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APPEL IS FOREVER Ilearn from some bigger kids to find a stick. Then you find a little piece of wood. You hit the little piece hard on one side. If you do it right then you can make the little piece jump high and it falls down at a distance . You can try to flip your piece to the line the other kid draws on the ground and they can try to flip it to your line. I'm outside flipping my little wedge of wood but I don't do it long. It feels dangerous to be out in the empty space. There are just a few other kids outside. Every time a German comes we run away. As we run, Daantje gets mad at me and throws little stones at me. He's my brother, he is not supposed to throw stones at me! I learn other things listening to the big kids. They say that if you eat standing up instead of sitting down then you'll feel full. Then I overhear one girl say to another, "I'm not asking my Mama for more to eat because I know she can't get more. It'll just make her feel bad." I'm so surprised to hear this. I never would have thought of that myself, but now I decide that I, too, won't ask for more to eat so Mama won't feel bad. In a rucksack hanging by our bunk I discover a jar with jam. Once I open it I run my finger around the edge and put it into my mouth to taste the wonderful sweet. Again, another taste, just a little swipe. I check again and again to see if the level of the jam jar is going down. And it doesn't! Oh, I shouldn't keep tasting. Mama brought this for all of us. I'll stop . . . just once more this wonderful, wonderful sweetness. Suddenly, I see that the level of the jam is really lower. Oh, how did this happen when I just looked a minute ago! Now I really have to stop. Quick, I close the lid, put the jar back in the rucksack and run outside. 45 CHAPTER 4 Every morning as we wake up Germans come into the barrack and yell, "Raus, raus!" We have to go stand outside in the big, big empty space. Each barrack has to stand together, children in the front, so that each day they can count us. Each day something is wrong with the counting and in the distance I can hear the Germans screaming at the man who is the spokesman for us. Sometimes the spokesman is the big Greek man. He seems to know what to say to the Germans. Mostly, the counting is wrong so we have to continue standing while the Germans come slowly pacing around again, looking us over. My heart almost stops when they pass by me and Mama and Daantje. This standing outside and being counted is called appel. Every day we go to appel. After we have been here some days, I notice that the women around us in the barrack are taking sheets and underpants to a wash house standing near our barrack. Mama is sick so I take the sheets and underwear to the washhouse. I watch the women. I put everything into a sink. It fills with cold, cold water. I stand on a bench to reach into the sink and try to wash. I can do that but how do I get the sheet out of the water? When I try it's so heavy that I can't even hold onto it. After I try for a while someone I don't know comes to help me. Now, all the women and all the men leave the compound everyday after appel. They go to work. The only people who stay are the small children and the mamas. In the evening we have appel again because now the Germans want to count us again after the grownups come back from work. During the day, the Germans come into the barrack. The women try to run away and I learn to run with some other kids into a different direction. The barracks have doors at each end. Some of the women and kids make a confusion so that the Germans have more than one person to chase. The women are frightened, upset. Mama is, too. Something bad...

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