52 Mondays Read online

  Also by Anna Ciddor

  The Family with Two Front Doors

  Runestone

  Wolfspell

  Stormriders

  Night of the Fifth Moon

  First published by Allen & Unwin in 2019

  Copyright © Text & illustrations, Anna Ciddor 2019

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher. The Australian Copyright Act 1968 (the Act) allows a maximum of one chapter or ten per cent of this book, whichever is the greater, to be photocopied by any educational institution for its educational purposes provided that the educational institution (or body that administers it) has given a remuneration notice to the Copyright Agency (Australia) under the Act.

  Allen & Unwin

  83 Alexander Street

  Crows Nest NSW 2065

  Australia

  Phone: (61 2) 8425 0100

  Email: [email protected]

  Web: www.allenandunwin.com

  ISBN 978 1 76052 348 0

  eISBN 978 1 76087 065 2

  For teaching resources, explore

  www.allenandunwin.com/resources/for-teachers

  Cover and text design by Sandra Nobes

  Cover images by Anna Ciddor

  Set by Sandra Nobes

  www.annaciddor.com

  Chicken Soup

  Breakfast

  Chocolate Ice Cream

  Wine and Candles

  A Sticky Situation

  Anna’s Big Wish

  Hitty Points the Way

  The Auction House

  School Sports Day

  The Masterpiece

  Good Yontif!

  Horseradish and Matzo Balls

  Como House

  The Gingerbread Man

  The Doll Hospital

  Green Jelly and Gold Mirrors

  A Surprise

  Toast and Paper Dolls

  A Doll at Last!

  The Decision

  Cross-stitch and Chalk Dust

  Sleepover

  Library Books

  Beetles and Bees

  Lolly Shopping

  Party Time

  A Surprise in the Mail

  Birthday Morning

  Very Hard and Very Old

  Sunshine and Dairy Queens

  Ponies and Tigers

  A New Term

  Mumps

  Monday

  A Pretty Box

  Lot 851

  Glossary

  For my sisters

  NANA NOMI LIFTED THE LID of the saucepan. Ah, it smelled good! Chicken soup always reminded her of childhood. As the steam wafted around her face, she let her mind drift back …

  She was ten years old, in the kitchen at 30 Lubartowska Street, in Lublin, Poland. She was turning the handle of the mincer, grinding up bread and onions, and her sister Miriam was coming through the back door. She could see Miriam as if she were really here, her long, tangled hair dotted with feathers, and the chickens she’d been plucking swinging from her fingers. She could see Adina, her oldest sister, rolling out the noodle dough, her dark hair, as usual, neat and glossy. And Mama with a scarf around her head and a long white apron, chopping carrots for the chulent, while Chaim, the old manservant, clattered coals into their big black iron stove.

  Nomi sighed. That was so long ago, so far away. Miriam, Adina, Mama, Chaim were all gone now. And Yakov, Shlomo, Bluma, Aaron, Esther, Devorah, Papa …

  She glanced at the clock. Oy, this was no time to stand and dream. She wasn’t in Lublin any more. She was here in Melbourne, it was February 1964, and her son, her daughter-in-law and her three darling granddaughters would be here any minute. She smiled. That Anna, the oldest girl, she reminded her of herself when she was young.

  Clattering the lid down, she pulled out another pot for the noodles.

  ‘Yitzhak,’ she called to her husband, reading his paper in the next room. ‘Go look if they are coming yet.’

  She turned the knob on the stove, and struck the match to light it. Cooking was so easy now: noodles ready-made in a packet, chicken already plucked and koshered, and her modern, cream-coloured gas cooker with its smooth, rounded edges!

  THE WORLD GLOWED WITH THE fierce, dry heat of summer. The car seemed to pant as it climbed the hill, hot wind blowing through the open windows.

  Anna turned her face to the wind, laughing when it tugged her breath away and whipped her long dark hair across her eyes. On the back seat beside her, Mirabelle wiggled her bare legs and listened to the odd sucking sounds they made. Beneath her short dress, her thighs were sticking to the hot vinyl. Bubby, who was only two, stood on the seat and barked out the window, imagining she was a dog.

