Mama is quick to learn country ways too.

She watches the peasants make soap and vinegar.

Then she tries it herself.

She learns which mushrooms are poisonous, and which wild herbs to pick for salads.

She tears apart worn-out sweaters and uses the yarn to make beautiful baby clothes.

Everyone admires her for this.

One day someone gives her half a pig for helping with farmwork.

She makes ham, bacon, and pate from it.

She takes the pig's intestine and washes it in the river.

Then she uses it for sausage casing.

My Parisian mama now seems just like a real peasant, except in one important way.

I still have to watch over Mama in church.

I poke her so that she knows when to stand and kneel, and when to say, "Lord, have mercy," and "Grant us peace."

"Watch now, you do it this way," I say.

I have to show her how to make the sign of the cross, over and over again.

Mama, who is so good at so many things, is clumsy at prayer.

She's grateful when I help her, though.

"You must never, ever tell anyone our real name or that we are Jewish," Mama says.

"This is a matter of life and death.

But I trust you.

I know that you can keep secrets."

She's right.

I'm an expert now at keeping secrets.

Signs.

One day, dogs bark to tell us that Nazis have arrived to camp in a nearby meadow.

My friend Simone and I run to see.

The soldiers came in big silver trailers.

We watch them unload ...

beds and tables that unfold, shiny lanterns and stoves.

The soldiers have boxes and boxes of food.

They offer us candy.

"Don't take it!" adults have always warned us.

"It might be poison."

But Simone and I take the sweets anyway.

We almost never get candy, so we are willing to take a chance on being poisoned.

I hide my candy from my mother and eat it alone.

Anyway, I think people here worry too much about poisons, curses, and sickness.

They protect themselves with herbs and leeches.

Leeches are slimy worms.

The villagers use them to suck out bad blood.

The peasants also think that Jews bring bad luck.

I try not to think about that.

What would happen to us if they found out Mama and I are Jews?

Maybe if I do more good deeds the saints will be on my side.

God will send me a sign that everything will be all right.

What happens next does not seem like a good sign.

Kittens are born in our village.

Five are homeless. No one will adopt them.

By tradition, children take the unwanted ones to Pere Rene, the oldest man in our village.

He has the biggest ears I've ever seen.

Does this mean he can hear better than anyone?

Pere Rene throws the kittens into a black pond, one by one, with his six-fingered hand.

The tiny kittens struggle.

"Just look at them!

Not even a day old and they think they can swim."

The children who watch him laugh.

I feel a dull pain in my chest.

"Ah, so you're scared, little ones?"

Pere Rene says to the kittens.

"Won't be long now."

A big boy named Paul throws stones at them.

One by one, the kittens go under.

Soon the black pond is still.

"Time for my nap," says Pere Rene, and with a yawn and a stretch, he leaves.

The children go off to play.

Everyone else accepts that these animals must die.

It's the way of the peasant world.

But me, I go back into my house and hug Bijou until she scratches her way out of my arms.

However, before long a good sign comes.

Mama wants to mail a package to Madame Marie.

She sends my godmother food when she can.

The post office is in Saint-Fulgent.

So my mother and I take the long walk there together.

I go to school that afternoon while she goes to the post office and buys things she needs.

That day, our teachers take us into a field to look at the clouds.

"What do you see?" the nuns ask.

"Oh, a bear!" a little girl says.

"No, it's a furry dog," another one says.

But I see a sewing machine!

Seated at it is Madame Marie.

I know she's there to protect my mother and me.

This is the sign I've been watching for!

When the school bell rings, Mama's waiting for me.

She has two straw baskets.

One is full.

Inside is lamp oil, flypaper, new knitting needles, and a loaf of fresh bread.

The other one is almost empty except for a few cabbage leaves.

Mama gives the empty one to me to carry.

We walk along the quiet, dusty road back to our village.

An oxcart trundles by.

When it passes, I follow Mama into a field of rutabagas.

She shows me how to pull them up.

I take one here, one from a few feet away.

Mama tells me to hide them in my basket under the leaves.

I know I'm stealing, but my mother told me to do it.

We need vegetables, and there are so many here.

Surely it won't matter if we take just a few?