Free Anna All Year Round by Mary Downing Hahn, Diane de Groat Page A

them."
    "If I had to choose, I'd pick a horse," Anna says. "You can't be friends with a motorcar."
    Father laughs. "Have another ladyfinger, Anna. And then wipe your mouth. Mother doesn't like to see you with a dirty face."
    By the time Anna comes home, she has eaten her second ladyfinger and cleaned her face with Father's handkerchief. She watches Mother and Aunt May divide up the four remaining ladyfingers.
    "Why, Anna," Aunt May says. "Where is your ladyfinger?"
    Anna pats her tummy. "I ate mine coming home."
    "Oh, Ira," Mother says. "For shame. Only common girls eat in the street. Anna must learn her manners if she expects to get along in this world."
    Luckily for Anna, Charlie chooses that moment to call her. Before Mother can say more, Anna runs across the street to play tag with her friends. It's dark now. Charlie, Rosa, Beatrice, Patrick, Wally, and Anna chase each other in and out of the shadows cast by the gas lamps. They play until their parents call them home, one by one.
    When everyone is gone but Charlie, Anna tells him what Father told her. Charlie thinks it will be exciting to live in a world where streetlights come on like magic and the roads are crowded with motorcars.
    "Do you know what I hope?" Anna asks him.
    "What?"
    "I hope manners go out of fashion," Anna says.
    "No manners." Charlie laughs. "What a wonderful world that would be, Anna!"
    Anna smiles. She likes to make Charlie laugh. Maybe she should have given the extra ladyfinger to him instead of eating it herself. Next time Father takes her to the bakery, that's what she'll do.
    She tips her head back and gazes at the sky. The stars aren't as bright as they are on winter nights. The hot summer air hangs between the city and the sky, blurring everything, even the moon and the stars.
Der Mond und die Sterne,
as Mother might say.
    Across the street, Aunt May laughs. Fritzi barks. In Charlie's house, a baby cries. Madame Wehman plays her piano. Down on North Avenue, a streetcar bell clangs.
    No matter what Father says, Anna cannot imagine anything being different from the way it is right now. It's true that when school starts, Anna will be in fourth grade and her teacher will be Miss Osborne, not Miss Levine. But Charlie will still live across the street, the lamplighter will come every night, Mr. Leidig will bake his ladyfingers, and bit by bit, word by word, Anna will learn Mother's German secrets. As Aunt May says,
Anna ist ein kluges Mädchen—
a clever girl.

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Afterword

    WHEN MY MOTHER WAS EIGHTY YEARS OLD, SHE wrote a reminiscence of her Baltimore childhood, intending it for her grandchildren. She wanted them to know what the world was like when she was a little girl in 1913.
    After reading Mom's account, I asked her if she'd mind sharing her memories with other children. Although she thought no one but her family could possibly be interested in her life, she gave her permission.
    I must admit I changed some of the details and made up a few stories of my own, but that's the nice thing about writing fiction—I don't have to stick to the facts.
    Mother is now over ninety. Her father was right about the world. In the years that have passed since Anna roller-skated down the hill on Bentalou Street, many things have changed—some for the better and some for the worse. Cars, for instance, have replaced horses. The lamplighter is gone. At dusk, city lights come on automatically. Trolleys are no more (though you can still ride a summer car just like Uncle Nick's at the Baltimore Streetcar Museum). Public School 62 has been replaced by a modern building.
    But some things have stayed the same, just as Anna knew they would. Children still roller-skate on city streets. They go to birthday parties. They build towers with Erector sets. And on hot summer nights, they sit on their front steps and stare at the moon and the stars,
der Mond und die Sterne.

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German Words and Phrases
    C HAPTER 1
The Language of Secrets
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