Page 99 - Devil's Arithmetic by Jane Yolen

"Dreaming is brighter."
"Where is she?" Hannah insisted, though her ques-
tion seemed to lack authority, with both of them sitting
naked, goosebumps scattered over their arms and thighs.
Esther stopped singing all at once and looked down
at her bare legs. At last she spoke. "Rachel always had
trouble breathing in the spring."
Hannah remembered the peculiar breathy hesitations
Rachel had made when she spoke.
.
"Did she have . . . trouble breathing . . in the box-
car?" Hannah asked. She began to shake even before
Esther's answer, though she wasn't sure why. "Is
she . . . is she . . . dead?"
"Dreams are better," Esther sang, her voice breaking
on a high note.
Hannah opened her mouth and found herself sucking
in air in great gulps. She couldn't stop. After about
seven big breaths, she said, to no one in particular, "I
should have told her she was my best friend. I should
have said yes, I. . ."
Suddenly the doors were flung open and two soldiers
marched in, their boots loud on the wooden floor.
"Achtung!" one shouted, a young man with a wan-
dering left eye.
The girls screamed, turning their backs, and the
younger, women tried to cover themselves with their
hands. Fayge bent over at the waist and her long black
hair was like a blanket over her. The older women
didn't move.
"Into the showers," the soldier with the bad eye called.
"And then you visit the barber."