Milkweed: Chapter 26 Summary & Analysis

Misha is uncomfortable with Janina coming along on his smuggling run, but he can’t stop her from following him. He heads off through the city, which is alive with bright colors and cheerful sounds, in contrast to the grayness of the ghetto. He does his best to act invisible, as Uri taught him. He goes to his favorite place, a Jackboot hotel. Around back, Misha pushes open one of the windows and squeezes through headfirst. Janina tumbles down behind him.

Misha starts making his usual rounds of the hotel’s food cellar, filling a sack with things like vegetables, bread, and dried fish, and finishing by treating himself to a canned peach. When he refuses to share with Janina, she starts screaming, so he hastily shoves a peach in her mouth. However, her screams were enough to alert someone upstairs—the cellar door opens, and someone calls, “Hello?” At last, the person leaves, and Misha and Janina squeeze back through the window.

Back in the ghetto, Misha heads to Doctor Korczak’s orphanage as usual—he always dumps half the food through an open window. Janina protests that Misha is supposed to feed her family, but Misha tells her that he feeds who he wants to feed. Then, he heads home.