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A L A N G R AT Z 6
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SCHOLASTIC PRESS / NEW YORK

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1
2 Copyright 2017 by Alan Gratz
3 All rights reserved. Published by Scholastic Press, an imprint of
4 Scholastic Inc., Publishers since 1920. scholastic, scholastic press,
and associated logos are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of
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Scholastic Inc.
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responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.
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No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval
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to Scholastic Inc., Attention: Permissions Department, 557 Broadway,
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New York, NY 10012.
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14 While inspired by real events and historical characters, this is a work of
fiction and does not claim to be historically accurate or portray factual
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events or relationships.Please keep in mind that references to actual
16 persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales may
17 not be factually accurate, but rather fictionalized by the author.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data available
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20 ISBN 978-0-545-88083-1
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10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 17 18 19 20 21
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23 Printed in [printer location] [printer code]
24 First edition, November2017
25 Book design by Nina Goffi
Map art by Jim McMahon
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 Josef
B e r l i n , G e r m a n y 1 9 3 8
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CRACK! BANG! 7
Josef Landau shot straight up in bed, his heart racing. 8
That soundit was like someone had kicked the front 9
door in. Or had he dreamed it? 10
Josef listened, straining his ears in the dark. He wasnt 11
used to the sounds of this new flat, the smaller one he 12
and his family had been forced to move into. They 13
couldnt afford their old place, not since the Nazis told 14
Josefs father he wasnt allowed to practice law anymore 15
because he was Jewish. 16
Across the room, Josefs little sister, Ruth, was still 17
asleep. Josef tried to relax. Maybe hed just been having a 18
nightmare. 19
Something in the darkness outside his room moved 20
with a grunt and a scuffle. 21
Someone was in the house! 22
Josef scrambled backward on his bed, his eyes wide. 23
There was a shattering sound in the next roomcrisssh! 24
Ruth woke up and screamed. Screamed in sheer blind 25
terror. She was only six years old. 26
Mama! Josef cried. Papa! 27

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1 Towering shadows burst into the room. The air seemed
2 to crackle around them like static from a radio. Josef
3 tried to hide in the corner of his bed, but shadowy hands
4 snatched at him. Grabbed for him. He screamed even
5 louder than his little sister, drowning her out. He kicked
6 and flailed in a panic, but one of the shadows caught
7 his ankle and dragged him face-first across his bed.
8 Josef clawed at his sheets, but the hands were too
9 strong. Josef was so scared he wet himself, the warm
10 liquid spreading through his nightclothes.
11 No! Josef screamed. No!
12 The shadows threw him to the floor. Another shadow
13 picked up Ruth by the hair and slapped her.
14 Be quiet! the shadow yelled, and it tossed Ruth
15 down on the floor beside Josef. The shock shut Ruth up,
16 but only for a moment. Then she wailed even harder
17 and louder.
18 Hush, Ruthie. Hush, Josef begged her. He took her in
19 his arms and wrapped her in a protective hug. Hush now.
20 They cowered together on the floor as the shadows
21 picked up Ruths bed and threw it against the wall. Crash!
22 The bed broke into pieces. The shadows tore down
23 pictures, pulled drawers from their bureaus, and flung
24 clothing everywhere. They broke lamps and lightbulbs.
25 Josef and Ruth clung to each other, terrified and wet-
26 faced with tears.
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 The shadows grabbed them again and dragged them 1
into the living room. They threw Josef and Ruth on the 2
floor once more and flicked on the overhead light. As 3
Josefs eyes adjusted, he saw the seven strangers who had 4
invaded his home. Some of them wore regular clothes: 5
white shirts with the sleeves rolled up, gray slacks, 6
brown wool caps, leather work boots. More of them 7
wore the brown shirts and red swastika armbands of 8
the Sturmabteilung, Adolf Hitlers storm troopers. 9
Josefs mother and father were there too, lying on the 10
floor at the feet of the Brownshirts. 11
Josef! Ruth! Mama cried when she saw them. She 12
lunged for her children, but one of the Nazis grabbed her 13
nightgown and pulled her back. 14
Aaron Landau, one of the Brownshirts said to Josefs 15
father, you have continued to practice law despite the 16
fact that Jews are forbidden to do so under the Civil 17
Ser vice Restoration Act of 1933. For this crime against 18
the German people, you will be taken into protective 19
custody. 20
Josef looked at his father, panicked. 21
This is all a misunderstanding, Papa said. If youd 22
just give me a chance to explain 23
The Brownshirt ignored Papa and nodded at the other 24
men. Two of the Nazis yanked Josefs father to his feet 25
and dragged him toward the door. 26
27

