Once 1 Once

by Morris Gleitzman

  The Nazi officer glances at the bag, still looking bored. He raises his other hand, grabs a tuft of the man’s beard, and twists it hard with his leather glove. The man stands there and lets him.

  The local people watching all laugh and cheer.

  The man looks sad, but ignores them.

  After a very long twist, the Nazi officer turns and walks away. He goes over to the crowd of Jewish people who are still crying and shouting because some of them have been shot and their children are still being put into the truck.

  He goes up behind a woman and points his gun at the back of her head.

  I try to scramble up so I can go over and stop the Nazi officer.

  I can’t stay on my feet. I’m too dizzy. I fall back down onto my knees.

  The Nazi officer shoots the woman.

  Oh.

  Zelda screams.

  The man turns her away from the horrible sight and starts to take her off through the crowd of gawking locals.

  “No,” yells Zelda. “I’m not going without Felix.”

  She struggles and kicks. The man turns and stares at me. He looks very weary, as if having his beard twisted and seeing innocent people being shot to death is bad enough and the last thing he needs is a kid who can’t stand up and has just started vomiting.

  I try to tell him I’m looking for my mum and dad, but more vomit comes out and the whole street goes spinning away from me.

  I wake up with a painful light flickering in my eyes.

  It’s a candle flame.

  Mother Minka always has a candle when she comes into the dormitory at night to give Marek a detention for going to bed with no pajamas on or to whack Borys for throwing Marek’s pajamas out the window or to—

  I sit up in panic.

  Am I back in the orphanage?

  I don’t want to be. I need to find Mum and Dad. I need to warn them. I need to—

  A big hairy hand pushes me gently back down. It’s not Mother Minka’s.

  A man with a beard is looking down at me, frowning. I’ve seen him somewhere before.

  “Are you Father Ludwik?” I say.

  My throat hurts. My skin is burning.

  The man shakes his head. He wipes my face with a damp cloth.

  “Try and rest,” he says.

  I can see now he isn’t Father Ludwik, but I don’t know who else he could be. Then I remember. The man with the magic bag. But he’s not speaking Nazi anymore.

  Suddenly a girl is looking down at me too.

  “He’s Barney,” she says. “Don’t you know anything?”

  I know who the girl is, but before I can say her name everything spins away again.

  I wake up in darkness.

  Panic smothers me.

  “My notebook,” I yell. “I’ve lost my notebook.”

  My throat still hurts. My whole body feels cold. Except my head. It’s on fire.

  Somebody lights a candle.

  A silver heart is glinting in front of my eyes. It’s on a chain, hanging from the girl Zelda’s neck as she looks down at me, concerned.

  “He thinks he’s lost his notebook,” she says.

  The man who’s not Father Ludwik is also looking down at me, also concerned.

  “Your notebook is safe,” he says.

  “So are your letters,” says Zelda. “We threw your hat away.”

  “Here,” says the man. “Drink.”

  He puts a metal cup to my lips. I sip some water. It makes me cough, which makes my head hurt a lot.

  “Is Felix going to die?” whispers Zelda to the man.

  The man doesn’t say anything, just looks more worried.

  Now my head feels even worse. I have to find Mum and Dad. They know how to make me better.

  I remember the Nazis have got them.

  Panic swamps me again.

  If only Mum and Dad hadn’t put me in that stupid orphanage. If only they’d let me stay with them. I could have protected them. Somehow.

  I want to sit up, to ask the man to help me find them, but I’m so weak and giddy I don’t know where up is.

  Far off I can hear Zelda demanding to know if I’m going to die.

  “Please,” I whisper into the darkness, “please find my parents.”

  I hope the man can hear me.

  “They’re in danger,” I croak. “Really bad danger. Don’t believe the notebook. The stories in the notebook aren’t true.”

  I wake up to the sound of someone crying.

  It’s not me.

  “I want to go home,” sobs a kid’s voice.

  Zelda?

  No, it’s a boy.

