CHAPTER EIGHT
November 9th, 1989

1989

The end of the academic year was a bittersweet one. In one day, Frogg received both great and terrible news within hours of each other.

By now, the weather was hot and the trees that lined the city streets and dotted campus had long since shed their spring flowers. For the first time in years, Frogg was wearing short-sleeves now that all of his old bruises had faded and there would not be any coming back from the hands of his papa. When Frogg and Professor Reinhart exited the Science Department at the Free University, the ten year old watched as ecstatic now-graduate students spilled out as well to celebrate their last day of classes. They gathered in the lawn to pull Liebfraumilch from their bags and drank the cheap (and probably warm by now) wine right from the bottle.

The professor, who always took Frogg to and from their lessons was laughing at the student's loud and celebratory antics, but not in disdain.

"That will be you one day, Archibald. But at the rate you are learning, you won't even be legal to partake in the wine when it happens!"

Later that night after dinner, after both Hans and Gisela Reinhart were oddly adamant that he not help clean up, he received the good news.

Frogg was sitting on the floor and focused on the TV screen then, because the news was covering the discovery of the Gargantuan alien race once more and it was all anyone seemed to talk about these days. Their leader, the one identified as Humongo the Ginormous XII (who was not ginormous at all), was currently taking up the television and bragging about their advanced alien technology with a rather pronounced lisp when he was called into the other room.

He was still half-paying attention to the screen, intrigued and appalled by the slimy and stocky alien all at once, when he stepped into the kitchen and was met with sudden shouts of "CONGRATULATIONS!"

Always the jumpy child, Frogg made an undignified shriek and leapt back. What was waiting for him was the Professor, Gisela, and his friend Lisbeth. He had thrown a hand over his heart and was not sure what was happening, becoming aware that there was a cake of some kind on the table. That was when the professor put a piece of paper in his hands. He had to stare at it for a moment to realize what he was looking at - a diploma.

"Congratulations," the professor was smiling at him, "According to West Berlin standards, you are an official graduate of secondary polytechnic school! The fourth-youngest in history, in fact."

Lisbeth, who could only catch so many German words and had a sweet tooth, cut into his cake and handed him a plate so she could get hers next. She was smiling when she said it, "Glückwunsch, Archie! You big nerd."

Frogg was not expecting to see her tonight and was suddenly self-conscious of his ratty t-shirt for sleeping and mussed hair from his earlier shower. Gisela must have asked her to come over, because it was painfully obvious that he only had one friend in his life and there was no one else to invite. Even though they had spent so much time together and became the closest of friends, he blushed. Lisbeth still had no idea how much he liked her.

The four of them sat down, Frogg both overwhelmed and thankful. If a year ago someone asked him what he thought his life might look like at this time, he never would have imagined this- He had somehow miraculously survived going over the Berlin Wall, had not a father in his life but two Guardians who treated him as if he were their own son, and a friend who accepted all parts of his weird self. The Professor and Gisela even made it a point to speak English at the table so no one would be left from the conversation. Of course Frogg would have loved to have his papa with them as well, happy for his own son and maybe telling him how proud he was and how far he has come... But things felt perfect at that moment.

Soon the children excused themselves from the table and ran out to where they spent much of their time together at the Reinhart house. This is where Frogg received the bad news.

Because it was so close to the street, the Reinhart's did not have much space in their backyard- if one could even call it that. There was a small square of grass behind the back patio, and that was where the storage shed was- the place that Frogg claimed as his workshop. It was here that Frogg worked on his many elaborate, often fantastical ideas for machinery and inventions. The Reinhart's did not have a single objection and in fact encouraged it. They even cleaned it up so he would have space to work amongst the gardening tools and miscellaneous items that could not go in the house. And now that he did not have to scrounge around for parts in frightening places such as the Geisterbahnhof for fear of getting caught, and instead could claim 'faulty' or leftover parts from the University, he was able to really push his ingenuity.

The first time he had taken Lisbeth to the little workshop, he had been nervous that she was going to laugh at his peculiar hobby, but was happily surprised when she thought it was neat. In fact, she did not seem weirded out at all by how advanced his education was and how it made him so different from all of the other children. With her atypical superpowers compared to the other students at her Superhero Kiddie College, perhaps it only made the two of them relate more.

At the moment, Frogg wanted to share one of his ideas with Lisbeth. His latest project was a little robot that could just fit in the palm of his hand - it resembled something like a vague spider or scorpion and was not yet functional, but it was something he was making just for the sake of being able to do so, like a fun toy to play with.

