Under the Same Stars by Libba Bray(116)

“No. Not okay, Lena. If we’re caught, it’s prison for all of us,” Zehra says.

“We won’t get caught,” Lena promises.

The banging comes again, more insistent. Lena opens her shirt to bare her chest as she hops up and unlocks it. “Ja? What do you want? We’re getting ready,” she grunts to the wide-eyed punk boy staring at her breasts.

“Uhh … Sophie Scholl?”

“Ja.”

“Sie sind als n?chstes dran. Die andere Band ist ein No-Show.”

“Scheisse. Okay. Okay,” Lena says, buttoning up. She kicks the door shut.

“What is it?” Jenny asks.

“The other band didn’t show. We are on now.”

“Fantastic. We are about to play our first and last gig before we are arrested and I don’t even have my eyeliner on,” Anke snarks.

“Was is das?” Andreas asks.

“Nichts. Kleine Ver?nderung,” Lena soothes. She turns to the girls. “So we play first and then I go with Andreas while you cross back over. Easy.”

“Stop saying that, Lena!” Anke barks as she slaps on liner and lipstick.

“What, easy?” Lena lifts her hair into spikes with the shaving cream. “Easy, easy, easy!” she sings.

Anke tosses her eyeliner. It accidentally hits Zehra, who stops shredding her fishnets to issue an irritated “Ach!”

Anke glares at Lena in the nailed-up mirror. “Fick dich, Lena!”

Lena slips on her rubber bracelets. “Sorry. Wir haben keine Zeit.” We don’t have time.

Anke shoves Lena hard and they fall to the floor in a murderous tangle of angry limbs. Anke lands a punch to Lena’s nose. “Ow! Scheisse!” Lena says, and grabs a tight handful of Anke’s hair, making her yelp.

“Stop!” Jenny screams, even though she’d like to punch Lena, too.

“You selfish bitch!” Anke says. She grabs hold of Lena’s shirt. It rips down the front.

Lena laughs. Blood drips from her nose onto the torn tee. “Hey! Now it looks more punk!”

“Halt! Halt! Was tust du?” Andreas pulls the girls apart just as the door flies open. This time it’s a girl with a Mohawk Afro. She looks at the mess and shakes her head. “Alles klar. Sophie Scholl! Sie sind auf!”

The girls march onstage, take their positions, and plug in. Lena has shoved a wad of tissue up her bloodied nose, which only makes her seem more legit. Across the church stage, Anke glowers at her keyboard. Behind the kit, Zehra lifts her eyes toward the ceiling and blows out a shaky breath. They both look scared. Jenny’s violin trembles in her hand. She wishes she had a blindfold. Not just for the playing but for all of this. She doesn’t want to see the truth. Right now, her suitcase is somewhere in the sky. And when she gets out of this—if she gets out of this—she will be grounded for life.

“‘Good Little Girls,’” Lena says to the others. She screams into the mic: “Hallo, meine Damen und Keime! Wir sind Sophie Scholl! Eins, drei, zwei—FICK DICH!” It’s as if a switch has been thrown. The music is alive with their anger and fear. Jenny’s bow is a warrior. It slices. Attacks. The crowd goes wild. Violin! That’s so punk! When Lena screams, “We won’t be your good little girls!” in an octave far above her usual, the mosh pit explodes with new energy. Coiled bodies pop up and down like excited protons. They are here. Now. Inside the music. Punk as fuck. It’s a high-wire act and they have to keep it airborne. Each song rams into the next, no stopping, possessed by an electricity Jenny has never felt before. Their entire set races by like a caffeinated blur. Jenny screams into the mic and lifts her violin over her head. She smashes it against the stage. The violin splinters into a dangling mess of shredded wood and sprung strings. Lena hocks a fat loogie into the crowd, which goes wild for it. Feet stamp. Hands clap. The crowd screams their name—“Sophie Scholl! Sophie Schoooollll!”

They’ve done it.

As Jenny comes offstage, several punks rub the top of her shaved head: “Du bist sehr cool!” If this were any other night, Jenny would want to bask in this moment forever. But all she can think about is getting the hell out of the GDR.

“That was SUPER!” Lena says, twirling around in the greenroom. The others are silent. Zehra scrubs her face clean while Anke tugs on a boring peach sweater for the trip back through the checkpoint. Their anger hangs in the air like a sour perfume. Jenny wraps her head in the Hermès scarf. All she has to do is wash her face and put on her pink button-down and she’ll be back in West Berlin in no time.

She stares at the empty spot on the bench where she’d left her bag. “Where’s my purse?”

“Scheisse,” Zehra says.

They look everywhere—under mounds of filthy jackets, behind discarded beer bottles. It’s gone. A flash flood of panic rises up inside Jenny. “It had my passport. My visa. What do I do? How will I get back across?”

Lena is furious. “How could you be so stupid to leave your bag in here! Don’t you know anything?”

Jenny can scarcely breathe. If she could, she’d cry.

Anke points a finger at Lena. “You did this, Lena. Don’t put it on her.”

“I didn’t lose the fucking bag!”

“You put us all in this position!”