Once 1 Once Read online

  “Just one sip each,” he says. “Felix, did you get the aspirin?”

  I nod.

  Barney takes Zelda into his arms.

  “Crush two into powder,” he says.

  I grind the aspirin into my palm with my thumb. Barney makes sure each person only has a small sip of water and that there’s some left in the bottle.

  “Put the powder into the water and shake it up,” he tells me.

  I do. I hand the bottle to Barney. He puts it to Zelda’s lips.

  “This won’t taste nice,” he says. “But you must drink it.”

  She does, screwing up her face.

  While she’s busy drinking, I huddle closer to Barney.

  “Look at this,” I say.

  I show him the locket round Zelda’s neck. He stares at the photo of her parents. Even in the hot gloom of our tent I can see he knows what it means. Chaya does too.

  “I hate Polish people who join the Nazis,” she mutters.

  Barney sighs. “The Polish Resistance must have killed them,” he says softly.

  I don’t know what resistance means, but this isn’t the time to learn new words. There’s something much more urgent we need to do.

  “We must tell someone,” I say.

  Barney nods.

  “Stay in the tent,” he says to the others. “We’ll be back soon.”

  Barney and Zelda and me crawl out of the tent.

  I squint around the railway yard, looking for someone to tell, someone who can save Zelda.

  Suddenly I see him.

  Thank you, God, Jesus, Mary, the Pope, and Richmal Crompton, you are on our side after all.

  It’s the Nazi officer who was the dental patient. The one who wants my African story for his kids. I pull my notebook from my shirt and rip out the pages with the African story on it. It’s only half finished, but these are tough times and I’m sure he’ll understand.

  I start to go over to him.

  Barney grabs me. “If you leave a queue in a place like this,” he says, “you get shot.”

  “Sorry,” I say.

  That was stupid, I wasn’t thinking.

  “Excuse me,” I yell at the Nazi officer, waving the pages. “I’ve got your story. Over here.”

  He doesn’t hear me at first, but I shout some more until Barney stops me, and when a soldier comes over and starts yelling at me even louder and pointing his gun at my head, the officer looks up and sees the pages I’m waving and comes over himself.

  He orders the soldier away.

  “Here it is,” I say. “The story you wanted.”

  I hold the pages out to him. He takes them, looks at them, smiles, folds them up, and puts them in his pocket.

  “Also,” I say, “there’s something else.”

  I point to the locket hanging around Zelda’s neck.

  Barney puts his hand on my arm. I remember the Nazi officer doesn’t speak Polish.

  The officer is staring at the locket. Barney lifts it up so he can see it better and starts speaking to him in German.

  “That’s my mummy and daddy,” says Zelda quietly to the Nazi officer. “They’re dead. The Polish assistance killed them.”

  The Nazi officer looks at the photo for a long time. Then he looks at Zelda and at Barney and at me and at the tent.

  He points to Zelda and Barney and then points to the railway yard gate.

  Yes.

  He’s saying they can go.

  Barney speaks to him some more in German, pointing to me and the other kids, who are peering out of the tent. He must be asking if we can go too.

  The Nazi officer shakes his head. He points to Zelda and Barney again.

  “Go with Zelda,” I say to Barney.

  He ignores me. He says more things to the Nazi officer. I don’t speak German, but I can tell he’s pleading.

  The Nazi officer shakes his head again. He’s starting to look angry.

  “Go with Zelda,” I beg Barney. “I’ll look after the others.”

  The other kids start screaming. Nazi soldiers have grabbed them and are dragging them toward the train. One starts dragging me.

  As I’m being lifted up I see Barney push Zelda’s hand into the Nazi officer’s hand. Barney comes running after us, yelling at the soldiers to leave us alone. Zelda struggles to get away from the Nazi officer, kicking and screaming.

  “Felix,” she yells, “wait.”

  Now I can’t see her. I’m in one of the train boxcars, lying on the floor and on other people. I grab my glasses. Henryk lands on top of me. Other kids as well. Ruth is crying. Chaya is holding her bad arm. Jacob is holding little Janek to his chest. Other people are being thrown on top of us.

  Through the tangle of people I see Barney climbing into the boxcar, crawling toward us, asking if we’re all right.

  “Zelda,” I yell, hoping she can hear me in the total confusion, “good-bye.”

  But it’s not good-bye. A soldier throws Zelda into the boxcar on top of us. Then he slides the door closed with a crash.

  “Zelda,” I moan. “Why didn’t you stay?”

  “I bit the Nazi,” she says. “Don’t you know anything?”

  I put my arm round Zelda and we lie here shivering.

  Outside people are screaming and dogs are barking and soldiers are shouting but the loudest noises are the gunshots.

  Bang. Bang. Bang.

  Suddenly I realize they’re not gunshots. I realize what the soldiers are doing. They’re nailing the train door shut.

  I went on my first train journey, but I wouldn’t call it exciting—I’d call it painful and miserable.

  There are so many of us in this boxcar that most of us have to stand up. Every time the train lurches, we lurch too and squash each other.

  “Sorry,” I say each time to the people around me.

