‘And Mama was taken away from us, and Papa and Josef and I were put into the huts over there and that’s where we’ve been ever since.’
Shmuel looked very sad when he told this story and Bruno didn’t know why; it didn’t seem like such a terrible thing to him, and after all much the same thing had happened to him.
‘Are there many other boys over there?’ asked Bruno.
‘Hundreds,’ said Shmuel.
Bruno’s eyes opened wide. ‘Hundreds?’ he said, amazed. ‘That’s not fair at all. There’s no one to play with on this side of the fence. Not a single person.’
‘We don’t play,’ said Shmuel.
‘Don’t play? Why ever not?’
‘What would we play?’ he asked, his face looking confused at the idea of it.
‘Well, I don’t know,’ said Bruno. ‘All sorts of things. Football, for example. Or exploration. What’s the exploration like over there anyway? Any good?’
Shmuel shook his head and didn’t answer. He looked back towards the huts and turned back to Bruno then. He didn’t want to ask the next question but the pains in his stomach made him.
‘You don’t have any food on you, do you?’ he asked.
‘Afraid not,’ said Bruno. ‘I meant to bring some chocolate but I forgot.’
‘Chocolate,’ said Shmuel very slowly, his tongue moving out from behind his teeth. ‘I’ve only ever had chocolate once.’
‘Only once? I love chocolate. I can’t get enough of it although Mother says it’ll rot my teeth.’
‘You don’t have any bread, do you?’
Bruno shook his head. ‘Nothing at all,’ he said. ‘Dinner isn’t served until half past six. What time do you have yours?’
Shmuel shrugged his shoulders and pulled himself to his feet. ‘I think I’d better get back,’ he said.
‘Perhaps you can come to dinner with us one evening,’ said Bruno, although he wasn’t sure it was a very good idea.
‘Perhaps,’ said Shmuel, although he didn’t sound convinced.
‘Or I could come to you,’ said Bruno. ‘Perhaps I could come and meet your friends,’ he added hopefully. He had hoped that Shmuel would suggest this himself but there didn’t seem to be any sign of that.
‘You’re on the wrong side of the fence though,’ said Shmuel.
‘I could crawl under,’ said Bruno, reaching down and lifting the wire off the ground. In the centre, between the wooden telegraph poles, it lifted quite easily and a boy as small as Bruno could easily fit through.
Shmuel watched him do this and backed away nervously. ‘I have to go back,’ he said.
‘Some other afternoon then,’ said Bruno.
‘I’m not supposed to be here. If they catch me I’ll be in trouble.’
He turned and walked away and Bruno noticed again just how small and skinny his new friend was. He didn’t say anything about this because he knew only too well how unpleasant it was being criticized for something as silly as your height, and the last thing he wanted to do was be unkind to Shmuel.
‘I’ll come back tomorrow,’ shouted Bruno to the departing boy and Shmuel said nothing in reply; in fact he started to run off back to the camp, leaving Bruno all on his own.
Bruno decided that that was more than enough exploration for one day and he set off home, excited about what had happened and wanting nothing more than to tell Mother and Father and Gretel – who would be so jealous that she might just explode – and Maria and Cook and Lars all about his adventure that afternoon and his new friend with the funny name and the fact that they had the same birthday, but the closer he got to his own house, the more he started to think that that might not be a good idea.
After all, he reasoned, they might not want me to be friends with him any more and if that happens they might stop me coming out here at all. By the time he went through his front door and smelled the beef that was roasting in the oven for dinner he had decided that it was better to keep the whole story to himself for the moment and not breathe a word about it. It would be his own secret. Well, his and Shmuel’s.
Bruno was of the opinion that when it came to parents, and especially when it came to sisters, what they didn’t know couldn’t hurt them.
Chapter Thirteen
The Bottle of Wine
As week followed week it started to become clear to Bruno that he would not be going home to Berlin in the foreseeable future and that he could forget about sliding down the banisters in his comfortable home or seeing Karl or Daniel or Martin any time soon.
However, with each day that passed he began to get used to being at Out-with and stopped feeling quite so unhappy about his new life. After all, it wasn’t as if he had nobody to talk to any more. Every afternoon when classes were finished Bruno took the long walk along the fence and sat and talked with his new friend Shmuel until it was time to come home, and that had started to make up for all the times he had missed Berlin.