Ans shook her head. If Wim didn’t hear the war news from Hans, he would hear it from somebody else. “Your secret is safe with me,” she replied. They pedaled together for another mile before Wim had to turn back. “Thanks for riding with me, Wim. You’re still my favorite brother, you know.”

He grinned at the joke they always shared, then turned serious. “Are you ever coming back home to live with us again, Ans?”

She hesitated —then decided her brother needed to hear the truth. “I don’t think so, Wim. Leiden is my home now. I’m sorry.”

“Ja . . . so am I.”

CHAPTER 12

Three weeks after Ans’s visit to her family, she awoke to the sound of distant thunder. She listened for rain, thinking she might need to get up and close her bedroom window. The distant booms continued —sometimes one or two, sometimes a cluster of them. Yet the thunder didn’t rumble any closer or fade into the distance like a regular storm.

Maybe it wasn’t thunder.

Now there was another odd sound from far away —a low, droning roar like a rushing waterfall. It grew steadily louder. Closer.

Airplanes. Not one, but many.

Ans scrambled out of bed and parted the curtains to peer out. She couldn’t see anything. The rumbling was on the other side of the town house. She left her room and felt her way downstairs toward the dining room windows. A shadowy figure in the foyer startled her. Ans gasped and backed up a step. Eloise turned to face her.

“Did you hear them, too?” she asked. Her face was as pale as the streak of white that swept through her dark hair, as pale as her delicate silk nightgown. Ans’s heart raced faster. Professor Huizenga had gone to Den Haag on an overnight trip. They were alone.

“What is that sound?” Ans asked.

“Airplanes. And they’re dropping bombs.”

“That can’t be true. We aren’t at war. Why would anyone bomb us?”

“Because Hitler intends to conquer all of Europe, and we’re next. Remember Norway and Denmark?”

Ans couldn’t reply. She didn’t want to believe it. “Lightning warfare” they were calling it —Blitzkrieg. Hitler’s armies invaded with lightning speed and overwhelming power, forcing a quick surrender. Had the lightning struck the Netherlands? Ans wanted to go back to bed and wake up all over again.