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outside!’
    Lisa loved going to Hilda’s house. The Langs were more affluent than the Federmans and though their home in Grove Avenue was only a mile or so from Kemble Street, it was quite different; much larger with a garden at the back where Max Lang was growing vegetables. The windows were wide and the house light and airy. The autumn sunlight flooded into the kitchen in the afternoon where the children sat up to the table to have their tea and it was always warm. Esther Lang sat them at the kitchen table to do their homework, giving Lisa a helping hand when she thought it was all getting too difficult.
    ‘You’re always welcome here,’ Esther told her one day as she was leaving to return to Kemble Street. ‘Any time you want some company your own age, just come round. Don’t wait to be asked.’
    Lisa was soon accepted by the other children who lived nearby as a friend of Hilda’s. Her English improved by leaps and bounds, Hilda teaching her the words she needed, albeit with an East London accent and vocabulary. They became firm friends, and because the Langs lived only a few streets away, Naomi was happy enough for Lisa to spend much of her time at their house.
    ‘Far better she has someone to play with,’ she said to Dan, ‘than come home to an empty house and me.’
    ‘I think you’re right,’ Dan agreed. ‘Once she can talk to us properly, we’ll all feel much more comfortable.’
    Lisa was a quick learner and though nothing like fluent, she soon understood a good deal of what was being said and could make herself understood in return.
    Life at school, however, was not easy. Despite Miss Hammond’s admonition, there was still a significant group of children who did not make her welcome, who regarded her as the enemy and were ready to gang up on her. Roger Davis and his cronies, egged on by their peers, would surround Lisa, pressing in on her, and pretend to touch her before leaping backwards shouting, ‘Lisa’s got the measles! German measles! Don’t catch her germs! Dirty German germs!’ They clasped their throats and made ‘dying’ groans before collapsing dramatically to the ground.
    Lisa would push her way free of them, but within moments they’d be back. On occasion she hit out at them, once punching one of Roger’s sidekicks in the face and making his nose bleed. They backed off for a while, but they were soon back, always lying in wait for her, always out of sight of the teacher on playground duty. Hilda, unable to do anything and recognising she would be in for the same treatment if she tried, stayed well clear.
    ‘Don’t say nothing at home, though,’ she warned Lisa. ‘If you split on them and your Aunt Naomi come down here and complained, things’d only get worse. They’ll get tired of it in the end and find someone else to pick on.’
    Lisa knew she was right. They weren’t hurting her physically, they were only shouting abuse at her and she was used to that. It had happened all the time in Hanau. But she longed to fight back, to give as good as she got.
    It all ended quite suddenly. Roger’s gang cornered her on her way home from school one day. It was the first time she’d been waylaid outside the school yard. They backed her up against a wall, shooting out their arms in Nazi salutes, shouting, ‘Heil Hitler! ’
    ‘Go away! Go away!’ she screamed. ‘I hate you! I hate you. You’re all Nazis!’
    They roared with laughter at her fury, posturing and prancing, but blocking her way so that she had no escape. She swung a punch at Albert, the boy whose nose she’d made bleed before, but he was ready for her this time and caught her arm, gripping it tightly, easily holding her off.
    ‘Hey, Rog,’ he jeered, ‘we got a wild cat here. Teach her a lesson, shall we? German bitch!’ The others crowed their delight, but their cheers were short-lived. Suddenly, from round the corner, someone erupted into the middle of them, his fists flying, his elbows crashing sideways and