The Tin Snail Read online

  Praise for

  The Tin Snail

  “A captivating book for young people of all ages.” —T. E. Carhart, bestselling author of The Piano Shop on the Left Bank

  “Charming.” —The Guardian (UK)

  “A thoroughly engaging read.” —The Spectator (UK)

  “A delightful book.” —Historical Novel Society

  “Feel-good, funny, romping, filmic adventure.” —The Sunday Times (London)

  “A fantastic family read.” —Mr. Ripley’s Enchanted Books

  “Unusual and delightful.” —Parents in Touch

  “Refreshingly different and very engaging.” —Reading Zone

  “I loved this delightful novel. It’s intended for middle grade readers but people of all ages will love it.” —The Bookbag

  This is a work of fiction. All incidents and dialogue, and all characters with the exception of some well-known historical and public figures, are products of the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Where real-life historical or public figures appear, the situations, incidents, and dialogues concerning those persons are fictional and are not intended to depict actual events or to change the fictional nature of the work. In all other respects, any resemblance to persons living or dead is entirely coincidental.

  Text copyright © 2014 by Cameron McAllister

  Cover and interior illustrations copyright © 2014 by Sam Usher

  All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Delacorte Press, an imprint of Random House Children’s Books, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York. Originally published in hardcover by Random House Children’s Publishers UK, London, in 2014. This edition published by arrangement with Random House Children's Publishers UK, a division of Penguin Random House Ltd.

  Delacorte Press is a registered trademark and the colophon is a trademark of Penguin Random House LLC.

  Visit us on the Web! randomhousekids.com

  Educators and librarians, for a variety of teaching tools, visit us at RHTeachersLibrarians.com

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  McAllister, Cameron.

  The Tin Snail / Cameron McAllister ; illustrated by Sam Usher. — First American edition.

  pages cm

  “Originally published…by Random House Children’s Publishers UK, London, in 2014.”

  Based on the true story of the Citroen 2CV car.

  Summary: “A thirteen-year-old French boy tries to save his father’s job by inventing a special kind of car, but it isn’t easy—especially when the Nazis are planning to steal his design”— Provided by publisher.

  ISBN 978-0-553-53638-6 (hc) — ISBN 978-0-553-53640-9 (lib. bdg.)

  ISBN 978-0-553-53641-6 (pbk) — ISBN 978-0-553-53639-3 (ebook)

  [1. Automobiles—Design and construction—Fiction. 2. Fathers and sons—Fiction. 3. Italians—France—Fiction. 4. France—History—German occupation, 1940–1945—Fiction. 5. World War, 1939–1945—Underground movements—France—Fiction.] I. Usher, Sam (Illustrator), illustrator. II. Title.

  PZ7.1.M4Ti 2016

  [Fic]—dc23

  2014048814

  eBook ISBN 9780553536393

  Cover design by Sarah Hokanson

  Random House Children’s Books supports the First Amendment and celebrates the right to read.

  v4.1

  ep

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Map

  1 Nine Spoonfuls of Sugar

  2 A Year Later

  3 The 1938 Paris Motor Show

  4 What Happened Next

  5 The House in the Country

  6 Julietta Arrives

  7 The Test Track

  8 A Bridge Too Far

  9 The Postal Service Lives On

  10 Frankenstein’s Monster

  11 The Maiden Voyage

  12 The Crossroads

  13 My Mother’s Reaction

  14 Cyclops

  15 Back to the Drawing Board

  16 The Beauty Contest

  17 A Legend Is Born

  18 Double or Quits

  19 Sunday, September 3, 1939

  20 1:46

  21 Invasion

  22 Undercover to Boutonne

  23 The Germans Arrive

  24 Pains au Chocolat!

  25 The Beer Pump

  26 Hide-and-Seek

  27 The Germans Pack Up

  28 A Terrible Choice

  29 The Tin Snail Rides Again!

  30 An Unscheduled Stop at the Train Station

  Epilogue

  The True Story Behind The Tin Snail

  About the Author

  For Katie, Fin, Rory, Louis and Jack —C.M.

  For Emma and Plum —S.U.

  Detail left

  Detail right

  I watched the short, tanned figure of my father pour an eighth teaspoon of sugar into his coffee. This might sound odd—and it was—but there are two things you need to know about my father right from the start.

  The first is that his name was Luca Fabrizzi, which, if you haven’t guessed, is Italian (and, as everyone knows, Italians love their coffee). The second is that there was one thing Papa loved even more than coffee, and that was sugar. He wasn’t too fussed what form it took—though he was particularly partial to pains au chocolat and the sticky fruit fondants created in the pâtisserie across the road from his workshop. But his favorite treat of all was strong, sweet coffee—preferably with enough sugar in it to prop up a teaspoon.

  It was the same every morning. An hour before school, sometimes more, we would come to the Café Petit Chemin de Fer (“the Little Railway Café”), tucked away behind the old railway line that divided my father’s workshop from the row of shabby little shops across the street. Looming high above was the factory where my father’s latest designs were turned into reality—a vast structure with arched windows like a cathedral that looked out over the river Seine.

