We´ve got to stick together

As I kept reading, I discovered that the airman in the hay barn woke up and resulted to be a Canadian bomber named Peter Kamm that had a Swiss mom and a Canadian dad. His plane was attacked and he had to jump from it in a parachute and landed not so far from the farmhouse. Lizzie fell in love with Peter and Peter fell in love with Lizzie. Mutti was very angry at Peter and she didn’t want that he spoke to her children nor that her children spoke to him and she didn’t want him to escape from the house because she wanted to turn him in to the police. The next day, Lizzie took Marlene down to the stream so she could drink some water when she suddenly heard Mutti screaming and a moment later she heard Karli screaming. Karli had fell into the lake! Peter told Lizzie to quickly get a rope, then he put the rope around Karli’s arms and pulled him up from the water. At first, Karli looked like he was dead, but Peter pumped the water out of his body until Karli woke up again. After that, Mutti trusted Peter more so she let the kids talk to him. Then they sat down to eat potato soup that Mutti had made but there was a knock on the door. It was three soldiers from the German army that were looking for a parachutist. The sergeant asked for their names and Mutti said them and also said that Karli, Elizabeth and Peter were her children. They also asked for Peter’s age and why he wasn’t in the army. Peter said he was 21 and then Karli interrupted and said that he had asthma like him, and that was the reason Peter was not fighting in the war. After the soldiers went to the hay barn and saw Marlene, and then left with excitement, Peter and Mutti decided that it was better for them to reach the Americans together and Karli and Lizzie agreed. They were all a new family, Mutti, Lizzie, Karli, Peter and of course Marlene. After packing all what they needed, the began their journey going west.

“I remember standing there in Aunt Lotti´s kitchen watching this confrontation, and feeling very confused. I could not understand how Mutti could be like this. It seemed to me to be so hypocritical. All my life she had made herself out to be this ardent pacifist, always speaking out against the war - after all, there had been a huge rift in our family because of it - and now here she was full of unforgiving anger, and hateful, vengeful even, towards someone who may have been in the uniform of our enemy, but who was trying all he could to be kind and conciliatory and helpful.” (p.110)

I chose this quote because it shows how the arrival of the airman affected both Lizzie and Mutti. Mutti changed a lot because of Peter, she was scared and wanted to protect her children. Mutti's behavior made Lizzie feel bad for Peter, she wanted to give him a second chance because the bombing was not his fault. Peter was also very ashamed and regretted being part of the horrible bombing.

“What is done is done. The past is behind us. You are family know, one of us. And I have been thinking. You were right when you told Elizabeth we should stick together and help one another.” (p.128)

 

After Peter had saved Karli, I think that Mutti forgave Peter and recognized that they shouldn’t be enemies because that would have kept them from finding the Americans. This problem also happens in real life, and if you are constantly mad at someone, it can lead to more problems and confrontations. Besides, it was not fair for Karli and Lizzie to see people fighting all the time.

 

There are some lessons that this book teaches you which you can use in real life, for example not judging people before you really know them and finding a solution together to a problem like I already talked about earlier. What I believe is going to happen next in the book is that the new family is going to continue their journey but I don´t think they are going to reach the Americans because they are too far away, Peter said that in 4 or 5 weeks they were going to meet. Peter and Lizzie, I think, are going to make their relationship bigger since they both like each other. And when it comes to Mutti and Karli, they are not going to leave Marlene alone. I hope you are enjoying my blog and the summaries of the book as much as I am. 


I think that Kelly Clarkson´s song "People Like Us" connects to this part of the book because it talks about sticking together and not giving up and the video shows how people judge other people.
 

A Big Surprise

On February 9th, 1945, Lizzie turned 16 years old and her mother had a surprise for her. It was Marlene! She was going to stay in their garden at night and return to the zoo in the day. Everything was wonderful with Marlene until a German shepherd came. The dog always barked at Marlene and to fight back, she followed him across the garden trumping and moving her ears, but nothing worked to make the dog go away, not even talking to the owner. One night Marlene got so upset that Mutti decided to take her for a walk and Karli and Lizzie joined them, but as soon as they reached the park, the German shepherd appeared and Marlene began to chase him. Mutti tried to chase Marlene, but she was going so fast and so far away, that Mutti couldn’t chase her anymore, she couldn’t even see her. As all that was happening, the air raid began to sound, the bombers had arrived. Mutti told Lizzie and Karli that they had to get to the shelter and that they couldn’t do anything to find Marlene but Karli wanted to find her so he began to run after her. Mutti and Lizzie ran after him and when they caught up with him, bombs began to fall and Dresden was in flames. They ran away as fast as they could from the city like many other people that lived there. As they ran, they heard the sound of shooting, they were killing the animals from the zoo. They kept moving on, maybe not running but walking, until Marlene appeared! It was a miracle! With Marlene, they reached a forest were Mutti told them that the forest was a shortcut to Uncle Manfred and Aunt Lotti’s house. Papi and Mutti had had a big fight with Uncle Manfred and Aunt Lotti but Mutti was sure they would welcome them in their house, because of the bombing. A couple of days later, they reached the house but it looked deserted so they began to look after their Aunt and Uncle. They searched all over the farmhouse and in the stables and didn’t find anything but when they opened the hay barn, there was a man lying there that looked asleep or even dead. Mutti was almost sure that he was an airman from the British army.

