“WHY DO WE HAVE TO go to sleep so early?” Leo asks after Franta tells us to wash up. “It’s barely even eight o’clock.” A bunch of the other kids join in to complain, including me.
“Quiet, everyone, quiet,” Franta says. After we all finally shut up, he sighs. “Listen. Tomorrow may be a very difficult day. I want everyone to be well rested.”
“Difficult?” Pavel says, laughing. “What day here isn’t difficult?”
“Yeah,” Koko says.
“This is serious,” Franta says. “There is a rumor that someone, perhaps more than one person, has escaped, and—”
“Good for them,” Pavel says.
“Pavel, please,” Franta says. “Enough.” Franta crosses his arms over his chest but doesn’t say anything for a few seconds. “They want a full count.”
“A full count of what?” I ask.
“Of everyone.”
“Everyone?” Pavel asks, no longer trying to be funny.
“Yes, everyone in Terezin,” Franta says.
We all burst out with a ton of questions. Everyone, as in everyone? Where is this going to happen, because how could they possibly find a place big enough for all of us, because we barely even fit in Terezin to begin with? When is it going to start? How long will it take? And why isn’t a regular count—when they gather the count from each room in each barracks—why isn’t that enough?
Franta doesn’t have too many answers. In fact, he doesn’t have any. So we get into bed and try to be satisfied with his promise to read to us until everyone is asleep.
* * *
I think I might already be asleep when something startles me. I look toward the door, which is open a crack, letting a sliver of light pour in. Franta stops reading. Then some loud whispering and steps coming straight at me. A few moments later Mother’s standing over my bed.
“Mother? What are—”
“Take this with you tomorrow,” she says, spreading the blanket, the one she’s already tried to give me a couple of times, over me and Jiri.
“What are you doing?” I whisper, now definitely awake. “It’s way past curfew! They’ll put you in the Small Fortress, or maybe even shoot you, if you get caught. Are you crazy?!”
“Mrs. Gruenbaum,” Franta says, standing next to her. “I can’t allow this.”
She ignores both of us. “Take it with you. It’s supposed to be cold and rainy tomorrow. Don’t forget it. And dress in layers, as many as you can manage.”
“Mrs. Gruenbaum,” Franta says again.
Mother doesn’t say anything for a few moments, just straightens out the hair near my forehead. “Franta,” she finally says, very quietly. “If I see Misha out there—”
“Out where?” I ask.
“—tomorrow without this blanket, so help me God, Franta, I will . . .”
No one says anything for what seems like a long time. Not me, not Mother, not even Franta. Then she leans over, kisses the top of my head, and disappears. I look at Franta, who’s rubbing his face and mumbling something I can’t make out.
As soon as Mother leaves the room, I hop out of bed and run to the window. I sort of expect Franta to order me back to bed, but somehow I’m not that surprised when he appears next to me instead.
About ten seconds later, I spot Mother below, out in front of our building. Stay away from the lights, I tell her in my head, and just like that she steps off the street and disappears into the darkness. She doesn’t reappear, but I stay at the window anyway, following an imaginary path toward her barracks with my eyes, holding my breath, and hoping not to see any guards walking nearby.
“Okay,” Franta says softly a couple of minutes later, “into bed.”
But I don’t move, just look up at him. He has a strange expression on his face, like he’s somewhere else entirely. “Do you think . . . do you think she’s okay?”
He doesn’t answer for a bit. The look in his eyes only gets stranger, until he barely looks like himself at all. “Yes,” he says, his voice quite dry, “yes.”