  ‘Mirabelle, hang on to her dress,’ yelled big sister Anna. ‘Don’t let her fall out.’

  It was the 1960s. Cars had no seatbelts or baby seats or air-conditioning. Mummy, sitting in the front, wore her hair in a high, fashionable ‘beehive’, and sunglasses shaped like cats’ eyes. Daddy, in the driving seat, had an elbow hanging out the open window.

  As he swung round a corner, Anna grabbed for the book sliding off the seat beside her, and hugged it to her heart. She’d found this in the library yesterday, and known from the opening page that it was going to be a favourite. She wished that reading didn’t make her carsick … but Mummy had said she could bring it to read at Nana and Zayda’s place if she got bored.

  ‘Here we are,’ Daddy announced, bringing the car to a halt.

  They crowded through the door of the apartment block, and the wonderful smell of chicken soup came wafting down to greet them, as it always did.

  Anna and Mirabelle galloped up the stairs, throwing themselves at Zayda, who was waiting with his arms held wide in welcome.

  Short, tubby Zayda Yitzhak was like a cuddly teddy bear with a shiny bald patch on top of his head. He had twinkly eyes, tufty eyebrows, and a pair of spectacles on the tip of his nose. He didn’t speak much, but he always had a kind, gentle smile on his face.

  Nana Nomi appeared behind him. She had dyed golden hair and spoke with a foreign accent.

  ‘Come in, childrens, come eat!’ she called.

  When she embraced them, her perfume and powder tickled their noses.

  A moment later, the two older girls were seated at the kitchen table, huge white napkins tied under their chins, heavy silver spoons in their hands, and bowls of chicken soup in front of them.

  ‘Come, Boobeleh, you too,’ said Nana.

  But Bubby squirmed out of her arms, refusing to sit on the chair piled with cushions.

  ‘She wants her food on the floor,’ Anna explained. ‘So she can be a dog.’

  ‘Oy, such a character,’ said Nana. She placed a bowl of soup on the floor, then hooted with laughter when Bubby lapped it up.

  ‘Yitzhak, come look!’ she exclaimed.

  Nana and Zayda stood together, watching and beaming as their three granddaughters ate. And ate.

  But at last Mirabelle tugged the serviette from around her neck.

  ‘Can we play on the balcony now?’ she asked.

  ‘Fui, too hot outside,’ said Nana. ‘Come, sit in the salon.’ (Nana called her lounge room a salon.)

  While Nana, Zayda and Daddy chatted in their foreign language, Anna and Mirabelle sat on the couch, legs stuck out, not daring to wriggle. The glasses in the china cabinets chinked every time they moved, and over their heads a crystal chandelier shivered alarmingly. The salon was not a room for playing in.

  Bubby was still in the kitchen. Anna listened enviously to the sounds of her playing while Mummy washed the dishes at the sink.
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  Then Anna remembered her book. It was just here, in Mummy’s handbag. Excitedly, she pulled it out and laid it on her lap.

  The painted face of a doll smiled from the cover and Anna smoothed her fingers over the title: Hitty, the life and adventures of a wooden doll.

  She opened it to her place and began to read. Immediately, the boring chatter, and the pressure of Mirabelle leaning against her, faded away. She could see a room in a farmhouse in America a hundred years ago. The sun beating through the windows became the heat of a ‘great fireplace like a square cave, where flames licked enormous logs of wood and an old black kettle hung from an iron crane’. She wasn’t Anna anymore. She was the girl called Phoebe who was watching a pedlar carve a lump of wood. She could hear the scrape scrape of his jackknife, and even smell the wood shavings. She could see his gnarled old hands shaping a doll. He was starting to carve the face now …

  ‘Girls, Al, it’s time to go.’ Mummy came into the salon, carrying her youngest daughter on her hip. ‘We need to get Bubby home for her sleep.’

  Anna blinked, coming back to the world around her. Everyone was standing up, hugging, saying goodbye. Reluctantly, she picked up her bookmark and slid it between the pages. She would have to wait now to find out what the doll looked like.

  ‘ANNA-MI’BELLE! ANNA-MI’BELLE!’

