“No, Mademoiselle Petitjean!” I replied. I quickly covered my art with my hands. I prided myself on being considered an attentive student. It was mortifying to have been caught doodling in the middle of a lesson.

  I thought I was going to be sick, but then I saw her expression change. She placed a kindly hand on my shoulder and leaned over to confide in me.

  “These are very beautiful drawings, Sara. You have a real gift.”

  “Thank you,” I whispered, relief washing over me.

  “I know that in the springtime, many students’ minds tend to wander. But right now we’re doing math, so—”

  BRRINNG-BRRINNG!

  Her words were interrupted by the bell. The school day was over.

  “Lucky you. Saved by the bell. All right, everyone. Class dismissed! See you tomorrow, children!”

  Mademoiselle Petitjean held on to my shoulder a moment longer, giving me a parting look that told me not to press my luck again. I thanked her and silently promised that I would honor her kindness by keeping my sketchbook firmly shut for our next math lesson. I loved the École Lafayette, a parochial school that welcomed children of all faiths and provided us with wonderful, supportive teachers like Mademoiselle Petitjean. She was unfailingly encouraging and kind, even when my daydreaming and doodling habits tested her patience.

  I grabbed my sweater and dashed out of the classroom to catch up with Mariann and Sophie. I soon joined the throng of children scrambling to leave school as quickly as possible.

  Only one boy in our class lagged behind, as he did every day. He was the boy who sat next to me in class. Not by choice, mind you. His last name was Beaumier and mine Blum. So the alphabet dictated that we spend our days side by side. That was the full extent of our connection. I did my best to ignore him.

  But he didn’t ignore me. And that fact, as well as the fact that he always left after everyone else, ended up proving fortunate for me. Because in my haste to leave that day, I accidentally dropped my sketchbook to the floor.

  I didn’t realize I had dropped it—I was too mortified by having my teacher catch me doodling, and too eager to catch up with my friends.

  But the boy saw my sketchbook on the floor. And he carefully collected it to return it to me.

  Had he not, the janitor might have thrown it away. It was the kind of thoughtful thing a friend would do, but I was not this boy’s friend. I never spoke to him in class. Or outside of class, for that matter. I didn’t even know his real name.

  I just knew him by what everyone called him: Tourteau.

  * * *

  —

  “Tourteau? Is that, like, ‘turtle’ in French?” guessed Julian.

  Grandmère shook her head. “La tortue is ‘the turtle.’ Tourteau means ‘crab.’ It was a cruel nickname for a boy who had the misfortune of contracting polio as a young child.”

  Julian looked queasy. “Did he have a face like a crab?”

  “Not at all. His face was not affected, and his torso and arms were strong. But when the disease ravaged his body, it left his legs twisted and shriveled. He used crutches to get around.”

  “Oh,” said Julian quietly. “That sounds bad….” His voice trailed off and he looked down. His grandmother knew such things made him uncomfortable, but it wasn’t her style to shy away from them. She knew that the problems at his previous school had stemmed from his behavior toward a child with physical differences. In fact, this was why she had told him about Tourteau in the first place, when he’d visited her in Paris. She was glad the story of Tourteau had stayed with him, even if it haunted him a little.

  “Yes,” she agreed. “It was bad. Things were not easy for him, due to the polio. And for other reasons.”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  No one talked to Tourteau.

  But everyone talked about him.

  “I heard he caught it from his father” was what Sophie said. She balled up her hand into a twisted fist, hunched her back, and contorted her face into a gargoyle’s grimace. Everyone laughed. No one pointed out that, in fact, Tourteau’s upper body was just like anyone else’s. The disease had affected only his legs.

  “I don’t think that’s how polio works,” I said. I made a mental note to ask Papa.

  “It’s true!” insisted Sophie. “Everyone knows it.”

  Mariann wrinkled her nose. “I don’t know how you can stand sitting next to him, Sara. He smells of merde.”

