The Extra by Kathryn Lasky

lowlands, Pedro. The devil lives there.”
    “Okay, we get it,” Rosa said. “On with the plot.”
    “I know what’s going to happen, Django doesn’t need to tell us,” Lilo said confidently while scraping up the last dregs from the soup bowl with her fingers. “Pedro and Don Sebastian both fall in love with Martha. Pedro wins. The good guy always wins. That’s what happens in the end with the knife fight, right?” Everyone fell silent as soon as Lilo said this. But now she felt foolish, because she knew that it was not that the script was so simple but that life was more complicated.
    The good guys didn’t always win. Django, Rosa, Lilo, and Bluma had lost in every battle so far. This was proof enough that the bad guys had already won over and over again. When there were no more people to be killed, maybe that’s when Hitler would lose.
    Django broke the silence. “Yeah. You’ve got it, Lilo. Simple.” That one word cut deeply. It was the only time he had ever betrayed any contempt. That she should have provoked it felt horrible.
    She sighed. “How’s Unku doing?”
    Both Rosa and Django shrugged.
    “I think I’ll go see her,” she said suddenly, and jumped up to leave. Django reached out and brushed her hand softly. He was saying he was sorry — she knew it. Her eyes filled, but she was still ashamed.
    “Unku?” she called softly when she reached the top rung of the ladder to the hayloft where Unku slept. “Unku?”
    “Yeah?”
    “It’s me, Lilo.” She scrambled up over to the loft window, where Unku had made her pallet with the blankets.
    “Don’t say it doesn’t look so bad, please.”
    “It looks terrible.”
    Unku laughed. “Good, at least you’re honest.” She raised her hand to her head and rubbed it. “Look — I even have a bald patch.” She tipped her head forward, and indeed, there was a spot the size of a five-reichsmark coin.
    “They made that with scissors?”
    “Oh, no. Fräulein Riefenstahl herself took the razor and very carefully shaved that.” Unku paused. “She’s very careful about details.” There was something in the way Unku said these last words that made Lilo’s heart almost stop.
    “Details,” she whispered.
    “Yes, details. Did you see that notebook she took out and wrote in?”
    “Yes,” Lilo said.
    “Did you wonder what she wrote down?”
    “Sort of?” Lilo lied.
    “I think she wrote something about me. She took it out again just after she cut my hair, and asked my name again.”
    “She did?”
    Unku nodded solemnly, tears beginning to run down her cheeks.
    Lilo didn’t know what to say. “Unku, your hair will grow back.” As soon as the words were out, she knew it was the stupidest thing in the world to say.
    Unku looked at her. Her eyes were seething with anger now and not tears. “It’s not my hair, you fool! It’s everything. My mama, my papa, my older sister, my only brother. I can’t grow
them
back again. They take everything! Everything, Lilo. Even your mother’s insides.”
    Lilo was not sure how long she had been sleeping when she heard a whimpering in the night. She opened her eyes and listened carefully. It wasn’t Unku. It sounded too young, but not a baby. Or rather not the baby — the little girl who had cried most of the night before but had at last gone to sleep this evening. A child? She got up from the hay and went to investigate.
    At first she thought it was just a pile of dirty old blankets stuffed in what looked like a feeding trough, but as she approached, she saw something stir under the blankets. Bending over, she lifted a corner of the coverings. It was the small boy, Otto. He was sobbing in his sleep. She put a hand on his heaving shoulder and patted him gently. This seemed to wake him.
    “Bad dream?” she asked.
    “Oh, no. Good dream about my mother.” He rubbed his eyes, looked at her, and then sat up in the trough. He was so small. Probably not bigger than the calves or lambs that might eat from the