Lilli's Quest Read Online Free Page B

skating path was not so smooth.”
    But Lilli knows better. Last year, she and Helga were stoned several times by the Hitler Youth, at the ice rink, in the park, on their bicycles. They would seek out new places, but their enemies would always discover them. Eventually, they were forced to remain indoors.
    Lilli hurries Helga silently toward the house. They stumble up the back stairs to the bathroom, where they wash Helga’s cut and compress it to stop the bleeding. Lilli puts a plaster on the wound and Helga combs herthick dark hair on a slant across her forehead. The two of them gaze into the mirror. In spite of her anguish, Lilli bursts out laughing. “Do you know who you look like? Ah, if only you had a moustache!”
    It is August 27, 1939. Mr. Hess has arrived to give Helga and Lilli their morning lesson. The tutor is in a jubilant mood. He struts around the room with his hands behind his back, exclaiming, “Today the Fuhrer has demanded Poland’s port to the sea, as well, of course, the rest of the country. The Polish army, such as it is,” he sniffs, “is mobilizing. And Britain is ready to declare war on Germany. “Young ladies,” he adds, “you are about to see history being made.”
    Lilli, who has on occasion mocked the stuffy Mr. Hess behind his back, declares, “What is so wonderful about going to war? Everyone will suffer, even the Germans.”
    Helga backs Lilli up with a sarcastic remark. “When Hitler goes into Poland he will find many more Jews to kill. That will give him even more Lebensraum .”
    Mr. Hess looks a bit flustered. He’s been teaching these half-Jewish students because he needed the work, and the Bayers convinced him his undertaking would be kept secret. Before he can respond to the challenges of his too-well-taught students, there is a rapid knocking at the door, and Mutti enters the room, with Gerda directly behind her.
    Lilli and Helga are instantly alarmed, and Mr. Hess seems a bit taken aback, too. It’s most unusual for Mutti to visit the girls during the day. Her expression is sad, though she is smiling.
    â€œThe papers have come for you, my Helga dear.” she says softly. Mutti is holding up some official-looking documents. “Your passport has been approved, and there is no time to lose. The next Kindertransport is to leave for England on September 1st. In just a few days. If war breaks out, heaven spare us, this train may be the last to reach safety. Gerda will help you pack the things you must take with . . .”
    Mutti never finishes her sentence. Helga, once the most obedient of the three Frankfurter sisters, hurls herself at Mutti, screaming furiously. “I told you I would never go. I refuse to give in to their threats and persecutions. I am not a mouse to be chased away with a broom.”
    Mutti brushes a tear from her cheek. “Be sensible, my child. You are one of the fortunate ones. There is room for only a limited number of children on this final transport. You must not give up your chance for freedom.”
    Lilli turns her back and walks to the window. She gazes down at the street below, which is almost deserted in the summer heat. She’s never told Helga what she overheard the night she spied on Mutti and Captain Koeppler. Tears spring to her eyes. Perhaps she and Helga have not been the closest of sisters, despite being onlyone year apart in age. Still, they have grown up together, and experienced the increasing harshness of the Nazi offensive against Jews. And, although they try never to speak of it, they are both almost certain they’ve lost Papa to the brutalities of the Buchenwald concentration camp. The mysterious postcards, with staggered dates but the same bland message, have long ceased to arrive. And Mr. Hess has whispered rumors of prisoners being worked to death in the harsh Buchenwald stone quarries. “ You must fight such hatred all your lives,” Papa said upon