Once (2 page)

  I stayed awake all night, waiting for Mum and Dad to arrive. They didn’t.

They haven’t.

But it’s all right. Nobody drives up that narrow rocky road from the village in the dark unless they’re Father Ludwik. He says God helps him and his horse with the steering.

Mum and Dad were never very religious so they probably wouldn’t risk it.

They’ll be here once it’s daylight.

What I’m worrying about now is whether they’ll recognize me after three years and eight months.

You know how when you have a haircut or a tooth comes out, your parents carry on about how you must be the kid who belongs to the shoe mender down the street?

Well, I’ve changed even more than that. When I arrived at this place I was plump and little with freckles and two gaps. Now I’m about twice as tall with glasses and a complete set of teeth.

I press my face against the cold windowpane over my bed and watch the sky start to go pale and tell myself not to be silly. I remind myself what Mum and Dad said when they brought me here.

“We won’t forget you,” Mum whispered through her tears. I knew exactly what she was saying. That they wouldn’t forget to come and get me once they’d fixed up their bookshop troubles.

“We’ll never forget you,” Dad said in a husky voice, and I knew exactly what he was saying too. That when they come, even if I’ve changed a lot, they’ll still know it’s me.

The sun is peeping up behind the convent gates. Now it’s getting light outside I don’t feel so anxious.

Plus, if all else fails, I’ve got my notebook.

The cover’s a bit stained from when I had to snatch it away from Marek and Borys in class. It was to stop them reading it and some ink got spilled, but apart from that it looks exactly like it did when Mum and Dad gave it to me. It’s the only notebook with a yellow cardboard cover in this whole place, so they’ll definitely recognize it if I hold it in an obvious way when they arrive.

And when they read it, they’ll know I’m their son because it’s full of stories I’ve written about them. About their travels all over Poland discovering why their bookshop supplies suddenly went so unreliable. Dad wrestling a wild boar that’s been eating authors. Mum rescuing a book printer who’s been kidnapped by pirates. Her and Dad crossing the border into Germany and finding huge piles of really good books propping up wobbly tables.

All right, most of the stories are a bit exaggerated, but they’ll still recognize themselves and know I’m their son.

What’s that sound?

It’s a car or truck, one of those ones that don’t need a horse because they’ve got an engine. It’s chugging up the hill. I can hear it getting closer.

There go Sister Elwira and Sister Grazyna across the courtyard to open the gates.

Mum and Dad, you’re here at last.

I’m so excited I’m steaming up the window and my glasses. I rub them both with my pajama sleeve.

A car rumbles into the courtyard.

Mum and Dad must have swapped the old bookshop cart for it. Trust them, they’ve always been modern. They were the first booksellers in the whole district to have a ladder in their shop.

I can hardly breathe.

Half the dormitory are out of bed now, pressing their noses against the windows too. Any second now they’ll all see Mum and Dad.

Suddenly I don’t care if everyone does know my secret. Perhaps it’ll give some of the other kids hope that the authorities might have made a mistake and that their mums and dads might not be dead after all.

That’s strange. The car windows are steamed up so I can’t see clearly, but it looks like there are more than two people in the car. Mum and Dad must have given Father Ludwik a lift. And a couple of his relatives who fancied a day out.

I can’t make out which ones are Mum and Dad.

I hold my notebook up for them to see.

The car doors open and the people get out.

I stare, numb with disappointment.

It’s not Mum and Dad. It’s just a bunch of men in suits with armbands.

“Felix,” says Dodie urgently, grabbing me as I hurry out of the dormitory. “I need your help.”

I give him a pleading look. Can’t he see I’m doing something urgent too? Finding out from Mother Minka if Mum and Dad sent a note with the carrot saying exactly when they’ll be arriving. I’ve got the carrot with me to jog Mother Minka’s memory.

“It’s Jankiel,” says Dodie. “He’s hiding in the toilet.”

I sigh. Jankiel’s only been here two weeks and he’s still very nervous about strangers.

“Tell him there’s nothing to worry about,” I say to Dodie. “The men in the car are probably just officials from the Catholic head office. They’ve probably just come to check that all our parents are dead. They’ll be gone soon.”

I give a careless shrug so Dodie won’t see how nervous I am about the officials. And how much I’m desperately hoping Mother Minka remembers the story we agreed on about my parents. About how they were killed in a farming accident. Tragically.

“Jankiel’s not hiding from the men in the car,” says Dodie. “He’s hiding from the torture squad.”

Dodie points. Marek, Telek, Adok, and Borys are crowding into the dormitory toilets.

“Come on,” says Dodie. “We’ve got to save him.”

Dodie’s right. We can’t leave Jankiel at the mercy of the torture squad. Marek and the others have been after him since the day he arrived. He’s their first new boy to torture in three years and eight months.

Since me.

Dodie shoves the toilet door open. We go in. Marek, Telek, Adok, and Borys have got Jankiel on his knees. Jankiel is pleading with them. His voice is echoing a bit because they’ve got his head half in the toilet hole.

“Don’t struggle,” says Telek to Jankiel. “This won’t hurt.”

Telek’s wrong. It will hurt. It hurt when they did it to me three years and eight months ago. Having your head pushed down a toilet hole always hurts.

“Wait,” I yell.

The torture squad turn and look at me.

