Birdie on the Rhine

Chapter One Chapter two Chapter three Chapter four Chapter five Chapter six Chapter seven Chapter eight Chapter nine Chapter ten Chapter eleven Chapter twelve Chapter thirteen Chapter fourteen Chapter fifteen Chapter sixteen Chapter seventeen Chapter eighteen Chapter nineteen Chapter twenty Chapter twenty-One Chapter twenty-two Chapter twenty-three Chapter twenty-four Chapter twenty-five Chapter twenty-six Chapter twenty-seven Chapter twenty-eight Chapter twenty-nine Chapter thirty Chapter thirty-one Chapter thirty-two Chapter thirty-three Chapter thirty-four Chapter thirty-five Chapter thirty-six Chapter thirty-seven Chapter thirty-eight Chapter thirty-nine Chapter forty Chapter forty-one About the Author Birdie ON THE RHINE Book 2 of the Birdie Abroad Series Heidi Williamson This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. Originally published as Birdie at the Castle under the pen name Heidi English. Copyediting by The Blue GarretBook Cover Design by ebooklaunch.com Published by Flyaway Ink Creative Copyright © 2023 Heidi Williamson All rights reserved. For Zach, Rachael, and Oliviathe original adventurers Dozens of villages dot the banks of the Rhine River in Germany, many with castles or fortress ruins to explore. — Marty McEntire, Europe for Americans Travel Guide Chapter One “Who made up this torture?” Birdie slid her sneaker across the dirt floor of the… what was it? A classroom, she supposed. But it was unlike any classroom she’d been in before. For starters, it was enormous, with windowless stone walls that climbed three stories to an arched ceiling overhead. The air was cold and damp, and what meager light there was puddled under electric wall sconces that flickered like candles. Besides, it was summer, thank you very much. She shouldn’t be in a classroom at all. She rolled her eyes toward the sky, which had to be out there somewhere beyond the thick stones, blue and cloudless, the last of the morning rain chased off by an eager wind. “I cannot believe this is happening.” She slipped her pack from her shoulders and dug for her jacket. She wasn’t sure whether to laugh or cry. “Oh, it is happening.” The voice cracked behind her, making her jump and nearly drop the pack. She hugged it close as a teenage boy marched past, clipboard in hand. He was older, with blond hair and brown eyes that were set too close together in his gaunt face. His crisp shorts and a button-down shirt made him look like a walking ad for private school. Where had he come from? She scanned the room but saw only the medieval doors at the top of the stairs. A few minutes earlier, the woman from the ticket kiosk had used a skeleton key to unlock one of them, shown her inside, and then left, allowing the wooden door to drift closed with a thud, taking the sunshine with it. Had he been hiding in the shadows? “Come,” he said, the word clipped and accented with German. “Follow me.” Birdie didn’t move. “Where are we going?” He raised a brow. “And who are you?” she asked. His straight shoulders slumped. “We are going just there.” He pointed across the cavernous room to a rough-hewn table that stretched nearly half its length. Skinny chairs lined both sides. Empty skinny chairs. As if signing her up for history camp at a ruined fortress in middle-of-nowhere Germany wasn’t bad enough, her mother had dropped her off early. She willed the dirt floor to split open and swallow her whole. “My name is Friedrich. I am head counselor of Camp Rheinfels.” He clicked on a penlight at the top of his clipboard and skimmed a sheet of paper. “There will be others, of course. They will arrive soon. Because you are early, you can begin by sorting the costumes.” “Wait. Did you say… costumes?” Friedrich nodded once, crisply, but didn’t look up. “Yes. But first, your name, please?” “Birdie Blessing.” He glanced up from the clipboard then, lifting his eyes just enough to see if she was messing with him. She recognized the look. A name like Birdie always got looks. His gaze was sharp as he took in her long dark hair, her hazel eyes, and her height, which was shorter than his by more than half a foot. He must have determined she was serious because he twisted his lips and returned to his clipboard. He ran a mechanical pencil along the list of names on the sheet of paper. “Yes, here you are. The last one. Did you sign up just now?” “Apparently.” “Age?” “Fifteen.” He scratched it on the paper. “State?” “Uh, Pennsylvania?” He nodded, jotting again. Then he used the pencil tip to point to a pile of fabric at the far end of the table. “Start there. You must separate the costumes into types – dresses, pants, shirts, vests, aprons. There may be a bit of chainmail. I will return shortly.” He clicked off the penlight, then sprinted up the stone staircase. When he reached the top, he used both hands to open one of the heavy doors just enough to slink through. Birdie caught a flash of blue sky and sunshine before the door thudded shut again, leaving the sconces as the only source of light. A shiver ran up her spine as her eyes readjusted to the gloom. What had this room been? Did she even want to know? She tried to visualize the map she’d seen in her mom’s tour book, Marty McEntire’s Europe for Americans Travel Guide . Not the dungeon. No, that had been on the other side of the fortress. She turned in a slow circle, attempting to get her bearings. She’d been too mad about getting shuffled off to camp to take in the scenery on the drive up the hill. And once her mom dropped her off, she’d been ushered unceremoniously down here without so much as a “Guten Morgen.” Not that it had been a Guten Morgen