When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit by Judith Kerr Page A

were,” said Anna. “I heard you.”
    “Pa said we weren’t to tell you,” said Vreneli unhappily.
    “For fear of upsetting you,” said Franz. “But it was in the paper. The Nazis are putting a price on your Pa’s head.”
    “A price on his head?” asked Anna stupidly.
    “Yes,” said Franz. “A thousand German Marks. Pa says it shows how important your Pa must be. There was a picture of him and all.”
    How could you put a thousand Marks on a person’s head? It was silly. She determined to ask Max when he came up to bed but fell asleep long before.
    In the middle of the night Anna woke up. It was quite sudden, like something being switched on inside her head, and she was immediately wide awake. And as though she had been thinking of nothing else all night, she suddenly knew with terrible clarity how you put a thousand Marks on a person’s head.
    In her mind she saw a room. It was a funny looking room because it was in France and the ceiling, instead of being solid, was a mass of criss-crossing beams. In the gaps between them something was moving. It was dark, but now the door opened and the light came on. Papa was coming to bed. He took a few steps towards the middle of the room—“Don’t!” Anna wanted to cry—and then the terrible shower of heavy coins began. It came pouring down from the ceiling on to Papa’s head. He called out but the coins kept coming. He sank to his knees under their weight and the coins kept falling and falling until he was completely buried under them.
    So this was what Herr Zwirn had not wanted her to know. This was what the Nazis were going to do to Papa. Or perhaps, since it was in the paper, they had already done it. She lay staring into the darkness, sick with fear. In the other bed she could hear Max breathing quietly and regularly. Should she wake him? But Max hated being disturbed in the night—he would probably only be cross and say that it was all nonsense.
    And perhaps it was all nonsense, she thought with a sudden lightening of her misery. Perhaps in the morning she would be able to see it as one of those silly night fears which had frightened her when she was younger—like the times when she had thought that the house was on fire, or that her heart had stopped. In the morning there would be the usual postcard from Mama and Papa, and everything would be all right.
    Yes, but this was not something she had imagined—it had been in the paper ... Her thoughts went round and round. One moment she was making complicated plans to get up, take a train to Paris and warn Papa. The next moment she thought how silly she’d look if Frau Zwirn should happen to catch her. In the end she must have fallen asleep because suddenly it was daylight and Max was already half-dressed. She stayed in bed for a moment, feeling very tired and letting the thoughts of the previous night come creeping back. After all they seemed rather unreal now that it was morning.
    “Max?” she said tentatively.
    Max had an open textbook on the table beside him and was looking at it while he put on his shoes and socks.
    “Sorry,” said Max. “Latin exam today and I haven’t revised.” He went back to his book, murmuring verbs and tenses. Anyway, it didn’t matter, thought Anna. She was sure everything was all right.
    But at breakfast there was no postcard from Mama and Papa.
    “Why do you think it hasn’t come?” she asked Max.
    “Postal delay,” said Max indistinctly through a mouthful of bread. “ ’Bye!” and he rushed to catch his train.
    “I daresay it’ll come this afternoon,” said Herr Zwirn.
    But she worried about it all day at school and sat chewing her pencil instead of writing a description of the sunrise in the mountains.
    “What’s the matter with you?” said Herr Graupe. (She usually wrote the best compositions in the class.) “It was beautiful. You should have been inspired by the experience!” And he walked away, personally offended by her lack of response to his