Free When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit by Judith Kerr

twenty children and each of them would have brought her a present. About now they would all be playing games in the garden. Then there would be tea, and candles round the cake ... She could imagine it all so clearly that she hardly noticed when the speeches finally came to an end.
    Mama appeared beside her. “We’re going back to the boat now,” she said. Then she whispered, “The speeches were dreadfully dull, weren’t they?” with a conspiratorial smile. But Anna did not smile back. It was all very well for Mama—after all it wasn’t her birthday!
    Once back on the boat she found a place by the side and stood there alone, staring into the water. That was it, she thought as the boat steamed back towards Zurich. She’d had her birthday—her tenth birthday—and not a single bit of it had been nice. She folded her arms on the railings and rested her head on them, pretending to look at the view so that no one should see how miserable she was. The water rushed past below her and the warm wind blew through her hair, and all she could think of was that her birthday had been spoilt and nothing would ever be any good again.
    After a while she felt a hand on her shoulder. It was Papa. Had he noticed how disappointed she was? But Papa never noticed things like that—he was too absorbed in his own thoughts.
    “So now I have a ten-year-old daughter,” he said and smiled.
    “Yes,” said Anna.
    “As a matter of fact,” said Papa, “I don’t think you are quite ten years old yet. You were born at six o’clock in the evening. That’s not for another twenty minutes.”
    “Really?” said Anna. For some reason the fact that she was not quite ten yet made her feel better.
    “Yes,” said Papa, “and to me it doesn’t seem so very long ago. Of course we didn’t know then that we’d be spending your tenth birthday steaming about Lake Zurich as refugees from Hitler.”
    “Is a refugee someone who’s had to leave their home?” asked Anna.
    “Someone who seeks refuge in another country,” said Papa.
    “I don’t think I’m quite used to being one yet,” said Anna.
    “It’s an odd feeling,” said Papa. “You live in a country all your life. Then suddenly it is taken over by thugs and there you are, on your own in a strange place, with nothing.”
    He looked so cheerful as he said this that Anna asked, “Don’t you mind?”
    “In a way,” said Papa. “But I find it very interesting.”
    The sun was sinking in the sky. Every so often it disappeared behind the top of a mountain, and then the lake darkened and everything on the boat became dull and flat. Then it reappeared in a gap between two peaks and the world turned rosy-gold again.
    “I wonder where we’ll be on your eleventh birthday,” said Papa, “and on your twelfth.”
    “Won’t we be here?”
    “Oh, I don’t think so,” said Papa. “If the Swiss won’t print anything I write for fear of upsetting the Nazis across the border we may as well live in another country altogether. Where would you like to go?”
    “I don’t know,” said Anna.
    “I think France would be very nice,” said Papa. He considered it for a while. “Do you know Paris at all?” he asked.
    Until Anna became a refugee the only place she had ever gone to was the seaside, but she was used to Papa’s habit of becoming so interested in his own thoughts that he forgot whom he was talking to. She shook her head.
    “It’s a beautiful city,” said Papa. “I’m sure you’d like it.”
    “Would we go to a French school?”
    “I expect so. And you’d learn to speak French. On the other hand,” said Papa, “we might live in England—that’s very beautiful too. But a bit damp.” He looked at Anna thoughtfully. “No,” he said, “I think we’ll try Paris first.”
    The sun had now disappeared completely and it was dusk. It was hard to see the water as the boat sped through it, except for the foam which flashed white in what little light was left.
    “Am I ten