No One Must Know by Eva Wiseman

Author:Eva Wiseman [Wiseman, Eva]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction
ISBN: 9781770490581
Google: FDtuZKOwPkcC
Amazon: B0031TZAUM
Publisher: Tundra Books
Published: 2004-05-08T07:00:00+00:00

Chapter 11

The Saturday morning sun streamed through the kitchen window and warmed our faces. Mom and I had arranged Tupperware bowls and wooden spoons on the kitchen counter. Now we were measuring out the ingredients my friends and I would need for our baking session. I put a dozen eggs into a glass bowl and placed a slab of butter on a wooden chopping board.

“Could you please check if the mail has arrived?” Mom asked as she dipped a measuring cup into a large brown flour canister decorated with daisies.

I took the key off a hook by the door and went to open the mailbox. There was only one envelope, a thin one with Mom’s name written on it in a spidery handwriting. It was addressed to 39 Ash Street. Our house number was 43. I turned it over. It was from somebody called Judit Weltner.

By the time I got back to the kitchen, Mom had poured flour into one of the bowls. She’d also taken a cookie sheet and a couple of baking pans out of the cabinets.

“Everything’s ready,” she announced. She saw the envelope in my hand. “So who is writing us?”

“Somebody called Judit Weltner. Who is she, Mom? I’ve never heard you mention her.”

She grabbed the envelope out of my hand. “Impossible!” she cried. “Jutka is dead!” She tried to tear the envelope open, but her hands were shaking so badly that she couldn’t loosen the flap.

“Let me help you,” I offered.

“I’ll do it myself!” she said, taking out a pair of large scissors and cutting the envelope open. She sank down on a chair and pulled out a sheet of paper that was filled with the same spidery writing I’d noticed on the envelope. She scanned the page anxiously. “She’s alive. Thank God!” she cried, her voice full of joy. But suddenly, all the color ran out of her face. “No, no! She mustn’t come here. She mustn’t!” She broke off and bit her lip, as if to stop herself from saying more.

I peered over her shoulder and tried to read the letter. “What does she say, Mom? What language is she using?”

“Hungarian. I–” Just then, the doorbell rang. She folded up the letter and shoved it into her pocket. “Please answer the door,” she said. “Your friends have arrived.”

By the time I’d led Jean and Molly into the kitchen, Mom wore her usual serene expression. Nobody could have guessed that anything had upset her as she went from girl to girl to supervise what we were doing. Before long, I was mixing the ingredients for a cheesecake while Molly was stirring the batter for a batch of chocolate chip cookies. Jean was the most ambitious of all of us. Mom was showing her how to stretch out the thin dough for a strudel.

“Don’t be afraid that the dough will have holes in it. The thinner you can get it, the better your strudel will turn out,” she explained.

Jean followed her instructions, her face scrunched up in concentration.

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