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1 No! Josef cried. He had to do something. He leaped
2 to his feet, grabbed the arm of one of the men carrying
3 his father, and tried to pull him off. Two more of the
4 men jerked Josef away and held him as he fought against
5 them.
6 The Brownshirt in charge laughed. Look at this one!
7 he said, pointing to the wet spot on Josefs nightclothes.
8 The boys pissed himself!
9 The Nazis laughed, and Josefs face burned hot with
10 shame. He struggled in the mens arms, trying to break
11 free. Ill be a man soon enough, Josef told them. Ill
12 be a man in six months and eleven days.
13 The Nazis laughed again. Six months and eleven
14 days! the Brownshirt said. Not that hes counting.
15 The Brownshirt suddenly turned serious. Perhaps
16 youre close enough that we should take you to a concen-
17 tration camp too, like your father.
18 No! Mama cried. No, my son is just twelve. Hes
19 just a boy. Pleasedont.
20 Ruth wrapped herself around Josefs leg and wailed.
21 Dont take him! Dont take him!
22 The Brownshirt scowled at the noise and gave the men
23 carrying Aaron Landau a dismissive wave. Josef watched
24 as they dragged Papa away to the sounds of Mamas
25 sobs and Ruths wails.
26 Dont be so quick to grow up, boy, the Brownshirt
27 told Josef. Well come for you soon enough.

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 The Nazis trashed the rest of Josefs house, breaking 1
furniture and smashing plates and tearing curtains. They 2
left as suddenly as they had come, and Josef and his sister 3
and mother huddled together on their knees in the 4
middle of the room. At last, when they had cried all the 5
tears they could cry, Rachel Landau led her children to 6
her bedroom, put her bed back together, and hugged 7
Josef and Ruth close until morning. 8
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In the days to come, Josef learned that his family wasnt 12
the only one the Nazis had attacked that night. Other 13
Jewish homes and businesses and synagogues were 14
destroyed all over Germany, and tens of thousands of 15
Jewish men were arrested and sent to concentration 16
camps. They called it Kristallnacht, the Night of Broken 17
Glass. 18
The Nazis hadnt said it with words, but the message 19
was clear: Josef and his family werent wanted in Germany 20
anymore. But Josef and his mother and sister werent 21
going anywhere. Not yet. Not without Josefs father. 22
Mama spent weeks going from one government office 23
to another, trying to find out where her husband was and 24
how to get him back. Nobody would tell her anything, 25
and Josef began to despair that he would never see his 26
father again. 27

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1 And then, six months after hed been taken away, they
2 got a telegram. A telegram from Papa! Hed been released
3 from a concentration camp called Dachau, but only on
4 condition that he leave the country within fourteen days.
5 Josef didnt want to leave. Germany was his home.
6 Where would they go? How would they live? But the
7 Nazis had told them to get out of Germany twice now,
8 and the Landau family wasnt going to wait around to
9 see what the Nazis would do next.
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 Isabel
J u s t o u t s i d e H ava n a , C u b a 19 9 4
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IT TOOK ONLY TWO TRIES TO GET THE SCRAWNY 7
calico kitten to come out from under the pink cinder- 8
block house and eat from Isabel Fernandezs hand. The 9
cat was hungry, just like everyone else in Cuba, and its 10
belly quickly won out over its fear. 11
The cat was so tiny it could only nibble at the beans. 12
Its little tummy purred like an outboard motor, and it 13
butted its head against Isabels hand in between bites. 14
Youre not much to look at, are you, kitty? Isabel 15
said. Its fur was scraggly and dull, and Isabel could feel 16
the cats bones through its skin. The little kitten wasnt 17
too different from her, Isabel realized: thin, hungry, and 18
in need of a bath. Isabel was eleven years old, and all 19
lanky arms and legs. Her brown face was splotchy with 20
freckles, and her thick black hair was cut short for summer 21
and pulled back behind her ears. She was barefoot like 22
always, and wore a tank top and shorts. 23
The kitten gobbled up the last of the beans and mewed 24
pitifully. Isabel wished she had something else to give it, 25
but this food was already more than she could spare. Her 26
lunch hadnt been much bigger than the catsjust a few 27