  Why were we living in Paris? Because my father and mother, Julietta, had run away from home together when they were seventeen. Papa had originally wanted to be an artist and had come to Paris to make his fortune…but more on that later.

  Inside the café, my father would always order an espresso—a miniature cup, usually stained around the edge, with a double shot of thick, oily coffee that looked like tar. He insisted he needed it to wake him up. The spoonfuls of sugar he loaded into it? Well, that was for inspiration. Only then could the magical ideas take shape.

  I would tuck into a large bowl of hot chocolate. Not the powdered sort, either. The café owner, a large woman with big hips whom Papa had once described as “voluptuous,” always flaked real dark chocolate into the milk. I loved sipping from the edge of the bowl, the swathes of creamy steam wafting around my face.

  On this particular day, a bone-numbing winter’s morning toward the end of 1937, a few months after my twelfth birthday, I watched, fascinated, as my father’s teaspoon began its journey back to the bowl for the ninth time. Even by his standards this had to be a spoonful too far. Sure enough, as the sugar was heaped into his cup, the thick black tar started to brim over the edge.

  “Papa,” I hissed.

  My father looked over, frowning, and quickly saw the mess. “Blast!” He snatched paper napkins from the little metal dispenser and began furiously dabbing at the puddle. I could see he was in one of his moods again. Italians are famous for their volcanic tempers as well as their taste for coffee, and my father was no exception. One minute he would be laughing and dancing around the room like a demented sorcerer, the next he’d be troubled and unreachable.

  “It’ll be OK,” I tried to reassure him.
“I mean, with your work. Something will come up…eventually.”

  His face clouded, despite my best efforts. I could see that the strain of the last few years had taken its toll on him. As he peered out through the lace curtains onto the cobbled street, his olive skin, normally smooth and clear, looked gray and etched with worry.

  Three years ago everything had been very different. Papa had been one of the most celebrated car designers of his age—along with his best friend and collaborator, the dashing Christian Silvestre.

  Christian was an engineer, adventurer, part-time racing driver and, to me, all-around hero. Tall and handsome, with flashing teeth like a film star, he was rarely seen without a glass of champagne in his hand or sporting his trademark flying jacket.

  Together, he and my father invented something the world had never seen before. Not only was their new car devilishly handsome, with its long, smooth curves and glinting chrome, it also had a unique secret hiding place under its bonnet. My father had sneaked me into his workshop to have a look, wearing just my pajamas and slippers. I craned to look underneath at the car’s gleaming axles, and then my eyes had bulged like saucers as he breathlessly revealed the car’s secret weapon.

  Instead of being propelled by the wheels at the back like other cars, here was something altogether different: it was driven by the ones at the front. Christian insisted the new design would make the car much faster round corners, something he’d learned from his days competing in the Monte Carlo Rally.

  The car had one other fiendish trick up its sleeve. Christian had devised a cunning button that would lock the back doors automatically so children couldn’t open them while the car was moving.

  When the car was finally unveiled at the 1934 Paris Motor Show, its daring new design kicked up a firestorm, almost as if my father and Christian had reinvented the wheel. The public went wild, immediately buying the car in droves.

  Actually, that last bit wasn’t entirely true. Back then, in the winter of 1934, only a tiny sliver of the population could afford the luxury of a car. Most people in France were dirt-poor and lived in the countryside. For them, buying a car was a bit like winning a ticket to Mars: it just wasn’t going to happen. Instead, they had to make do with anything they could lay their hands on—horses, carts, bicycles…even knackered old donkeys. Especially knackered old donkeys.

  But rich people in towns all over the country, from Toulouse to Tours, went crazy for my father’s car.

  It was official. His new design was a sensation!

  All this was three long years ago, though. Since then, I’d watched Papa and Christian struggle time and again to repeat the success of their earlier invention. But somehow the magic kept eluding them. As each new motor show came along, other cars began to steal the limelight.

  For several years now, under the new German Chancellor, Adolf Hitler, Germany had begun building a network of superfast roads they called autobahns—motorways. With no speed limit to speak of, the way was clear for a new breed of luxury limousine capable of reaching unheard-of speeds. Already, one of the country’s biggest car companies, Mercedes, was developing just such a monster—a great Goliath of a car with a long, aggressive bonnet and streamlined wheel arches.

  Against this kind of competition, my father seemed powerless. No amount of sugar in his coffee could make any difference. As each year turned into the next, he spent more and more time at his workshop, desperately trying to re-create the winning formula of that first astonishing car. But the more he tried, the more he failed…and the more he became lost to me.

  It wasn’t just me either. I can’t remember the first time I noticed how much my parents were arguing, but after a while there was no mistaking it. They really didn’t like each other anymore.

  There were also the rumors I heard at the factory. For as long as I can remember my father had talked about people called the Money Men. I wasn’t entirely sure what that meant—just that they had plenty of it and had poured it into the company.

