Once by Morris Gleitzman Page B

shoes.”
    “Shhh,” calls Chaya from down below. “You’ll wake Barney.”
    “It’s all right,” says Jacob, his voice strained from helping Chaya prop up the pile of beds. “Barney’s a heavy sleeper.”
    Zelda’s eyes are pressed to the crack in the wall.
    “Over there,” she squeaks. “Mummy’s feet.”
    I know how she feels. I thought I saw Dad’s dark green trousers. Until I saw another pair. And then three more.
    I try to see if any of the feet and legs look as if they’re doing the sort of things that Mum and Dad do, like carrying big piles of books or having discussions about books or reading somebody else’s book over their shoulder.
    I can’t tell. The feet and legs could be doing anything. I can identify those two pairs of legs over there. They belong to two men who are wrestling on the ground over a piece of bread. And those there belong to another man who’s just collapsed and is lying on the cobbles while people step over him. But the rest of the feet and legs could belong to anybody. The only thing I can tell for sure is that none of them belong to kids.
    I press my nose to the crack in the wall and try to get a whiff of Mum’s perfume.
    Nothing.
    I cram my ear to the crack and try to hear Mum’s and Dad’s voices.
    All I can hear is trucks arriving and people yelling. Some of them sound like German soldiers.
    Suddenly all the feet and legs are scattering and running away.
    “Mummy,” yells Zelda.
    She’s jiggling up and down. The pile of beds underneath us is toppling.
    “Look out,” yells Jacob.
    I plummet toward the floor.
    Luckily the beds break my fall. So does Jacob. When my head stops spinning and I find my glasses, I help him out from under a sack. And almost step back into Barney, who is standing there, hands on his hips, glaring at us.
    I can’t give him my full attention yet, not till I’ve made sure Zelda is all right. If she landed on this stone floor…
    Phew, there she is, crawling around on her hands and knees.
    “Where are my slippers?” she’s saying. “I need to put my slippers on so I can go and see Mummy.”
    I look at how desperately she’s searching and suddenly I know I have to tell her. I don’t want to, and I don’t know how to, but I have to. The poor kid can’t go on like this. She needs to know the truth.
    “You’re sure they were both dead?” says Barney quietly as we watch the other kids put the beds back into position and Zelda put her slippers on.
     
    I nod.
    I tell him about the feathers I held under their noses.
    “They’d been shot,” I say. “So had the chickens.”
    I try not to think about the blood.
    Barney frowns.
    “You’re right,” he says. “Zelda does need to know.”
    I wait, but he doesn’t say anything else.
    “Will you tell her?” I say.
    Barney frowns some more.
    “I think it’s better if you do it,” he says. “You’ve been through a lot together and she trusts you. And you were there.”
    That’s what I’ve been dreading he’d say.
    “I don’t know how to,” I say quietly.
    Barney looks at me. I haven’t noticed before how red his eyes are. Must be because he works at night a lot.
    “Just tell her the story of what you saw,” he says. “You don’t have to make anything up.”
    “All right,” I say.
    I wish I could make things up for Zelda. I wish I could tell her a happy story. About how my glasses were affected by the heat of the fire, and how her parents aren’t really dead, and how they’re just having a holiday on a desert island with a cake shop, and how they’ll be coming back for her as soon as their suntans are completed.
    But I can’t.
    I tell Zelda the story of what I saw.
     
    She doesn’t believe me.
    “No,” she yells, throwing herself onto her sack.
    Barney puts his hand gently on her shoulder. The other kids watch silently, their faces sad.
    I tell her again, still without making anything up.
    This time she doesn’t yell. For a long time her body shakes in Barney’s