A House of Tailors by Patricia Reilly Giff Page B

marmalade, that made my mouth water. They slid back and forth on the tray as I took the turn in the stairway.
    I was so busy thinking about all the good things on the tray that I forgot to knock but opened the door with my elbow, just glad to have arrived with everything still in one piece.
    No one was there.
    I slid the tray onto a round table in the center of the room, wiped up a little marmalade that had spilled onto the tray with my apron, and wondered what to do next. Call out?
    The Uncle was right. I didn’t even know the English word for breakfast. As I tried to decide what to do next, I saw hatboxes piled up on the shelves in back of the half-open door to the closet. The boxes themselves were tied with ribbon and bunches of lily of the valley. They were so beautiful I could only imagine what the hats inside must look like. My fingers itched to lift the lids.
    If only I had a dust cloth, I could dust my way into the closet before the woman came back for her breakfast.
    I tiptoed to the hall door and poked out my head. Everything was quiet. I looked at the thick red rug with its fat roses that went on forever, the closed doors on each side, four altogether, painted a shiny brown.
    I went back to the tray. A shame about the toasted bread. It would be cold by the time the woman ate it. I removed a tiny blob of raspberry jam from the rim of its little bowl with my finger and slid it into my mouth.
    I could have eaten everything on the tray myself in about two minutes.
    Instead, I went into the closet, closed the door in back of me, and stood there taking in that wonderful space, as large as my bedroom at the Uncle’s house. A framed mirror hung on one wall, almost like the one in Mama’s living room, but this one was much larger, with more gilt and a baby angel flying on top.
    I leaned close to the mirror. Good thing. I could see a dab of raspberry jam in the corner of my mouth and quickly licked it off. What would Mrs. Koch or Aunt Ida say? It would be hard to explain that I had been neatening up the tray.
    I wondered if I dared to open one of the hatboxes, but then I saw that two of them were open on the back shelf, the tops leaning back against the wall.
    I reached up and pulled the nearest box off the shelf, still listening for the sound of the door outside. What was the word for dust? I could say . . .
    I forgot about all that. The hat was in my hands. It was like the chiffon cake at the bakery in Freiburg, all swirls and cream on a round piece of white silk.
    At the mirror I put it on, dipping the front down over my forehead, using the white velvet band in back to keep it in place. Clever, that band. I had never seen anything like it. And the swirls, almost as if the ribbons had been let loose across the top and held down with rosettes.
    I admired myself for the barest second before I took off the hat and examined that little band in back. I could do that; I could do better than that. Up close the stitches weren’t nearly as fine as they should have been. Mama would snip them out and have us start over.
    I took down the second hat. It was almost exactly like the one I had made for Frau Ottlinger. I had to smile.
    This was the America I had dreamed about.
    In back of me the door opened and someone screamed.
    I spun around, the chiffon cake hat still in my hand, the Ottlinger hat on my head.
    It was Mrs. Koch. And even as I scrambled to put the hats back in the boxes, I tried to remember what
sorry
was in English.
    And next came Aunt Ida, rushing up the stairs as if the French army were after her.
    â€œIn my dressing room?” Mrs. Koch said. “What? Who?”
    And Aunt Ida took a deep breath, telling me in a fierce voice to go down to the kitchen while she explained.
    Before I had been there an hour, I was sent back to the apartment and Barbara in disgrace.

thirteen
    â€œWhat is it?” Barbara asked. “Are you sick? Come inside. Tell me.”
    I sank into a kitchen chair, shaking my