Black Radishes Read Online Free PDF Page A

heavy, seemed to be pressing down on him. When he got up, he dumped his toys out onto his bed and looked slowly around his room. He had almost forgotten to pack the map on the wall, he realized. He took it down and folded it up carefully. He would need that and his paints to keep track of the war. He picked up his Boy Scout manual and his two favorite books, The Three Musketeers and Around the World in Eighty Days , and put them on the end of the bed, next to the paints and the map. That was already more than three things. But since it was mostly books, Maman would probably let him bring one more toy.
    But how could he choose only one? Gustave picked up his new sailboat and ran a finger over its shiny blue and white paint. Uncle David had given him and Jean-Paul each a sailboat last summer to sail in the fountains in the parks. Saint-Georges was near a river, so a boat would be good to have. But then he saw Monkey, partly hidden under his train set on the bed, and his heart tightened. He had almost forgotten him. Monkey’s head tilted slightly to one side. A gold post in his ear and the bright black, beady eyes looking out from his face gave him a mischievous air.
    The small stuffed animal had belonged to Gustave ever since he had been a baby, and Monkey had often been a part of his games with Jean-Paul and Marcel. Gustave remembered the time a few years ago when, for weeks, the three of them had played shipwreck. Monkey had been a mascot left behind by pirates. Another time they had played spies. Monkey had been their most powerful secret weapon, trained to climb the outside of buildings, pry open windows, and break into safes. They didn’t play with the little stuffed animal very much anymore. But having Monkey in Saint-Georges would be the next-best thing to having his friends there. Before he could change his mind, Gustave put Monkey on top of the books and the paint box and took the pile out to Maman.
    After dinner, Marcel and Jean-Paul came over to help carry things down the stairs because Papa’s bad leg made dealing with the stairs difficult.
    Gustave thrust the sailboat at Marcel. “Do you want to borrow it?” he asked. “That way you won’t get into any more trouble about umbrellas.”
    “Really? Wow!” Marcel held the sailboat reverently. “Thanks! I promise there won’t be a scratch on it when you come back.”
    Marcel hurried home to put the sailboat away where it would be safe, and when he came pounding back up the stairs to Gustave’s apartment, the three boys carried down the boxes and suitcases, an armchair that had belonged to Maman’s great-grandmother, and the mattresses from the beds. When Papa opened the back of the delivery truck, Gustave saw why they could take only five boxes, plus the suitcases. The truck was already two-thirds full with rolls of cloth and boxes of shoes from the store.
    “Why are you taking so much stock with you, Uncle Berthold?” Jean-Paul asked. “Are you going to open up a new store in Saint-Georges?”
    Papa heaved the big mattress from his and Maman’s bed until it stood upright, and wiped the sweat off his forehead. “Well, I don’t know about a new store,” he said. “I’m not sure if we’ll be there long enough for that to make sense. But I couldn’t sell off all the stock, and it’s too valuable not to bring along.”
    Marcel was the tallest, so he helped Papa push the mattresses onto the top of the truck and cover them with canvas, while Gustave and Jean-Paul tied them down with ropes. When everything was fitted into the back of the delivery truck, Papa pushed the door shut.
    It latched with a final-sounding click. His family’s whole life was in that truck now, Gustave thought. At least, the part of their life that they were able to take with them.
    Papa reached out and pulled all three of the boys into a jostling embrace. “Be good, boys,” he said hoarsely to Marcel and Jean-Paul. “Take care of your families.” Then he went back into the