by Robert Elmer
THE YOUNG UNDERGROUND
#1/A Way Through the Sea
#2/Beyond the River
#3/Into the Flames
#4/Far from the Storm
#5/Chasing the Wind
#6/A Light in the Castle
#7/Follow the Star
#8/Touch the Sky
Touch the Sky
e-book copyright © 2012
Robert Elmer
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise—without the prior written permission of the author.
Originally published by Bethany House Publishers, Bloomington, Minnesota
Library of Congress Cataloging‑in‑Publication Data
Elmer, Robert.
Touch the sky / by Robert Elmer.
p. cm. — (The young underground ; 8)
Summary: In Denmark in 1946, thirteen‑year‑old Peter, his twin sister, Elise, and their friend Henrik find themselves involved in a sinister plot to keep a group of Jews from reaching what they hope will become their new homeland in Eretz Israel.
ISBN 1‑55661‑661‑9 (pbk.)
[1. Brothers and sisters—Fiction. 2. Christian life—Fiction. 3. Denmark—Fiction. 4. Mystery and detective stories.] I. Title. II. Series: Elmer, Robert. Young underground ; #8.
PZ7.E4794To 1997
[Fic]—dc21 97‑4733
CIP
To Joanie, Steve,
and their crew.
ROBERT ELMER has written several popular series for young readers, including the Young Underground, Promise of Zion, and Astrokids series. The Young Underground series was inspired by stories from Robert’s Denmark‑born parents, as well as friends who lived through the years of German occupation. He writes from his home in the Pacific Northwest (USA).
Table of Contents
1. Panic at Three Thousand Feet
2. No One Believes
3. Mystery Cargo
4. Secret Agent Ship
5. Rising Seas
6. Grandfather’s Idea
7. He Knows What We Look Like
8. The Gift
9. Someone’s Watching
10. Over the Next Hill
11. Danger on the Lake
12. He Got My Attention
13. Waiting Through the Night
14. Unwelcome Visitor
15. The Journey Continues
16. Danger on the Beach
17. Touch the Sky
18. Out of the Waters
19. To the Pilot
Epilogue: The Long Way Home
1
Panic at Three Thousand Feet
June 5, 1946
“It looks just like a toy castle,” thirteen‑year‑old Peter Andersen said above the roar of the engine. He pressed his nose against the window of the little red airplane, trying to get a better view of the ancient Danish city of Helsingør below in the bright June sunshine. In the front passenger seat, Peter’s best friend, Henrik Melchior, was doing the same thing.
“Look down there!” Henrik pointed. He was the same age as Peter, just not as skinny. Henrik looked more like an athlete. And Peter’s hair was blond, while Henrik’s was jet black—they were just like salt and pepper.
“There’s your grandpa’s boathouse,” observed Henrik, “and the Anna Marie!”
“I see it.” Peter smiled at the sight of the fishing boat belonging to his uncle and grandfather. “And up that way is our school, see?”
“Don’t remind me,” answered Henrik. “This is summer vacation, remember?”
Peter couldn’t forget. It was June 5, 1946, and they were free for the summer. No more school. The war was almost a distant memory. And this morning, if his stomach would just settle down, he would be able to enjoy his first airplane ride ever.
In the pilot’s seat of his De Havilland DH 80, Matthias Karlsson banked his plane down and to the right. His dark eyes sparkled, and he grinned beneath a neatly trimmed dark beard.
“Hold on, boys,” he told them. “We’ll make another loop so you can get a better look.”
Peter held tightly to the back of Henrik’s seat and wondered what would happen if the door suddenly popped open. If it did, there was nothing to hold him inside the cramped luggage compartment where he sat behind Henrik and Matthias, and it was a long way down.
“I’d let you steer, Henrik,” continued Matthias in his cheerful tone, “but I had the passenger‑side stick taken out a while back.”
“That’s okay.” Henrik moved his hand on an invisible steering stick just like Matthias, as if he were flying the plane. “I’ve been watching what you’re doing.”
“Really?” Matthias looked pleased.
“Sure. Push the stick forward and we go down, pull it back and we climb. And you use those pedals, too.”
Matthias nodded at his student.
“Then to go faster or slower you pull out that black knob on the dashboard.”
“And that compass thing in the middle...” Peter leaned over and pointed. “That shows which way we’re heading, or whether we’re going up or down, and that dial is for showing how fast—”
“Wait a minute!” Matthias laughed. “How did you boys learn so much about this plane already?”
Henrik leaned back. “We’ve been reading a few books.”
“Hmm.” Matthias looked down to the side. “Well, let’s get a closer look at the city.” He pushed the stick to the side once more, and Peter’s stomach seemed to stay behind in the clouds.
Take a deep breath, Peter, he told himself, feeling hot and cold at the same time. Don’t get sick your first time up. Matthias hadn’t told them what to do if they felt queasy, but maybe there was a bag somewhere in the back compartment where he was sitting. As Matthias pointed out more of the sights below, Peter quietly searched through the holder on the back of the seat in front of him.