"See, the legs are sticky so it can crawl on vertical surfaces, and I'm going to make a remote controller for it-"

He noticed that Lisbeth was not paying attention when she went instead to another side project sitting on the work table. "What's this?"

She picked up the crude goggles with bronze frames and put them to her eyes, but she wouldn't be able to see anything through them at this point. When she turned to try to look at him through the device, he noted for the first time how the lenses dulled her iris so only the pupils were barely visible. It was a shame, he thought - she had the prettiest eyes -then realizing that he was staring, Frogg abruptly turned to hide his reddening face, pretending to be distracted with a wrench that needed to be hung on the wall.

"O-Oh, that's nothing. Just a dumb idea. But look, when I'm finished with my robot we can take it out during the summer and play with it!"

She set the goggles down and appeared upset. "I can't do that, though."

"..why not?"

"I have to go back to the States for the summer. My mom is making me."

This news crushed Frogg. He had been excited to spend the summer with her and was so happy to finally have a friend. Lisbeth did not like this turn of events either, but she promised that she would be back when school began again and they would do all sorts of fun things. They went on one last trip to their spot at the bridge together before she left to go back to America, and Frogg found it to be a rather melancholic day. He did not want her to go away one bit, and she gave him a long hug before going back to her house to pack for the summer break. He had moped for days, hardly leaving his room.

The summer dragged on far too long.

Frogg was never fond of this season because it was too hot for his liking, and he spent most of his days inside, tinkering with his inventions or catching up on the books not allowed past the Wall. It did not help that his only friend had to go away, and he was bored to absolute death.

When he was still living in East Berlin, he had taken his lessons all throughout the year and wasn't used to having so much time off. In addition to how absurdly intelligent he was, this was also part of the reason why he was able to graduate so early, but the summer of 1989 would be different. Professor Reinhart assured him that it was okay because his schooling was going to be changing drastically when the academic year started again, and he insisted that for once Frogg should have the opportunity to just be a kid and not a student. Just one summer, at least.

The professor was right. Things were going to be very different for him.

"I've done all that I can," he had explained to Frogg one day, "In college, you are going to have multiple instructors. You won't be my student anymore."

Frogg was going to attend college classes just like people twice his age did - sitting in lectures rather than his private lessons. It was going to be a big change for him, and socially anxious Frogg found that daunting. He had applied at several West German universities and was accepted at every single one with paid tuition - everyone wanted a child prodigy to attend and claim him as their own product. But Frogg knew the whole time where he wanted to go, the place right in his backyard - the Free University of Berlin. It was familiar, and he did not want to go someplace where he would be far from his friend Lisbeth or his Guardians… and whether he wanted to admit it or not, where his papa still lived behind layers of concrete walls and secret police and attack dogs.

Amidst the process of figuring all of this out, between picking what classes to take in his first semester and deciding on a major, he did try at one point to follow the professor's advice and 'just be a kid'. He would sometimes try to brave the heat and go out to play or explore, but he learned quickly that he had a new set of neighborhood bullies that made this difficult. They were some of the children from the Superhero Kiddie College - the ones that had even tried to be his friend that one day. After they had decided he was 'on the Soviet's side', they initially ignored him for a long while, acting as if he did not exist. Even if it hurt at first, Frogg was fine with that. But it seemed their attitude had changed when they realized he and Lisbeth had become friends.

There was a day long ago, when Frogg finished his lessons early, he went to meet her outside of her school. Upon seeing this, some of the boys began mocking her for spending time with a 'loser Ossie' and things escalated - after several minutes, Lisbeth got fed up and used her powers to smack a boy in the head with a levitating schoolbook and snapped at him to shut up and leave them alone.

At the time, Frogg thought it was the greatest thing ever. He never had someone defend him before, especially not using telekinesis. But that also set him up for future harassment - now with Lisbeth gone for a few months, he had no one to look out for him. Sometimes when he would be walking, he would suddenly get shoved by some unseen force and sent sprawling, then he would hear peels of laughter as a boy would materialize from using his powers of invisibility. What was even scarier was when sometimes the boy named Oskar - who seemed to be the ringleader - would zap his laser-vision at the ground near Frogg's feet. He once even had to get his hair cut shorter to fix where the boy had singed a large chunk of it off. Compared to this, the kids of East Berlin were child's play, and his opinion on Superheroes was steadily changing... maybe they really weren't as great as the television made them out to be.

So he was perfectly fine sitting in the cool shed where the bullies could not get to him, working on his inventions instead. Soon his little robot spider was fully functioning, and he could use its controls to make it hop around and climb up walls. It did not take long until he lost interest playing with that and moved on to the next project. All the while, when he would get bored, he kept going back to the goggles.

