The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas Part 12

'We're the opposite,' said Gretel, answering quickly and sounding a lot more satisfied with this answer. 'Yes, that's it. We're the opposite.'

'All right,' said Bruno, pleased that he had it settled in his head at last. 'And the Opposite live on this side of the fence and the Jews live on that.'

'That's right, Bruno.'

'Don't the Jews like the Opposite then?'

'No, it's us who don't like them, stupid.'

Bruno frowned. Gretel had been told time and time again that she wasn't allowed to call him stupid but still she persisted with it.

'Well, why don't we like them?' he asked.

'Because they're Jews,' said Gretel.

'I see. And the Opposite and the Jews don't get along.'

'No, Bruno,' said Gretel, but she said this slowly because she had discovered something unusual in her hair and was examining it carefully.

'Well, can't someone just get them together and-'

Bruno was interrupted by the sound of Gretel breaking into a piercing scream; one that woke Mother up from her afternoon nap and brought her running into the bedroom to find out which of her children had murdered the other one.

While experimenting with her hair Gretel had found a tiny egg, no bigger than the top of a pin. She showed it to Mother, who looked through her hair, pulling strands of it apart quickly, before marching over to Bruno and doing the same thing to him.

'Oh, I don't believe it,' said Mother angrily. 'I knew something like this would happen in a place like this.'

It turned out that both Gretel and Bruno had lice in their hair, and Gretel had to be treated with a special shampoo that smelled horrible and afterwards she sat in her room for hours on end, crying her eyes out.

Bruno had the shampoo as well, but then Father decided that the best thing was for him to start afresh and he got a razor and shaved all Bruno's hair off, which made Bruno cry. It didn't take long and he hated seeing all his hair float down from his head and land on the floor at his feet, but Father said it had to be done.

Afterwards Bruno looked at himself in the bathroom mirror and he felt sick. His entire head looked misshapen now that he was bald and his eyes looked too big for his face. He was almost scared of his own reflection.

'Don't worry,' Father rea.s.sured him. 'It'll grow back. It'll only take a few weeks.'

'It's the filth around here that did it,' said Mother. 'If some people could only see the effect this place is having on us all.'

When he saw himself in the mirror Bruno couldn't help but think how much like Shmuel he looked now, and he wondered whether all the people on that side of the fence had lice as well and that was why all their heads were shaved too.

When he saw his friend the next day Shmuel started to laugh at Bruno's appearance, which didn't do a lot for his dwindling self-confidence.

'I look just like you now,' said Bruno sadly, as if this was a terrible thing to admit.

'Only fatter,' admitted Shmuel.

Chapter Seventeen.

Mother Gets Her Own Way.

Over the course of the next few weeks Mother seemed increasingly unhappy with life at Out-With and Bruno understood perfectly well why that might be. After all, when they'd first arrived he had hated it, due to the fact that it was nothing like home and lacked such things as three best friends for life. But that had changed for him over time, mostly due to Shmuel, who had become more important to him than Karl or Daniel or Martin had ever been. But Mother didn't have a Shmuel of her own. There was no one for her to talk to, and the only person who she had been remotely friendly with the young Lieutenant Kotler had been transferred somewhere else.

Although he tried not to be one of those boys who spends his time listening at keyholes and down chimneys, Bruno was pa.s.sing by Father's office one afternoon while Mother and Father were inside having one of their conversations. He didn't mean to eavesdrop, but they were talking quite loudly and he couldn't help but overhear.

'It's horrible,' Mother was saying. 'Just horrible. I can't stand it any more.'

'We don't have any choice,' said Father. 'This is our a.s.signment and-'

'No, this is your your a.s.signment,' said Mother. ' a.s.signment,' said Mother. 'Your a.s.signment, not ours. You stay if you want to.' a.s.signment, not ours. You stay if you want to.'

'And what will people think,' asked Father, 'if I permit you and the children to return to Berlin without me? They will ask questions about my commitment to the work here.'

'Work?' shouted Mother. 'You call this work?'

