Once by Morris Gleitzman Read Free Book Online Page A

This straggling crowd of people are all Jewish book owners, all being transported to the city.
    Are Mum and Dad here?
    I lean forward again, trying to see, but before I can spot them I hear a sound behind me.
    A scream.
    Zelda.
    I struggle out of the hedge, almost losing my glasses. I jam them back on and almost faint at what I see.
    Zelda is standing by the haystack, rigid with fear. Next to her, pointing a machine gun down at her head, is a Nazi soldier.
    “Don’t shoot,” I scream, running over to them.
    The soldier points his gun at me.
    I freeze. With a stab of panic I see my notebook lying in the hay at his feet. It must have fallen out of my shirt. The Nazi soldier must have seen it. He must think we’re Jewish book owners. Disobedient ones, like Zelda’s parents.
    My throat goes dry with fear.
    “That isn’t really a book,” I croak. “It’s a notebook. And it isn’t hers, it’s mine. And I wasn’t trying to hide it. I was planning to hand it over as soon as we get to the city and find the place where the books are being burnt.”
    The soldier stares at me like he doesn’t believe what I’ve just said.
    Desperately I try to think of a way to make friends with him.
    “Sorry I just shouted at you,” I say. “I’m from the mountains where you have to shout and yodel to make yourself heard. Can you yodel?”
    The soldier doesn’t reply. He just scowls and waves his gun toward the hedge.
    I grab Zelda by the hand, and my notebook, and the bread and water.
    Zelda is trembling just as much as me.
    “Come on,” I say to her gently. “He’s telling us we have to go to the city with all the other people.”
    “To see our mums and dads,” says Zelda to the soldier.
    You know how when you’re looking for your mum and dad in a straggling crowd of people trudging along a dusty road and you speed up and get to the front and then slow down and drop to the back and you still can’t see them even when you pray to God, Jesus, the Virgin Mary, the Pope, and Adolf Hitler?
     
    That’s happening to me.
    My head is throbbing and I feel squashed with disappointment.
    I try to cheer myself up by thinking how Mum and Dad have probably already arrived at the city and are having a sit-down and taking the weight off their feet.
    It doesn’t cheer me up much. The Nazi soldiers on the motorbikes are still yelling at everyone. I hope Mum and Dad haven’t got noisy cross soldiers like these. Mum gets very indignant when people are rude, and sometimes she tells them off.
    Zelda doesn’t look very happy either.
    “My feet hurt,” she says.
    Poor thing. She’s only wearing fluffy bedtime slippers. The soles aren’t thick enough to protect her feet from the stones on the road.
    I bend down and pull some of the rag stuffing out of my shoes.
    “Come on,” I say to Zelda. “Piggyback.”
    She jumps on my back.
    “Hold on tight,” I say, and start walking again so the soldiers won’t yell at us for lagging behind.
    Some of the other kids walking with their mums and dads give Zelda jealous looks. I don’t blame them. Some of them are only about three or four. Their mums and dads are too weary to talk to them, let alone carry them.
    I can see Zelda wants to stay on my back till we get to the city. I wish she could, but I feel too ill.
    I take her slippers off, wind the rags round her feet, and put her slippers back on.
    “There,” I say. “That should help.”
    I put her back down.
    “It feels funny,” she says after a few steps.
    I try to think of something to help her get used to it.
    “All the great travelers in history had rags round their feet,” I say. “Christopher Columbus, who discovered America, he had rags round his feet. Dr. Livingstone in Africa, he did. Hannibal the Great, he did too. So did his elephants. In the future, by the year 1960, I think they’ll make shoes with rags already in them.”
    Zelda gives me one of her looks.
    “By the year 1960,” she says, “people won’t need shoes.