabic. “You should not be here to see this. And if they find you, they will kill you too. Run!”

  One of the Nazis barked for Kenza Zidane to be quiet, and Samira heard her mother cry out in pain. Samira peeked out from behind the tree. One of the soldiers had struck Samira’s mother in the back with the butt of his rifle, and she had staggered a few steps away, trying to stay on her feet. No! Samira’s heart broke. Her mother had taken a chance calling out to her, had drawn attention to herself, and one of the wasps had stung her.

  But they were planning to do far worse. The soldiers marched the prisoners to a clearing in the middle of the wood, where a half dozen old, dirty shovels rested against the trunk of a tree. Nearby, there were two freshly dug and re-covered plots of earth, each about five meters by five meters wide.

  “Take the shovels and dig a hole as big as the others,” one of the Nazis told the prisoners in French.

  “Why?” asked one of the prisoners. A young boy.

  “Just do as you’re told,” the Nazi said.

  Samira felt like she was falling. Like she had stepped off the top of the Bayeux cathedral and was dropping like a stone. She swayed on her feet and had to put a hand out to brace herself, or she would have fallen for real.

  The boy might not have understood what was happening, but Samira did.

  The Nazis were making the prisoners dig their own grave before they shot them.

  Samira leaned against the tree at her back, her mind reeling. Her mother was digging her own grave. The horror of it threatened to swallow her whole. She had until her mother and the others were finished digging to figure something out, or this glade in the woods would be their final resting place.

  And probably hers too.

  Samira wiped the tears from her eyes, and as she blinked her focus back, she saw something strange at the bottom of a tree a few meters away.

  It was a green helmet.

  Samira frowned. What was a lone helmet doing all the way out here in the woods so far from anything? Slowly, dully, she put the pieces together. The Nazis wore gray helmets, not green. This one had a different shape from theirs too.

  It was an Allied soldier’s helmet.

  Samira’s heart leaped, but then reality set in. No Allied soldier was hiding anywhere nearby. He would have picked up his helmet and worn it. But where had it come from? And what had happened to the soldier? An idea, a recent memory, began to tickle the back of Samira’s brain, and her eyes went up the tree trunk. Up, up, up—until she saw a parachute caught in the tree.

  And dangling from it was another Rupert!

  Butterflies flitted in Samira’s chest as a plan began to form. She put Cyrano on the ground and whispered, “Stay. Stay here, Cyrano. Good dog.” And without a moment’s more hesitation, she ran for Rupert’s tree.

  The dummy wasn’t making battle sounds, the way the other Rupert had been. Samira worried that meant it wasn’t like the other one, that it did different things—or nothing at all. But Rupert was her last, best hope right now.

  Samira grabbed a low branch and swung her legs up. Through the trees, she saw her mother, a shovel in her hand and already a foot lower in the ground, looking straight at Samira. Kenza Zidane’s eyes were wide, and she shook her head once, quickly, so that Samira would see but the Nazis guards wouldn’t.

  Samira’s mother didn’t understand. And Samira had no time to explain.

  A Nazi guard walked over and gestured for Samira’s mother to get back to work. He turned to look in the direction that Samira’s mother had been looking, but Samira was already gone, climbing up and around the backside of the tree. She wished she could comfort her mother. Let her know she had a plan. But Samira wasn’t even sure it would work.

  She just had to try.

  Higher and higher Samira climbed, until she came face-to-face with the dummy. This one had RUPERT stenciled across his chest too, and she decided to call him Rupert Two.

  “All right, Rupert Two,” she whispered. “Why aren’t you singing?”

  Samira slid her hands over Rupert’s jacket, being careful not to dislodge him from the tree—or activate anything explosive inside him. The end of a red wire peeked out from inside Rupert Two’s collar, and Samira felt a little flicker of hope. Down below, the prisoners were still digging, but she didn’t know how much time she had. She quickly unbuttoned Rupert’s jacket, revealing a small black satchel on his chest. It was the thing that made the sound effects! Samira opened the satchel and saw a place inside where a wire could have been attached but wasn’t.

  If she connected the wire, would it play the battle sounds? Or would connecting the wire make Rupert Two explode? Samira was no engineer. All she knew was that there was a disconnected wire and a place where one could be attached. And she needed Rupert Two and his virtual army.

  Samira held her breath and connected the wire.

  Bang! KaBOOM! Rat-tat-tat-tat!

  Rupert Two erupted in an explosion of sound, and Samira was so surprised she nearly lost her grip. Rupert Two hadn’t exploded for real though. He was doing his other job—tricking the Nazis into thinking there was a battle raging nearby.

  And it was working. Samira watched through the leaves as the Nazi soldiers and the prisoners all ducked, wondering where the fighting had come from all of a sudden. One of the soldiers barked for the prisoners to keep digging and stayed to guard them with the machine gun. The other guard, the one with the rifle, went off to investigate. The rifleman couldn’t see Samira yet, and he sneaked from tree to tree as he went, afraid there was a real battle going on nearby.

