The Boy in the Striped Pajamas: Chapters 1–4

She sighed and threw her hands in the air in frustration before marching back to the staircase, followed by Bruno, who wasn’t going to let the matter drop without an explanation.

‘Well, sometimes when someone is very important,’ continued Mother, ‘the man who employs him asks him to go somewhere else because there’s a very special job that needs doing there.’

The new house, however, stood all on its own in an empty, desolate place and there were no other houses anywhere to be seen, which meant there would be no other families around and no other boys to play with, neither friends nor trouble.

However, the new house had only three floors: a top floor where all three bedrooms were and only one bathroom, a ground floor with a kitchen, a dining room and a new office for Father (which, he presumed, had the same restrictions as the old one), and a basement where the servants slept.

‘I think the best thing to do would be to forget all about this and just go back home. We can chalk it up to experience,’ he added, a phrase he had learned recently and was determined to use as often as possible.

‘This isn’t home and it never will be,’ he muttered under his breath as he went through his own door to find all his clothes scattered on the bed and the boxes of toys and books not even unpacked yet. It was obvious that Maria did not have her priorities right.

‘Weeks?’ said Bruno, sounding disappointed but secretly pleased because he’d resigned himself to the idea of spending a month there.

‘It’s horrible,’ said Bruno.
‘Well, yes,’ said Gretel, acknowledging that.

‘But what does it mean?’ he asked in exasperation. ‘Out with what?’

Trying not to appear too obvious, he strolled casually towards it.

There was a plaque attached to the top of the bench but she couldn’t read the inscription from this distance.

At the top of the fence enormous bales of barbed wire were tangled in spirals, and Gretel felt an unexpected pain inside her as she looked at the sharp spikes sticking out all the way round it.

‘I don’t think so,’ he said with great conviction.

‘You’re nine,' countered Gretel. ‘How would you know? When you get to my age you’ll understand these things a lot better.’

‘Look over there,’ said Bruno, and Gretel followed the direction of the finger he was pointing and saw, emerging from a hut in the distance, a group of children huddled together and being shouted at by a group of soldiers.