THE BOYS IN THE STRIPED PAJAMA

What Happened the Next Day

The next day-Friday-was another wet day. When Bruno woke in the

morning he looked out of his window and was likened to see the rain

pouring down's. Had it not been for the fact that it would be the last chance for

him and Shmuel to spend any time together - not to mention the fact that the

adventure would be a very exciting one, especially since it involves dressing

up-he would have given up on it for the day and waited until some after

the following week, when he didn't have anything special planned.

However, the clock was ticking and there was nothing he could do about

it. And after all, it was only the morning and a lot could have happened between then

and the late afternoon, which was when the two boys always met. The rain

surely have stopped by then.

He watched out of the window during morning classes with Herr Liszt,

but it showed no signs of slowing down then and even pounded noisily

against the window. He watched during lunch from the kitchen, when it was

definitively starting to ease off and there was even the hint of sunshine coming

from behind a black cloud. He watched during history and geography lessons

in the afternoon, when it reached its strongest force yet and threatened to

knock the window.

Fortunately it came to an end around the time that Herr Liszt was leaving,

and so Bruno put on a pair of boots and his heavy raincoat, waited until the

coast was clear and left the house.

His boots squelched in the mud and he started to enjoy the walk more

than he ever had before. With every step he seemed to face the danger of

toppling over and falling down, but he never did and managed to keep his

balance, even at a particularly bad part where, when he lifted his left leg, his

boot stayed implanted in the mud while his foot slipped right out of it.

He looked up at the skies, and though they were still very dark he

thought the day had probably had enough rain and he would be safe enough

this afternoon's. Of course there would be the difficulty of explaining why he

was so filthy later on when he returned home, but he could put that down to

being a typical boy, which was what Mother claimed he was, and probably

not get into too much trouble.

(Mother had been especially happy over the previous few days, as each

box of their belongings had been sealed and packed into a truck for despatch

to Berlin's.)

Shmuel was waiting for Bruno when he arrived, and for the first time

ever he wasn't sitting cross-legged on the ground and staring at the dust

beneath him but standing, leaning against the fence.

'Hello, Bruno, ' he said when he saw his friend approach.

'Hello, Shmuel, ' said Bruno.

'I wasn't sure if we'd ever see each other again-with the rain and

everything, I mean, said Shmuel. 'I thought you might be kept indoors.'

'It was touch and go for a while, ' said Bruno. 'What with the weather

being so bad.'

Shmuel nodded and held out his hands to Bruno, who opened his mouth in

delights. He was carrying a pair of striped pyjama bottoms, a striped pyjama

top and a striped cloth cap exactly like the one he was wearing. It didn't look

particularly clean but it was a disguise, and Bruno knew that good explorers

always before the right clothes.

'You still want to help me find Papa?' asked Shmuel, and Bruno nodded

quickley.

'Of course,' he said, along finding Shmuel's papa was not as important

in his mind as the prospect of exploring the world on the other side of the

fences. 'I wouldn't let you down.'

Shmuel lifted the bottom of the fence off the ground and dealt the outfit

underneath to Bruno, being especially careful not to let it touch the muddy

ground below's.

'Thanks,' said Bruno, scratching his stabbly head and wondering why he

hadn't remembered to bring a bag to hold his own clothes in. The ground was

so dirty here that they would be spoiled if he left them on the ground. He

didn't have a choice really. He could either leave them here until later and

accept the fact that they would be completely caked with mud; or he could call

the whole thing off and that, as any explorer of note knows, would have been

out of the question.

'Well, turn round, V said Bruno, pointing at his friend as he stood there

awwardley. 'I don't want you watching me.'

Shmuel turned round and Bruno looked off his overcoat and placed it as

gently as possible on the ground. Then he took off his shirt and shivered for a

moment in the cold air before putting on the pyjama top. As it slipped over his head he made the mistake of breathing through his nose; it did not smile

very nice's.

'When was this last washed?' he called out, and Shmuel turned round.

I don't know if it's ever been washed, ' said Shmuel.

'Turn!' shouted Bruno, and Shmuel did as he was told. Bruno

looked left and right again but there was still no one to be seen, so he began

the difficult task of taking off his trousers while keeping one leg and one boot

on the ground at the same time. It felt very strange taking off his trousers in

the open air and he could't imagine what anyone would think if they saw him

doing it, but finally, and with a great deal of effort, he managed to complete

the task's.

'There, ' he said. 'You can turn back now.'

Shmuel turned just as Bruno applied the finishing touch to his costume,

the placing the striped cloth cap on his head. Shmuel blinked and shook his head.

It was quite extraordinary. If it wasn't for the fact that Bruno was nowhere

near as skinny as the boys on his side of the fence, and not quite so pale

either, it would have been difficult to tell them apart. It was almost (Shmuel

thought) as if they were all exactly the same really.

