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The Boy in the Striped Pajamas
By John Boyne
| Chapter 20 Audio |
Several
days later,
after the
soldiers had
searched every
part of
the house
and gone
into all
the local
towns and
villages with
pictures of
the little
boy, one
of them discovered the pile
of clothes and
the pair of
boots that Bruno
had left
near the
fence. He
left them
there, undisturbed,
and went
to fetch
the Commandant,
who examined
the area
and looked
to his
left and
looked to
his right just
as Bruno
had done,
but for
the life of
him he could
not understand what
had happened to
his son.
It was
as if
he had
just vanished
off the
face of
the earth
and left
his clothes
behind him.
Mother did
not return
to Berlin
quite as
quickly as
she had hoped.
She stayed
at Out-With
for several
months waiting
for news
of Bruno
until one
day, quite
suddenly, she
thought he
might have
made his
way home
alone, so
she immediately returned to
their old
house, half
expecting to
see him
sitting on
the doorstep waiting
for her.
He
wasn't there,
of course.
Gretel returned to Berlin
with Mother
and spent
a
lot of
time alone in
her room crying,
not because
she
had
thrown her
dolls away
and not
because she
had
left
all her
maps behind
at Out-With,
but because she
missed Bruno so
much.
Father stayed
at Out-With
for another
year after
that and
became very
disliked by
the other
soldiers, whom
he ordered
around mercilessly.
He went
to sleep
every night
thinking about
Bruno and
he woke
up every
morning thinking
about
him
too.
One
day he
formed a
theory about
what might
have occurred
and he
went hack
to the
place in
the fence
where the
pile of
clothes had
been found
a year
before.
There was
nothing particularly
special about
this
place, or
different, but then
he did
a little
exploration of his own
and discovered
that the base
of the fence
here
was not
properly attached
to the
ground as
it was everywhere else and
that, when
lifted, it
left a
gap large
enough for
a very
small person
(such as a
little
boy) to
crawl underneath.
He looked
into the
distance then
and followed
it through
logically, step
by step
by step,
and when
he did
he found
that his
legs
seemed
to
stop
working
right
-
as
if
they
couldn't
hold his body
up any longer
-
and
he ended
up sitting
on the
ground in
almost exactly
the same position
as Bruno
had every
afternoon for
a year,
although he
didn't cross
his legs
beneath him.
A few
months after
that some
other soldiers
came
to Out-With
and Father
was ordered
to go
with
them, and
he went
without complaint
and he
was
happy
to do
so because
he didn't
really mind
what they did
to him
any more.
And that's
the end
of the
story about
Bruno and
his family.
Of course
all this
happened a
long time ago
and nothing
like that
could ever
happen again.
Not
in this
day and
age.
The End
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