Fire in the Hills by Donna Jo Napoli Page A

pregnant belly, they tipped their military hats and went on.
    The woman had told Lupo that pregnancy put a woman beyond suspicion, but he hadn’t really believed it—not till now. He knew enough of war to suspect anyone and everyone. Why didn’t those German soldiers know the same?
    The wagon made slow progress, though they didn’t stop except once, to eat. The roads wound through hills, past small towns. Trees bloomed white and pink and purple everywhere. Grasslands waved red with poppies. Lupo’s arms and legs flexed. So much pent-up energy. He wanted to be back on Rina’s farm, hoeing, planting, working himself into physical exhaustion. Riding in this pokey wagon made him feel half-mad.
    That night Volpe Rossa and Lupo slept in another barn, fed by more good people, as Volpe Rossa called them. The pregnant woman slept in this new farmhouse, with the family. At dawn, she got on a bicycle to ride back. It wasn’t one from the wagon—no, those had to stay put, as props for their act if Germans stopped them. This bicycle was extra, for general use. It was a good system; someone rode a bike in one direction, and then left it; someone else soon came along and rode it back in the other direction.
    The pregnant woman said she’d get home by afternoon. Lupo watched till she rounded a curve, out of sight.
    The new farm woman turned to Lupo with a circumspect smile. “You haven’t developed a stomach for this yet, eh? Don’t worry. She’s far enough along that if she needs help, anyone will give it. And she’s not so far along that an upset will cause a premature delivery. We’re careful that way. We’ve learned the limits.”
    They’d learned. Oh, Lord, the price of lessons.
    The next day started as a repeat of the last, only this woman wasn’t pregnant. She was remarkably pretty, though. And she unbraided Volpe Rossa’s hair and brushed it shiny and fluffy and dressed her in clean clothes.
    They hadn’t been on the road an hour when a pair of Nazi officers stopped them. The Germans spoke good Italian, and the Italian girls flirted outrageously. They could both have careers in cinema after the war, Lupo was sure.
    One of the Germans asked Volpe Rossa, “What do you want most, a girl like you?”
    Volpe Rossa put prayer hands together at her chin, as though in thought. “A piece of cake. And, oh, yes”—she curled a shoulder forward coquettishly, like Lupo had watched her do before—“with whipped cream.”
    The officers laughed and talked in German about how foolish Italians were. They gave the girls German sausages and stale pastries, then left with a lustful backward leer.
    When they were out of hearing distance, the farm woman laughed. “ Che schifo —what disgusting stuff,” she said as she scooped the soldiers’ food together.
    â€œWe could get hungry later,” said Lupo.
    â€œDon’t worry. I don’t throw anything away.”
    â€œYou never know what could be useful,” added Volpe Rossa.
    Later her words proved true. A German soldier, alone on a scooter, pulled them over and interrogated them without showing the least susceptibility to the girls’ charms. He was large and maybe forty years old. Stern and businesslike. He spoke only German, so Lupo had to be the one to deal with him.
    â€œWe’re delivering this wagon to a farmer,” said Lupo, in broken German. After all, how would a farm boy have learned good German?
    The soldier came around the back of the wagon. “Empty?” He jiggled a side hard. “Nothing hidden under here?” He brushed straw away and exposed a swath of the bottom—the false bottom.
    Volpe Rossa unwrapped the German food from that morning. “Here, here, brother,” she said to Lupo in Italian, twisting and passing him the food. “Please offer this fine man the food our friends prepared for us.”
    Lupo held the food