I know that what I say next will either save Jankiel or it won’t. Desperately I try to think of something good.

“A horse crushed his parents,” I say.

Now the new kid is staring at me too.

I grip my notebook hard and let my imagination take over.

“A great big plow horse,” I continue. “It had a heart attack in the mud and fell onto both his parents, and it was too heavy for him to drag off them so he had to nurse them both for a whole day and a whole night while the life was slowly crushed out of them. And do you know what their dying words to their only son were?”

I can see the torture squad haven’t got a clue.

Neither does the new kid.

“They asked him to pray for them every day,” I say. “At the exact time they died.”

I wait for the chapel bell to finish striking seven.

“At seven o’clock in the morning,” I say.

Everyone takes this in. The torture squad look uncertain. But they’re not pushing anybody down the toilet, which is good.

“That’s just one of your stories,” sneers Telek, but I can tell he’s not so sure.

“Quick,” says Dodie, “I can hear Mother Minka coming.”

That’s a story too because Mother Minka is down in the courtyard with the head office officials. But Marek and the others look even more uncertain. They swap glances, then hurry out of the toilets.

Dodie turns wearily to Jankiel.

“What did we tell you?” says Dodie. “About not coming in here on your own?”

Jankiel opens his mouth to reply, then closes it again. Instead he peers past us, trying to see down into the courtyard.

“Have they gone?” he says.

Dodie nods and points toward the dormitory.

“Borys is putting mud in your bed,” he says.

“I mean the men in the car,” says Jankiel.

He looks almost as scared now as he did with the torture squad.

“They’ll be gone soon,” I say. “Mother Minka’s dealing with them.”

Jankiel starts to look a bit less nervous, but only a bit. I find myself wondering if he’s got secret alive parents too.

“Thanks for saving me,” he says. “That was a good story about my parents being crushed.”

“Sorry if it brought back sad memories,” I say.

“Nah,” says Jankiel. “My parents froze to death.”

I stare at him. If that’s true, it’s terrible. Their bath must have been outdoors or something.

Jankiel glances down at my notebook.

“Do you make up lots of stories?” he asks.

“Sometimes,” I say.

“I’m not very good at stories,” he says.

As we go out into the dormitory I find myself wondering if Jankiel is Jewish. He’s got dark eyes like me. But I don’t ask him. If he is, he wouldn’t admit it. Not here.

Dodie stays with Jankiel, who’s peering nervously out the window again, and I head off, hoping that Mother Minka has got rid of the officials so I can ask her about Mum and Dad.

As I hurry down the stairs I glance out the window myself.

In the courtyard Mother Minka is having an argument with the men. She’s waving her arms, which she only does when she’s in a very bossy mood.

I stop and stare.

What’s that smoke?

It’s a bonfire. The men are having a bonfire in the courtyard. Why are they doing that? It can’t be for warmth. The sun’s up now, and it’s going to be a hot day.

I can see why Mother Minka’s so angry. The smoke is going into the chapel and the classrooms and the girls’ dormitory.

Oh, no, I’ve just seen what the men are burning.

That’s terrible.

If Mum and Dad saw this, they’d be in tears.

The other nuns are down there in the courtyard, and some of them have got their faces in their hands.

I’m feeling very upset myself.

The men are burning books.

  I saw a customer, years ago, damaging books in Mum and Dad’s shop. Tearing pages out. Screwing them up. Shouting things I couldn’t understand. Mum was crying. Dad was furious. So was I.

When customers are unhappy they should ask for a refund, not go mental.

These men are just as bad. They’re hurting books cruelly and viciously and laughing about it.

Why?

Just because Mother Minka is a bit bossy? That’s no reason to destroy the things she loves most in the world except God, Jesus, the Virgin Mary, the Pope, and Adolf Hitler.

Wait a minute, those wooden boxes the men are flinging around are book boxes from our library.

I get it.

Mother Minka was complaining to us library monitors only last week that the library was very messy and needed a tidy-up. She must have got sick of waiting for us to do it and called in professional librarians in professional librarian armbands. They’ve reorganized the library, and now they’re burning the books that are left over.

No wonder Mother Minka is so upset. I bet she didn’t give them permission to do that.

Me and Mum and Dad would have taken those books. We love all books, even old and tatty ones.

I can’t watch anymore.

I turn away from the smoke and flames and hurry down to Mother Minka’s office. Rather than risk mentioning Mum and Dad out there, I’ll wait for her to come back inside.

I stand by her desk.

Suddenly a voice yells at me. It’s not Mother Minka—it’s a man’s voice, and he’s shouting in a foreign language.

I turn, trembling.

In the doorway stands one of the librarians. He’s glaring at me very angrily.

“This isn’t a library book,” I say, pointing to my notebook. “It’s my notebook.”

The librarian scowls and takes a step toward me.

I’m confused. Why would Mother Minka call in foreign librarians? Perhaps people who don’t speak Polish are faster library-tidiers because they don’t get tempted to read the books before they tidy them.

Mother Minka hurries into the room. She looks very unhappy. I’m starting to think this isn’t a good time to ask her about Mum and Dad.

“What are you doing here?” she demands.

I can’t tell her the truth in front of the librarian, so I try to tell her that I’ve come down to make sure none of the sparks from the fire blow in and singe her furniture or stationery. But at this moment, with her and the librarian glaring at me, I can’t get the words out.