Mapping the Bones by Jane Yolen

Author:Jane Yolen
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Young Readers Group
Published: 2018-03-06T05:00:00+00:00

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Yet even with the warning of possible disaster, they stayed at the cabin for several weeks. Only the scouts went out, silently seeking to discover if there were soldiers anywhere on the far-off roads or the forest paths, or battalions in the route to safety.

Three times, the various scouts were caught up in small firefights with Germans, but the element of surprise was always with them, and they returned to report on their successes in much detail and a kind of unholy glee.

Bruno was impressed, but the rest of the children less so. As for Chaim, he only foresaw disaster in those battles, wondering if or where the bodies had been buried.

Of course, mostly the scouts found no Germans at all but almost always came back with foraged food. Some they found in fields miles away—sharp wild onions, berries, mushrooms, as well as plants like goosefoot, black bindweed, dandelions, and wild sorrel that could be made into salads or soups.

One night Oskar returned with two large bass. It turned out he was what Karl called a fish-tickler.

“He can wade into a stream and catch a fish with his bare hands, a skill”—Karl added—“that I wish I could cultivate. However, I haven’t got the patience.”

On their turn scouting, Klara and the small, wiry man known unaccountably as Big Johanny returned with his shirt knotted into a carrying bag. It was filled with onions and potatoes they’d found in a storage barn beside a burned-down house.

“All of last winter’s crop,” Big Johanny proclaimed with pride, “hidden away and waiting for us!” He grinned, showing his missing front teeth. “And Klara caught a fish.”

“We liberated all . . . or at least as many as Big Johanny’s shirt could carry,” Klara said, her usual sour expression lightened with the prospect of the meal. She didn’t mention the trout.

It was pouring rain outside, which meant they had to squeeze their sleeping space into the part of the house that still had a roof, going down from three rooms to two.

But because of the rain, the partisans voted to chance a fire in the kitchen and boil the potatoes and onions along with Oskar’s bass. They waited till dark and kept the fire low, contained, allowing the smoke to filter out very slowly through three windows, with the rain helping to disguise it as fog.

Afterward, bloated by the soup they’d eaten, along with salad from an earlier scouting trip, everyone admitted it had been well worth the risk.

More important, even Gittel ate. Some fish, some onions, some potatoes. Not a lot, Chaim knew, but enough to keep her going.

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