It was certainly not the most exciting thing like his little robots, but it was always there when he got too burnt out on something. With Frogg being the biggest klutz and constantly breaking his glasses, he thought this new gadget would be helpful one day. Not only were the lenses on these extremely durable and protected by the bronze metal encasing the sides, he planned on creating the swiss-army-knife of glasses that also doubled as laboratory safety goggles. One day he wanted these goggles to be able to zoom in like a microscope, see infrared, or maybe even shoot a laser if he ever found the courage to discharge such a thing. But then he would become distracted by something bigger and they often sat untouched on his workbench, sometimes gaining dust by the next time he would pick them back up... It never crossed his mind that one day, he would hardly ever take the things off.

The school year started again.

Frogg was on his porch reading a Michael Crichton novel when Lisbeth came back from her summer in America, and he had a big smile when he saw her for the first time. She was running up to him, and that was when he realized her face was crumpled up and nose red… something was wrong. She threw herself onto him, tucking her face into his shoulder and she began sobbing. For a long moment he was frozen, unsure of what to do, but slowly his skinny arms wrapped around her. Frogg never had to comfort someone before, the soft words of consolation seeming odd as they left his mouth, and his stomach had butterflies from their close contact.

Her parents had decided on divorce during the summer break and she was not taking it well at all, torn up and confused. It saddened him to see her like this, and there was guilt from where it also felt good that he was chosen to be her person of comfort. He had missed her so very much.

Beginning classes at University was certainly formidable.
Frogg, who had grown much too comfortable with his private lessons, initially struggled. He went to the Free University just as he always did, but now he sat in lectures and had to travel between classes rather than go to his familiar spot in the science department with Professor Reinhart. Always shy, he would sit in the back of the classrooms, and he could tell that the professors had no idea how to interact with him at first. Frogg did not speak in these lectures at first, too intimidated to partake even though he had all sorts of questions or knew plenty of answers, and he soon realized that many of the adult students mistook him for being a son or relative of the professors - they would ask him if he liked watching his mama or papa working, and at this he could not decide whether he was offended or embarrassed.

However, as days turned to weeks, he found that he cared less and less about how much he stuck out with his age as he became engrossed in his lessons, and the instructors grew more comfortable with his presence as well. He loved the nature of his classes, and though it seemed counter-intuitive, he actually liked that he had to study for the first time. The things he learned in his private lessons often seemed so self-explanatory, but now he was really being challenged for the first time. He had always had a natural inclination towards science and mathematics, but now he was required to take college-level core classes in subjects he did not have a preference towards, like the language arts or social studies. Fortunately for him, Frogg liked having his smarts tested.

He finally decided to declare his path of study and went for a double major. One in Mechanical Engineering, and another in Chemical Physics. As he sat in the advisor's office filling out the declaration form in his neat and pragmatic handwriting, his Professor Reinhart sitting beside him for encouragement, his mind went to a familiar place - he thought to his papa on the other side of the Wall, and whether he would be proud of his son and by how far he had come.

Frogg stirred in bed. He was not aware that it was a sound that had woken him up until he heard the noise again, a sharp 'click' against his window. The ten year old groaned sleepily, hugging his pillow close. He looked at the clock on his bedside table and saw it was 2:30 in the morning, and nestled deeper into his warm blankets. He needed his sleep because he had an important test the following morning. It was not until he heard the sound two more times that he realized that he should find the source, and he groggily put his glasses on before padding to the window.

"Lisbeth?"

He slid the window open.

The girl was standing on the street below, and Frogg realized she had not been throwing the little pebbles with her hand but using her telekinesis instead when the arsenal of rocks hovering around her dropped to the ground. She was wearing jeans and a jacket as if she was planning on going somewhere.

"What are you doing!"
His voice was just above a whisper, and he shivered in his light pajamas as the cold air blew in and rustled his hair.

Lisbeth had told him before that sometimes when she couldn't sleep she would sit on the roof of her house and write in her notebooks under the beam of a flashlight, or maybe take a walk around the block - and even that had made Frogg terribly nervous and he would tell her not to do such things. He knew that her parents divorce was affecting her in strange ways, but a child their age should not be wandering the streets at this hour.

"Lisbeth, it's two in the morning!"
"Come down!" she hissed, also trying not to be heard, "There's something big happening!"
"No! Go home!"

