The House of Special Purpose by John Boyne

neither see me nor hear me through the noise made by the marching horses and the cheering of the villagers. At any other time, I would not have thought anything of this unremarkable fact and would have turned to look back at the parade instead, but there was an expression on his face which confused me, a look of utter disquiet that I had never observed on the countenance of this thoughtful boy before. He stepped forward a little and looked around until he had reassured himself that his father, the man whose approval meant more to him than anything else in the world, was among the watching crowd, and when he was certain of Borys Alexandrovich’s presence he turned back to stare at the Grand Duke as the white charger marched towards him.
    Nicholas Nicolaievich was perhaps twenty feet away, no more, when I saw Kolek’s left hand reach inside his tunic and remain there for a moment, trembling slightly.
    Fifteen feet away, when I saw the wooden handle of the gun emerge slowly from its hiding place, my friend’s fist wrapped tightly around the grip, his finger hovering over the trigger.
    Ten feet away, when he drew the gun, unobserved by any but I, and released the safety catch.
    The Grand Duke was only five feet away when I shouted my friend’s name – ‘Kolek! No! ’ – and tore through a gap in the passing riders, running across the street as the heads of the soldiers, aware of something untoward taking place, turned in my direction to see what was happening. My friend saw me now too and swallowed nervously before lifting the gun in the air and aiming it in the direction of Nicholas Nicolaievich, who was before him now and had finally deigned to turn his head to look at the young man to his left. He must have seen the flash of steel in the air but there was no time for him to draw his own gun, nor to turn his horse and make a quick escape, because the pistol went off almost immediately with a loud thunderclap, sending itsmurderous gunpowder in the direction of the Tsar’s cousin and closest confidant at the very moment when I, failing to consider the consequences of such an action, leapt in front of it.
    There was a sudden flash of fire, a piercing pain, a scream from the crowd, and I fell to the ground, expecting to feel the shod-hooves of the horses crush my skull beneath their enormous weight at any moment, even as a pain unlike any that I had ever felt before seared through my shoulder, a feeling that someone had taken an iron rod, smelted it in a furnace for an hour and driven it through my innocent flesh. I landed hard on the ground, experiencing a sudden sensation of peace and tranquillity in my mind before the afternoon went dark before my eyes, the noises became hushed, the crowds appeared to vanish into a misty haze, and there was only a small voice left whispering to me in my head, telling me to sleep – sleep, Pasha! – and I obeyed it.
    I closed my eyes and was left alone inside an empty, soporific darkness.
    The first face I saw when I awoke was that of my mother, Yulia Vladimirovna, who was pressing a wet rag across my forehead and staring down at me with a mixture of irritation and alarm. Her hand was trembling slightly and she seemed as nervous to be offering maternal consolation as I was to receive it. Asya and Liska were whispering in a corner while the child, Talya, was watching me with a cold and disinterested expression. I did not feel a part of this unusual tableau at all and simply stared back at them, confused as to what had taken place to inspire such a display of emotion, until a sudden explosion of pain in my left shoulder caused me to grimace and I let out an anguished cry as my hand reached across to ease the pressure on the injured area.
    ‘Be careful there,’ said a loud, deep voice from behind my mother, and the moment it spoke, she jumped noticeably and her expression transformed into one of frightened anxiety. I had never seen her so intimidated by anyone before and thought at first