The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas

couldn’t get me out of bed until lunch time. She said I would never grow up to be big and strong if I slept my life away.’
    ‘Well, she was quite wrong there, wasn’t she?’ simpered Gretel. Bruno stared at her with distaste. She was putting on a silly voice that made her sound as if she hadn’t a thought in her head. There was nothing Bruno wanted to do more than walk away from the two of them and have nothing to do with whatever they were discussing, but he had no choice but to put his best interests first and ask Lieutenant Kotler for the unthinkable. A favour.
    ‘I wondered if I could ask you a favour,’ said Bruno.
    ‘You can ask,’ said Lieutenant Kotler, which made Gretel laugh again even though it was not particularly funny.
    ‘I wondered whether there were any spare tyres around,’ Bruno continued. ‘From one of the jeeps perhaps. Or a truck. One that you’re not using.’
    ‘The only spare tyre I have seen around here recently belongs to Sergeant Hoffschneider, and he carries it around his waist,’ said Lieutenant Kotler, his lips forming into something that resembled a smile. This didn’t make any sense at all to Bruno, but it entertained Gretel so much that she appeared to start dancing on the spot.
    ‘Well, is he using it?’ asked Bruno.
    ‘Sergeant Hoffschneider?’ asked Lieutenant Kotler. ‘Yes, I’m afraid so. He’s very attached to his spare tyre.’
    ‘Stop it, Kurt,’ said Gretel, drying her eyes. ‘He doesn’t understand you. He’s only nine.’
    ‘Oh, will you be quiet please,’ shouted Bruno, staring at his sister in irritation. It was bad enough having to come out here and ask for a favour from Lieutenant Kotler, but it only made things worse when his own sister teased him all the way through it. ‘You’re only twelve anyway,’ he added. ‘So stop pretending to be older than you are.’
    ‘I’m nearly thirteen, Kurt,’ she snapped, her laughter stopped now, her face frozen in horror. ‘I’ll be thirteen in a couple of weeks’ time. A teenager. Just like you.’
    Lieutenant Kotler smiled and nodded his head but said nothing. Bruno stared at him. If it had been any other adult standing in front of him he would have rolled his eyes to suggest that they both knew that girls were silly, and sisters utterly ridiculous. But this wasn’t any other adult. This was Lieutenant Kotler.
    ‘Anyway,’ said Bruno, ignoring the look of anger that Gretel was directing towards him, ‘other than that one, is there anywhere else that I could find a spare tyre?’
    ‘Of course,’ said Lieutenant Kotler, who had stopped smiling now and seemed suddenly bored with the entire thing. ‘But what do you want it for anyway?’
    ‘I thought I’d make a swing,’ said Bruno. ‘You know, with a tyre and some rope on the branches of a tree.’
    ‘Indeed,’ said Lieutenant Kotler, nodding his head wisely as if such things were only distant memories to him now, despite the fact that he was, as Gretel had pointed out, no more than a teenager himself. ‘Yes, I made many swings myself when I was a child. My friends and I had many happy afternoons together playing on them.’
    Bruno felt astonished that he could have anything in common with him (and even more surprised to learn that Lieutenant Kotler had ever had friends). ‘So what do you think?’ he asked. ‘Are there any around?’
    Lieutenant Kotler stared at him and seemed to be considering it, as if he wasn’t sure whether he was going to give him a straight answer or try to irritate him as he usually did. Then he caught sight of Pavel – the old man who came every afternoon to help peel the vegetables in the kitchen for dinner before putting his white jacket on and serving at the table – heading towards the house, and this seemed to make his mind up.
    ‘Hey, you!’ he shouted, then adding a word that Bruno did not understand. ‘Come over here, you—’ He said the word again, and something about the harsh sound of it made Bruno look away and feel ashamed to be part of this at all.
    Pavel came towards them and Kotler spoke to him insolently, despite the fact that he was young enough to be his grandson. ‘Take this little man to the storage shed at the back of the main house. Lined up along a side wall are some old tyres. He will select one and you are to carry it wherever he asks you to, is that understood?’
    Pavel held his cap before him in his hands and nodded, which made his head bow even lower than it