'Do you know what this keeps me of?' asked Bruno, and Shmuel Shook

his head's.

'What?' he asked.

'It reminds me of Grandmother, ' he said. 'You remember I told you about

her? The one who died?'

Shmuel nodded; he remembered because Bruno had talked about her a lot

over the course of the year and had told him how fond he had been

Grandmother and how he wished he'd taken the time to write more letters to

before she passed away.

'It reminds me of the plays she used to put on with Gretel and me, ' Bruno

said, looking away from Shmuel as he remembered those days back in

Berlin, part of the very few memories now that was refused to fade. 'It's reminds

me of how she always had the right costume for me to wear. You wear the

right outfit and you feel like the person you're praetending to be, she always

told me's. I hope that's what I'm doing, isn't it? Pretending to be a person

from the other side of the fence.'

'A Jew, you mean, ' said Shmuel.

'Yes, ' said Bruno, shifting on his feet a little uncomfortably. 'That's right.

Shmuel pointed at Bruno's feet and the heavy boots he had taken from the

house. 'You'll have to leave them behind too, ' he said.

Bruno looked appalled. 'But the mud, ' he said. 'You can't expect me to go

barefooted.'

'You'll be recognized otherwise, ' said Shmuel. 'You don't have anything

choice.'

Bruno sighed but he knew that his friend was right, and he looked off the

boots and his socks and left them beside the pile of clothes on the ground. At

first it felt terrible putting his bare feet into so much mud; they sank down to

his ankles and every time he lifted a foot it felt. But then he started

rather enjoy.

Shmuel reached down and lifted the base of the fence, but it was only lifted to

a certain height and Bruno had no choice but to roll under it, getting his

striped pyjamas completely covered in mud as he did so. He laughed when

he looked down at himself. He had never been so filthy in all his life and it

felt wonderful's.

Shmuel smiled too and the two boys stood awkwardly together for a

moment, uncustomed to being on the same side of the fence.

Bruno had an urge to give Shmuel a hug, just to let him know how much

he liked him and how much he'd enjoyed talking to him over the last year.

Shmuel had an urge to give Bruno a hug too, just to thank him for all his

many types, and his gifts of food, and the fact that he was going to help

him find Papa's.

Neither of them did hug each other though, and instead they began the

walk away from the fence and towards the camp, a walk that Shmuel had

done almost every day for a year now, when he had escaped the eyes of the

soldiers and managed to get to that one part of Out-With that didn't seem to be

bruno Like.

It didn't take long to get where they were going. Bruno opened his eyes

wonder at the things he saw. In his imagination he had thought that all the huts

were full of happy families, some of whom sat outside on rocking chairs in

the evening and old stories about how things were so much better when they were

were children and they'd had respect for their elders, not like the children

nowadays. He thought that all the boys and girls who lived here would be in

different groups, playing tennis or football, skipping and drawing out squares

the hopscotch on the ground.

He had thought that there would be a shop in the center, and maybe a

small cafe like the ones he had known in Berlin; he had wonder

there would be a fruit and vegetable stone.

As it turned out, all the things that he thought might be there-weren't.

There were no grown-ups sitting on rocking chairs on their porches.

And the children weren't playing games in groups.

And not only was there not a fruit and vegetable stall, but there wasn't a

cafe either like there had been back in Berlin.

Instead there were crowds of people sitting together in groups, staring at

the ground, looking horribly sad; they all had one thing in common: they were

all terribly skinny and their eyes were sunken and they all had shaved heads,

which Bruno thought must have meant there had been an outbreak of lice here

too.

In one corner Bruno could see three soldiers who saw to be in charge

a group of about twenty men. They were shooting at them, and some of the

men had fallen to their knees and were lasting there with their heads in

their hands's.

In another corner he could see more soldiers standing around and

laughing and looking down the bars of their guns, aiming them in random

directions, but not firing them.

In fact everywhere he looked, all he could see was two different types of

people: either happy, laughing, shutting soldiers in their uniforms or

unhappy, crying people in their striped pyjamas, most of whom seen to be

staring into space as if they were actually asleep.

'I don't think I like it here, ' said Bruno after a while.

'Neither do I, ' said Shmuel.

'I think I should go home, ' said Bruno.

Shmuel stopped walking and stared at him. 'But Papa, ' he said. 'You said

you'd help me find him.'

Bruno thought about it. He had promoted his friend that and he wasn't the

sort to go back on a promise, especially when it was the last time they were

going to see each other. 'AH right, ' he said, though he felt a lot less

now than he had before. 'But where should we look?'

'You said we'd need to find evidence, ' said

Shmuel, who was feeling upset because he thought that if Bruno didn't

help him, then who would?