  “He gets that from his father, too!” added Sophie. “He works in the sewers, and his whole family has to live down there. They have their own special fragrance: eau d’égoutier.” She pretended to dab fancy perfume behind each ear. “It’s all the rage in Paris,” she continued. “Try it! You too can smell like a sewer worker.” Everyone laughed, including me. After all, the idea of bottling that particular scent was funny.

  I wanted to point out that Tourteau did not smell like the sewers. And I doubted that he—or anyone else—actually lived down there. But before I could get up the nerve to open my mouth, I heard a small voice behind me.

  “Um…excuse me, Sara?”

  I glanced over my shoulder and was surprised to find Tourteau, propped up on his crutches, hanging back at the edge of my circle of friends. I felt a flush of guilt, wondering if he had heard us making fun of him.

  “Eww. What does he want?” asked Sophie, raising a critical eyebrow.

  I shrugged lightly. But as I turned to face him, I noticed that Tourteau was extending a hand toward me. In it was a slim brown notebook.

  “You dropped your sketchbook between our desks,” he said.

  Behind me, Sophie whispered loudly to Mariann, “I can smell him from here.”

  “Um. Thanks,” I said flatly, taking my sketchbook from him. I was genuinely grateful to get it back. But I knew that expressing anything other than disdain would inspire more jokes at his expense. And at mine.

  “You’re welcome,” he replied with a polite bow. Tourteau turned and went on his way. That was the first time I had ever spoken to him, in all the years we had sat beside each other. I quickly turned away, too, only to see the bemused grins on my friends’ faces.

  “I think he likes you, Sara,” teased Sophie.

  I made a face. “Eww. Don’t say that.” Then I laughed at the very idea. Me and Tourteau—how ridiculous would that be? I felt a little pang of guilt. Maman would have been appalled if she could see me acting this way. But she would never know. And besides, it felt like harmless teasing.

  “What’s in that little book of yours, anyway?” asked Sophie. “Love poems?” She struck a pose, nose in the air. “Oh, my darling…shall I compare thee to a spiny lobster, perhaps? Or, oh, I don’t know, a beetle? Mon amour, you and I are—”

  “Speaking of poetry,” I interrupted, eager to change the subject, “did either of you write down the page numbers for the reading we need to do tonight?”

  Mariann opened her notebook to look it up. But before she could give me the assignment, I heard the distinctive sounds of a schoolyard scuffle behind us.

  Three older and larger boys surrounded Tourteau. One of them was named Vincent. He was tall and handsome, with blond hair and piercing blue eyes. He was the kind of boy I might have written poems for, if I did that sort of thing. I was not the only girl in my grade with a crush on him, and I’m pretty sure he knew it.

  “Go home, sewer rat!” one of the boys said. The others laughed. I told myself that they were just joking around, like my friends and I had done. But their boyish teasing quickly turned into roughhousing.

  “Maybe he just needs a little push!” joked Vincent, and the next thing I knew, Tourteau was sprawled on the ground. His cap fell off as he toppled over. Vincent snatched it up and tossed it on top of Tourteau. “Don’t forget your hat!” he said.

  Then, to my astonishment, Vincent turned and locked eyes with me. Everything was happening so fast, and yet time stood still. My heart started racing as he opened his beautiful mouth and spoke to me for the very first time.

  “Hey, what did the little cripple give you, anyway?” he asked.

  “My sketchbook,” I replied. I could hear Sophie and Mariann murmuring over my shoulder. This was totally unheard of. Handsome, popular older boys like Vincent didn’t usually notice little mice like us.

  He held out his hand toward me. “Let me see it,” he said.

  Without a word, I complied. Yes, that book held my private thoughts and dreams—my whole imaginary world. And yet I secretly hoped he’d see the beauty in it. Maybe he’d even compliment my talent, as Mademoiselle Petitjean had.

  I held my breath as he flipped through the pages, his friends leaning in to peek.

  “Hey, you’re a pretty good artist,” he finally said, the corners of his mouth curling up in a grin.

  “Oh! Thank y—” I started to accept his praise, looking down modestly.

  “For a Jew.”

