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someone reports that you’re here, or if the wrong people see you, we’ll all get into trouble.’
    ‘Then you should send me to school.’ My mood was growing blacker and blacker. My hands were shaking and I had to tuck them under my armpits to keep them steady. I felt lost and had no control over what was happening.My anger and frustration was drowning me and I had to do something or say something to make it all come out. ‘Or maybe I should report you.’ I stood up and looked at Oma. ‘I could walk out right now and go straight to the Gestapo myself—’ I stopped myself and Oma recoiled in shock. Her eyes opened about as wide as I’d ever seen them and her mouth formed an ‘O’.
    ‘I could—’
    ‘That’s enough!’ Opa turned around and his face was dark like a thunderstorm. It was the first time I had ever seen him that way and it felt as if electricity had been shot through the room.
    ‘Just … just give it a few more days,’ Opa said after taking a moment to calm himself. ‘You need to mourn your father. Give it a few more days and then we’ll talk about it again. Now, why don’t you go and check on Mama?’
    I glared at them, lost for words, then pushed back my chair. ‘Fine,’ I said as I left the kitchen and stormed upstairs.

ESCAPE
    M ama didn’t even open her eyes when I sat on the edge of the bed.
    She spent all of her time in that room, as if she had decided she didn’t want to be alive any more, and I thought that if we hadn’t come to Escherstrasse, maybe she would be better. She wouldn’t have been able to sleep all day because she would have had to look after Stefan and me, and I would still be with my friends.
    As I watched her, though, the frustration of my conversation with Oma and Opa faded away, and I wondered if Mama didn’t want to look at me because I reminded her of Papa. People always said I had his eyes and nose. The way I smiled was the same, too.

    From where I was sitting, I could see through the window to the houses on the other side of the road. They were two-storey red brick buildings, just like Oma and Opa’s, joined together in sets of three. We were at the end of one block, with a side road next to us, running off Escherstrasse and connecting with a back lane.
    The middle house on the opposite block had window boxes just like this one, but Oma’s were stuffed full with bright red geraniums while those were empty, and I remembered that when I had come to stay last year, no one had been living in there. Now, though, the front door opened and a woman came out onto the street. She was tall and fair-haired, wearing a plain blue dress and a white apron. She looked left and right, then turned and shouted something back into the house.
    A moment later, a girl appeared, pushing a bicycle. It was the same kind as Stefan and I had – black, with a brown leather seat. The girl had a pretty face but didn’t have fair hair like the woman at the door. Instead, she was dark-haired and dark-eyed, as if she might have been a second-degree mischling – a person with one Jewish grandparent. She looked about the same age as me and was wearing school uniform.
    I went closer to the window and looked down, wishing I were going to school like she was, and that’s when she glanced up and caught sight of me.
    For a second, our eyes locked together and she stared right at me.
    Then she smiled and waved.
    I pulled away from the window as if I’d been caughtdoing something wicked, and terrible thoughts raced through my mind. Maybe she would report that she’d seen me. Maybe she would tell the Gestapo. Maybe they would come and arrest me for not going to school, and take me away in handcuffs to one of the camps.
    I swallowed hard, trying to push the thoughts away as I looked again, edging closer to the window and peering out.
    The girl was on her bike now, heading along the road to the right. Her mama was standing in the doorway, watching her ride down Escherstrasse and disappear