  At first, the Money Men were happy. But with money rapidly running out, these shadowy figures were now muttering in dark corners.

  When there was no new success to speak of, the Money Men wanted a change…or their money back.

  As far as I could see, only one thing could put everything right. One thing alone could save my father’s career, rescue the company, and stop my parents splitting up.

  We had to win the Paris Motor Show again.

  My father looked up from the puddle of coffee that was now rapidly staining the tablecloth, and smiled sadly.

  “Go and buy yourself a pastry from the bakery, Angelo,” he sighed, pushing a few coins across the table.

  I knew it was just his way of getting rid of me, but for once I didn’t argue. Maybe my mother was right—it was better to leave him to wallow in his gloom.

  Clutching the money in my hand, I hurried across the shiny cobbled streets to the pâtisserie. When I got there, I found a large queue of disgruntled customers already clogging the doorway. I wormed my way through to the front as the shop owner, a burly man with a handlebar mustache, tried to pacify the crowd.

  “I’m sorry, but the ovens have not heated up yet. My good-for-nothing, and soon-to-be-fired, assistant forgot to turn them on.” As he said the words, he glowered at the cowering assistant—a gangly youth in an oversized cap.

  The assembled customers muttered disapprovingly as they cast long looks at the glass counter. There was no denying it: the pastries were as flat as pancakes.

  “They are beyond rescue,” continued the shop owner rather dramatically. “You will all have to come back later.”

  The grumbling customers started to shuffle their way out the door.

  All except me.

  I had my eyes firmly fixed on a giant gougère. This was a favorite of mine, a savory pastry made from the same choux dough they used in éclairs but full of oozing cheese. Having suffered a similar fate to the other pastries, it was now lying discarded on a baking tray. But as I peered at it through the glass of the counter, I could just as easily have been staring at a holy relic.

  “Please,” I whispered urgently. “This one…I’ll take it.” The shopkeeper shot me a suspicious look, but I finally persuaded him that I was serious.

  Hardly able to breathe, I handed over my coins before turning and fleeing. As I sprinted back across the street, the last of the autumn leaves whirled and danced around my feet—almost as if they knew that something magical was in the air.

  By the time I had skidded through the door into the café, my father was pulling on his overcoat, ready to head back to his workshop.

  “Wait, please!” I spluttered, barring his way. “You can’t go!”

  “What are you talking about?” Papa asked, irritated. “Angelo, I need to go to work. And you need to get to school.”

  “You don’t understand,” I protested. “I’ve found your new car! Look!” I placed the cheese pastry on the table in front of him.

  For a second my father stared at me like I was some kind of lunatic before finally turning to look at the gougère. Then, slowly, he picked it up and held it to the light, examining it from all angles.

  “Do you see?” I asked impatiently.

  Still my father didn’t answer. Then, to the astonishment of the other customers, who were all gawping at us, openmouthed, he took out his penknife and slowly, carefully, began to prod the pastry, pressing and smoothing its edges.

  Thanks to the cool oven, the pastry had failed to rise fully, just as the shopkeeper had warned. But not all over: only at one end. As a result, it had taken on a lopsided shape. From one angle it was proudly domed in the traditional style, but from another, it sloped away where it had slumped, uncooked. You could say it was almost aerodynamic.

  For my father, like me, it was nothing short of a miracle. Until now, cars had almost always had long, angular bonnets with squared-off radiator grilles that looked like the front of stately homes. But this would be unlike anything anyone had ev
er seen before.

  Here at last was the styling breakthrough my father had been groping for!

  He turned slowly and looked me straight in the eye. “Angelo,” he whispered. “You are a genius.”

  “Angelo!”

  I lifted my welding visor and saw Madame Detrice, the boss’s secretary, scowling indulgently at me from the doorway as she tapped at her fob watch. “You’ll be late.”

  The boss, Bertrand Hipaux (pronounced like hippo, but without the “h”), was a retiring man who preferred others to take the limelight. Tall and willowy, with small, owlish glasses and a habit of wearing crumpled suits, he was probably in his early sixties. He’d never actually told me his age, but I’d worked it out from all the stories he’d told me about his days flying reconnaissance planes in the war.

  Slightly shambling in his three-piece woolen suit and trademark trilby hat, he was a staunch believer in hard work and thrift. Not for him, Christian’s world of fast cars and even faster women.

  Bertrand had apparently decided that my father was a disaster when it came to organization. His mind, he said, worked not in a straight, or even a curved line, but in a squiggle like a rat’s tail. Christian was no better. So the hyper-organized Madame Detrice had been dispatched to the workshop to run their lives for them. And now mine.

  I flipped off the switch on my welding lamp, and the flame was immediately sucked back into the handle. Quick as a flash, I tugged off my apron and set off to find Papa.

  Ever since the day when I had inspired him with a lopsided pastry, he’d allowed me into his workshop before school, to see the new car take shape.