  It had worked! Samira grinned from ear to ear. She’d gotten one of the Nazi soldiers to leave the prisoners!

  But then the smile left Samira’s face. Rupert Two had done what he was supposed to do: lure one of the Nazi soldiers away. But that meant the Nazi soldier was coming right for Samira, trapped up here in a tree.

  Samira fumbled for the knife the British soldier had given her. It wasn’t for the Nazi soldier. There was no way she could do anything to hurt the rifleman with her dagger.

  The knife was for Rupert Two.

  Samira attacked the strings connecting Rupert Two to his parachute. Snip! Snip! Snip! The British paratrooper, Clarke, had been right—the knife was sharp. It cut through the cords with ease. As each one was cut, Rupert Two twisted and jerked, dropping another few centimeters. The Nazi soldier was getting closer. Any second now, he would be right beneath the tree where Samira was hiding, where the crashing battle sound effects were still booming from inside the pouch under Rupert Two’s uniform. The Nazi would look up, and he would see her there in the tree, would understand that there were no real Allied soldiers here, and he would take aim at her with his rifle and—

  Snip! Samira cut another cord, and she jumped as Rupert Two shot down through the branches, his parachute whipping down through the tree behind him. The dummy tumbled as it fell, hitting branch after branch, and Samira held her breath, waiting for the explosion. The Nazi soldier looked up to see Rupert Two falling right toward him. The rifleman cried out and threw a hand up, but he was too slow to move out of the way. Rupert Two landed right on top of him, knocking hi
m to the ground.

  And nothing happened.

  No explosion.

  The Nazi and Rupert Two lay in a heap together, and the parachute fluttered down on top of them both. The battle sound effects weren’t playing anymore—the wire must have come loose again in the fall, Samira thought. The rifleman kicked and cursed and tried to fight his way out from under the dummy and the parachute and the cords, but still Rupert Two didn’t explode.

  Any second now, the Nazi would be free.

  Samira didn’t know what to do. Climb down? Climb up? She had expected the dummy to explode. She had needed the dummy to explode. Instead, all she had done was kick the wasp’s nest.

  The Nazi soldier fought his way free of the parachute, and his eyes met Samira’s. He glowered at her, angry at being tricked, mad at having a dummy and a parachute dropped on him, and he reached for his rifle. Still lying on his back, the German soldier lifted his weapon, found Samira in his rifle sights, and pulled the trigger.

  Yip!

  At the same moment the German soldier fired, Cyrano came flying in and clamped his tiny jaws around the man’s wrist.

  Pakow!

  The rifleman’s shot went wide, splintering a branch just to the right of Samira’s head, and he cursed again. He struggled with the parachute cords and with Cyrano, trying to get to his feet. Off in the distance, Samira could see the rifleman’s shot had gotten the attention of the second Nazi soldier, who was coming their way.

  As a distraction, she and Cyrano and Rupert Two had done a bang-up job. But now what?

  “Hang on, Cyrano!” Samira yelled. “I’m coming!”

  The little dog growled and bit down harder, thrashing back and forth as the Nazi rifleman cried out in pain. He let go of his rifle and tried to pull Cyrano away.

  Samira dropped from branch to branch as quickly as she dared. There was a long way to go. And what was she going to do when she got there? She had no idea. She still had the dagger, at least.

  Just as she thought about the knife, and what she might have to do with it, Samira’s foot slipped. She reached out in a panic for another branch to steady herself and caught it—but the knife went tumbling from her hands. She watched in horror as it bounced and caromed off branches all the way down, then skittered away on the forest floor, disappearing into the undergrowth.

  Samira had no weapon now. No chance against two Nazi soldiers with guns.

  Samira clambered down the rest of the way, her heart hammering in her chest. The last branch to the ground was a drop, and she landed feet-first but tumbled back on her bottom with an oof.

  When she looked up, the second Nazi, the one with the machine gun, had run up and was standing right over her.

  Samira closed her eyes and curled up into a ball, trembling.

  WANG!

  Samira felt a thump on the ground and opened her eyes.

  The German soldier with the machine gun lay unconscious at her feet, and her mother, Kenza Zidane, stood over him with a shovel in both hands.

  Samira’s mother tossed her shovel aside and picked up the machine gun the unconscious Nazi soldier had dropped. She swung it toward the rifleman, who was still struggling with Cyrano and the parachute.

  “Enough,” she said in French. “It’s over.”

  The German soldier understood enough to stop struggling and put his hands up. Cyrano seemed to understand too, and he let go of the soldier’s wrist and backed away, still growling, still watchful. Samira’s mother picked up the Nazi’s rifle and slung it over her shoulder.

  Samira stood and flew at her mother, wrapping her in a hug.

  “Maman!” Samira cried.

  “Love of my life,” Samira’s mother said. She hugged Samira back as best she could while still aiming the machine gun at the soldier. “You did a foolish thing, coming here when I told you not to,” she said. “But a brave one too,” she added, and Samira’s heart soared. Foolish or not, brave or not, it had worked, and that’s all that really mattered to Samira. Her mother was safe!

