"One afternoon, when Bruno came home from school, he was surprised to find Maria, the family's maid—who always kept her head bowed and never looked up from the carpet—standing in his bedroom, pulling all his belongings out of the wardrobe and packing them in four large wooden crates, even the things he'd hidden at the back that belonged to him and were nobody else's business." (Chapter 1, p. 1).

"He walked slowly towards it, hoping that from here he might be able to see all the way back to Berlin and his house and the streets around it and the tables where the people sat and drank their frothy drinks and told each other hilarious stories. He walked slowly because he didn't want to be disappointed." (Chapter 2, p. 20).

"But she was still watching from the window and this time she wasn't looking at the flowers or...