The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas

entertained Bruno spent a long Saturday morning and afternoon creating a new diversion for himself. At some distance from the house – on Gretel’s side and impossible to see from his own bedroom window – there was a large oak tree, one with a very wide trunk. A tall tree with hefty branches, strong enough to support a small boy. It looked so old that Bruno decided it must have been planted at some point in the late Middle Ages, a period he had recently been studying and was finding very interesting – particularly those parts about knights who went off on adventures to foreign lands and discovered something interesting while they were there.
    There were only two things that Bruno needed to create his new entertainment: some rope and a tyre. The rope was easy enough to find as there were bales of it in the basement of the house and it didn’t take long to do something extremely dangerous and find a sharp knife and cut as many lengths of it as he thought he might need. He took these to the oak tree and left them on the ground for future use. The tyre was another matter.
    On this particular morning neither Mother nor Father was at home. Mother had rushed out of the house early and taken a train to a nearby city for the day for a change of air, while Father had last been seen heading in the direction of the huts and the people in the distance outside Bruno’s window. But as usual there were many soldiers’ trucks and jeeps parked near the house, and while he knew it would be impossible to steal a tyre off any of them, there was always the possibility that he could find a spare one somewhere.
    As he stepped outside he saw Gretel speaking with Lieutenant Kotler and, without much enthusiasm, decided that he would be the sensible person to ask. Lieutenant Kotler was the young officer whom Bruno had seen on his very first day at Out-With, the soldier who had appeared upstairs in their house and looked at him for a moment before nodding his head and continuing on his way. Bruno had seen him on many occasions since – he came in and out of the house as if he owned the place and Father’s office was clearly not out of bounds to him at all – but they hadn’t spoken very often. Bruno wasn’t entirely sure why, but he knew that he didn’t like Lieutenant Kotler. There was an atmosphere around him that made Bruno feel very cold and want to put a jumper on. Still, there was no one else to ask so he marched over with as much confidence as he could muster to say hello.
    On most days the young lieutenant looked very smart, striding around in a uniform that appeared to have been ironed while he was wearing it. His black boots always sparkled with polish and his yellow-blond hair was parted at the side and held perfectly in place with something that made all the comb marks stand out in it, like a field that had just been tilled. Also he wore so much cologne that you could smell him coming from quite a distance. Bruno had learned not to stand downwind of him or he would risk fainting away.
    On this particular day, however, since it was a Saturday morning and was so sunny, he was not so perfectly groomed. Instead he was wearing a white vest over his trousers and his hair flopped down over his forehead in exhaustion. His arms were surprisingly tanned and he had the kind of muscles that Bruno wished he had himself. He looked so much younger today that Bruno was surprised; in fact he reminded him of the big boys at school, the ones he always steered clear of. Lieutenant Kotler was deep in conversation with Gretel and whatever he was saying must have been terribly funny because she was laughing loudly and twirling her hair around her fingers into ringlets.
    ‘Hello,’ said Bruno as he approached them, and Gretel looked at him irritably.
    ‘What do you want?’ she asked.
    ‘I don’t want anything,’ snapped Bruno, glaring at her. ‘I just came over to say hello.’
    ‘You’ll have to forgive my younger brother, Kurt,’ said Gretel to Lieutenant Kotler. ‘He’s only nine, you know.’
    ‘Good morning, little man,’ said Kotler, reaching out and – quite appallingly – ruffling his hand through Bruno’s hair, a gesture that made Bruno want to push him to the ground and jump up and down on his head. ‘And what has you up and about so early on a Saturday morning?’
    ‘It’s hardly early,’ said Bruno. ‘It’s almost ten o’clock.’
    Lieutenant Kotler shrugged his shoulders. ‘When I was your age my mother