  The words hit me like a bucket of ice water. Startled, I glanced up, and saw that his smile was now a cruel smirk. He threw my sketchbook on the ground like it was garbage and stalked off without another word. Laughing, his friends followed behind him.

  “Sara? Let’s get out of here,” said Mariann, her hand on my arm.

  I stood there silently, a tear rolling down my cheek, feeling as if I had been slapped.

  “I should have said something,” I finally whispered. In my head, all sorts of possible responses sprang to mind, too late. You jerk! You ought to be ashamed of yourself, speaking that way to me! I’ll bet you can’t even draw a stick figure!

  Why had I gone mute? Was I too shocked to respond, or too afraid? It was like the ice cream store incident all over again, only worse. I had a deep and increasingly familiar feeling of worry that perhaps he was right and something was obviously wrong with me.

  “Forget about it. He’s not worth it,” Mariann told me.

  I let my friends guide me along, but I felt numb. The sign in the ice cream shop window was upsetting, but it applied to all Jews, not just me. This was so much worse. It was the first time I had ever personally been the target of anti-Semitism.

  I felt so humiliated. Angry. Hurt. To be attacked—not for something I had done, but for something I was. This was new to me. And it shook me to the core.

  “Don’t pay attention to Vincent,” said Sophie, her arm draped protectively around my shoulders. “He’s just a stupid boy. Besides, they say his father works for the Nazis.”

  I shook my head as if trying to shake off a bad dream. “To think I had a crush on him,” I said.

  “Just put it out of your mind, Sara,” advised Mariann.

  Easy for you to say, I thought. You’re not Jewish.

  I could not put it out of my mind. After I said goodbye to my friends, I rode my scooter home, like always. But suddenly the world seemed different. Everywhere I looked, there were signs. Not omens, but actual signs.

  I stopped short in front of one in a shop window. The boulangerie, of all places, where my family had purchased loaves of delicious bread for years. Staring back at me was a grotesque creature with evil, menacing eyes and a huge hooked nose. It was a poster for a German film called Der Ewige Jude, which meant “The Eternal Jew.” I noticed my horrified reflection superimposed on the glass in front of the poster. Was this how my classmates saw me?

  I pushed on, going past the cinema where my father and mother sometimes took me. Or rather, used to take me. Pas de Juifs said a banner across the ticket window. “No Jews.” Just like the sign at the ice cream shop. And everywhere I went, I couldn’t escape the sight of those bright red banners flapping in the breeze. When I first saw them, the swastikas reminded me of windmills. But as I learned what they represented, they seemed more like giant fans with sharpened blades, whirring and threatening to cut me if I got too close.

  I pushed my scooter faster and faster, trying to push all of these horrible images out of my sight.

  I could no longer pretend that my life was normal. Not when the world was full of so much hate. And not when that hate was coming closer and closer. My eyes filled with tears. This was how Vincent saw me, I supposed. As an awful thing, less than human. I rode the rest of the way home staring straight ahead to avoid more posters telling me what I was quickly realizing: my life was not a fairy tale anymore.

  And perhaps it never would be again.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  “You see, Rose?” Papa frowned intensely, ignoring his dinner. “This is what I’ve been saying since November! We’re not safe here anymore. We should leave France! Now!”

  I slouched in my chair, deeply regretting telling my parents what had happened with Vincent at school. I used my fork to hide some of my spinach under my dinner roll. I wished I could dig a hole and bury the entire awful day as easily.

  “Max, you’re overreacting,” said Maman. She took a bite of her chicken and a sip of her wine. “It was just a stupid boy. We’re safe here in the Free Zone.”

  I sat between them, unsure of which side I agreed with more. It seemed to me they were both right. Vincent was a stupid—if unreasonably handsome—boy, it was true. But were we safe here? I hoped so, yet I was less sure than ever before.

  “There is no ‘Free Zone’ anymore, Rose!” insisted Papa. “We should disappear, like Rabbi Bernstein did.”

  Disappear? I thought with alarm. For some reason I pictured Mademoiselle Petitjean erasing the day’s lesson from the blackboard. In a matter of moments, with a few bold strokes, all those words and numbers would be wiped away. Would we be like that? Gone without a trace?

