Chapter 1 Summary

Ten-year-old Annemarie Johansen races her best friend, Ellen, down the residential streets of Copenhagen on their way home from school. Five-year-old Kirsti, Annemarie's younger sister, becomes irritated because she can't keep up with the older girls. As Annemarie and Ellen round a corner, they are ordered to halt by two German soldiers holding rifles. Kirsti is not frightened; the German soldiers have been in Copenhagen for three years now, and, to Kirsti, they seem a normal part of the landscape.

Annemarie, however, remembers the days before Germans patrolled the streets with their guns. She recognizes one of the soldiers, having passed him on the street many times before. She has privately nicknamed him "the Giraffe" because of his long neck. However, this is the first time she's ever been stopped by the soldiers, and she's frightened. They demand to know the girls' names...