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1 beans and a small pile of white rice. There had been
2 rationing and food coupon books when Isabel was little,
3 but a few years ago, in 1989, the Soviet Union had fallen,
4 and Cuba had hit rock bottom. Cuba was a communist
5 country, like Russia had been, and for decades the Soviets
6 had been buying Cubas sugar for eleven times the price
7 and sending the little island food and gasoline and medi-
8 cine for free.
9 But when the Soviet Union went away, so did all their
10 support. Most of the farms in Cuba grew only sugarcane,
11 and with no one to overpay for it the cane fields dried
12 up, the sugar refineries closed, and people lost their jobs.
13 Without Russias gas they couldnt run the tractors to
14 change the fields over to food, and without the extra food
15 the Cuban people began to starve. All the cows and pigs
16 and sheep had been slaughtered and eaten. People had even
17 broken into the Havana zoo and eaten the animals, and
18 cats like this little kitten had ended up on dinner tables.
19 But nobody was going to eat this cat. Youll just be
20 our little secret, Isabel whispered.
21 Hey, Isabel! Ivn said, making her jump. The cat
22 skittered away underneath the house.
23 Ivn was a year older than Isabel and lived next door.
24 He and Isabel had been friends as long as she could
25 remember. Ivn was lighter skinned than Isabel, with
26 curly dark hair. He wore sandals; tan shorts; a striped,
27 short-sleeved, button-down shirt; and a cap with a fancy

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 letter I on itthe logo of the Havana baseball team 1
Industriales. He wanted to be a professional baseball 2
player when he grew up, and he was good enough that 3
it wasnt a crazy dream. 4
Ivn plopped to the dusty ground beside Isabel. Look! 5
I found a bit of dead fish on the beach for the cat. 6
Isabel recoiled at the smell, but the kitten came running 7
back, eating greedily from Ivns hand. 8
She needs a name, Ivn said. Ivn gave names to 9
everythingthe stray dogs who wandered the town, his 10
bicycle, even his baseball glove. How about Jorge? Or 11
Javier? Or Lzaro? 12
Those are all boy names! Isabel said. 13
Yes, but they are all players for the Lions, and shes 14
a little lion! The Lions was the nickname of the 15
Industriales. 16
Ivn! his father called from next door. I need your 17
help in the shed. 18
Ivn climbed to his feet. I have to go. Were building . . . 19
a doghouse, he said, before sprinting away. 20
Isabel shook her head. Ivn thought he was being 21
sneaky, but Isabel knew exactly what he and his father 22
were building in their shed, and it wasnt a doghouse. It 23
was a boat. A boat to sail to the United States. 24
Isabel was worried the Castillos were going to get 25
caught. Fidel Castro, the man who ruled Cuba as presi- 26
dent and prime minister, wouldnt allow anyone to leave 27

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1 the countryespecially not to go to the United Statesel
2 norte, as Cubans called it. The north. If you were caught
3 trying to leave for el norte by boat, Castro would throw
4 you in jail.
5 Isabel knew because her own father had been caught
6 by the Cuban navy. Papi had been thrown in jail for a
7 year the last time he tried to sail for Florida.
8 Isabel noticed her father and grandfather heading down
9 the road toward the city to stand in line for food. She put
10 the little kitten back under the house and ran inside for her
11 trumpet. Isabel loved tagging along on trips into Havana
12 to stand on a street corner and play her trumpet for pesos.
13 She never did make much. Not because she wasnt good.
14 As her mother liked to say, Isabel could play the storm
15 clouds from the sky. People often stopped to listen and
16 clap and tap their feet when she played. But the only people
17 who could afford to give her pesos were the tourists
18 visitors from Canada or Europe or Mexico. Ever since the
19 Soviet Union had collapsed, the only currency most
20 Cubans had were the booklets you got stamped when you
21 went to pick up your food rations from the store. And
22 food ration booklets were pretty worthless anyway
23 there wasnt enough food to go around, whether you had
24 a booklet or not.
25 Isabel caught up with her father and grandfather,
26 then parted ways with them on the Malecn, the broad
27 road that curved along the seawall on Havana Harbor.