  I open my eyes. A few thin needles of daylight are stabbing through the dark. They make my eyes sting but I don’t feel like I’m burning up anymore and my head doesn’t hurt so much.

  I put my glasses on but I can’t see much in the gloom. My bed is a sack stuffed with something soft. Next to me is another sack bed with a crying boy on it. He looks about five.

  The man who’s not Father Ludwik crouches down and gives the boy a hug.

  “I want to go home, Barney,” sobs the boy.

  “I know,” says the man.

  “I miss them,” says the boy.

  The man gently smooths the boy’s hair.

  “I know, Henryk,” he says. “One day you’ll be with your mummy and daddy. Until then I’ll look after you, I promise.”

  The boy sniffs, but he’s stopped crying.

  “Cry some more if you want to,” says the man. “Ruth will hold you.”

  A girl about my age with curly hair steps forward and puts an arm round the boy.

  The boy wipes his face on his sleeve.

  “I’ve finished now,” he says.

  Barney turns to me and puts his hand on my forehead.

  “Good,” he says. “Much better. You’re doing well, Felix.”

  He hands me a metal cup with something hot in it.

  Soup.

  I put the cup down, roll over angrily, and close my eyes.

  This man Barney is an idiot.

  You don’t tell a kid he’ll find his parents one day. One day doesn’t mean anything. If you don’t know when they’re coming, you let the kid go and look for them now.

  I want to shout at the man, but I don’t because Dodie reckons it’s pointless shouting at idiots, plus it would probably hurt my throat.

  Instead I ignore the man’s hand on my back and try to tell myself a story to cheer myself up. A story about a kid who finds his parents in a city and takes them to a desert island with cake shops where they live happily ever after.

  It’s no good.

  When I close my eyes all I can see is Nazi soldiers shooting people, including kids who just want a lift on a country road.

  What if Mum and Dad waved to an army truck on their way to the city?

  I don’t want to think about it.

  If you tell yourself stories like that you could end up crying.

  “Felix.”

  A hand is shaking me gently. I keep my eyes closed for a while, then open them.

  Barney is crouching by my bed. He’s holding my notebook.

  “Felix,” he says. “Do you mind if I read one of your stories to the others?”

  I put my glasses on and look around, squinting in the candlelight.

  My bed is surrounded.

  There’s Barney and Zelda and the little boy who was crying and the girl with the curly hair. There’s also a boy a bit younger than me who’s chewing the end of a piece of wood, a girl a bit older than me with a bandaged arm, a toddler with half its hair missing, and a boy about my age who’s blinking his eyes nonstop and hugging the dirtiest teddy bear I’ve ever seen.

  “Just say if you don’t want me to,” says Barney. “We understand if your stories are private. But Zelda has told us what a good storyteller you are, and a few people here have got missing parents, and I think they’d enjoy hearing one.”

  “I would,” says the girl with the bandaged arm.


  “I would,” says the little boy who was crying.

  “I would,” says the girl with curly hair.

  “No,” I say.

  They all look at me, disappointed.

  “Felix,” says Zelda crossly, “we all want to hear your stories. Don’t you know anything?”

  Barney puts his hand on my shoulder.

  “That’s all right, Felix,” he says gently. “We understand.”

  I can feel myself shaking and I know why. The stories in my notebook are stupid. While I was writing them, Mum and Dad were being chased all over Europe by the Nazis. And being captured.

  “Those stories are obviously very important to you,” says Barney.

  No, they’re not, I think bitterly. Not anymore.

  “Anyway,” says Barney. “We’re very glad to have you and Zelda living with us. Aren’t we, everyone?”

  “Yes,” says the girl with the bandaged arm. So does Henryk and the girl with the curly hair and the toddler. The chewing-wood boy just keeps chewing his wood and the blinking boy just keeps blinking.

  As I look around at their faces I can see how disappointed they are not to be hearing a story.

  Too bad.

  “Zelda,” says Barney, “how about you telling us a story?”

  Zelda sits up straight and smooths her tattered dress down over her knees. I’m glad to see she’s not still wearing her damp pajamas.