Bruno didn't hear much more because the voices were getting closer to the door and there was always a chance that Mother would come storming out in search of a medicinal sherry, so he ran back upstairs instead. Still, he had heard enough to know that there was a chance they might be returning to Berlin, and to his surprise he didn't know how to feel about that.

There was one part of him that remembered that he had loved his own life back there, but so many things would have changed by now. Karl and the other two best friends whose names he couldn't remember would probably have forgotten about him by now. Grandmother was dead and they almost never heard from Grandfather, who Father said had gone senile.

But on the other hand he'd grown used to life at Out-With: he didn't mind Herr Liszt, he'd become much friendlier with Maria than he ever had been back in Berlin, Gretel was still going through a phase and keeping out of his way (and she didn't seem to be quite so much of a Hopeless Case any more) and his afternoon conversations with Shmuel filled him with happiness.

Bruno didn't know how to feel and decided that whatever happened, he would accept the decision without complaint.

Nothing at all changed for a few weeks; life went on as normal. Father spent most of his time either in his office or on the other side of the fence. Mother kept very quiet during the day and was having an awful lot more of her afternoon naps, some of them not even in the afternoon but before lunch, and Bruno was worried for her health because he'd never known anyone need quite so many medicinal sherries. Gretel stayed in her room concentrating on the various maps she had pasted on the walls and consulting the newspapers for hours at a time before moving the pins around a little. (Herr Liszt was particularly pleased with her for doing this.) And Bruno did exactly what was asked of him and caused no chaos at all and enjoyed the fact that he had one secret friend whom no one knew about.

Then one day Father summoned Bruno and Gretel into his office and informed them of the changes that were to come.

'Sit down, children,' he said, indicating the two large leather armchairs that they were usually told not to sit in when they had occasion to visit Father's office because of their grubby mitts. Father sat down behind his desk. 'We've decided to make a few changes,' he continued, looking a little sad as he spoke. 'Tell me this: are you happy here?'

'Yes, Father, of course,' said Gretel.

'Certainly, Father,' said Bruno.

'And you don't miss Berlin at all?'

The children paused for a moment and glanced at each other, wondering which one of them was going to commit to an answer. 'Well, I I miss it terribly,' said Gretel eventually. 'I wouldn't mind having some friends again.' miss it terribly,' said Gretel eventually. 'I wouldn't mind having some friends again.'

Bruno smiled, thinking about his secret.

'Friends,' said Father, nodding his head. 'Yes, I've often thought of that. It must have been lonely for you at times.'

'Very lonely,' said Gretel in a determined voice.

'And you, Bruno,' asked Father, looking at him now. 'Do you miss your friends?'

'Well, yes,' he replied, considering his answer carefully. 'But I think I'd miss people no matter where I went.' That was an indirect reference to Shmuel but he didn't want to make it any more explicit than that.

'But would you like to go back to Berlin?' asked Father. 'If the chance was there?'

'All of us?' asked Bruno.

Father gave a deep sigh and shook his head. 'Mother and Gretel and you. Back to our old house in Berlin. Would you like that?'

Bruno thought about it. 'Well, I wouldn't like it if you weren't there,' he said, because that was the truth.

'So you'd prefer to stay here with me?'

'I'd prefer all four of us to stay together,' he said, reluctantly including Gretel in that. 'Whether that was in Berlin or Out-With.'

'Oh, Bruno!' said Gretel in an exasperated voice, and he didn't know whether that was because he might be spoiling the plans for their return or because (according to her) he continued to misp.r.o.nounce the name of their home.

'Well, for the moment I'm afraid that's going to be impossible,' said Father. 'I'm afraid that the Fury will not relieve me of my command just yet. Mother, on the other hand, thinks this would be a good time for the three of you to return home and reopen the house, and when I think about it ...' He paused for a moment and looked out of the window to his left the window that led off to a view of the camp on the other side of the fence. 'When I think about it, perhaps she is right. Perhaps this is not a place for children.'

'There are hundreds of children here,' said Bruno, without really thinking about his words before saying them. 'Only they're on the other side of the fence.'

A silence followed this remark, but it wasn't like a normal silence where it just happens that no one is talking. It was like a silence that was very noisy. Father and Gretel stared at him and he blinked in surprise.

