Free Once by Morris Gleitzman

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.

 
      I escaped from an underground hiding place by telling a story. It was a bit exaggerated. It was a bit fanciful. It was my imagination getting a bit carried away. It was a lie.
     
    “Barney,” I whisper, tugging his sleeve as he creeps up the cellar steps.
    He spins around, startled, and nearly drops his candle. He thought I was asleep like the other kids.
    “I need to come with you,” I whisper.
    Barney frowns.
    I start to explain why I have to go with him.
    He puts his finger on his lips and signals for me to follow him up the steps. I climb after him through the doorway in the ceiling. And find myself in a huge room full of dusty old machinery.
    Barney puts his leather bag down, gently lowers the trapdoor, and locks it with a padlock.
    He sees me looking around and points to the machinery.
    “Printing presses,” he says. “For printing books. Not now. Before.”
    I know what he means. Before the Nazis went right off books. And Jews.
    “So,” says Barney quietly, “why do you need to come with me?”
    I take a deep breath.
    “I need to find my parents,” I say. “Urgently. Because of my rare illness.”
    Barney thinks about this. He gives me a look that I’m fairly sure is sympathetic.
    This is going well.
    “Mum and Dad have got my pills,” I say. “For my rare illness. If I don’t take the pills, my rare illness will get worse and I could die.”
    Barney thinks about this some more.
    “What exactly is this rare illness?” he asks.
    Suddenly I realize what he’s concerned about. The other kids catching it. And him.
    “Don’t worry,” I say. “It doesn’t invade other people.”
    Barney’s eyes are twinkling in the candlelight. He almost looks amused. I feel indignant. People shouldn’t be amused by other people’s rare illnesses.
    “If I don’t find Mum and Dad and take those pills in the next two hours,” I say, “I’ll get warts growing inside my tummy and my pee will turn green.”
    I stop myself saying any more. I may have gone a bit too far already.
    Barney is actually smiling now.
    “Zelda’s right,” he says. “You are a good storyteller.”
    Poop, I did go too