10

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 Onone side of the road stood block after block of green 1
and yellow and pink and baby blue homes and shops. The 2
paint was peeling and the buildings were old and weath- 3
ered, but they still looked grand to Isabel. Isabel stood on 4
the wide promenade, where it seemed all of Havana was 5
on display. People might have been hungry, but life went 6
on. Mothers carried babies in slings across their chests. 7
Couples kissed under palm trees. Buskers played rumbas 8
on guitars and drums. Boys took turns diving into the 9
sea. Tourists took pictures. It was Isabels favorite place in 10
the whole city. 11
Isabel tossed an old ball cap on the ground on the off 12
chance that one of the tourists actually had a peso to 13
spare, and lifted the trumpet to her lips. As she blew, her 14
fingers tapped out the notes she knew by heart. It was a 15
salsa tune she liked to play, but this time she listened past 16
the music. Past the noise of the cars and trucks on the 17
Malecn, past the people talking as they walked by, past 18
the crash of the waves against the seawall behind her. 19
Isabel was listening for the clave underneath the music, 20
the mysterious hidden beat inside Cuban music that every- 21
body seemed to hear except her. An irregular rhythm that 22
lay over the top of the regular beat, like a heartbeat beneath 23
the skin. Try as she might, she had never heard it, never 24
felt it. She listened now, intently, trying to hear the heart- 25
beat of Cuba in her own music. 26
What she heard instead was the sound of breaking glass. 27

11

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1
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4
Mahmoud
Aleppo, Syria2015
5
6
7 MAHMOUD BISHARA WAS INVISIBLE, AND
8 thats exactly how he wanted it. Being invisible was
9 how he survived.
10 He wasnt literally invisible. If you really looked at
11 Mahmoud, got a glimpse under the hoodie he kept pulled
12 down over his face, you would see a twelve-year-old boy
13 with a long, strong nose, thick black eyebrows, and short-
14 cropped black hair. He was stocky, his shoulders wide
15 and muscular despite the food shortages. But Mahmoud
16 did everything he could to hide his size and his face, to
17 stay under the radar. Random death from a fighter jets
18 missile or a soldiers rocket launcher might come at any
19 moment, when you least expected it. To walk around get-
20 ting noticed by the Syrian army or the rebels fighting
21 them was just inviting trouble.
22 Mahmoud sat in the middle row of desks in his class-
23 room, where the teacher wouldnt call on him. The desks
24 were wide enough for three students at each, and Mahmoud
25 sat between two other boys named Ahmed and Nedhal.
26 Ahmed and Nedhal werent his friends. Mahmoud
27 didnt have any friends.

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 It was easier to stay invisible that way. 1
One of the teachers walked up and down the hall ring- 2
ing a handbell, and Mahmoud collected his backpack 3
and went to find his little brother, Waleed. 4
Waleed was ten years old and two grades below 5
Mahmoud in school. He too wore his black hair cropped 6
short, but he looked more like their mother, with nar- 7
rower shoulders, thinner eyebrows, a flatter nose, and 8
bigger ears. His teeth looked too big for his head, and 9
when he smiled he looked like a cartoon squirrel. Not 10
that Waleed smiled much anymore. Mahmoud couldnt 11
remember the last time hed seen his brother laugh, or 12
cry, or show any emotion whatsoever. 13
The war had made Mahmoud ner vous. Twitchy. 14
Paranoid. It had made his little brother a robot. 15
Even though their apartment wasnt far away, 16
Mahmoud led Waleed on a different route home every 17
day. Sometimes it was the back alleys; there could be 18
fighters in the streets, who were always targets for 19
theopposition. Bombed-out buildings were good too. 20
Mahmoud and Waleed could disappear among the heaps 21
of twisted metal and broken cement, and there were no 22
walls to fall on them if an artillery shell went whizzing 23
overhead. If a plane dropped a barrel bomb, though, 24
you needed walls. Barrel bombs were filled with nails 25
and scrap metal, and if you didnt have a wall to duck 26
behind youd be shredded to pieces. 27

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1 It hadnt always been this way. Just four years ago,
2 their home city of Aleppo had been the biggest, bright-
3 est, most modern city in Syria. A crown jewel of the
4 Middle East. Mahmoud remembered neon malls, glitter-
5 ing skyscrapers, soccer stadiums, movie theaters, muse-
6 ums. Aleppo had history tooa long history. The Old
7 City, at the heart of Aleppo, was built in the twelfth
8 century, and people had lived in the area as early as 6,000
9 BCE. Aleppo had been an amazing city to grow up in.
10 Until 2011, when the Arab Spring came to Syria.
11 They didnt call it that then. Nobody knew a wave of
12 revolutions would sweep through the Middle East, top-
13 pling governments and overthrowing dictators and start-
14 ing civil wars. All they knew from images on TV and
15 posts on Facebook and Twitter was that people in Tunisia
16 and Libya and Yemen were rioting in the streets, and as
17 each country stood up and said Enough! so did the
18 next one, and the next one, until at last the Arab Spring
19 came to Syria.
20 But Syrians knew protesting in the streets was danger-
21 ous. Syria was ruled by Bashar al-Assad, who had twice
22 been elected president when no one was allowed to run
23 against him. Assad made people who didnt like him dis-
24 appear. Forever. Everyone was afraid of what he would
25 do if the Arab Spring swept through Syria. There was an
26 old Arabic proverb that said, Close the door that brings
27 the wind and relax, and thats exactly what they did;