  At least the little kids have got a space to sit down. Not all the people wanted to make room at first, because it meant the rest of us were more squashed, but Barney had a word with them and then they did.

  “Sorry.”

  Barney’s got all the kids doing a lice hunt, which is a really good idea. We’re packed in so tight here we could be giving each other lice without knowing it. Plus nothing passes the time on a long journey like a lice hunt.

  Zelda isn’t doing it, she’s asleep.

  Please, God and the others, let her get better.

  “Sorry.”

  I try and make myself thinner to give some of the old people more space. It must be terrible for them. I’m young and I’m used to going without food and water and space.

  “Sorry.”

  “For God’s sake,” yells a man near me, “stop saying sorry.”

  Barney gives the man a long look.

  “He’s just a kid,” says Barney. “Give him a break.”

  The man looks like he’s going to explode.

  “A break?” he says. “A break? Who’s giving us a break?”

  I know how the man feels. We’ve been traveling for hours and this train hasn’t stopped once for a toilet break. People can’t hold it in forever, which is why we’ve had to start going in the corner of the carriage.

  Well, Ruth and Moshe and three of the other people have. Everyone else is desperately trying to hold it in because there isn’t any toilet paper.

  “Are we there yet?” says Henryk, looking up from Ruth’s hair.

  “Be patient,” says Barney softly. “Don’t let those lice get away.”

  “Will we be there soon?” says Jacob, looking up from little Janek’s wispy hair and blinking hopefully.

  “Shhhh,” says Barney.

  I know what he’s worried about. People who hate “sorry” probably hate “are we there yet?” just as much. ’Specially people who are trying not to think about two other words.

  The two that Barney used once.

  Death camp.

  “Sorry,” says an elderly woman as she struggles through the rest of us to the toilet corner. “Sorry, I have to.”
/>
  We all turn away, those of us that can, to give her some privacy.

  Poor woman.

  Having no toilet paper isn’t so bad when you’re young and you’ve lived in an orphanage a long way from the shops and you’re used to sometimes just letting poo dry on you and then getting on with things. But for older people who are used to tradition it must be awful.

  I start thinking about poor Mum and Dad and whether they had to go without toilet paper when they made this trip.

  I don’t want to think about them making this trip. About them arriving and getting off the train and…

  Please, I beg my imagination. Give me something else to think about. I can’t help Barney look after the kids if I’m a weeping wreck.

  Suddenly an idea hits me.

  Of course.

  I reach into my shirt and after a struggle because a couple of other people’s elbows are in my chest I manage to pull out my notebook and rip out a couple of blank pages.

  “Here,” I say to the woman in the corner. “Use this.”

  The other people pass it over to her and when she sees what it is she starts crying.

  “It’s all right,” I say, “I haven’t written on it.”

  Barney squeezes my arm.

  “Well done, Felix,” he says.

  Lots of other people hold their hands out for toilet paper and I rip pages out for them as well. Now I’ve only got pages left with stories on them. Stories I wrote about Mum and Dad.

  I look over at the people crouching in the corner, at the relief on their faces.

  Mum and Dad would understand.

  I rip the rest of the pages out of my notebook and wriggle past everyone to the toilet corner. I grab a metal bolt poking out of a plank in the wall. If I push the bolt through the pages, they’ll hang there and people can tear off a page or two as they need them.

  The bolt comes away in my hands.

  The wooden plank is rotten.

  I kick at it and part of my foot goes through.

  “Barney,” I yell.

  People are looking at what I’ve done. A couple of men pull my foot out of the plank and start kicking at the wood themselves. Their big boots make a much bigger hole.

  Barney and the men pull at the side of the hole with their hands and more bolts fly out of the wood and suddenly the whole plank comes away.

  I can see green countryside speeding past.

  One of the men tries to squeeze through.

  “Wait,” says Barney. “We need to make the hole bigger. If you roll out you’ll fall on the track. You need to be able to jump clear.”

  Everyone squashes back to give Barney and the men more room. Barney jams the plank into the hole and the men push till their faces are bulging.

  A second plank splinters and the men kick it out.

  They do the same with a third.

  “That’s enough,” yells one of the men. He takes a couple of steps back and dives out through the hole. The second man follows him.

  “Come on,” yells someone else. “We’re free.”

  More people fling themselves through the hole.

  I grab Barney.

  “Won’t the Nazis stop the train and catch them?” I say.

  Barney shakes his head. “They won’t let anything interfere with their timetable,” he says. “They don’t need to.”

  We all freeze, startled, as gunshots echo through the train.

  Lots of gunshots.

  “They’ve got machine guns on the roof,” says Barney, hugging the little kids to him. “Easier for them than stopping the train.”

  People are peering out of the hole, trying to see what happened to the ones who jumped.

  “Look,” screams a woman. “Some of them have made it. They’re running into the woods. They’re free.”

  I grab Barney again.

  “We’ve got to risk it,” I say.

  I can see Barney doesn’t agree. I can see why. Henryk and Janek are in tears. Ruth and Jacob are clinging to each other, terrified. Moshe has stopped chewing his wood.

