Hitler's Daughter by Jackie French Read Free Book Online

said Frau Leib, and Heidi knew it wasn’t because she was polite, or helped make the beds, but because she had said nothing about the things in Frau Leib’s pockets.
    Heidi helped Frau Leib in the mornings, and often in the afternoons now as well. Fräulein Gelber had arranged all the schoolbooks in the third bedroom, but she no longer seemed as interested in lessons as she was before.
    She didn’t even make Heidi read pages from Duffi’s book. She read her letters from home over and over, and several times Heidi found her crying. But now she wouldn’t explain why.
    Fräulein Gelber still liked to walk, and they did walk once a day, but not along the lane: ‘In case someone sees us and asks questions,’ said Fräulein Gelber. They walked across the fields instead.
    The fields had belonged to their house. Frau Leib’s husband worked them now. They walked across the Leibs’ fields too. There was a wood not far away andonce they saw a deer, grazing delicately by the edge of the trees, and once a wild pig, a ‘wildschwein’.
    The wildschwein did not look at all like Frau Leib’s pigs. It was black and hairy with big shoulders and a tiny back and even its snout was crooked. It stared at them with tiny eyes, and then it ran away.
    Heidi asked Fräulein Gelber why the wild pig was so different from Frau Leib’s pigs, but Fräulein Gelber couldn’t say. ‘It’s just the way things are,’ she said.
    There were wild mushrooms in the fields in autumn and the leaves in the wood fluttered like yellow butterflies and stuck to Heidi’s shoes. Frau Leib made mushroom omelette as a treat, because even for them, eggs were getting scarce.
    Sometimes city women came out and tried to trade things, like a cushion or a good saucepan, for an egg. Or even jewellery for a ham.
    Frau Leib told Heidi all about the city women, but she didn’t say whether she traded with them or not. It was illegal to trade food. Everything was rationed; but Heidi suspected that she did, even if Herr Leib didn’t know.
    One day when she and Fräulein Gelber were out in the fields, a plane flew down so low she could see the pilot’s face, or rather, his helmet, which mostly hid hisface. All she could really see were his mouth and chin, white below the brown helmet.
    She almost wanted to wave, he was so close. If she’d yelled ‘Hello’ he might even have heard her above the clatter of the engines. But he was an enemy, and even if he had been a German pilot, Fräulein Gelber would have frowned.

chapter eight
Who is better?
    The bus rolled and wandered through the puddles, then bumped up onto the bitumen. The splash of mud and water stopped.
    ‘I’d like to see His Excellency the blinking Mayor drive this blinking road twice a day,’ muttered Mrs Latter to no one in particular. She blew her nose with peculiar vehemence into the big white hanky. ‘Made sure he got the bitumen right up to his place, no worries about that. But as for doing anything for us out here…’
    No one said anything. If you answered Mrs Latter you were in for an argument all the way to school.
    Mark waited till Mrs Latter had subsided under her hat (it was orange and red today) then tapped Anna on the shoulder. ‘Anna?’
    Anna looked up from her book and turned round. ‘Yeah, what?’
    ‘You know how Hitler went on about the Jews? About some people being better than others?’
    ‘Yes,’ said Anna.
    ‘Well, was there anything in it?’
    Anna stared. ‘Of course not!’ she said.
    ‘I don’t mean about the Jews,’ said Mark hurriedly. ‘I mean everyone knows that’s stupid. But what I mean is, are some people better than others…you know what I mean.’
    Little Tracey turned round. ‘I’m better at spelling,’ she boasted loudly. ‘Miss Littlefield says I’m the best of all. I can beat anyone in the class. I bet I can beat…’
    ‘That’s not what I meant,’ interrupted Mark.
    Anna frowned. ‘You mean, is any group of people, a whole country or a race