He found a first‑aid kit, an apple and half a cookie in a paper sack, a couple of maps, and a bulky leather pouch. No air‑sickness bags. As his stomach made another loop, he searched almost frantically.
I’m either going to have to open a window, Peter thought, or use this leather pouch.
Silently, Peter pulled out and unzipped the leather pouch, then reached in to feel what was inside. His hand closed around something cold and metal. Without even looking, he knew he was holding a small handgun! He stopped, afraid to look down, but he was even more afraid to think Matthias might suspect what he was doing.
“Have you ever seen Kronborg Castle like this?” Matthias asked, glancing halfway over his shoulder at Peter.
Peter kept his hands down and dropped the gun back into the leather pouch as if it were red‑hot. His hand felt burned, and beads of sweat gathered on his forehead. Matthias gave him a second look, more concerned.
“Peter, are you okay?” The man looked from Peter to Henrik, then turned back to watch where they were going. “Henrik, check Peter out. I think he’s getting sick. He looks pale.”
“I’m fine,” Peter assured them, slipping the gun pouch carefully back into its place.
Why would Matthias have a gun? Peter wondered. There had to be a good explanation, but his mind only spun in confusion. For protection? From who? Matthias was just a man from Sweden, a Jewish friend of the Melchiors. The nice businessman who had helped them before and after Henrik’s father died. It didn’t make any sense that he would need a gun.
“Are you sure?” Henrik asked, looking at Peter the same way Matthias had a moment before. “You’re shaking.”
“I am not,” replied Peter, forcing a smile. He grippe
d the handle next to him even more tightly. “I’d tell you if I were getting sick. I’m not getting sick. My stomach was just feeling a little funny. I’m fine now.”
I am not sick, Peter told himself. And I am not going to get sick. Somehow he hoped his stomach would listen.
“Well, you boys tell me if you’re not feeling well,” Matthias said, “because I’m going to take us up a little higher. Is that all right, Peter?”
“Sure, I’m doing fine, I think.” Peter held his breath to keep from shaking.
“Okay then,” said Matthias, leaning back in his seat as the plane climbed upward. He pulled out the throttle even more, and the roar of the engine grew louder. “I want to show you something.”
“What’s that?” Henrik asked.
“We’re getting up to about three thousand feet,” the pilot said. “Now, look off in that direction.” He pointed out the window with his thumb. “South‑southeast, that is. What do you see, Henrik?”
Henrik looked over and through the window where Matthias was pointing. “Just the land. Denmark is pretty flat.”
Matthias grinned and nodded. “Right. But there’s something more, if only we could get up higher. That way, just two thousand miles to the south. Eretz Israel.”
“Air what?” Peter wasn’t sure what Matthias was saying, but it sounded like another of the Hebrew words the Jewish man liked to sprinkle into his conversations.
Matthias laughed. “Eretz Israel. ‘Eretz’ means ‘land’ in Hebrew. You know, Palestine. Our Jewish homeland.”
“Oh.” Henrik’s face fell. “You were kidding about being able to see it, then?”
“Sure, I was.” Matthias kept the plane climbing steadily. “But just think. Our own homeland, if we just have enough courage to claim it. Thousands of Jews are going there. You want to go there, too, don’t you?”
Henrik peered out the window again, as if he could decide simply by looking in the right direction. Kronborg Castle and the ocean were far below.
“That’s my homeland.” Henrik pointed straight down. “Right down there.”
“Let me tell you something, Henrik.” Matthias increased the speed and raised his voice to make himself heard. “The world is divided into two areas: countries where Jews cannot live, and countries where Jews cannot enter. Your father wanted to go to Palestine. We talked about it for hours when he was in the hospital last year, before he...” His voice trailed off, then he said more quietly, “Maybe you’ll change your mind soon.”
Henrik frowned for a moment, and the only sound was the droning of the airplane engine. Finally, Henrik’s face lightened when he looked out the window again.
“I don’t know about your Eretz Israel, Matthias,” Henrik said, “but I love this plane! Feels like we could fly right to the moon.”
Matthias grinned his agreement while Peter gripped the back of the seat in front of him once more. He thought about the gun, and his stomach churned even worse. He put his head down on his hands to keep from looking out the window.
“I know what you mean,” agreed Matthias.
They continued their climb, and Peter could feel the pressure on his chest like a giant hand.
“This little De Havilland was built for speed. I’ve clocked it at up to 125 miles an hour. And with the pontoons I put on, we can land on just about any body of water. In fact...”
Matthias paused for a moment, put his hand to his forehead, then shook his head as if he were getting dizzy. He looked over at Henrik and squinted. “In fact...” he repeated, but he could not seem to finish his sentence. His lips moved, but nothing came out. Then his eyes widened, and his head fell backward.
“Matthias!” Henrik screamed. “What are you doing? Are you all right?”
Matthias, however, was not answering. Peter grabbed the pilot’s shoulders to keep him sitting up, but he could do nothing to wake the man or keep his head from flopping backward like a rag doll. Not even a slap to his face helped.
Somehow, Matthias had kept his grip on the plane’s steering stick and had pulled it back even farther. Their plane seemed to be climbing straight into the sun; then they slowed to a crawl even while the engine roared as loudly as ever.
