Number the Stars by Lois Lowry

along the handmade quilt that covered it. The flowers and birds, faded now, had been stitched onto the quilt by Annemarie's great-grandmother many years before.
    "I wish I knew where my parents are," Ellen said in a small voice as she outlined one of the appliqued birds with her finger.
    Annemarie didn't have an answer for her. She patted Ellen's hand and they sat together silently. Through the window, they could sec a thin, round slice of moon appear through the clouds, against the pale sky. The Scandinavian night was not very dark yet, though soon, when winter came, the night would be not only dark but very long, night skies beginning in the late afternoon and lasting through morning.
    From downstairs, they could hear Mama's voice, and Uncle Henrik's, talking, catching up on news. Mama missed her brother when she hadn't seen him for a while, Annemarie knew. They were very close. Mama always teased him gently for not marrying; she asked him, laughing, when they were together, whether he had found a good wife yet, one who would keep his house tidier. Henrik teased back, and told Mama that she should come to Gilleleje to live again so that he wouldn't have to do all the chores by himself.
    For a moment, to Annemarie, listening, it seemed like all the earlier times, the happy visits to the farm in the past with summer daylight extending beyond bedtime, with the children tucked away in the bedrooms and the grownups downstairs talking.
    But there was a difference. In the earlier times, she had always overheard laughter. Tonight there was no laughter at all.

8. There Has Been a Death
    Through a haze of dreams Annemarie heard Henrik rise and leave the house, headed for the barn with his milking pail, at daybreak. Later, when she woke again, it was morning. She could hear birds calling outside, one of them close by the window in the apple tree; and she could hear Mama below, in the kitchen, talking to Kirsti.
    Ellen was still asleep. The night before, so shortened by the soldiers in the Copenhagen apartment, seemed long ago. Annemarie rose quietly so that she wouldn't wake her friend. She pulled on her clothes and went down the narrow, curved staircase to find her sister kneeling on the kitchen floor trying to make the gray kitten drink water from a bowl.
    "Silly," she said. "Kittens like milk, not water."
    "I am teaching this one new habits," Kirsti explained importantly. "And I have named him Thor, for the God of Thunder."
    Annemarie burst out laughing. She looked at the tiny kitten, who was shaking his head, irritated at his wet whiskers as Kirsti kept trying to dip his face to the water. "God of Thunder?" Annemarie said. "He looks as if he would run and
hide
if there were a thunderstorm!"
    "He has a mother someplace who would comfort him, I imagine," Mama said. "And when he wants milk, he'll find his mama."
    "Or he could go visit the cow," Kirsti said.
    Although Uncle Henrik no longer raised crops on the farm, as his parents had, he still kept a cow, who munched happily on the meadow grass and gave a little milk each day in return. Now and then he was able to send cheese into Copenhagen to his sister's family. This morning, Annemarie noticed with delight, Mama had made oatmeal, and there was a pitcher of cream on the table. It was a very long time since she had tasted cream. At home they had bread and tea every morning.
    Mama followed Annemarie's eyes to the pitcher. "Fresh from Blossom," she said. "Henrik milks her every morning before he leaves for the boat.
    "And," she added, "there's butter, too. Usually not even Henrik has butter, but he managed to save a little this time."
    "Save a little from what?" Annemarie asked, spooning oatmeal into a flowered bowl. "Don't tell me the soldiers try to—what's the word?—
relocate
butter, too?" She laughed at her own joke.
    But it wasn't a joke at all, though Mama laughed ruefully. "They do," she said. "They relocate all the farmers' butter, right into the stomach of their army! I