The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas

if we all feel the same way we can persuade Father to take us home again.’
    She looked away from him for a few silent moments and shook her head sadly before turning back to face him. ‘Your father knows what is for the best,’ she said. ‘You must trust in that.’
    ‘But I’m not sure I do,’ said Bruno. ‘I think he’s made a terrible mistake.’
    ‘Then it’s a mistake we all have to live with.’
    ‘When I make mistakes I get punished,’ insisted Bruno, irritated by the fact that the rules that always applied to children never seemed to apply to grown-ups at all (despite the fact that they were the ones who enforced them). ‘Stupid Father,’ he added under his breath.
    Maria’s eyes opened wide and she took a step towards him, her hands covering her mouth for a moment in horror. She looked round to make sure that no one was listening to them and had heard what Bruno had just said. ‘You mustn’t say that,’ she said. ‘You must never say something like that about your father.’
    ‘I don’t see why not,’ said Bruno; he was a little ashamed of himself for having said it, but the last thing he was going to do was sit back and receive a telling-off when no one seemed to care about his opinions anyway.
    ‘Because your father is a good man,’ said Maria. ‘A very good man. He takes care of all of us.’
    ‘Bringing us all the way out here, to the middle of nowhere, you mean? Is that taking care of us?’
    ‘There are many things your father has done,’ she said. ‘Many things of which you should be proud. If it wasn’t for your father, where would I be now after all?’
    ‘Back in Berlin, I expect,’ said Bruno. ‘Working in a nice house. Eating your lunch underneath the ivy and leaving the bees alone.’
    ‘You don’t remember when I came to work for you, do you?’ she asked quietly, sitting down for a moment on the side of his bed, something she had never done before. ‘How could you? You were only three. Your father took me in and helped me when I needed him. He gave me a job, a home. Food. You can’t imagine what it’s like to need food. You’ve never been hungry, have you?’
    Bruno frowned. He wanted to mention that he was feeling a bit peckish right now, but instead he looked across at Maria and realized for the first time that he had never fully considered her to be a person with a life and a history all of her own. After all, she had never done anything (as far as he knew) other than be his family’s maid. He wasn’t even sure that he had ever seen her dressed in anything other than her maid’s uniform. But when he came to think of it, as he did now, he had to admit that there must be more to her life than just waiting on him and his family. She must have thoughts in her head, just like him. She must have things that she missed, friends whom she wanted to see again, just like him. And she must have cried herself to sleep every night since she got here, just like boys far less grown up and brave than him. She was rather pretty too, he noticed, feeling a little funny inside as he did so.
    ‘My mother knew your father when he was just a boy of your age,’ said Maria after a few moments. ‘She worked for your grandmother. She was a dresser for her when she toured Germany as a younger woman. She arranged all the clothes for her concerts – washed them, ironed them, repaired them. Magnificent gowns, all of them. And the stitching, Bruno! Like art work, every design. You don’t find dressmakers like that these days.’ She shook her head and smiled at the memory as Bruno listened patiently. ‘She made sure that they were all laid out and ready whenever your grandmother arrived in her dressing room before a show. And after your grandmother retired, of course my mother stayed friendly with her and received a small pension, but times were hard then and your father offered me a job, the first I had ever had. A few months later my mother became very sick and she needed a lot of hospital care and your father arranged it all, even though he was not obliged to. He paid for it out of his own pocket because she had been a friend to his mother. And he took me into his household for the same reason. And when she died he paid all the expenses for her funeral too. So don’t you ever call your father stupid, Bruno. Not around me. I won’t allow it.’
    Bruno bit his lip. He had hoped that Maria would take his side in the campaign to get away from Out-With but he could see