Once Read Free

bell to finish striking seven.
    “At seven o’clock in the morning,” I say.
    Everyone takes this in. The torture squad look uncertain. But they’re not pushing anybody down the toilet, which is good.
    “That’s just one of your stories,” sneers Telek, but I can tell he’s not so sure.
    “Quick,” says Dodie, “I can hear Mother Minka coming.”
    That’s a story too because Mother Minka is down in the courtyard with the head office officials. But Marek and the others look even more uncertain. They swap glances, then hurry out of the toilets.
    Dodie turns wearily to Jankiel.
    “What did we tell you?” says Dodie. “About not coming in here on your own?”
    Jankiel opens his mouth to reply, then closes it again. Instead he peers past us, trying to see down into the courtyard.
    “Have they gone?” he says.
    Dodie nods and points toward the dormitory.
    “Borys is putting mud in your bed,” he says.
    “I mean the men in the car,” says Jankiel.
    He looks almost as scared now as he did with the torture squad.
    “They’ll be gone soon,” I say. “Mother Minka’s dealing with them.”
    Jankiel starts to look a bit less nervous, but only a bit. I find myself wondering if he’s got secret alive parents too.
    “Thanks for saving me,” he says. “That was a good story about my parents being crushed.”
    “Sorry if it brought back sad memories,” I say.
    “Nah,” says Jankiel. “My parents froze to death.”
    I stare at him. If that’s true, it’s terrible. Their bath must have been outdoors or something.
    Jankiel glances down at my notebook.
    “Do you make up lots of stories?” he asks.
    “Sometimes,” I say.
    “I’m not very good at stories,” he says.
    As we go out into the dormitory I find myself wondering if Jankiel is Jewish. He’s got dark eyes like me. But I don’t ask him. If he is, he wouldn’t admit it. Not here.
    Dodie stays with Jankiel, who’s peering nervously out the window again, and I head off, hoping that Mother Minka has got rid of the officials so I can ask her about Mum and Dad.
    As I hurry down the stairs I glance out the window myself.
    In the courtyard Mother Minka is having an argument with the men. She’s waving her arms, which she only does when she’s in a very bossy mood.
    I stop and stare.
    What’s that smoke?
    It’s a bonfire. The men are having a bonfire in the courtyard. Why are they doing that? It can’t be for warmth. The sun’s up now, and it’s going to be a hot day.
    I can see why Mother Minka’s so angry. The smoke is going into the chapel and the classrooms and the girls’ dormitory.
    Oh, no, I’ve just seen what the men are burning.
    That’s terrible.
    If Mum and Dad saw this, they’d be in tears.
    The other nuns are down there in the courtyard, and some of them have got their faces in their hands.
    I’m feeling very upset myself.
    The men are burning books.

 
      I saw a customer, years ago, damaging books in Mum and Dad’s shop. Tearing pages out. Screwing them up. Shouting things I couldn’t understand. Mum was crying. Dad was furious. So was I.
     
    When customers are unhappy they should ask for a refund, not go mental.
    These men are just as bad. They’re hurting books cruelly and viciously and laughing about it.
    Why?
    Just because Mother Minka is a bit bossy? That’s no reason to destroy the things she loves most in the world except God, Jesus, the Virgin Mary, the Pope, and Adolf Hitler.
    Wait a minute, those wooden boxes the men are flinging around are book boxes from our library.
    I get it.
    Mother Minka was complaining to us library monitors only last week that the library was very messy and needed a tidy-up. She must have got sick of waiting for us to do it and called in professional librarians in professional librarian armbands. They’ve reorganized the library, and now they’re burning the books that are left over.
    No wonder Mother Minka is so upset. I bet she didn’t give them permission to do that.
    Me and Mum