'What do you mean there are hundreds of children over there?' asked Father. 'What do you know of what goes on over there?'

Bruno opened his mouth to speak but worried that he would get himself into trouble if he revealed too much. 'I can see them from my bedroom window,' he said finally. 'They're very far away of course, but it looks like there are hundreds. All wearing the striped pyjamas.'

'The striped pyjamas, yes,' said Father, nodding his head. 'And you've been watching, have you?'

'Well, I've seen seen them,' said Bruno. 'I'm not sure if that's the same thing.' them,' said Bruno. 'I'm not sure if that's the same thing.'

Father smiled. 'Very good, Bruno,' he said. 'And you're right, it's not quite the same thing.' He hesitated again and then nodded his head, as if he had made a final decision.

'No, she's right,' he said, speaking out loud but not looking at either Gretel or Bruno. 'She's absolutely right. You've been here long enough as it is. It's time for you to go home.'

And so the decision was made. Word was sent ahead that the house should be cleaned, the windows washed, the banister varnished, the linen pressed, the beds made, and Father announced that Mother, Gretel and Bruno would be returning to Berlin within the week.

Bruno found that he was not looking forward to this as much as he would have expected and he dreaded having to tell Shmuel the news.

Chapter Eighteen.

Thinking Up the Final Adventure.

The day after Father told Bruno that he would be returning to Berlin soon, Shmuel didn't arrive at the fence as usual. Nor did he show up the day after that. On the third day, when Bruno arrived there was no one sitting cross-legged on the ground and he waited for ten minutes and was about to turn back for home, extremely worried that he would have to leave Out-With without seeing his friend again, when a dot in the distance became a speck and that became a blob and that became a figure and that in turn became the boy in the striped pyjamas.

Bruno broke into a smile when he saw the figure coming towards him and he sat down on the ground, taking the piece of bread and the apple he had smuggled with him out of his pocket to give to Shmuel. But even from a distance he could see that his friend looked even more unhappy than usual, and when he got to the fence he didn't reach for the food with his usual eagerness.

'I thought you weren't coming any more,' said Bruno. 'I came yesterday and the day before that and you weren't here.'

'I'm sorry,' said Shmuel. 'Something happened.'

Bruno looked at him and narrowed his eyes, trying to guess what it might be. He wondered whether Shmuel had been told that he was going home too; after all, coincidences like that do happen, such as the fact that Bruno and Shmuel shared the same birthday.

'Well?' asked Bruno. 'What was it?'

'Papa,' said Shmuel. 'We can't find him.'

'Can't find him? That's very odd. You mean he's lost?'

'I suppose so,' said Shmuel. 'He was here on Monday and then he went on work duty with some other men and none of them have come back.'

'And hasn't he written you a letter?' asked Bruno. 'Or left a note to say when he'll be coming back?'

'No,' said Shmuel.

'How odd,' said Bruno. 'Have you looked for him?' he asked after a moment.

'Of course I have,' said Shmuel with a sigh. 'I did what you're always talking about. I did some exploration.'

'And there was no sign?'

'None.'

'Well, that's very strange,' said Bruno. 'But I think there must be a simple explanation.'

'And what's that?' asked Shmuel.

'I imagine the men were taken to work in another town and they have to stay there for a few days until the work is done. And the post isn't very good here anyway. I expect he'll turn up one day soon.'

'I hope so,' said Shmuel, who looked as if he was about to cry. 'I don't know what we're supposed to do without him.'

'I could ask Father if you wanted,' said Bruno cautiously, hoping that Shmuel wouldn't say yes.

'I don't think that would be a good idea,' said Shmuel, which, to Bruno's disappointment, was not a flat-out rejection of the offer.

'Why not?' he asked. 'Father is very knowledgeable about life on that side of the fence.'

'I don't think the soldiers like us,' said Shmuel. 'Well,' he added with something as close to a laugh as he could muster, 'I know know they don't like us. They hate us.' they don't like us. They hate us.'

Bruno sat back in surprise. 'I'm sure they don't hate you,' he said.