Recap: Akiva and his cousin Estee and his older brother Betzalel are caught in the Alaskan earthquake of 1964. A lamp gets knocked over and now the house is on fire…
I don’t know how long we were sitting there. There was no sign of any police coming and we were both feeling very cramped. The sun was starting to set.
“I think we should go back down,” I whispered. “There’s no sign of police or of those terrorists.”
“The terrorists won’t give up.”
“Why didn’t the police come?” I asked.
“It’s, well, it does sound a bit farfetched, our story. Maybe they didn’t believe it?”
“So, what do we do now?”
“Let’s go back to your aunt’s house. Maybe she heard from our contact. Oh, we better go retrieve that envelope.”
We shimmied noiselessly down the tree and headed back towards the Neuman house. We stayed behind trees and bushes the whole way.
We finally reached the Neuman backyard. Shaindy wasn’t outside anymore, but her little brother was outside shooting baskets in a mini-basketball hoop.
“Can you get your sister?” I asked him.
The little boy trotted over to the door and ran inside.
A few minutes later Shaindy appeared.
“We need the envelope that I gave you,” I said.
“Oh.” She just stood there.
“Please hurry and get it, “ I said, glancing around. I didn’t like being out in the open yard like this.
“I-I can’t.”
“Why not?” A terrible thought crossed my mind. Maybe the terrorists had found out where we were and got here first and took the envelope. But how would they have known?
Shaindy still stood there not moving.
“Shaindy, we need the envelope back. Please go get it,” I urged.
“I can’t!”
“Why not?” Jordie asked quietly.
Shaindy looked down at her feet.
“Did you give it to someone else?” he asked.
She shook her head.
“So, why can’t you give it back?”
“I-I colored on it,” she mumbled.
That was a relief.
“That’s okay,” Jordie said. “Just please bring it out to Akiva now.”
She ran inside and reappeared a few minutes later. She held it out to me.
“I’m sorry.”
“It’s fine,” I said. “Now what?”
Shaindy had colored a design all over the Arabic lettering.
“Did you open it?” I asked.
She shook her head.
“Thanks, Shaindy. You did a big mitzvah.”
I waved to her and slid the envelope under my shirt, and we continued our race back to Aunt Ellie’s house.
The sun was setting. I needed to daven Minchah, but we were in danger. I hoped we would make it to Aunt Ellie’s in time for me to daven. We really needed Hashem’s help.
The last rays of sun were disappearing behind the trees and Jordie told me to stop.
“We have to get to my aunt’s so I can daven Minchah,” I said.
“Your aunt left a message. I just listened to it.”
He whispered. “She said not to go to your house. It’s not safe. A taxi is coming to the corner of Elm and Henderson in five minutes. He knows the code words. We have to ask him for the code and then we can get it. He’ll give us the next instructions. Hashem should be with you,” she said.
A taxi? Next instructions? I felt like I was in a spy novel or something. “Come on,” Jordie whispered. “Do you know where that is?”
I nodded and he followed me as we continued staying behind trees and bushes the whole way. It was only a few blocks from my aunt’s house.
We stayed behind some bushes until we saw a white car with a taxi service logo on the driver’s door pull up.
“How do we know if it’s the right taxi?”
Jordie peered around the bushes. “It looks like it. I’ll know if he says the code.”
We opened the back door of the car. The driver turned around. He was wearing dark glasses and a cap. Stav, choref, aviv,” he said. I translated the Hebrew words in my head into English.
Fall, winter, spring – that must be the code, I mused.
“Kayitz,” Jordie responded. He was saying “summer.”
“Quick, get in,” the driver said.
In seconds, we were zooming towards Main Street. The taxi kept driving.
“Where are we going?” I asked.
The driver didn’t answer until we had entered the highway.
“I’m taking you to the airport. I have your boarding passes for Israel.”
“Israel!”
Whoah! I couldn’t believe we were suddenly heading to Israel! My neck muscles tightened.
“You will check in and go on the direct El Al flight.”
“Be careful to keep it hidden.”
We both knew what “it” was. I fingered it under my shirt.
“Where will we go when we get to the airport in Israel?” I asked.
Jordie seemed totally nonplussed by this strange turn of events. I guessed he was more used to this kind of spy stuff than me.
My heart was thumping like crazy. I’d never been to Israel before, but that wasn’t why I was scared. I was scared of the people who were trying to get the information we had. What if they caught up with us?
“When you get off the plane, there will be someone who will tell you the code. He will direct you where to go.
The driver played some loud Middle Eastern music and it appeared he didn’t have anything else to say to us.
When we entered the airport, he handed Jordie an envelope. “It has the boarding passes and the cash for you to buy what you need. Hatzlachah!” he said.
There we were, heading into the airport towards the EL AL International Terminal with our knapsacks – no suitcases and no idea exactly where we were going once we got to Israel.
To be continued…
Susie Garber is the author of an historical fiction novel, Flight of the Doves (Menucha Publishing, 2023), Please Be Polite (Menucha Publishers, 2022), A Bridge in Time (Menucha Publishing, 2021), Secrets in Disguise (Menucha Publishers, 2020), Denver Dreams (a novel, Jerusalem Publications, 2009), Memorable Characters…Magnificent Stories (Scholastic, 2002), Befriend (Menucha Publishers, 2013), The Road Less Traveled (Feldheim, 2015), fiction serials and features in Binah Magazine and Binyan Magazine, “Moon Song” in Binyan (2021-2022), and Alaskan Gold ( 2023-2024).
