1 Something Is Wrong My best friend Max and I are playing a game called Life and Death on the High Seas Max came up with both the game and the name He gets all the good ideas I’m more of a go-along type of guy It’s our summer holidays In three weeks we’ll be back in school which means homework teachers including unfortunately Mrs Bubu waking up early and our entire lives charted out like a multiplication table For now though we’re as free as the wind Max jumps up on the big crate we’ve been sitting on The crate is our ship We’re headed for Montreal Canada where my relatives live Hold on to the mast hold on to the mast Max cries out wobbling from side to side His round glasses flash and flicker in the sun and his orange-red hair glows as if it’s on fire The waves are getting higher and higher I shout back Grab a raft before we drown Watch out for pirates Boys boys a voice calls from behind us It’s Max’s mother standing in the middle of the stormy sea Except that it’s not the sea of course It’s Max’s front garden The chickens are pecking at the ground looking for seeds Near the shed Max’s older brother Michael is chopping wood You’d better head on home Natt Max’s mother says She
always speaks in a soft voice so soft that her friends call her Kitten But she sounds a little wild suddenly and there’s a strange look in her eyes as if she’s trying to hide something Your mother will be worrying I’m confused Why would Mama worry She knows where I am But I take the hint Max’s mother wants me to leave Maybe there’s a medical emergency somewhere and Max’s dad needs him Max’s father is a doctor and when he pays a visit to a poor person who has small children he asks Max to come along and keep an eye on the kids while he attends to the patient Only if it’s a broken arm or something like that Max said with his usual wide grin when he first told me about these trips Not if it’s that bug that turns you into a werewolf The first symptom is sudden drooling Max may be on the small side but he does a pretty convincing imitation of a drooling lupine monster I remember my manners and thank Max’s mother for having me I even give a little bow because it usually makes her laugh But today Mrs Zwecker barely notices Be careful it’s a full moon tonight Max calls out as I let myself through the gate I would have liked to spend more time with Max but there are plenty of fun things to do at home As a reward for my good grades last year my parents bought me a magnifying glass a telescope and a kaleidoscope I can now spend hours in my room looking at small things getting bigger faraway things getting nearer and geometric shapes expanding and contracting As well as being a go-along type of boy I’m also the stay-at-home type I’m not crazy about sports partly because I have asthma and partly because I’m a bit on the chubby side According to my mother some kids don’t lose their childhood chubbiness until they’re twelve One year to go
Max loves sports You wouldn’t think such a tiny kid could kick so hard or run so fast but it’s as if he’s got invisible wings on his boots when he goes after that soccer ball As I walk home I entertain myself with a game I invented the only game I’ve thought of myself without Max I try to think of a word that’s different in all the languages I know My first and best language is German That’s what I speak at home and with Max Our town Zastavna has a large Ukrainian population so everyone who lives here is fluent in Ukrainian Ukrainian has some very bad words Max’s brothers told him what those words mean and Max told me It’s useful to have a friend with older brothers Third language Romanian That’s what they teach us in school We’re not really allowed to speak German to each other at school but we do anyhow My fourth language is Hebrew Ordinary school begins after lunch but in the mornings Max and I attend Hebrew classes in Mr Elias’s house Finally there’s Yiddish which some Jews speak at home It’s similar to German but has a mind of its own Yiddish is famous for its sayings If you don’t open your mouth a fly won’t get in Sleep faster we need the pillows What will happen to the sheep if the wolf is the judge That’s five languages swirling around in my head Sometimes I don’t know which language I’m speaking until someone reminds me My game might sound easy but it isn’t Take the word for mother Romanian Ukrainian and Hebrew are all different but German and Yiddish Mutter are the same I’m concentrating on my game and kicking a pebble down the
road when suddenly I notice that something is wrong It’s the quiet In beautiful weather like this with the sun shining in a cloudless blue sky you’d expect to see kids playing grown-ups rushing around and cart drivers shouting at everyone to move out of the way of the horses But the streets are completely deserted I almost stop breathing What if the Iron Guard are on their way here The entire town is terrified of the Iron Guard They’re a group of ferocious bloodthirsty men who wear green jackets and hate everyone Mr Elias calls them fascists Max calls them potato slime in human form They usually start off with a march or parade but that part doesn’t last long At some point they go berserk They break into homes and businesses and sometimes they kill the people inside They especially hate Jews but luckily we look like everyone else so unless there’s someone from our town marching with them they don’t know who we are I’ve never actually seen them because my parents and I always hide behind bags of grain in my father’s warehouse when we hear them coming We have a special hiding place like a little fort with books to keep us happy We don’t have to worry about the sound of pages turning The Iron Guard make so much noise that they can’t hear anyone else And the bags of grain are too heavy for them to lift But not everyone has a fort My friend Zigi had a close call They smashed the windows of his parents bakery and threw the cakes and bread on the floor They would have killed Zigi and his parents while they were at it but the three of them managed to escape to a church in the nick of time The Iron Guard never kill anyone in a church I guess they think God can’t see them on the street