  Anna opened one eye. It was early in the morning but Bubby was calling her sisters. Across the darkened room, Anna could just make out her little shape clambering to her feet in the cot.

  ‘Anna-Mi’belle! Anna-Mi’belle!’ Bubby repeated.

  ‘Go back to sleep,’ groaned Anna. ‘It’s too early.’

  Mummy came in and Anna closed her eyes. She could hear the sounds of shushes and creaking as Mummy lifted Bubby from her cot and carried her out of the room.

  Anna began to drift back to sleep …

  Then she remembered her library book and her eyes shot open. Last night, she’d read at the dinner table, she’d read while she was brushing her teeth, and sitting in the bath with the book propped up on the taps … And then she’d lain awake late into the night unable to stop thinking about the little wooden doll, only six inches high, with black painted hair and painted smile. She’d imagined she was the girl, Phoebe, sewing the doll’s dress out of ‘buff calico strewn with small red flowers’ and embroidering the name Hitty in red cross-stitch on her tiny chemise.

  She jumped up and scurried barefoot across the bedroom, past Mirabelle, still asleep, and down the corridor to the kitchen.

  ‘Miaow!’ called Bubby.

  ‘Are you a cat this morning?’ said Anna, reaching under the table to stroke her little sister’s hair.

  ‘Pu-urrrr,’ said Bubby.

  Anna sat down and found her place in the book.

  From out in the hallway came the click of Daddy opening the front door, then a clink and rattle as he picked up their bottles of milk. As usual, the milkman had come by with his horse and cart, leaving deliveries on everyone’s doorsteps before they woke.

  Daddy stomped into the kitchen holding up the bottles in their wire carrier. ‘Too late again,’ he growled.

  The foil lid on each glass bottle had a beak-sized hole punched in the middle. Every day Daddy tried to get the milk before the birds did. But every day he was too late.

  Mummy peeled up a lid and poured the cream from the top. As it gurgled down the plughole, Anna sighed. That was the yummiest bit. But then she went back to reading, and quickly forgot about the milk. Hitty was on a sailing ship with Phoebe and her family, and they’d been caught in a storm … Anna could feel the rocking of the deck, the thunder of the waves, the cold sting of the spray …

  ‘Anna, look!’

  Mirabelle had come into the kitchen and was sitting beside her waving a tiny green plastic train under her nose. There were cornflakes strewn around her. She must have dug into the packet to find the free toy hidden at the bottom.

  Mummy added more things to the table: bowls and spoons, a packet of puffed wheat, a dish of melting butter, a bottle of milk and a saucepan of unsweetened porridge.

  Mirabelle poured herself a bowl of cornflakes, scattering a few more on the formica tabletop, and mixed them with butter (she preferred butter to milk).

  Anna took the porridge and ate it straight out of the saucepan with the wooden spoon, her book still propped in front of her.

  Bubby lapped from a saucer of milk on the floor.

  Daddy, at the head of the table, munched away at a huge bowl of puffed wheat, and listened to the scratchy news announcements coming from his precious little transistor radio.

  The electric kettle whistled and Mummy turned it off. She poured two cups of instant coffee, then let out a yelp, flipping open the side of the toaster. A smell of burnt toast filled the kitchen, but Mummy scraped off the black bits and ate what was left, leaning against the bench and sipping her coffee.

  That was breakfast in the Lewison household.

  THE BIG BLACK HAND ON the clock traffic light was pointing at red. From the back seat of the car, the three girls craned forward to watch it turn slowly towards green.

  Red … Yellow …

  ‘Green!’ shouted Anna and Mirabelle in unison. ‘Go, Mummy!’

  ‘Go, Mummy!’ echoed two-year-old Bubby.

  Mummy threw the Peugeot into gear and the car roared off again. The sisters fell back, giggling. As usual, they were in a hurry. Mummy kept the kitchen clock half an hour early, but somehow they were always late.

  At school, Anna flung her grey straw hat on its hook, and pulled on her smock. Every girl in primary school wore a smock. (This was a school for girls only.)

  As she hurried into the classroom, she saw her teacher sigh and open the roll again to tick off her name.

