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coming round from behind the desk and shaking the boy’s hand solidly, for Father was not usually the type of man to give anyone a hug, unlike Mother and Grandmother, who gave them a little too often for comfort, complementing them with slobbering kisses. ‘My boy,’ he added after a moment.
    ‘Hello, Father,’ said Bruno quietly, a little overawed by the splendour of the room.
    ‘Bruno, I was coming up to see you in a few minutes, I promise I was,’ said Father. ‘I just had a meeting to finish and a letter to write. You got here safely then?’
    ‘Yes, Father,’ said Bruno.
    ‘You were a help to your mother and sister in closing the house?’
    ‘Yes, Father,’ said Bruno.
    ‘Then I’m proud of you,’ said Father approvingly. ‘Sit down, boy.’
    He indicated a wide armchair facing his desk and Bruno clambered onto it, his feet not quite touching the floor, while Father returned to his seat behind the desk and stared at him. They didn’t say anything to each other for a moment, and then finally Father broke the silence.
    ‘So?’ he asked. ‘What do you think?’
    ‘What do I think?’ asked Bruno. ‘What do I think of what?’
    ‘Of your new home. Do you like it?’
    ‘No,’ said Bruno quickly, because he always tried to be honest and knew that if he hesitated even for a moment then he wouldn’t have the nerve to say what he really thought. ‘I think we should go home,’ he added bravely.
    Father’s smile faded only a little and he glanced down at his letter for a moment before looking back up again, as if he wanted to consider his reply carefully. ‘Well, we are home, Bruno,’ he said finally in a gentle voice. ‘Out-With is our new home.’
    ‘But when can we go back to Berlin?’ asked Bruno, his heart sinking when Father said that. ‘It’s so much nicer there.’
    ‘Come, come,’ said Father, wanting to have none of that. ‘Let’s have none of that,’ he said. ‘A home is not a building or a street or a city or something so artificial as bricks and mortar. A home is where one’s family is, isn’t that right?’
    ‘Yes, but—’
    ‘And our family is here, Bruno. At Out-With. Ergo , this must be our home.’
    Bruno didn’t understand what ergo meant, but he didn’t need to because he had a clever answer for Father. ‘But Grandfather and Grandmother are in Berlin,’ he said. ‘And they’re our family too. So this can’t be our home.’
    Father considered this and nodded his head. He waited a long time before replying. ‘Yes, Bruno, they are. But you and I and Mother and Gretel are the most important people in our family and this is where we live now. At Out-With. Now, don’t look so unhappy about it!’ (Because Bruno was looking distinctly unhappy about it.) ‘You haven’t even given it a chance yet. You might like it here.’
    ‘I don’t like it here,’ insisted Bruno.
    ‘Bruno …’ said Father in a tired voice.
    ‘Karl’s not here and Daniel’s not here and Martin’s not here and there are no other houses around us and no fruit and vegetable stalls and no streets and no cafés with tables outside and no one to push you from pillar to post on a Saturday afternoon.’
    ‘Bruno, sometimes there are things we need to do in life that we don’t have a choice in,’ said Father, and Bruno could tell that he was starting to tire of this conversation. ‘And I’m afraid this is one of them. This is my work, important work. Important to our country. Important to the Fury. You’ll understand that some day.’
    ‘I want to go home,’ said Bruno. He could feel tears welling up behind his eyes and wanted nothing more than for Father to realize just how awful a place Out-With really was and agree that it was time to leave.
    ‘You need to realize that you are at home,’ he said instead, disappointing Bruno. ‘This is it for the foreseeable future.’
    Bruno closed his eyes for a moment. There hadn’t been many times in his life when he had been quite so