Free Odette's Secrets by Maryann Macdonald Page A

our money.
    I’ll take some, just a little,
    and I’ll buy her a Mother’s Day present.
    It’ll be a surprise!
    After all, I earned some of it myself during harvest, didn’t I?
    Mama is outside at work in the garden.
    I pry back the loose floorboard under the kitchen table.
    I lift out the money jar.
    I take out two silver coins, only two.
    Then I put the jar and the board back.
    I go to the shop to buy the pin.
    The shopkeeper wraps it for me in pretty paper.
    I make a Mother’s Day card to go with it.
    I spend a long time drawing violets on it, one by one.
    Then I hide my card and present.
    Will the violets remind Mama of the cologne she used in Paris?
    I hope so … I can’t wait for Sunday.
    But on Saturday morning Mama counts our money.
    â€œOdette,” she says, “some money is missing.”
    I tell her I don’t know anything about it.
    â€œI think you do,” says Mama.
    â€œYou are the only one who knows where I keep our money.”
    So I tell her it’s true.
    But I won’t tell her what I did with it.
    It’s a secret.
    Mama’s eyes flash.
    â€œI didn’t raise you to be a liar,” she says, “or a thief!”
    A liar? A thief?
    But all I’m doing is keeping a secret …
    and Mama is the one who
taught
me to keep secrets.
    Mama slaps my face, hard.
    Bijou is shocked, and so am I.
    The shape of Mama’s hand stings my cheek.
    It feels like fire.
    But I don’t say anything.
    I just climb into my bed with Bijou.
    I cuddle her,
    and she licks and comforts me.
    We both calm down.
    The next morning, I bring Mama my Mother’s Day present.
    â€œNow I know where the money went,” Mama says.
    She tries to smile, but tears well up in her eyes.
    Mama, who is so strong, who
never
cries, is sobbing.
    I put my arms around her.
    I don’t tell her not to cry.
    I know now crying can help you feel better.

Beautiful Bluma
    Mama gets a letter that makes her hum with happiness.
    Her old friend Bluma is coming for a visit.
    She and Mama grew up in Poland together.
    Bluma’s husband is a French Christian,
    and she speaks French with no accent.
    Even so, her family is afraid …
    someone might find out she is a Polish Jew.
    Maybe, if she likes it in the country,
    she will come and live with us.
    Then Mama won’t be so lonely.
    Beautiful Bluma arrives,
    in a silky blouse
    and soft shoes.
    Her eyelashes are the longest I’ve ever seen.
    She has no children of her own
    and makes me feel like her favorite niece.
    Bluma has an expensive camera in a leather case.
    She takes photographs of Mama and me,
    of curving country lanes,
    and of windmills and waterfalls.
    At night, in the firelight,
    we eat all the delicious dishes Mama has made for us.
    Bluma has brought us chocolate too.
    It’s been so long since I tasted it,
    I almost forgot its sweet bitterness,
    and how it melts on my tongue.
    Mama begs her friend to stay.
    Bluma’s face is pale in the dim light.
    She
is
afraid, she tells us,
    but she just can’t leave the home she loves
    and the husband she loves even more.
    No, she will go back to Paris.
    After only a few days,
    we walk Bluma back to Saint-Fulgent.
    The bus comes,
    and she climbs on board.
    She waves her handkerchief at us from the window
    until we can’t see her anymore.
    A week later Mama gets a letter from Bluma’s husband.
    Bluma has been taken away,
    like so many other Jews.
    He asks if we can send her some food
    at the camp where he thinks she is.
    â€œWhy didn’t Bluma stay with us?” I ask.
    â€œShe would have been
safe
here!”
    Mama sighs.
    For a while she doesn’t speak.
    Then she says,
    â€œBluma was used to an easy life.
    She couldn’t give it up, not even for her own safety.”
    Then Mama puts down her letter and gazes out the window
    at pigs, rooting in the dirt.
    â€œLife in the country was just too hard for her,” she says.

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