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 while the rest of the Middle East was rioting, Syrians 1
stayed inside and locked their doors and waited to see 2
what would happen. 3
But they hadnt closed the door tight enough. A man 4
in Damascus, the capital of Syria, was imprisoned for 5
speaking out against Assad. Some kids in Daraa, a city in 6
southern Syria, were arrested and abused by the police 7
for writing anti-Assad slogans on walls. And then the 8
whole country seemed to go crazy all at once. Tens of 9
thousands of people poured into the streets, demanding 10
the release of political prisoners and more freedom for 11
everyone. Within a month, Assad had turned his tanks 12
and soldiers and bombers on the protestorson his own 13
peopleand ever since then, all Mahmoud and Waleed 14
and anyone else in Syria had known was war. 15
Mahmoud and Waleed turned down a different rubble- 16
strewn alley than the day before and stopped dead. Just 17
ahead of them, two boys had another boy up against 18
what was left of a wall, about to take the bag of bread he 19
carried. 20
Mahmoud pulled Waleed behind a burned-out car, his 21
heart racing. Incidents like this were common in Aleppo 22
lately. It was getting harder and harder to get food in the 23
city. But for Mahmoud, the scene brought back memo- 24
ries of another time, just after the war had begun. 25
Mahmoud had been going to meet his best friend, 26
Khalid. Down a side street just like this one, Mahmoud 27

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1 found Khalid getting beaten up by two older boys.
2 Khalid was a Shia Muslim in a country of mostly Sunni
3 Muslims. Khalid was clever. Smart. Always quick to
4 raise his hand in class, and always with the right answer.
5 He and Mahmoud had known each other for years, and
6 even though Mahmoud was Sunni and Khalid was Shia,
7 that had never mattered to them. They liked to spend
8 their afternoons and weekends reading comic books and
9 watching superhero movies and playing video games.
10 But right then, Khalid had been curled into a ball on
11 the ground, his hands around his head while the older
12 boys kicked him.
13 Not so smart now, are you, pig? one of them had
14 said.
15 Shia should know their place! This is Syria, not Iran!
16 Mahmoud had bristled. The differences between
17 Sunnis and Shiites was just an excuse. These boys had
18 just wanted to beat someone up.
19 With a battle cry that would have made Wolverine
20 proud, Mahmoud had launched himself at Khalids
21 attackers.
22 And he had been beaten up as badly as Khalid.
23 From that day forward, Mahmoud and Khalid were
24 marked. The two older boys became Mahmouds and
25 Khalids own personal bullies, delivering repeated beat-
26 downs between classes and after school.
27 Thats when Mahmoud and Khalid had learned

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 howvaluable it was to be invisible. Mahmoud stayed in 1
the classroom all day, never going to the bathroom or the 2
playground. Khalid never answered another question in 3
class, not even when the teacher called on him directly. 4
If the bullies didnt notice you, they didnt hit you. 5
Thats when Mahmoud had realized that together, he 6
and Khalid were bigger targets; alone, it was easier to be 7
invisible. It was nothing they ever said to each other, just 8
something they each came to understand, and within a 9
year they had drifted apart, not even speaking to each 10
other as they passed in the hall. 11
A year after that, Khalid had died in an airstrike 12
anyway. 13
It was better not to have friends in Syria in 2015. 14
Mahmoud watched as these two boys attacked the boy 15
with the bread, a boy he didnt even know. He felt the 16
stirrings of indignation, of anger, of sympathy. His breath 17
came quick and deep, and his hands clenched into fists. 18
I should do something, he whispered. But he knew 19
better. 20
Head down, hoodie up, eyes on the ground. The trick 21
was to be invisible. Blend in. Disappear. 22
Mahmoud took his younger brother by the hand, 23
turned around, and found a different way home. 24
25
26
27

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ORDER YOUR COPY!