Escaping Into the Night by D. Dina Friedman

Author:D. Dina Friedman
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Books For Young Readers
Published: 2006-07-15T00:00:00+00:00

chapter eleven

A few days later, Reuven and the other members of the expedition came back, with much less food than we all had hoped for. There was a wagon filled with dried beans and potatoes, and two butchered cows. But these would not go far in feeding three hundred of us for very long. Mr. Moskin called a community meeting to discuss what we should do.

“Some meeting,” Mr. Grolsky said as our unit walked the kilometer to the main camp. “He’ll sit above us on his horse and show his gun if we don’t agree with him. This isn’t leadership, it’s dictatorship.”

“Shah, Yitzhak,” Tante Rosa said. “I’ll give you my share of soup tonight if you promise not to say anything to make him angry.”

“And not speak the truth? He’s leading us toward certain death. We just don’t know if it will be death by German bullets or death by starvation. Our only hope is to break away.”

“Don’t be so fast to judge,” Tante Rosa cautioned. “Let’s see what he has to say.’

At that moment, Tante Rosa and Mr. Grolsky quickened their steps, so I could no longer hear what they were saying. I dropped behind with Reuven and Batya, who were talking quietly. Reuven was telling her about the expedition.

“We didn’t have enough guns,” he explained, “so some of us had to carry sticks in the shape of guns and hide them under our jackets. We had to leave the peasants enough provisions to live on, and there was very little extra. That’s why we couldn’t bring a lot back with us. The people in that village didn’t have much more food than we did.”

“Did you see any German soldiers?” Batya asked.

“The Germans hadn’t been there. But the peasants said the Russian soldiers had come a few weeks ago demanding food. I think that’s why there was so little.”

“What was the village like? How did you decide where to go for food?” Batya seemed to be clamoring for every detail.

“It was just a farming village, very small with big fields and a few houses. There were a lot of cows. I think we could have taken more of them, but our expedition leader said the meat would spoil too quickly. He said that in the winter we could take more animals and store the meat in the snow.” Reuven smiled at Batya. I hadn’t remembered seeing him ever fully smile before; he looked sweet when he smiled, and animated. Going on the expedition must have made him feel important and given him something to think about besides his brothers.

A large crowd had already assembled when we got to the meeting. Reuven, Batya, and I sat down together. I looked around for Eli, but I didn’t see him, I hadn’t seen him since that night we shared guard duty, even though I looked for him every time there was a large gathering. I had heard Mr. Grolsky say that several men had been sent off again on sabotage missions. I hoped that was the reason I hadn’t seen him, and that he would return safely soon.

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