When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit by Judith Kerr Page B

teacher of the more conventional subjects he was a remarkable yodeller. Altogether what she liked best about the school was that it was so different from the one she had been to before She felt sorry for Max who seemed to be doing very much the same things at the Zurich High School as he had done in Berlin.
    There was only one thing that bothered her. She missed playing with boys. In Berlin she and Max had mostly played with a mixed group of both boys and girls and it had been the same at school. Here the girls’ endless hopscotch began to bore her and sometimes in break she looked longingly at the more exciting games and acrobatics of the boys.
    One day there was no one even playing hopscotch. The boys were turning cartwheels and all the girls were sitting demurely watching them out of the corner of their eyes. Even Roesli who had cut her knee was sitting with the rest. Vreneli was particularly interested because the big red-haired boy was trying to turn cartwheels and the others were trying to teach him, but he kept flopping over sideways.
    “Would you like to play hopscotch?” Anna asked her, but Vreneli shook her head, absorbed. It really was too silly, especially as Anna loved turning cartwheels herself—and it wasn’t as though the red-haired boy was any good at it.
    Suddenly she could stand it no longer and without thinking what she was doing she got up from her seat among the girls and walked over to the boys.
    “Look,” she said to the red-haired boy, “you’ve got to keep your legs straight like this”—and she turned a cartwheel to show him. All the other boys stopped turning cartwheels and stood back grinning. The red-haired boy hesitated.
    “It’s quite easy,” said Anna. “You could do it if you’d only remember about your legs.”
    The red-haired boy still seemed undecided, but the other boys shouted, “Go on—try!” So he tried again and managed a little better. Anna showed him again, and this time he suddenly got the idea and turned a perfect cartwheel just as the bell went for the end of break.
    Anna walked back to her own group and all the boys watched and grinned but the girls seemed mostly to be looking elsewhere. Vreneli looked frankly cross and only Roesli gave her a quick smile.
    After break it was history and Herr Graupe decided to tell them about the cavemen. They had lived millions of years ago, he said. They killed wild animals and ate them and made their fur into clothes. Then they learned to light fires and make simple tools and gradually became civilised. This was progress, said Herr Graupe, and one way it was brought about was by pedlars who called at the cavemen’s caves with useful objects for barter.
    “What sort of useful objects?” asked one of the boys.
    Herr Graupe peered indignantly over his beard. All sorts of things would be useful to cavemen, he said. Things like beads, and coloured wools, and safety-pins to fasten their furs together. Anna was very surprised to hear about the pedlars and the safety-pins. She longed to ask Herr Graupe whether he was really sure about them but thought perhaps it would be wiser not to. Anyway the bell went before she had the chance.
    She was still thinking about the cavemen so much on the way home to lunch that she and Vreneli had walked nearly halfway before she realised that Vreneli was not speaking to her.
    “What’s the matter, Vreneli?” she asked.
    Vreneli tossed her thin plaits and said nothing.
    “What is it?” asked Anna again.
    Vreneli would not look at her.
    “You know!” she said. “You know perfectly well!”
    “No, I don’t,” said Anna.
    “You do!” said Vreneli.
    “No, honestly I don’t!” said Anna. “Please tell me.”
    But Vreneli wouldn’t. She walked the rest of the way home without giving Anna a single glance, her nose in the air and her eyes fixed on some distant point. Only when they had reached the inn and were about to separate, did she look at her briefly, and Anna was surprised to see