“Grab the stick!” Peter yelled to his friend.
As Henrik pulled Matthias’s hands free, the heavy feeling on Peter’s chest suddenly fell away. Peter frantically looked around to see where they were, but he couldn’t tell if they were right side up or upside down. For a moment, his stomach seemed to float, as if they were at the top of a roller‑coaster ride about to plunge down the first big hill.
“We’re falling backward!” Henrik yelled, gripping the stick awkwardly.
All Peter could do was hold fast to the unconscious pilot’s shoulders and pray as they spun wildly. It was as if they had come to the end of a giant rubber band and were being pulled back to earth, fluttering out of control.
“Steer!” Peter wasn’t sure how Henrik could do that from the passenger side and over the limp body of Matthias, but it was the only thing he could think of to say.
A second later, the airplane fluttered around, wobbly and uncertain. But instead of looking at dark blue sky out the front windshield, suddenly they saw the ocean far below. On the control panel, the compass was rocking and the hand on a dial was spinning madly. This time Peter was pinned back in his little seat by the sheer force of the fall while the water rushed closer and closer, filling his vision.
“Come on, Matthias!” Peter again shook the man’s shoulders. “Wake up, Matthias! Please. You have to wake up.”
Henrik still struggled with the steering stick. His hands shook, and sweat ran down his face.
“Pull back!” Peter screamed. He stared down at the water as it rushed closer and closer. Any minute, they would hit like an egg on concrete.
“I’m trying!” Henrik shouted, tugging even harder. “Come on, please...”
The plane jerked to the side, then seemed to slide sideways, then pulled into a long, looping glide.
“You did it!” whooped Peter, but they were still going down.
“Not... yet.” Henrik gritted his teeth and struggled with the controls to keep the plane upright. They were still hurtling nose down toward the water, only not spinning out of control anymore.
“I can’t do this.” Henrik looked as if he was about to cry. “I can’t land this thing. I can’t even keep it pointed straight.”
Peter would have tried to help, but he knew he couldn’t do any better. The airplane jerked and pulled and bobbed as if it had a mind of its own.
“Well, at least we have pontoons instead of wheels,” Peter said.
“Pontoons?”
“Floats.”
“That’s not going to do us any good when we crash. I’m sorry, Peter.”
Peter held his breath as they dropped out of the sky—more slowly now but just as surely. They were going to crash. Then suddenly, Matthias gave a jerk.
“He moved!” Peter shouted. “Keep this thing up just a little longer, can you?”
Just before they would have slammed into the ocean, Henrik somehow pulled up the nose, and the plane rolled up like a roller coaster. Peter held on even more tightly as he felt himself lifting out of his seat. Matthias’s head was jerked around, and he groaned. An instant later, his eyes were wide as he looked at the two.
“Matthias!” Henrik yelled at the man as he struggled to steer their bucking airplane. They were coming back down, and Peter could see their wing tip was about to catch a wave. If it did, he could imagine how they would tumble into the ocean.
Matthias was awake now. He looked confused, but he grabbed the control stick from the frightened Henrik, stomped at the rudder pedals, pulled back the nose of the airplane, and yanked out the throttle to full power. Peter could have reached out his side window and touched the top of a green, frothy wave, but he just hung on and ground his teeth together.
“What happened?” Matthias asked as they straightened out. He pulled them up and
around to the left, skimming smoothly over the shipyard buildings of Helsingør Harbor. A group of workers on their lunch break below looked up in surprise. “Last thing I remember, we were at three thousand feet.”
Peter looked at Henrik, waiting for his friend to say something. Henrik looked as pale as Peter felt.
“We thought you were...” Henrik whispered, trying to catch his breath.
Peter looked down at his hands and realized that he had been digging his fingernails into Matthias’s shoulders. One by one, he unhooked his fingers from the man’s brown leather jacket. But he didn’t want to look out the window anymore. He didn’t want to see anything else. He just wanted to stop the plane and get off as fast as he could.
“We thought you were dead,” finished Peter. “And Henrik was trying to fly the plane. You woke up just in time.”
“How long?” Matthias searched their faces. He glanced down at his wristwatch for a clue. “A minute? Two?”
“I don’t know, Matthias,” Henrik finally answered, crossing his arms and shivering. “But can we stop this thing now?”
“I am so sorry, boys.” Matthias shook his head. “This hasn’t happened to me since I was a little boy.”
“You just...” Henrik searched for the words. “You just fainted or something. Only we couldn’t wake you up.”
Matthias circled around so they could land in the still water of the harbor, the same stretch where they had taken off only an hour before.
“I am so sorry, boys,” he repeated. “You know I would never do anything to put you in danger, if I could help it, that is. I... ah... I just never thought I would pass out like that.”
“It’s not your fault,” Henrik told him.
Matthias only shook his head again. “Well, you see, it’s my heart. When I was young, they said I wasn’t going to live. I fainted a few times when I was a kid, but it hasn’t happened in a long time. The doctors told me I’d grown out of it. I guess maybe I haven’t.”
“Your heart?” asked Peter, looking over at Henrik. “You too?”
