46 pages 1 hour read

Morris Gleitzman

Then

Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2008

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Chapters 7-13

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapter 7 Summary

Felix and Zelda live happily with Genia for a week. One day, Felix and Zelda make an automatic chicken-feeding machine, just like the one in Felix’s stories, but the chickens are not interested, so instead the children play hide-and-seek with the chickens and the pig, Trotski. As they lie hidden in the hay, a somewhat familiar boy enters the barn. He throws meat to Leopold and greets him familiarly, but when he smacks Trotski, Zelda leaps out in anger. The boy holds a knife to Zelda’s neck but soon runs off. Genia later identifies the meat as rabbit meat. The boy must have been a Jewish orphan who escaped the massacre. Before their deaths, the orphans were often forced to work on the farm, and many of them were friendly with Leopold.

Genia tests Felix and Zelda, forcing them to memorize details about their new, fake identities, Wilhelm and Violetta. Genia takes them into town to test their disguises and to calm any growing suspicions about the children. Though Felix is nervous, their disguises work on a woman. However, when they pass the turnip farmer who nearly kidnapped them, he stares at Felix and Zelda for a suspiciously long time.