In its own strange way, he imagined it would be like the last day before your execution. Almost everything he knew would be gone for ever. The only thing the Ostermanns would be keeping from their previous life was their grandma. Alex didn’t know what she would think about them escaping. Perhaps she’d feel they had abandoned her and fret about not having them close by in case she got ill and needed help. But once they’d settled there, she could come out and join them. Alex sat in his room, filled with a sadness he did not really understand. Perhaps life would have been easier if he’d just kept his head down and gone along with it all? Sorting through his things he found a small box with all his enamel Young Pioneer badges, glistening gold and red, and thought how proud he’d been to receive them. In her bedroom next door Geli was looking at her Jugendweihe collection – the youth coming of age ceremony she had been through when she was fourteen. She had no scruples about leaving any of it behind.
