Alternate ending.

"Bruno, time to go back to Berlin". Said his mother. Bruno objected and replied "No, I just want to play on the swing". Elsa accepted this and let him play ONLY on the swing and was very stern about it. But Bruno was outside for a purpose. He mad a promise to Shmuel that he was going to get Bruno out of the camp so Shmuel could come home with him, so that is exactly what he did. As soon as mother exited the facade of OutWith, Bruno briskly jumped of the swing and bolted as fast as he could to the camp in which Shmuel was. With the sandwich tucked away and hidden from view in his back pocket, he ran and ran and ran and never stopped until he could physically see Bruno. He saw him and his eyes just shone and he was so happy, it was so electrifying and majestic. Despite all the excitement and magic, Bruno and Shmuel knew that they had to move quicker than a bullet and be as secretive as possible.

Both juveniles were aware of the risk and danger involved. They knew that if someone found them running from the camp, the punishments would be so severe. Punishments would include not being able to escape there ever again, being gassed or even spending life in hard labor. So it was not going to be good if they didn't make it out. Bruno happily reached into his back pocket and handed Shmuel the sandwich. He scoffed it down as fast as he could. Bruno could see that his best friend hadn't eaten for weeks. As soon as he finished scoffing down the food, they both realised that none of them had any spades or other helpful utensils to get out of the camp.
As soon as they started to freak out, they see Pavel, Bruno's servant returning to the camp after finishing some gardening at his house. So unbelievably, he had a spade. Bruno screamed out "Pavel" and sprinted over to him.

Pavel got the message and started jogging up to Bruno, because of his sore leg. Once Bruno retrieved the spade, he went straight off to work to dig. He dug and he dug and he dug like a dog. Since there was a lot of roots in the ground, he struggled to dig a hole under the fence. However, after seven minutes of sheer digging, Bruno somehow managed to dig a 50 cm hole in the ground so he could crawl under. He eventually made it under and from this point, he was in the Jew extermination camp. You could see the shock on his face as he came to the sudden realisation that he quite possibly could spend his whole life there and never see his family again.

Despite him being as nervous as hell, he soldiered on and put on the clothes that someone had most likely died in. Shmuel then made a clear description of who to look out for. "It is the guards in dark green uniform with guns and whips that you have to look out for". As soon as Shmuel said that, a massive cohort of them lead by the leader with a fancy sailing type of hat started charging at them! Immediately, Bruno assisted Shmuel under the fence. They were both almost to the other side; Shmuel behind Bruno when suddenly, Shmuel exclaimed " my shoe, my shoe, I need my shoe. My great grandad gave it to me when I was just two years old.

You have to go and collect it. Please Bruno, I am begging"! He pleaded. It had been left on the other side as Bruno was tugging Shmuel under the fence to get free of the army guards. Bruno then made a heroic sacrifice putting his life on the line, to retrieve Shmuel's shoe. The attempt was successful. He snuck under the fence for the third time and the two of them were so happy and they smiled at each other. They were both gleaming with happiness but at the same time, glooming with fear. Since the guards were so large in stature, all were unable to crawl through the diminutive hole under the fence. They were safe from the army...for now. Now that they were safe, little did they know that several convoys of army were looking for them to send them back to the extermination camp to kill them. As Bruno sprinted off, Shmuel was panting and struggling to keep up.

He began screaming in unbearable pain. "Bruno asked him "what's wrong Shmuel"? And he hesitantly said "well when I arrived at the camp, the guards were so brutal to me that they broke my leg, and they never fixed me up". So Bruno was left with the challenge of figuring out a solution to this almost impossible puzzle. Both lives were on the line so Bruno had to make a critical decision. Stick together and have Bruno dragging the chain or separate, leave Shmuel temporarily so Bruno could find a bicycle and the both of them ride out of the mess. He goes with his gut instinct. Since they have a bond that is impossible to break, they are best of friends and knowing that there will be two kids fighting against one hundred army officers instead of just one kid, he comes up with the hypothesis that they have to stick together because after all, two heads are better than one.

So they start, but what they don't know is they are walking straight down the path of danger. Oblivious to this, they progressed down the path when all of a sudden, the commodious convoy of army appeared phantasmagorically. Even though they made a dream-like appearance, they were not happy. They were aiming for total obliteration of both of them. Bruno ran for his life but Shmuel still had a broken leg. As soon as Bruno noticed that Shmuel was unable to get away from their captors, he did something incredible. He confidently stood up against the soldiers and walked up to Shmuel to pick him up. No matter what happened, Bruno just was not going to leave Shmuel behind.

Bruno walked up to the soldiers and said "you might as well just kill two whole families because if you kill me and my friend, it is not only us that will die, our families will die emotionally.The soldiers perceived how much leadership Bruno had so they confabulated with each other and they just walked on by and nothing happened. By this time, it was already crepuscular which meant they had to hurry up and get back to OutWith. By the time they got back, it was eleven pm due to the fact that Shmuel had a broken leg. When they arrived, there was police everywhere. Bruno knew that he had made a mistake. He had go so caught up with the day that he totally forgot about his family. They had called the police an hour after mother left because when she came back and she couldn't find Bruno, they got worried. Bruno now had a lot of explaining to do. As soon as Bruno saw his family, all four of them, plus Maria hugged each other extremely propitiatingly.

Then Bruno revealed Shmuel. As soon as he saw the striped pyjamas, father had a substantial amount of vehemencies. However, the rest of the family were very apathetic towards the nine year old Jew. All of them were compassionate but one person in particular; mum. After they all met the new alien, Bruno went on to tell his family the story of meeting Shmuel and them coming back here. And then Shmuel told his story to his family and after Shmuel was finished sharing, they were all in tears. Even father! Then, both of them said in unison "I'm sorry". From that point on, there was a lot of correspondences throughout the whole family.

Then, Bruno asked the richest question of all. He asked "can he be part of our family"? It was unbearably tense for what felt like a lifetime. While mother was umming and aring, about everything, Bruno interrupted her. "Well, mum, you have to, otherwise he will just go back in the extermination camp and spend the rest of his life suffering. You don't want that do you? You will regret it for the rest of your life". And surprisingly, she said okay, only if your friend is happy with it, so am I. Shmuel willingly answered "YES, I haven't had relatives for eight and half years". Shmuel went up and introduced himself to the rest of the family, of course with utmost respect and they all seemed to be pleased to meet him. For the rest of that night, the whole family was filled with harmoniousness.

A mere one month later, Bruno and his family sold OutWith and had enough money to move back and start building their dream house in Berlin. Despite the fact that Shmuel did not have a birth certificate or any relatives, mother and father eventually completed the paperwork and legal documents to officially adopt him. Once Bruno was officially part of the family, they celebrated with a big party with all of their friends and family and Bruno was reunited with all of his old friends, and he could now say that he has a brother. A year after they moved back to Berlin, their dream house was stunning and the family could not be more pleased. Maria continued to be Bruno's maid and was now a maid to Shmuel. Finally, Bruno got out of his dirty clothes and went shopping to buy some new ones so he could fit in with the rest of the Berlin people.

Finally, Shmuel celebrated his 10th birthday and got a lot of presents. He was so excited he didn't know what to do with them all. But most importantly, he has a family that knows, love, cares, cooks and cleans for him. Ten years after living with Bruno and his family, Shmuel went on to graduate at university to study human rights. Shmuel still lives with his family and certainly will for the rest of his life.