  “Once upon a time,” she says, “two children lived in a castle in the mountains.”

  She pauses, gives me a look to show me she’s still cross, then continues.

  “Their names were Zelda and William…”

  I was living in a cellar in a Nazi city with seven other kids when I shouldn’t have been.

  My fever has gone.

  I shouldn’t be lying in bed, I should be out looking for Mum and Dad.

  “Felix,” says Zelda, jumping on my sack, “wake up. It’s time to wake up. Are you awake?”

  “Yes,” I say. “I am now.”

  “You have to get up,” says Zelda. “You have to tell us a story.”

  I don’t reply.

  “You have to,” insists Zelda. “Barney said I’m not allowed to anymore. He said I start too many arguments. He’s wrong, but that’s what he said.”

  I get up. I’m desperate to pee. While I was sick Barney let me pee in a bottle, but he must have taken it.

  “Where’s the toilet?” I say.

  Zelda points. Through the gloom of the cellar I can just make out some wooden steps going up in one corner. Behind the steps is a bucket.

  I stagger over to it. It’s half full and stinks, but I’m desperate.

  While I go, Zelda comes over and watches. I want to turn away, but I don’t. Orphans deserve a bit of fun.

  “Hurry up,” says Zelda. “We’re bored. We want a story.”

  When I’ve finished I look around the cellar, but I can’t see the others. There are needles of light pricking through the gloom and I can see several sack beds but no Barney and no other kids.

  “Where’s Barney?” I say.

  “He’s out getting us food,” says Zelda.

  “Where are the other kids?” I say.

  Zelda doesn’t reply. I can see that she’s trying not to giggle. And trying not to look at a big untidy pile of coats in the middle of the cellar floor. The pile of coats seems to be giggling too.

  Suddenly the coats fly up into the air. Huddled on the floor in a circle are the other kids, hands over their mouths, laughing themselves silly. Well, most of them are. The wood-chewing boy is just chewing his wood.

  I’m not sure what’s going on.

  “It’s a tent,” says Zelda. “A story tent. Don’t you know anything?”

  The kids are all laughing at me now.

  Suddenly I feel cross. I want to yell at them, Don’t you know anything? Our parents are out there in a dangerous Nazi city. The Nazis are shooting people. They could be shooting our parents. A story isn’t going to help.

  But I don’t. It’s not their fault. They don’t understand what it feels like when you’ve put your mum and dad in terrible danger. When the only reason they couldn’t get a visa to go to America is because when you were six you asked the man at the visa desk if the red blotches on his face were from sticking his head in a dragon’s mouth.

  “Story,” says little Henryk, clapping his hands.

  The others are looking up at me hopefully.

  “Sorry,” I say. “I haven’t got time for a story right now. I have to go out.”

  “You can’t,” says Zelda. “We’re not allowed to.”

  I ignore her. I look for the exit. The cellar has stone walls and a stone floor and no windows. The ceiling is made of wooden planks. The long needles of daylight are coming in through gaps between them. Up there must be the way out.

  I climb the steps. At the top is a square door in the ceiling planks. The bolt is pulled back. I push the door, but it won’t open.

  “It’s locked on the other side,” says the older girl with the bandaged arm. “Barney locks it.”

  I thump the door in frustration.

  “Shhhh,” say most of the kids.

  “We have to be quiet,” says Zelda. “We’re hiding.”

  “Who from?” I say as I come down the steps. As soon as I say it, I remember the Nazis putting kids into a truck and I know it’s a stupid question.

  “Adolf Hitler doesn’t like Jewish kids,” says the girl with the curly hair.

  “Adolf Hitler?” I say, surprised. “Father Ludwik says Adolf Hitler is a great man. He’s in charge of Poland. He’s the prime minister or the king or something.”

  Zelda gives me her look.

  “Adolf Hitler,” she says, “is the boss of the Nazis. Don’t you know anything?”

  I stare at her.

  “It’s true,” says the blinking boy, blinking harder than ever.