  I crouch down and in as calm a voice as I can, I tell them a story. It’s a story about some kids who jump off a train and land in a soft meadow and a farmer comes and takes them home and they live happily on the farm with his family and get very good at growing vegetables and in the year 1972 they invent a carrot that cures all illnesses.

  I pull Zelda’s carrot out of my pocket to show them it’s possible.

  But I can see that most of them aren’t convinced.

  “Felix,” says Barney, “if you want to risk it, I won’t stop you. But I have to stay with the ones who don’t want to.”

  “No,” I say, pleading. “We all have to jump.”

  “I don’t want to,” says Ruth, clinging to Barney.

  “I don’t want to,” says Jacob.

  “I don’t want to,” says Henryk.

  “I don’t want to,” says Janek.

  It’s no good. I know I’m not going to change their minds. You can’t force people to believe a story. And I can see Barney isn’t going to try. Some people would make kids risk machine gun bullets and broken necks when they don’t want to, but not Barney.

  “I want to,” says a voice, and a warm hand squeezes mine.

  It’s Zelda.

  “Are you sure?” says Barney, feeling her forehead.

  “Yes,” says Zelda.

  “You’re sick,” says Ruth.

  “I’m better,” says Zelda.

  Barney looks like he’s not sure.

  “She wants to risk it, Barney,” I say.

  “See?” says Zelda. “Felix knows.”

  Chaya hands little Janek to Barney.

  “I want to risk it too,” she says.

  Barney looks at her for a moment.

  “All right,” he says quietly. “Anyone else?”

  The rest of the kids shake their heads.

  I check that Mum and Dad’s letters are safely inside my shirt. And my toothbrush. Then I hug Ruth and Jacob and Henryk and Janek and Moshe.

  And Barney. Now I’ve got my arms round him, I don’t ever want to let go.

  But I have to.

  “If you see my mum and dad,” I say, “will you tell them I love them and that I know they did their very best?”

  “Yes,” says Barney.

  His eyes are as wet as mine.

  “Thank you,” I say.

  I touch his beard for a moment and behind us I can hear some of the other people in the boxcar crying.

  Barney hugs Zelda and Chaya. They hug the other kids.

  “Only two wishes this time,” I say to the ones who are staying. “But at least we got to choose.”

  Moshe, chewing again, smiles sadly.

  I take hold of Zelda with one hand and Chaya with the other, and we jump.

  I lay in a field somewhere in Poland, not sure if I was alive or dead.

  You know how when you jump off a moving train and Nazis shoot at you with machine guns and you see sharp tree stumps coming at you and then you hit the ground so hard you feel like you’ve smashed your head open and bullets have gone through your chest and you don’t survive even though you prayed to God, Jesus, Mary, the Pope, and Richmal Crompton?

  That’s what’s happened to poor Chaya.

  She’s lying next to me on the grass, bleeding and not breathing.

  I reach out and touch her face. When I feel a bit better I’ll move her away from the railway line to somewhere more peaceful. Under that tree over there with the wildflowers near it.

  Zelda is lying next to me too. We cling to each other and watch the train speed away into the distance.

  “Are you all right?” I say.

  “Yes,” she says. “Are you?”

  I nod. My glasses are all right too.

  “We’re lucky,” she says sadly.

  “Yes,” I say. “We are.”

  I think about Barney and what was in his jacket pocket when I hugged him just now.

  Meta
l syringes.

  I know he won’t let the others suffer any pain. He’s a good dentist. He’ll tell them a story about a long peaceful sleep, and it’ll be a true story.

  I don’t know what the rest of my story will be.

  It could end in a few minutes, or tomorrow, or next year, or I could be the world’s most famous author in the year 1983, living in a cake shop with a dog called Jumble and my best friend, Zelda.

  However my story turns out, I’ll never forget how lucky I am.

  Barney said everybody deserves to have something good in their life at least once.

  I have.

  More than once.

  Dear Reader,

  This story came from my imagination, but it was inspired by real events.

  From 1939 to 1945 the world was at war, and the leader of Germany, Adolf Hitler, tried to destroy the Jewish people in Europe. His followers, the Nazis, and those who supported them, murdered six million Jews, including one and a half million children. They also killed a lot of other people, many of whom offered shelter to the Jews. We call this time of killing the Holocaust.

  My grandfather was a Jew from Krakow in Poland. He left there long before that time, but his extended family didn’t and most of them perished.

  Ten years ago I read a book about Janusz Korczak, a Polish Jewish doctor and children’s author who devoted his life to caring for young people. Over many years he helped run an orphanage for two hundred Jewish children. In 1942, when the Nazis murdered these orphans, Janusz Korczak was offered his freedom but chose to die with the children rather than abandon them.

  Janusz Korczak became my hero. His story sowed a seed in my imagination.

  On the way to writing this story I read many other stories— diaries, letters, notes, and memories of people who were young at the time of the Holocaust. Many of them died, but some of their stories survived, and you can find out where to read them by visiting my Web site or having a look at the Once readers’ notes on the Henry Holt site.

  This story is my imagination trying to grasp the unimaginable.