Number the Stars by Lois Lowry Page A

suppose that if they knew Henrik had kept this tiny bit, they would come with guns and march it away, down the path!"
    Kirsti joined their laughter, as the three of them pictured a mound of frightened butter under military arrest. The kitten darted away when Kirsti's attention was distracted, and settled on the windowsill. Suddenly, here in this sunlit kitchen, with cream in a pitcher and a bird in the apple tree beside the door—and out in the Kattegat, where Uncle Henrik, surrounded by bright blue sky and water, pulled in his nets filled with shiny silver fish—suddenly the specter of guns and grim-faced soldiers seemed nothing more than a ghost story, a joke with which to frighten children in the dark.
    Ellen appeared in the kitchen doorway, smiling sleepily, and Mama put another flowered bowl of steaming oatmeal on the old wooden table.
    "
Cream
," Annemarie said, gesturing to the pitcher with a grin.

    All day long the girls played out of doors under the brilliant clear sky and sun. Annemarie took Ellen to the small pasture beyond the barn and introduced her to Blossom, who gave a lazy, rough-textured lick to the palm of Ellen's hand when she extended it timidly. The kitten scampered about and chased Hying insects across the meadow. The girls picked armfuls of wildflowers dried brown, now, by the early fall chill, and arranged them in pots and pitchers until the table tops were crowded with their bouquets.
    Inside the house, Mama scrubbed and dusted, tsk-tsking at Uncle Henrik's untidy housekeeping. She took the rugs out to the clothesline and beat them with a sticky scattering dust into the air.
    "He needs a wife," she said, shaking her head, and attacked the old wooden floors with a broom while the rugs aired.
    "Just look at this," she said, opening the door to the little-used formal living room with its old-fashioned furniture. "He
never
dusts." And she picked up her cleaning rags.
    "And, Kirsti," she added, "the God of Thunder made a very small rain shower in the corner of the kitchen floor. Keep an eye on him.'"
    Late in the afternoon, Uncle Henrik came home. He grinned when he saw the newly cleaned and polished house, the double doors to the living room wide open, the rugs aired, and the windows washed.
    "Henrik, you need a wife," Mama scolded him.
    Uncle Henrik laughed and joined Mama on the steps near the kitchen door. "Why do I need a wife, when I have a sister?" he asked in his booming voice.
    Mama sighed, but her eyes were twinkling. "And you need to stay home more often to take care of the house. This step is broken, and there is a leaking faucet in the kitchen. And—"
    Henrik was grinning at her, shaking his head in mock dismay. "And there are mice in the attic, and my brown sweater has a big moth hole in the sleeve, and if I don't wash the windows soon—"
    They laughed together.
    "Anyway," Mama said, "I have opened every window, Henrik, to let the air in, and the sunlight. Thank goodness it is such a beautiful day."
    "Tomorrow will be a day for fishing," Henrik said, his smile disappearing.
    Annemarie, listening, recognized the odd phrase. Papa had said something like it on the telephone. "Is the weather good for fishing, Henrik?" Papa had asked. But what did it mean? Henrik went fishing every day, rain or shine. Denmark's fishermen didn't wait for sunny days to take their boats out and throw their nets into the sea. Annemarie, silent, sitting with Ellen under the apple tree, watched her uncle.
    Mama looked at him. "The weather is right?" she asked.
    Henrik nodded and looked at the sky. He smelled the air. "I will be going back to the boat tonight after supper. We will leave very early in the morning. I will stay on the boat all night."
    Annemarie wondered what it would be like to be on a boat all night. To lie at anchor, hearing the sea slap against the sides. To see the stars from your place on the sea.
    "You have prepared the living room?" Uncle Henrik asked suddenly.
    Mama nodded. "It is cleaned, and