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Nazis were burning books. He said that burning books was as bad as burning babies.
    She went through to the kitchen. Although the floor was tiled, and the windows were already misted with cold, it was warm here, because father had stacked up the range for thenight. Ampersand the cat was sleeping in his basket next to the range, but when Elizabeth came in he opened one slitty eye and watched her as she walked around the table to the back door.
    As quietly as she could, she levered back the bolts and turned the key. Then she stepped out into the silent, snowy night. She crossed the lawn to the shed. Her footsteps made a felty, squeaking noise in the snow. The moon was masked by cloud, but the garden was luminous enough for Elizabeth to be able to see where she was going. Her blue velveteen slippers were quickly soaked, and she was shivering. Yet her guilt was so overwhelming that she
had
to hide the book, as urgently as a murderer has to hide a gun.
    If her parents ever discovered that she had read Peggy
The Snow Queen
. . . Well, she couldn’t imagine what would happen, but whatever it was, it would be terrible. They might even end up with a broken home.
    She knelt down beside the shed, and scooped back the snow with her bare hand. During the autumn, she had discovered a crevice underneath the floor of the shed, and she had used it to hide some of her love letters. They hadn’t been
real
love letters, of course, she had written them all herself, but she would have been mortified if anybody had found them – especially the one from Clark Gable which ended ‘I promise you that I will wait with bated breath until you have reached 21.’
    She wedged the fairy book into the crevice, and pushed it as far under the shed as she could reach. Then she carefully scraped back the snow, and patted it so that it looked reasonably undisturbed.
    There was a prayer in
The Snow Queen
which she had long ago learned by heart, because the first time she had read it, it had seemed so sweet and pretty. Tonight, however, it seemed tragic, and she stood in the snow in her dressing-gown with tears streaming down her cheeks, barely able to pronounce the words because her throat was choked up so much.
    Â 
    Our roses bloom and fade away
,
    Our Infant Lord abides alway;
    May we be blessed His face to see
,
    And ever little children be
!
    Â 
    She shivered in what she estimated was just about a minute’s silence, and then she hurried back across the garden. Ampersand wearily opened his one slitted eye again, and watched her tippy-toe through to the living-room. Humans, I don’t know-where they find the energy.
    She climbed the stairs, keeping close to the wall, burglar-style. It was only when she reached the landing that she realized that father was standing in the shadowy doorway of his bedroom, watching her. She said, ‘Ah!’ in terror, and almost wet herself.
    â€˜Lizzie?’ he asked her. ‘What have you been doing?’ But his voice was gentle, and she knew at once that he wasn’t going to be cross with her.
    â€˜I thought I heard something,’ she stuttered, her teeth clattering with cold.
    He came out of the shadows. He wasn’t wearing his spectacles, and his eyes were swollen and plum-coloured with tiredness.
    â€˜What was it?’ he asked her. ‘What did you hear?’
    â€˜I don’t know. Maybe an owl.’
    He laid his hand on her shoulder. ‘Well, it might have been. You know what they say about owls.’
    She shook her head.
    â€˜They say that owls bring messages from dead people,’ he told her. ‘They can fly from the land of the living to the land of the dead, and back again, all in one night.’
    Elizabeth looked up at him, wondering if he were serious. ‘It wasn’t an owl. It was just nothing.’
    He hesitated for a while, keeping his hand on her shoulder.Then he said, ‘I’m going down to the library, do you want to come? I