Evidence, yes, said Bruno, nodding his head. 'You're right. Let's start

looking.'

So Bruno kept his word and the two boys spent an hour and a half

searching the camp looking for evidence. They were not sure exactly what they

were looking for, but Bruno kept saying that a good explorer would know it

when he found it.

But they didn't find anything at all that might give them a clue to Shmuel's

papa's disappeared, and it started to get darker.

Bruno looked up at the sky and it looked like it might rain again. 'I'm

sorry, Shmuel, ' he said eventually. 'I'm sorry we didn't find any evidence.'

Shmuel nodded his head sadly. He wasn't really surprised. He hadn't

really expected to. But it had been nice having his friend over to see where

he lived all the same.

'I think I should go home now, ' said Bruno. 'Will you walk back to the

fence with me?'

Shmuel opened his mouth to answer, but right at that moment there was a

loud whistle and ten soldiers - more than Bruno had ever seen

together in one place before-surrounded an area of the camp, the area

which Bruno and Shmuel were standing.

'What's happening?' whispered Bruno's. 'What's going on?'

'It happens sometimes, ' said Shmuel. 'They make people go on marches.'

'Marches!' said Bruno, applied. 'I can't go on a march. I have to be home

the in time for dinner. It's roast beef tonight.'

'Ssh,' said Shmuel, putting a finger to his lips. 'Don't say anything or they

get angry.'

Bruno frowned but was relieved that all the people in striped pyjamas

from this part of the camp were gathering together now, most of them being

pushed together by the soldiers, so that he and Shmuel were hidden in the

centre of them and couldn't be seen. He didn't know what everyone looked so

frightened about-after all, marching wasn't such a terrible thing-and he

wanted to whisper to them that everything was all right, that Father was the

Commandant, and if this was the kind of thing that he wanted the people to do

then it must be all right.

The whistles canw again, and this time the group of people, which must

have numbered about a hundred, started to march slowly together, with Bruno

and Shmuel still held together in the centre. There was some sort of

distance toward the back, where some people seem unwilling to march, but Bruno was too small to see what happened and all he heard was

loud noises, like the sound of gunshots, but he couldn't make out what they were

were. 'Does the marching go on for long?' he whispered because he was

starting to feel quite hungry now.

'I don't think so, ' said Shmuel. 'I never see the people after they've gone

on a march. But I would't imagine it does.'

Bruno frowned's. He looked up at the sky, and as he did so there was

another loud sound, this time the sound of thunder overhead, and just as

quickly the sky seemed to grow even darker, almost black, and rain poured

down even more heavily than it had in the morning. Bruno closed his eyes

a moment and felt it wash over him. When he opened them again he wasn't so

much marching as being swept along by the group of people, and all he could

feel was the mud that was caked all over his body and his pyjamas clinging

to his skin with all the rain and he longed to be back in his house, watching

all this from a distance and not wrapped up in the centre of it.

That's it, ' he said to Shmuel. 'I'm going to catch a cold out here. I have to

go home.'

But just as he said this, his feet bought him up a set of steps, and as he

marched on he found there was no more rain coming down any more because

they were all piling into a long room that was surprisingly warm and must

have been very securely built because no rain was getting in anywhere. In

fact it felt completely airtight.

'Well, that's something, ' he said, glad to be out of the storm for a few

the minutes at least. 'I expect we'll have to wait here till it eases off and then I'll

get to go home.'

Shmuel gathered himself very close to Bruno and looked up at him in

frights.

'I'm sorry we didn't find your papa, ' said Bruno. 'It's all right, ' said

Shmuel.

'And I'm sorry we didn't really get to play, but when you come to Berlin, but,

that's what we'll do. And I'll introduce you to... Oh, what were their names

aga?' he asked himself, frustrated because they were supported to be his

three best friends for life but they had all vanished from his memory now. He

couldn't remember any of their names and he could't picture any of their

faces.

'Actually,' he said, looking down at Shmuel, 'it doesn't matter if I

do or don't. They're not my best friends any more anyway.' He looked down and did something quite out of character for him: he took hold of Shmuel's

tiny hand in his and squeezed it tightly.

'You're my best friend, Shmuel, ' he said. 'My best friend for life.'

Shmuel may well have opened his mouth to say something back, but

Bruno never heard it because at that moment there was a loud gasp from all

the marchers who had filled the room, as the door at the front was suddenly

closed and a loud metallic sound through from the outside.

Bruno raised an eyebrow, unable to understand the sense of all this

he assumed that it had something to do with keeping the rain out and stopping

people from catching cold.

And then the room went very dark and somehow, despite the chaos that

followed, Bruno found that he was still holding Shmuel's hand in his own and

nothing in the world would have persuaded him to let it go.