Chapter nine

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  Chapter nine in which Uncle Stan’s defection leads to unlooked-for popularity ... Uncle Stan called. Had a bit of luck and was all keyed up to tell us about it so Mother got everyone together to hear the news. As usual, Mother was in charge of the phone, standing by to interpret Uncle Stan’s words to us by means of grimacing, gesturing and eloquently lifting her eyebrows. She had sound effects too, so it was with a great deal of pleasure that we anticipated Uncle Stan’s fortnightly call.      The show started with a lot of grinning when Uncle Stan announced that he was out of the refugee camp  and that he found a cleaning job. Mother, mindful of who might be listening, acknowledged the news by  grunting noncommittally into the receiver. (To us she gave the thumbs up gesture and mouthed the word job.)  Encouraged by this show of support, Uncle Stan revealed that he’d managed to rent a room somewhere  reasonable and that his German language...
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Prologue

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Part 1

Czechoslovakia, 1981 - 1983


Things happen. Things you would never have dreamed of. Things you might have thought about just maybe happening on the other side of the galaxy but you'd never image them happening in your own life. But they do.

My name is Franta. I live in Vendula's head. Vendula is a girl who likes to daydream. She conjured me out of thin air like magic when she was just a wee little thing, and we've been together ever since. Our life is filled with good moments and good people, and the sum of it, we fancy, makes for quite a good tale.










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Chapter nine

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Image
  Chapter nine in which Uncle Stan’s defection leads to unlooked-for popularity ... Uncle Stan called. Had a bit of luck and was all keyed up to tell us about it so Mother got everyone together to hear the news. As usual, Mother was in charge of the phone, standing by to interpret Uncle Stan’s words to us by means of grimacing, gesturing and eloquently lifting her eyebrows. She had sound effects too, so it was with a great deal of pleasure that we anticipated Uncle Stan’s fortnightly call.      The show started with a lot of grinning when Uncle Stan announced that he was out of the refugee camp  and that he found a cleaning job. Mother, mindful of who might be listening, acknowledged the news by  grunting noncommittally into the receiver. (To us she gave the thumbs up gesture and mouthed the word job.)  Encouraged by this show of support, Uncle Stan revealed that he’d managed to rent a room somewhere  reasonable and that his German language...
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Chapter one

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Chapter one in which the family roasts a chook when Uncle Stan decides to search for greener pastures I knew Vendula was special the moment I saw her. Clutching a ladybug in her chubby little fist,  Vendula sat in the meadow full of blooming daisies. A drunken bumblebee made her laugh, and her  voice, like silver bells covered with snow, chimed a quiet, pretty tune. I was enchanted and decided to stay.       At first, living with Vendula was plain sailing. Luck had always followed her like a puppy on a leash.  A skip and a sniff and a leg up every so often, we knew where we were going. Vendula, a ballerina in  a paper weight world, sailed through life as if every day was a walk through a rose garden where  friends gathered like fluffy clouds. But then the summer of ‘79 rolled in and overnight things started to  go pear-shaped.      First there was puberty. It came upon us suddenly, like a runaway train, bringing boy...
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Chapter ten in which an ugly twist of fate gets Eugene a coal-burning job  Predictably, Mother and Dad told all their friends about Uncle Stan and everything else we were going through on account of his defection, namely the work interrogations, the phone bugging and Peg doing the rounds with her relatives, badmouthing the Dribblers and sucking up sympathy wherever she set foot, and of course, everyone understood.      ‘We know how it is,’ everyone nodded. ‘We all have a cross to bear.’      Looking at them spread around the living room, I envisaged quite a number of crosses for each of them.       Take Drystool, for example, blacklisted by the communist party.      ‘Ouch! It hurts!’ Drystool, grimacing, would cry just for a lark when conversation ebbed, and of course  everybody always laughed and so did Vendula although she didn’t quite grasp why. All she knew was that  Drystool was a ...
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