  And so were the other prisoners. They came up behind Kenza Zidane, mothers and grandparents hugging their young ones, many of them crying. They all knew now how close they had come to dying, and the relief in their faces was heartbreaking.

  Samira waved her mother and the others back. “Be careful—the dummies on the parachutes, they explode!” Samira said.

  The German soldier who’d been struggling with the parachute understood enough French to freeze, suddenly horrified by the burlap dummy he lay beside. Samira’s mother and the others moved back, leaving him alone with the explosive.

  “Get yourself out of there,” Kenza told the German soldier. “When he’s free,” she told the others, “if he doesn’t blow up, tie him to the tree.”

  “You’re not going to kill him?” one of the old men among the prisoners said. “They were about to shoot us and bury us in a mass grave!”

  “And if we kill him now, we’d be no better,” Samira’s mother said. “We’ll leave him for the Allied soldiers. The invasion began this morning.”

  “It’s true! They’ve been parachuting in and coming in on gliders all night,” Samira said. “That’s why all the German soldiers left Bayeux. They’re running away!”

  That caused a flurry of conversation among the prisoners.

  “Move,” Samira’s mother told the Nazi soldier.

  Very slowly, very carefully, the German rifleman slid out from under the parachute and away from Rupert Two. The dummy didn’t explode, and when the rifleman was clear, some of the women tied him and the unconscious German soldier to the tree with belts and bootlaces.

  Cyrano yipped excitedly, making Samira scared that some other Nazi soldier had found them. But his tail wagged furiously and he barked happily as he tore through the crowd, into the outstretched arms of a little girl half Samira’s age.

  “Froufrou!” she cried, and the tiny dog licked her face all over.

  Froufrou? Samira had given the dog the name Cyrano because she didn’t know what his real name was, and over the last few hours he’d become Cyrano for her. But his real name was Froufrou, apparently, and he too had rescued his family. Samira felt a tinge of sadness at his sudden abandonment, but she understood. The girl and her mother were his real family. Cyrano and Samira had just been temporary Allies with a common goal.

  “What do we do now?” one of the woman prisoners asked.

  “If the Nazis really have abandoned Bayeux, it’s probably safest to go back there. For now,” Samira’s mother said, and everyone agreed. Samira’s mother kept the machine gun for herself and gave the rifle to one of the old men, and together they began the tired, wary walk back to the city. Along the way, Samira held her mother’s hand tight. She wasn’t sure she was ever going to let go again.

  Her mother squeezed her hand, and Samira laid her head against her mother’s side.

  “I didn’t think I would be able to save you,” Samira told her mother. “Everywhere I went, I met people who could help. But they all said no. The French Resistance, the Allied soldiers, the people of Bayeux. No one would help me.”

  “But they did,” Samira’s mother said. “No one of them saved us, but each of them, in their own way, they did the jobs they were supposed to do, which allowed you to do your job: rescue me and all these people. You’re a hero, Samira Zidane, and I’m proud of you.”

  Samira glowed.

  As they walked, Samira felt a playful nip at her heels. It was Cyrano! Saying hello to let her know he hadn’t forgotten her.

  “You are a very good dog, Cyrano,” Samira told him. She still couldn’t bring herself to call him Froufrou.

  “What do we do now?” Samira asked her mother.

  For the past three years, she and her mother had worked for the French Resistance. But now it seemed like the war was over.

  “There is still much work to be done, love of my life,” Samira’s mom said. “The war isn’t finished. Not by a long way. If the invasion is successful, and I pr
ay that it is, we here in Normandy may soon be safe. But there is still the rest of France and all of Europe and our homeland in Algeria and many other places left to be freed. We will continue to resist when we need to.”

  Samira nodded. “And what about today?” she asked.

  Her mother smiled. “Today, we will welcome our liberators into Bayeux, and help them where and how we can. And then, Samira, I believe we have earned ourselves a good night’s sleep.”

  To read more about Samira, pick up Alan Gratz’s novel Allies!

  Welcome to D-Day: The biggest, most top-secret operation ever, with the Allied nations coming together—by land, sea, and air—to storm German-occupied France. Dee, a young U.S. soldier, is on a boat racing toward the French coast. Behind enemy lines in France, a girl named Samira works as a spy, trying to sabotage the German army. Meanwhile, paratrooper James leaps from a plane to join a daring raid. And Henry, a medic, goes out into the bullets and bombs, searching for soldiers to save. But with betrayals and deadly risks at every turn, can the Allies do what it takes to win?

  Turn the page for a sneak peek!

  Dee Carpenter’s foot slipped off the wet ladder and his stomach lurched into his throat. He scrabbled for a handhold, but the weight of his pack and his rifle dragged him down. At the same instant, a gap opened up between the huge transport ship he was leaving and the little motorboat he was supposed to be climbing into. Dee dropped like a stone toward the cold black water of the English Channel.

  A hand shot out and caught the pack on Dee’s back. Dee jolted, then swung into the side of the ship with a thump.