But this is not every morning.

It's the most terrible morning of my life.

I clutch the big hand of Monsieur Henri.

I force my feet onward, up the hill to the arched Metro station.

At the sight of it, the spell on my feet breaks.

I run for the stairs, away from the street, into the safer darkness.

Monsieur Henri snatches me back.

"Don't rush," he whispers. "Act natural."

When the Metro train pulls into the station, I head for the last car, the one for Jews.

But Monsieur Henri leads me to another.

We sit down side by side.

"What a fine, well-behaved granddaughter you have,"

says a gray-haired woman.

Her black-feathered hat frightens me.

Monsieur Henri, my new grandfather, nods at her silently.

I am frozen.

I sit like a statue.

I stare straight ahead.

When the Metro train pulls into the big railway station, the Gare du Nord, Monsieur Henri takes my hand in his.

He steers me out the sliding doors.

The big station is full of people, all in a rush.

Will Paulette, Cecile, and Suzanne be there?

Yes, three little Jewish girls in starless summer dresses wait under the big clock, just as we planned.

A lady holds the hand of the littlest one.

"Au revoir, ma petite," Monsieur Henri says to me.

"Au revoir, Monsieur Henri," I reply.

I swallow hard.

He's leaving me now.

Don't cry, Odette.

Stay calm, his eyes tell me.

But his voice says, "Mind this lady.

And obey the mama and papa in your country family."

Then Monsieur Henri pats me on the head and disappears into the crowd.

Holding hands, the other little girls and I climb up onto the train.

Paulette and Cecile are big girls, like me.

Suzanne is the smallest of our group, only two.

We wait and wait for the train to leave.

We watch other travelers say good-bye to their loved ones.

No one says good-bye to us.

Suzanne, Cecile, Paulette, and I try not to cry.

But when at last the locomotive pulls out of the station and the whistle wails mournfully, little Suzanne does too.

The lady we are with puts an arm around her.

"Where are we going?" I ask the lady.

"To the Vendee," she tells me.

I've never heard of this place.

"Is it far away?" I ask.

"How long will it take to get there?"

The lady glances around her.

Is anyone listening?

"No more questions," she whispers.

"If the conductor comes, pretend you are asleep."

I close my eyes.

The train rumbles along through endless suburbs.

We are leaving all we know behind.

How long will this go on?

Everything has changed since the war came.

A voice in my head repeats words I have heard, "One thousand years of the Third Reich."

Hitler and his mean soldiers are the Third Reich.

But what does "one thousand years" mean?

Someone once tried to explain it to me like this: Imagine a person lives the longest possible life, a hundred years.

At the end of that time he has a grandchild, and that grandchild lives a hundred years.

If that happens ten times over, a thousand years will have gone by.

I'll never see the end of the Third Reich.

My parents, Madame Marie and Monsieur Henri, and my cousins won't, either.

My friends and I will just ride and ride into a gray, dark tunnel.

We'll never escape, not ever.

Soup, a Swing, and Another Secret.

Our stomachs growl, louder and louder.

We've been on the train for hours, with only a little bread and cheese to share.

But at last my friends and I arrive in Chavagnes-en-Paillers, our new village in the Vendee.

Small houses encircle the church like a fallen halo.

The lady who came with us on the train tells us we're going to live in one of these houses, with a blacksmith's family.

We knock on a door.

A small woman lets us in.

She looks young, like a mother.

But she carries a cane like a grandmother.

Tap! Tap! Tap!

She takes us into her kitchen.

A pot of soup steams on the black iron stove.

I glance at it hopefully, but the woman says nothing.

A real grandmother knits nearby.

Tap! Tap! Tap!

The younger woman takes us into the garden, to see pigeons in a dovecote.

A swing dangles beside it.

But then we march back across the kitchen, past the steaming soup, and up the stairs to a small bedroom.

The woman ushers us all inside and closes the door.

Even though it's summer, I feel cold.

Is it because I'm so hungry?

I sit on my fingers to keep them warm.

At last the woman speaks.

"Listen carefully, children," she says.

"I'm Madame Raffin.

I'm going to take care of you.

If you do everything I tell you to do, you can eat the soup and play with the pigeons.

First of all, never, ever say that you are Jewish, no matter what!

I'm going to teach you to make the sign of the cross.

When you can do that and say two longer prayers by heart, I will open the door."