“I did sense in her eyes the depth of the grief she was still suffering after the loss of her mother. And without my ever saying anything, I knew she understood all my fears, about Papi, about the bombers that might come any day now, about the war.” (p. 64)

What this quote shows is how Lizzie felt after she had been alone with Marlene a couple of days after her arrival. Maybe, Lizzie had judged her wrong and didn’t give her a chance. When I read this I realized that they both connected and that they had one big thing in common, they felt lonely. However, it is good to know that there is someone that understands you and that you can trust.

“No! We can’t! We can’t leave her. We have to catch her! I’m going after her. You go home if you like. I’m not coming.” (p. 70)

With this quote, we can see how much Karli (that said the quote), loved Marlene. It was very important that Karli reached the shelter before the bombs began to fall but he wanted to find Marlene first and bring her to safety. And even though one of his legs limped, Karli ran as fast as he could after Marlene.

What I think is going to happen next in the book is that the man in the hay barn is going to wake up and stay in the farmhouse as well as Karli, Lizzie, Mutti, and Marlene. I think that Uncle Manfred and Aunt Lotti are not at home because they wanted to escape from the bombers even though the bombers were only going to bomb the city. And although the family is passing through a hard time, Marlene seems to be helping them to pass through the pain.


I found this quote from Martin Luther King which I think connects very well to this part of the book because Marlene, Mutti, Karli and Lizzie had to walk day after day without eating, drinking water, and even without sleeping.

Life Changing Moments

The book I chose for my summer reading project this year is "An Elephant in the Garden" by Michael Morpurgo that talks about Lizzie, that lives in a nursing home for old people and likes to spend time with one of the nurses' nine year old son named Karl. He reminds her about her brother Karl that she called Karli. She constantly talks about an elephant when she is with Karl so she decides to tell him and his mother the story about the elephant. Her story begins in Dresden, Germany, in the time of the Second World War, were she used to live with her brother, mom, which everyone called Mutti, and her dad, that they called Papi. Papi was sent to fight the war in France and since then, Lizzie began to feel angry and lonely and Mutti began to work in a zoo with elephants. Mutti had been there at the birth of an  elephant, and because she was the only one present, the director of the zoo said that she was aloud to choose the elephant's name, and she named it Marlene. Marlene's mother had died one or two months after her birth. One evening, Lizzie was sitting in the garden, when Mutti came out and brought her a coat, then Mutti began to talk about Marlene, which she did a lot, and that made Lizzie feel, that her mom thought, that the elephant was more precious for her than Lizzie and Karli. She was so angry at Mutti that she told her to stop talking about Marlene, that there was a war going on and she was only thinking about the elephant and she said many other things to her. Mutti said that she had been talking so much about Marlene because she was worried about her because the zoo director said that when the bombing began in Dresden, the animals would not have were to hide and that they would escape from the zoo, causing more chaos than there was already happening with the bombing. The director also said that they would have to kill the carnivore animals and the elephants but Mutti could not stand the idea of having to see Marlene die. The next day, Lizzie and Karl were going to school when they heard the sounds of planes, German planes.


"Like Papi, I could no longer even take pleasure in Karli's playfulness. He went on joking and juggling just the same, with the world falling apart about us. I became more and more irritated with him, and Mutti too." (p. 33-34)

When I read this quote, I realized how Papi's absence affected Karli and Lizzie in different ways. Karli was just the same, playing and laughing as he almost always did. On the other hand, Lizzie felt lonely, sad, angry, and as she said on the quote, more irritated with other people. Her attitude made some people change in a small way and caused more fights in the family. With all that there was going on in her life, I understand that she was feeling that way, but maybe it would make things worse in the future. 


"I have had an idea, Elizabeth, in the night, a wonderful idea, a grand idea. A secret." (p. 43)

This was what Mutti told Lizzie one day before she was going to school. The author wrote this quote in a way that makes you want to keep reading and the words "wonderful" and "grand" make you know that somethings big is going to happen. I think that Mutti's idea is to take Marlene out of the zoo and keep her in the garden.



My prediction for the next chapters, as I said before, is that Mutti will take Marlene out of the zoo and keep her in the garden until the bombing begins. And when the bombing begins, Mutti, Karli, Lizzie and Marlene will have to escape to be safe. I´m not so sure about what is going to happen to Papi, if he is going to come back from the war or if he is going to die in the war. In conclusion, this book is very interesting so far and it shows you how the war affected not only people but also animals. It also shows you the problems that the Second World War caused and the crazy things people did to save someone they loved.