Number the Stars

by Lois Lowry

Would she die to protect them? Truly? Annemarie was honest enough to admit, there in the darkness, to herself, that she wasn’t sure.

For a moment she felt frightened. But she pulled the blanket up higher around her neck and relaxed. It was all imaginary, anyway—not real. It was only in the fairy tales that people were called upon to be so brave, to die for one another. Not in real-life Denmark. Oh, there were the soldiers; that was true. And the courageous Resistance leaders, who sometimes lost their lives; that was true, too. But ordinary people like the Rosens and the Johansens? Annemarie admitted to herself, snuggling there in the quiet dark, that she was glad to be an ordinary person who would never be called upon for courage.

“Don’t be frightened,” he said to them softly. “Once I had three daughters. Tonight I am proud to have three daughters again.”

Why am I tearing up

Everything seemed very familiar, very comforting. Dangers were no more than odd imaginings, like ghost stories that children made up to frighten one another: things that couldn’t possibly happen. Annemarie felt completely safe here in her own home, with her parents in the next room and her best friend asleep beside her.

Annemarie felt a surge of sadness; the bond of their friendship had not broken, but it was as if Ellen had moved now into a different world, the world of her own family and whatever lay ahead for them.

Outside, she knew, the sky was speckled with stars. How could anyone number them one by one, as the psalm said? There were too many. The sky was too big.

Ellen came to her last; the two girls held each other. “I’ll come back someday,” Ellen whispered fiercely. “I promise.” “I know you will,” Annemarie whispered back, holding her friend tightly.

A dark shape, no more than a blurred heap, at the beginning of the path. Annemarie squinted, forcing her eyes to understand, needing to understand, not wanting to understand. The shape moved. And she knew. It was her mother, lying on the earth.

He grinned at her suddenly. “They took my bread, eh?” he said. “I hope they choke on it.”

“That’s all that brave means—not thinking about the dangers. Just thinking about what you must do.