She didn't heed his advice and used her telekinesis to toss another pebble near his window. Frogg winced, wondering if it was loud enough to wake his guardians, but did not hear anything stir within the house.

"I'm coming down and walking you home."

He knew he would be scared of being alone after dropping her off, but Frogg figured that as the boy it was his duty, and he really did not want something bad to happen to her. But what Lisbeth said next really caught his attention: "There's something happening at the Wall! People are coming out!"
"Wh-What?!"

Ever since he had crossed No Man's Land in a frenzy of fear as he ran to the west, somehow miraculously surviving the incident, Frogg had yet to visit the Wall again. He was perfectly safe on the western side of the city, but he was still afraid of it. Living under its shadow for three years took its toll on his psyche, and he made it a point to avoid it. But what Lisbeth was saying was far too interesting, interesting enough that he could ignore the alarm bells in his head ringing to him 'no, don't go!'

"It's on the TV. I swear."
"...Okay. Hold on."
Frogg retreated from the window and began pulling clothes on appropriate for the weather. He had not used it since he would go to the Geisterbahnhof so long ago, but he grabbed the bag that contained his flashlight and tools and slung it over his shoulder. When he went downstairs, he walked on his toes and tried to step around the floorboards that creaked the most. He was aware that from further in the house there was the glow of a television playing, but from the living room view there was no way he would be seen.

Frogg turned the doorknob slowly and carefully, and when he opened it, Lisbeth was smiling from where she waited on the sidewalk. He smiled back - even if he was nervous, he always felt the thrill of seeing her - and started out.

"Where are you going?"

The voice behind him was calm, but Frogg still jumped. It was Professor Reinhart, who was an early riser and never up at this hour. Frogg stuttered, unable to find an explanation, and the adult raised his eyes to where Lisbeth now sheepishly stood outside.

"You want to go see the Wall, don't you?"

Frogg, who had always associated being caught doing something he shouldn't be with violence, was nervously wringing his wrists. His higher faculties knew that the professor would never hit him, but his body could not tell the difference and expected the worst, seizing up. He was at least going to be yelled at, surely. Frogg was not expecting it when Hans went to the coat rack and began putting on his coat.

"Well, if you're going to go, you may as well do it right. Be quiet. I don't want to wake the wife, she's had a long day," and he switched to English, "Lisbeth, I assume your parents gave you permission to come out?"

Of course they didn't, it was 2 AM and she was only ten years old. But the tone in his voice said it all - I won't tell if you won't. She grinned and nodded her head enthusiastically. The three of them began walking.

The farther they went, the more aware Frogg became of noise. It was like a thousand people all talking at once in the distance. Even though the streets should have been dead quiet and empty, the closer they drew to their destination the more people they passed. There was an electric feel in the air. Frogg found that there was goose flesh travelling up his arms - he was witnessing something big, something world changing, and he was not even sure what it was yet.

Soon he was overwhelmed by the crowds, and there were people running to each other as they laughed and cried at the same time, hugging, and others were singing and popping bottles. He realized that Lisbeth had put her hand in his, and he held on to the Professor with the other so they would not become separated.

"Here," Hans said and they slipped inside a tall apartment building.

From beyond the walls of the building they could still hear the steady murmur of the crowd, and they walked up several flights of stairs. There were others in the stairwell who had the same idea, and then they reached the rooftop where several groups of people had already gathered. When they approached the edge and could look out, Frogg's jaw dropped.

The Berlin Wall was coming down.

There was a flood of people and they were funneling through Checkpoint Charlie into the American Sector. Where there was no room, East Berliners were walking across the Death Strip- willingly, freely, without any fear, and helping each other climb to the tops of the wall. West Berliners were waiting from the other side with open arms to catch those who decided to jump down. The armed soldiers of the East stood watch by the checkpoint, automatic rifles slung across their backs or at their side, but they did not do a single thing about the hordes crossing over.

Frogg did not know why, but he found his eyes were beginning to water. He did not understand - he was happy, so why were there tears? And in the floods of people who were leaving the now free East Berlin, he realized he was combing the crowds looking for the familiar face of his father.

You're free, papa.

"You two are witnessing something historical," he heard the Professor say to them, and he had a hand on each of the children's shoulders, "Archibald, this is a very big day for you."

Lisbeth, as if not wanting to be excluded, then chimed, "What about me?"

And the professor laughed. "It's a big day for the entire world. You too, Lisbeth."

Frogg's hand found Lisbeth's, and their fingers stayed intertwined. From the roof of the apartment building that overlooked the Berlin Wall, the three stayed for a very long time and there was no need for words as the hours passed.