Page 123 - Devil's Arithmetic by Jane Yolen

mandant likes her. She was a singer in Lublin. In the
cafes. He has her sing at suppertime when he visits."
Hannah and Shifre stared at Rivka as she rattled on.
It was like a waterfall of information, Hannah thought.
How could she take it all in and be safe?
"And you must never go near that," Rivka said, turn-
ing suddenly and pointing way across the compound to
a large wooden fence. There was a black handleless
door. Beyond the fence loomed the smokestack. "We
call that the door to Lilith's Cave, the cave of death's
bride. If you go through that door, you do not come
out again."
"Lilith . . . ," Hannah muttered as if remembering
a story.
"But the most important thing for you to know is the
midden," Rivka said.
"The garbage dump?" Shifre and Hannah asked to-
gether.
"Yes. Commandant Breuer is not supposed to allow
children under fourteen in the camp. So whenever he
comes to inspect things, the children have to disappear.
What he does not see does not exist. The best hiding
place is in the midden. None of the Germans go there.
It is beneath them. Oh, they know the children are
hiding in it, of course, but they pretend it is too dirty,
too disgusting. So they do not look. Even Breuer really
knows."
"We have to go into the midden?" Hannah was clearly
shocked.
"Not us. We look old enough. I am only ten but
everybody thinks I am older. And you two can surely

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