The Klipfish Code Read Online Free

Mama—only
Mama's eyes were glistening water, and Aunt Ingeborg's were melting ice.

    At the back door, Marit pulled on her boots. "I'm sorry..." she began. "I'm going right now."
    "No, I already took care of the milking. Boots off." Aunt Ingeborg patted Marit's shoulder and steered her to a chair at the table. It was set with plates of cheese, herring, bread, strawberry jam, and hard-boiled eggs and a pitcher of buttermilk. "Besides, you needed extra sleep. A girl of ten shouldn't have such dark circles."
    "
Takk.
Tomorrow—I promise—I'll be up earlier."
    "Tomorrow,
ja,
but today I need you two to pick rhubarb."
    "For pie?" Lars asked, his dimples deepening in his rounded cheeks.
    "And jam. I hope to trade some for flour and a little coffee. Now, bow your heads."
    Later, they headed outside. Alongside the red barn, trimmed white like every door and window frame of her grandfather's goldenrod house, they found rhubarb leaves as big as elephant's ears. In the land of the midnight sun, the long hours of daylight helped crops grow fast—and large.
    "Remember, Lars," Marit said, "pull them out like this." Without breaking its stem, she pulled on a long rhubarb stalk until it slipped free.
    "I
know,
Marit," Lars said, shaking his head. "I heard
what Aunt Ingeborg said. You don't always have to tell me what to do, just because you're older." His bangs hung nearly into his eyes; Mama would have trimmed his hair weeks ago.

    Marit put her hand on his shoulder. "I know you're smart. You finished grade one already."
    Lars lowered his head.
    "Well, maybe you didn't
finish
grade one, but close enough."
    "See?" he said. "You said I didn't finish."
    "Don't worry—we'll start school in the fall and you'll be in grade two."
    He was two heads shorter, but sturdy. The island was a good place for him, and Aunt Ingeborg's cooking had helped ease the stomachaches he'd had when they first arrived.
    Some things were the same. Her brother. Aunt Ingeborg and Bestefar. Three cows swishing their tails in the pasture. The island smells of kelp, fish, and salt water. Cries of seagulls and kittiwakes. Wooden trawlers and smaller fishing boats bobbing on a soft chop. The fairyland city of Ålesund across the harbor with its towers and turrets—or at least what was left of it. But when sirens rang across the water, the sound of bombs falling in Ålesund often followed.
    She turned away and joined Lars in picking more rhubarb. Soon a pile of green leaves and red stalks
reached Marit's knees. They brought their harvest to the back steps, cut off the stems, and threw the leaves behind the barn.

    "Just enough sugar left to bake pies," Aunt Ingeborg said as they carried the ruby red stems into her tidy kitchen. "After this, I don't know when we'll see sugar again."

Chapter Four
Refugee
    That afternoon—as they had every Monday, Wednesday, and Saturday since they'd arrived—Marit and Lars hiked the dirt road to the fishing wharf. They paused by the first boathouse, where a new propaganda poster had been tacked up overnight. The illustration showed a blond Norwegian and a blond German shaking hands, with "
Alt for Norge!
" written above it.

    "Don't believe it," she told Lars. "
All for Norway
is a lie."
    Such posters often combined Nazi swastikas with Viking boats and heroic characters, as if the Germans could convince Norwegians that the two countries were destined to merge. Norwegians regularly ripped down
the pro-Nazi posters at night, but in the mornings, German soldiers tacked them back up again.

    Beneath the gaze of Godøy Mountain, Marit and Lars walked on. They passed several island farms—narrow strips of land that stretched like piano keys to the shore. Fjord horses dotted a few pastures; more ponies than horses, their thick manes and golden coats caught the morning sunlight as they grazed.
    Along the way, Marit's mind raced with worry that a letter from Mama and Papa might—or might not—arrive.