But I leave all my holy cards behind.

The only saint who can come with me is Joan of Arc.

She's a brave hero and is welcome everywhere in France.

The last creature I say good-bye to is Bijou.

Mama says she's a hunter.

She can take care of herself in the country better than in Paris.

Even so, I give Bijou's bowl and the dangly string she likes to play with to Simone.

I ask her to make sure my cat has water, and to pet her until she purrs sometimes.

Simone says she will.

The morning Mama and I leave, I give Charlotte to Simone, to make sure she'll look after Bijou.

I don't trust Simone, not really.

I have never told her that I'm a Jew.

Mama and I agree about this.

We still keep it a secret here that we are Jewish ...

a secret from everyone.

I scratch Bijou behind her ears, just the way she likes.

I stroke her one last time, from her nose to the tip of her plumed tail.

Then I kiss her, right between her ears.

"Adieu," I whisper to her.

That's the French way to say, "See you in heaven."

Monsieur Henri.

Home Again.

Paris is still a hungry place, Mama says.

So we fill suitcases and bags with as much food as we can carry.

We board a train that chugs slowly over shaky bridges built on top of others that have been destroyed.

We rumble along through bombed-out villages.

I've heard the sound of bombs for years, but now I see what they can do.

Houses hanging open.

Shops shattered.

Crumbled walls and toppled steeples.

We stop in a station to buy drinks.

I put my fingers into a hole blasted out of a stone archway.

If bombs can do this to stone, what can they do to people?

I shudder.

I pull my hand away.

A journey that should take three hours now lasts three days.

By the time we reach Paris, even Mama's not excited anymore.

We're both exhausted.

I trudge up the concrete steps of our Metro station.

I'm carrying almost as much weight as my mother is.

I don't want to climb up to the asphalt sidewalk.

If I could, tired as I am, I'd travel backward all the way to my village right this minute.

But I do my best to lug the heavy bags on my back.

Mama calls out, "Odette, Odette! Look who's here!"

Can I be seeing things?

A large, rugged face appears before me ... Monsieur Henri.

Everything else blurs, making way for his rough features.

How could he have known that Mama and I would be here, just at this moment?

I can't believe our good luck.

But here he is, our own dear Monsieur Henri, standing tall at the Metro exit.

At my mother's cry, he lumbers down to meet us.

"You've grown so big!" he says, his huge hands on the tops of my shoulders.

He stands back for a moment and looks at me, his kind, droopy eyes taking everything in.

Then Mama and I hand over all our bundles and bags.

He balances them on his strong back.

Light on my feet again, I skip along the rue d'Angouleme behind him.

Once, when I was little, I burned myself with boiling water.

Monsieur Henri carried me in his strong arms to the pharmacist down the street.

Now he carries my village on his back.

Two and a half years ago- what seems like a lifetime- he walked me to the Metro.

He took me to the train station to meet Cecile, Paulette, and Suzanne.

Now, looking like the Father Christmas of food, he leads me back.

All the way down our street we go.

We pass the hardware store, its bright pots and pans still shining in the sun.

We pass the cafe, with people still reading their newspapers.

The convent appears, then the bakery, the factory.

At last, the little square with its benches, trees, and fountain.

Everything looks much the same, but something is missing.

I'm not sure yet what that is.

Monsieur Henri heaves open the wooden door of our building.

I am almost afraid to look, but I do.

Yes, she's there!

In her tiny apartment at the end of the shiny tiled hallway, the real Madame Marie looks up from her sewing machine.

She smiles her moon smile.

She rises from her work and holds out her arms to me.

I'm home and safe again in my godmother's arms.

That night, Mama and I move back into our apartment.

Madame Marie has saved it for us.

While we were gone, she used it as a hiding place for others.

But who would guess?

Our polished oak table, our beat-up pots and pans ...

everything seems to smile at us.

Mama is full of joy seeing all her worn-out treasures.

But I look at my toys with new eyes.

My rubber ball looks babyish to me now.

So do my books, puzzles, and wind-up toys.

All I will keep is my flowered parasol.

Our next-door apartment is silent.

What happened to the pretty young girl who lived there?

She was the girlfriend of one of the enemy soldiers.

Did the French arrest her? Mama wonders.

Did they shave her head, force her to march in shame through the streets?

"Don't worry," says Madame Marie.

"I found a safe place for her out in the country.

Yvette wasn't a bad girl, just young and poor.

She liked going to the opera on the arm of a young man in uniform.

Not many young Frenchmen were around during those days."