  I stare at all the kids, who are all nodding.

  If they’re right, this is incredible. I wonder if Father Ludwik has heard about this?

  “That’s why we have to hide,” says the girl with the bandaged arm. “All the other Jewish kids around here have been taken away by the Nazis. Adolf Hitler’s orders. And they never come back. The only kids left are the ones hiding like us.”

  “Can we get on with the story now?” says Zelda.

  I sit on the floor with them, my thoughts in a daze. Suddenly I’m thinking about another story. The one Mum and Dad told me about why I had to stay at the orphanage. They said it was so I could go to school there while they traveled to fix up their business. They told it so well, that story, I believed it for three years and eight months.

  That story saved my life.

  Zelda and the others are dragging the coats over our heads and making a tent.

  “Tell us another story about the boy in the castle,” says Henryk.

  “His name’s William,” says Zelda.

  “Shhh,” says the girl with the curly hair. She’s brushing it with a hairbrush, over and over, which looks pretty painful. She smiles at me. “Let Felix tell us.”

  I try to think of something to tell them. Something to take our minds off our worries. Something to make us forget that the most important man in the whole of Poland hates us and our parents and our books.

  “One morning,” I say, “William wakes up in his castle. In his breakfast soup he finds a magic carrot.”

  “A magic carrot,” interrupts Zelda. “That means he gets three wishes.”

  “It doesn’t have to be three wishes,” says the blinking boy. “It could just be one wish.”

  “It’s three,” says Zelda indignantly. “If he holds the carrot right.”

  I sigh. I’m not in a story mood. My brain is buzzing with too many other things.

  “Look,” I say. “Let’s not have another fight. Why doesn’t everybody just take it in turns to say what they’d wish for if they had a magic carrot.”

  “I’d wish for my
mummy and daddy,” says Zelda. “Three times.”

  “Apart from parents,” says the girl with the bandaged arm.

  Everyone frowns and thinks hard.

  “Tidy hair,” says the girl with curly hair, still brushing it nonstop.

  “Your hair is tidy, Ruth,” says the girl with the bandaged arm. “You’ve got lovely hair.”

  Ruth gives a little smile but carries on brushing.

  “What about you, Jacob?” says the girl with the bandaged arm to the blinking boy.

  Jacob blinks hard. “My dog,” he says.

  “Me too,” says Henryk. “And my grandma’s dog.”

  The girl with the bandaged arm gives the toddler a cuddle. “What would you like, Janek?”

  “Carrot,” says the toddler.

  Everyone laughs.

  “I’d wish to be alive,” says the girl with the bandaged arm.

  Everyone laughs again, except me and the wood-chewing boy.

  I don’t get it.

  “Her name’s Chaya,” says Ruth, still brushing. “It means alive in Hebrew.”

  “Your turn,” says Chaya to me.

  I can’t think of anything except for Mum and Dad. And wishing Zelda’s parents were still alive. But I can’t say that either. I signal to the wood-chewing boy to have his go.

  He doesn’t reply. He doesn’t even look at me. He just keeps on chewing the end of the piece of wood in his hands.

  “You’d like the rest of your house, eh, Moshe?” says Chaya gently.

  Moshe nods as he chews, not looking up.

  “Come on, Felix,” says Zelda. “You have to have your turn. Use your imagination.”

  I wait for my imagination to come up with something.

  Anything.

  It doesn’t.

  All I can think of is that if Adolf Hitler hates Jewish kids, perhaps God and Jesus and the Virgin Mary and the Pope do too.

  “He’s not going to tell us,” says Ruth.

  “Come on,” says Henryk. “Let’s have a lice hunt.”

  The kids throw the coats off and go and sit in the needles of daylight and start searching through each other’s hair and clothes.

  All except Zelda.

  “You’re mean,” she says to me.

  “Sorry,” I say.

  I flop down on my bed. My imagination doesn’t want to be bothered with stories, not now. All it wants to do is plan how I’m going to get out of this place and find Mum and Dad before Adolf Hitler’s Nazis kill them.