Lilli's Quest Read Online Free

deep-brown eyes and hair. Lilli is fair, with gray-green eyes and honey-toned hair.
    The innocent Helga finishes her porridge, and Grossmutter offers her breakfast cake and milky coffee, which she accepts politely. Lilli seethes. She knows that there are plans to send Helga away. Why doesn’t somebody say something?
    Then, as though has heard Lilli’s inner plea, Grossmutter seats herself directly opposite eleven-year-old Helga and declares, “Grossvater and I have good news for you, my child. How would you like to travel to a good home in England, where you can hike, swim, and skate, go to school with other children, enjoy the cinema and other pleasurable outings? Wouldn’t you like such an opportunity? It would be only until things are easier in Germany. Then you could return to us.”
    â€œYes, my child,” Grossvater chimes in, “you are lucky, for it has been arranged with the Jewish committee for the saving of the children that you are to have a place on the Kindertransport . . .”
    Lilli jumps to her feet. She has heard vague talk of taking tens of thousands of Jewish children out of Nazi-occupied Europe by train and boat—from Germany, Austria, and Czechoslovakia—before Hitler’s armies invade even more of the continent.
    â€œYes!” Lilli declares. “And I want to go, too. We must all go, Elspeth, too. Papa would want it that way. How can you think of separating us so cruelly?”
    But no one is listening to her. All eyes are on Helga, who has dashed her coffee cup to the floor and run screaming from the breakfast room, “No, no never! Never will I be such a coward as to let myself be driven out of Germany. Never.”

Three
    It is the middle of the long, hot summer of 1939. Several months have passed since the anguished scene at the breakfast table in May, and there has been no further mention of sending Helga away on the Kindertransport.
    Yet, everyone knows that the danger for Jews hiding in Germany is drawing closer every minute. And so, too, is war with England. The girls’ tutor, Mr. Anton Hess, is their main source of information. He has told them that England is threatening to attack Germany if Hitler attempts to occupy one more country in Europe.
    â€œAh, but,” says the all-knowing Mr. Hess, his pincenez glasses flickering as he lowers and shakes his head in scholarly fashion, “the Fuhrer has already announced in May that Germany must have more Lebensraum , living space. He has vowed that he will have his armies in Poland by late summer.”
    The threat of war, as well as further actions against Jews everywhere, has started all sorts of rumors. Gerda has murmured tidbits to Helga and Lilli about the attic room no longer being a safe place in which to hide themfrom the Nazis, in spite of the Bayers’ connections with members of the government.
    â€œWhere will they put us then?” Helga challenges.
    Lilli looks at her sister anxiously. Helga has changed a great deal in the past months. She has become more assertive and outspoken.
    Gerda tosses the girls fresh linens with which to make up their beds and replies as she leaves the room. “There is perhaps the coal bin.”
    Helga and Lilli stare at each other, wide-eyed. Then they do their room chores and, as usual, don the drab clothes that Grossmutter purchased for them in the spring. It’s become obvious that their grandmother’s intention was for the girls to be as incognito as possible, even inside the Bayer house.
    But the onset of summer has allowed the two older Frankfurter girls one privilege—they are permitted to spend time in the grim, overgrown, walled garden that surrounds the large house. There, they pass the hours rereading English-language books, assigned to them by Mr. Hess, according to Grossmutter’s orders. They skip rope, they toss a ball around, they even play hide and seek among the overgrown shrubs.
    â€œThis is stupid and