  With her glasses on, Maman looked smart and serious—as always. But her eyes told another story. As did her voice, which wavered as the subject of Rabbi Bernstein’s mysterious disappearance came up. For years, the rabbi had been an important fixture of our community. We didn’t know him well, as we weren’t members of his congregation. But we often saw his wife at the market, and he and Papa were friendly. And then, one day, we heard a rumor that the Bernsteins had left town in the middle of the night, with no explanation or forwarding address.

  “How can you even suggest that?” asked Maman. “Leave, without saying goodbye to our friends? What about our house, our furniture?”

  “Our furniture?” Papa’s eyes flashed with annoyance. “Rose, Jews are being rounded up in Marseille! How can you worry about furniture?”

  Maman shook her head emphatically. She spoke to Papa like she did to me when I made a careless error on a math test or tried to go out to play with my friends before practicing piano. “Foreign Jews, Max!” she said slowly, as if to clear up his apparent confusion. “And religious Jews. That’s not us. We don’t even go to temple.”

  “Rose, are you forgetting that you were born in Antwerp and I am from Brussels?”

  “I was born here,” I offered. Both of them ignored me.

  My mother’s brow furrowed deeply. “I am a French citizen! So are you!” she practically yelled, startling me. It was not like Maman to raise her voice. “We have the papers to prove it!” she continued. “I have lived here for practically my entire life, Max. I was a little girl when my parents moved here. France is my home!”

  There was a dreadful silence. Then Papa spoke quietly.

  “It was Simone’s home, too,” he said.

  My mother’s face softened, for she knew what he meant. I did too—we had heard nothing from Aunt Simone and her family since the Vel’ d’Hiv roundup. I still held out hope that they were okay—there were lots of reasons people might be too busy to write, or letters might be intercepted in the Occupied Zone. But their silence was troubling, at the very least.

  Maman reached out and took Papa’s hands in hers. “Max, darling. If we have to leave, we’ll leave. I promise,” she said. “But let’s just wait it out for a little while longer. Things can’t go on like this forever.”

  I nodded. This was what I wanted to believe. “Maman is right, Papa,” I added. “Everything will be fine—you’ll see.”

  “I hope so, Sara,” replied Papa. His voice was so quiet, it sounded like he was praying. That was something I had never heard him do. My father was a man of science, not religion.

  I took a bite of my spinach, glad Maman had won the argument. I swallowed bite after bite, wishing I had never mentioned Vincent in the first place. Spinach was not my favorite vegetable, but according to Maman it was good for me and would make me stronger. I was willing to do whatever it took to get stronger, so I could get through this difficult time. I did not want to leave France, bad as things were. I added my own silent prayer to Papa’s. Please make my life return to normal soon. All of our lives, I added quickly. I missed my playful, joyful parents.

  Maman’s voice snapped me back to attention. “In the meantime, Sara,” she ordered, “you stay far away from that Vincent boy. Okay?”

  “Of course, Maman.”

  After dinner, I cleared the dishes, finished my homework, and dutifully practiced a couple of piano pieces. When I was finally done with my chores, I headed for my room and the sanctuary of my sketchbook. I was lost in that world when I heard a faint knock at my bedroom door.

  “Allô?” I called in response.

  The door opened and my father peered in. “Sara, it’s late,” he said. “You should be asleep by now.”

  “I know,” I told him without looking up. “I’m just finishing a drawing I started in school today. Mademoiselle Petitjean says I’m a good artist,” I added proudly.

  “That doesn’t surprise me in the least. You have a gift, Sara. But now it’s time for bed.”

  I hesitated. I wanted to tell him that I needed to keep drawing, at least for a little while longer. Especially after what Vincent had said. I needed to take what he had made dirty and make it special and clean and mine again. Usually, the simple act of drawing carried me far away from my day-to-day worries. But I had started noticing that my fears and concerns did not always go away. They had begun patiently waiting for my pencil to stop moving, so they could swoop back in.