She puts it in a satchel with some cider.

"Now, Odette," says her mother.

"You know where the cows are, behind the house.

Take them to the stream.

You can keep your cider cool in the deep water there."

At the stream, the four cows are happy with all the water, grass, and shade.

After I find a good place to put my cider, I pick wildflowers for Mary's altar.

Then I take off my rubber sandals and wade into the water to look for frogs.

But a sound behind me makes me jump-is it the cows?

No, it's the village children marching toward me.

One look tells me they're not here to play.

They look like farmers ready to chop down a big tree.

Paul, the big boy who threw stones at the kittens, is the leader.

He has no family.

The old lady he lives with works him too hard, almost as hard as a grown man.

Simone walks beside him.

I thought she had to help her mother.

Something must have happened.

She looks at me as though she's angry, as though she knows I've lied to her.

I stand still and wait for them.

When they come close, the children trap me in a half circle.

"You thought you could fool us!" shouts Paul.

"We're not stupid.

We know if a Jew comes into your house, someone will die."

"And now that's happened!" yells a younger boy.

"As soon as your mother rented that house from my parents, my brother Marcel got sicker and sicker.

Now he's dead ... just like Jesus."

So our neighbor Marcel has died.

But that can't be my fault.

He's been sick since before I came to the village.

"I'm not Jewish!" I yell back.

"And how could I kill Jesus?

I'm not old enough."

Paul shouts, "Let's throw her in the water.

Shove her face under until she drowns."

The children all rush at me.

I remember what they did to the kittens.

I must run from the stream, get away fast ...

anywhere!

I throw things-food, cider, rocks, flowers.

I use my sandals to beat back my enemies.

Then I run as far as I can get from the water.

The children catch me at the hedge next to the pasture.

I scratch, spit, kick, scream.

"You killed Marcel!"

I hear the children say.

"We'll tell the soldiers about you.

Throw her in the thorn bush!"

Thorns are better than water, I think.

Anything's better than drowning!

Paul and the other boys roll me in the thorns.

Then, like hunters done with their prey, they leave me.

Simone grabs her satchel.

Without even a glance back at me, she herds the cows home across the fields.

Bruised and scratched all over, I roll away from the thorns into thick grass.

I lie there and pant in the sun until my heart stops pounding.

Then I reach for a daisy and pull off its petals, one by one.

"They're gone, they're not gone, they're gone,"

I repeat to myself.

When the last petal tells me that they really are gone, I get up.

My blue cotton dress is torn.

I find my sandals and put them on.

Then I kneel down to pray.

"Thank you, God, for saving me.

Please watch over my mother."

I go back and find all the flowers I picked.

I'm going to take them straight to Mary.

On the way, I pass an old woman.

She's collecting twigs for a broom in her basket.

I might frighten her with my tangled hair and torn dress, covered with cuts and sores.

So I slip behind a tree and wait until the old woman passes.

Why are all the children against me, even my best friend, Simone? I wonder.

Maybe it's true that Marcel is dead, but Mama said you can't live with tuberculosis forever.

I say all my prayers, go to Mass, and do well at my lessons.

What am I doing wrong?

I put my hand on the left side of my chest.

My star has been gone since I left Paris.

Did God punish me because I told a lie, said that I was not Jewish?

But my mother told me to lie.

"It's a matter of life or death," she said.

And the priest tells us to obey our parents.

Will the children ever play with me again?

Will I have to walk to school all alone?

Or worse, will people tell the Nazis we are Jews?

Will they send Mama and me somewhere far away?

If that happens, will we ever come back?

The sun goes down.

Crickets start to sing, and the trees raise their arms like spooky ghosts.

I shiver in my thin dress.

Heartbroken.

At last!

Here's the door to Pere Rene's barn.

In the cold twilight I fall on my knees.

Our Lady's calm presence and the mooing of the cows soothes me.

I put my flowers in one of the clay pots farmers use for liverwurst.

Streaks of silver pierce the half darkness ...

the shiny paper we used to decorate the altar this morning.