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best friends I’d ever had, all we did was eat lunch together at school, travel to music competitions once a year, and take the train to Herr Müller’s. Once, we stopped at the Christmas market on the way home from lessons to get crystal ornaments for our moms. But we never just gottogether for no reason like other girls did. I felt so close to them when we played a piece of music, especially a hard one we had really worked on. But they were strangers to me, too. And I wondered for the hundredth time what it was going to be like to choose a hometown and buy a house and live in one place forever. I wondered what kids were like who had never traveled.
    Dad hated it when I moped about army life. “We have good memories in a thousand places,” he’d say. “You can find your way in any size city or town. You can make a home for yourself anywhere, and that makes you a thousand times richer than those hometown Hannahs who’ve never gone a mile on their own.”
    He was right about getting around. My cousins in Chicago weren’t allowed to ride their own commuter train, even though the whole system was in English. I’d been riding the Berlin trains alone since I was ten, and Mom didn’t even check up on me to see if I’d made it to my music lesson.
    That’s it! I stood up and tapped Giselle on the shoulder. Vivian’s stop was coming up. “I’ve got an idea!” I said. “Get off here and we’ll talk.”
    Giselle grabbed her backpack and followed Vivian and me out onto the platform. The train door hissed shut behind us, and the train rumbled off to the south. I motioned them over to a bench.
    “We can say we’re going to Herr Müller’s,” I said. “To practice for the competition. It’s perfect! Our parents wantus to win, and they hate to talk to Herr Müller on the phone because of his accent.”
    There was a moment of silence while the girls digested my plan.
    “Plus they don’t know Herr Müller’s canceled yet, because he’s telling them in the letters he gave us,” I said, tapping the folder where I kept my sheet music.
    “And if we don’t give them the letter, they’ll still think we’re going,” Vivi added. “And it gives us a reason not just to get together, but to head back down in the direction of our wounded soldier’s bridge. Jody, you are a genius! Mom doesn’t care where I go, so long as I’m with people she knows.”
    “Ditto,” Giselle said. “Oh my gosh, this could really work. You two could leave your violins at home and fill your cases with clothes and other stuff our soldier needs.”
    “Look,” I said, “I can only bring food. Kyle and Tyler eat constantly, so Mom will never miss a jar of peanut butter, but no way am I stealing Dad’s clothes.”
    “No problem, I’ll get the clothes,” Giselle said. “My dad’s bigger than him, but better too big than too small.”
    “I’ll see what I can find out about foreign soldiers and if they have any protection from their own army,” Vivian said. “There are lots of law books in Mom’s study, and her secretary helps me with my homework all the time.”
    That would explain why her papers were always perfectlytyped and mine were full of cross-outs and my brothers’ jammy fingerprints.
    “Great. So we’ll meet after school tomorrow,” I said.
    Giselle and I hopped back on the train to Zehlendorf. It was even more crowded than before, so we stood without talking, but my head was buzzing with plans the whole way home.

walked the dozen blocks from the train stop to the enlisted apartment buildings. Usually I stopped at the PX for my favorite candy bar, but that day I went straight home. I strolled past the familiar places on base: the army hospital, the post office, the day care, and then the motor pool. All the HAZMAT trucks were lined up by the gate with their engines running, and a bunch of guys stood around in those horribly hot-looking rubber suits. Seems like they could have picked a less sunny day for a chemical