Once

Felix dreams about his parents and wakes to Zelda shaking him in the haystack complaining that she is hungry. They share bread and water. Felix hears noises and goes to peer at the road through a hedge. A caravan of hundreds of people are walking toward the city. They are wearing armbands emblazoned with the Star of David. Felix thinks they must be Jewish booksellers. Nazis on motorcycles ride alongside them.

Zelda screams. A Nazi soldier has her at gunpoint. Felix frantically tries to explain to him that his notebook is not a real book. The Nazi makes them fall in line with the other captives. Felix searches the line for his parents, but they are nowhere to be seen. Zelda’s feet begin to hurt, so Felix wraps them in rags. As they march, Felix again has the feeling that “Maybe it’s not just our books the Nazis hate. Maybe it’s us” (35).

For six hours, Felix tells stories to keep their spirits up. It is raining, and Felix develops a bad headache. It is difficult for him to keep up with his story. He gets distracted by a new group of Jewish people who look badly beaten. One man starts shouting at the soldiers. They knock him down and start kicking him. Felix desperately tries not to panic and to distract Zelda from witnessing it. They pass a group of captives being forced to dig a huge pit. 

The city is dirty, emblazoned with Nazi flags, and crawling with soldiers. The locals yell, “Dirty Jews!” as they pass. Felix does not see his parents anywhere. They are herded toward a walled-off area. The children are being separated from the adults. Felix tries to escape with Zelda, but the locals tell the soldiers. A man by the gate is shot. A soldier with “a bored look on his face is holding [Zelda] by the hair and pointing a gun at her” (38). Felix tries to make up a story to help her, but he is knocked to the ground.

A big, bearded Jewish man intervenes on Zelda’s behalf. Speaking in German, he manages to get the soldier to spare her. The Nazi twists his beard, and the crowd laughs at the man. The soldier finally walks off and shoots a woman in the back of the head. The big man tries to take Zelda away from the scene, but she protests, unwilling to go without Felix. Felix feels like the world is spinning. He vomits and blacks out.

Felix wakes to the light of a candle. He thinks he is back in the orphanage until he sees the big man from the street. Zelda introduces him as Barney. Felix passes out again. He awakens in the night, screaming that he lost his notebook. His head is burning. Zelda informs him that his notebook and letters are safe, and she asks Barney if Felix is going to die. Felix panics, thinking that he could have protected his parents from the Nazis. He blacks out yet again, begging Barney to find his parents. Felix wakes to the sounds of a boy crying for home. He feels a bit better now. He puts on his glasses and sees that the crying boy appears to be around five years old. The man named Barney soothes the boy, whose name is Henryk. He promises to look after him. A curly-haired girl named Ruth is present as well. Barney offers Felix soup, but Felix is angry that Barney told Henryk that he will see his parents one day. He thinks Barney is an idiot. 

Felix later wakes to Barney asking if he can read the other children a story from Felix’s notebook. In addition to Zelda, Ruth, and Henryk, there are two more boys, another girl, and a toddler in the cellar with them. Barney thinks the other children would enjoy hearing a story, but he wants to respect Felix’s privacy. The other children agree. Felix refuses. Felix feels ashamed of his stories now. While he was writing them, his parents “were being chased all over Europe by the Nazis. And being captured” (41). He can see how disappointed they all are at not hearing a story. Barney asks Zelda to tell one instead. Zelda begins to tell the same story Felix first told her, incorporating herself into it.

Felix’s illness passes. He is guilty for being in this cellar and not looking for his parents. Zelda tells him he has to tell the others a story; Barney does not want her to anymore because she starts arguments. Barney is out getting supplies, and the rest of the children are hidden in a tent made of their coats. Zelda explains that it is a story tent. Felix is annoyed until he realizes that they do not know what it feels like to put their parents at risk. He blames himself for the fact that his parents did not get American visas. Felix apologizes and says he needs to go. Zelda says they are not allowed to. He tries the door; it is locked from the other side.

Zelda tells Felix they have to be quiet: Adolf Hitler does not like Jewish children. Felix is taken aback, but remembers the Jewish kids herded into Nazi trucks in the city. Felix is shocked to learn that Hitler is the leader of the Nazis. He realizes that the story his parents told him when they left him at the orphanage saved his life. Felix finally consents to tell the others a story. He starts telling a fictionalized story based on the carrot in his soup. Zelda butts in an makes it a magic carrot. His story derailed, they end up asking each other what they would do with a wish. All Felix can think is “if Adolf Hitler hates Jewish kids, perhaps God and Jesus and the Virgin Mary and the Pope do too” (45). Felix goes to bed wishing to escape to find his parents before the Nazis do.