  Quickly, Anna dropped into her seat and twisted round to pull a blue exercise book out of the bookbag hung on the back of her chair.

  ‘Did you hear the news?’ whispered Rosemary, who sat beside her. ‘It’s Sharon’s birthday, and her mother is bringing us Paddle Pop ice creams after lunch!’

  ‘Ooh!’ breathed Anna.

  Every few minutes that morning, Miss Ford had to hush her excited class as they grew impatient for their promised ice creams.

  At last came the clang clang of the handbell – the signal for the beginning of lunchtime.

  The girls rushed to fetch their lunchboxes and carry them back to their desks. Everyone had sandwiches made of soft white bread with fillings of jam, honey or hundreds and thousands. Only Anna’s sandwiches were different. She had crispy Vita-Weat biscuits spread with butter and a thick layer of dark, salty Vegemite. She squeezed them till greasy yellow and black worms oozed through the tiny holes.

  To her right, Rosemary finished her sandwich and took an Arnott’s Chocolate Royal out of her lunchbox. She smashed the chocolate top on her forehead and began to lick the marshmallow off the biscuit.

  Then she noticed the dried apricots and almonds in Anna’s lunchbox.

  ‘Can I have some of those?’ she pleaded.

  Anna couldn’t understand why other girls always thought her healthy dried fruit and nuts were a treat.

  ‘I’ll swap you for my other Choc Royal,’ offered Rosemary.

  Anna would have loved a Chocolate Royal. It looked such fun to smash it, and then lick the marshmallow off. But in the Lewison house, sugary treats were only eaten at night, just before they brushed their teeth.

  ‘I don’t want a biscuit,’ she said, ‘but you can have some of my dried apricots if you want.’

  At that moment, Sharon Williams let out a squeal, and they turned to see her mother standing in the doorway with a large cardboard box.

  The class of thirty-three girls burst into singing ‘Happy birthday to you’ and gave three cheers for Sharon, then Mrs Williams walked around the room handing out Paddle Pops in three different flavours – chocolate, fruit salad and vanilla.

  ‘Chocolate, please,’ said Anna, closing her hand around the stick.


  She could feel the cold block of ice cream through its paper wrapping, and she longed to rip it open and eat it straight away like everyone else. But she wouldn’t. She would be a good girl and take it home to eat before she brushed her teeth.

  ‘All right, everyone, put your lunchboxes away. It’s playtime now,’ said Miss Ford.

  As Anna pushed her ice cream down beside her lunchbox she noticed the Hitty book at the bottom of her schoolbag. She’d forgotten she’d brought it with her!

  Eagerly, she pulled it out, and as everyone else ran outside, she sat down among the schoolbags to read.

  At that moment Miss Ford came striding out of the classroom.

  ‘Anna, this is not a time for reading!’ she exclaimed. ‘Go outside and get some fresh air.’

  The playground was full of girls in coloured smocks twirling hula-hoops, skipping rope, and doing handstands. By the time Anna trailed back to class, she was pink and perspiring, and thinking happily of the Paddle Pop waiting in her schoolbag. She was glad she hadn’t eaten it yet!

  As soon as she got home from school, she carried her schoolbag into the kitchen and dropped it on the floor.

  ‘I’ve got a surprise in there,’ she told her sisters. ‘I’ll share it with you after dinner. It was Sharon’s birthday,’ she hinted.

  ‘Is it cake?’ asked Mirabelle.

  ‘Better than cake!’

  Mummy bent over to unzip the bag.

  ‘What … what’s this?’ she gasped.

  Anna beamed. ‘It’s …’ she began, but then, when she saw the horror on her mother’s face, shock and disappointment flooded over her. Of course! How could she have been so stupid? She bounded forward and gazed down at her bag. Everything inside was covered with a brown, sticky mess … It was melted chocolate ice cream.

  POOR ANNA DID NOT GET one lick of her ice cream.

  Even worse, the Hitty book had to be washed, and then left on the kitchen windowsill to dry.

  ‘How long till I can read it again?’ asked Anna.

  ‘Just a few days,’ said Mummy. ‘You’d better not turn the pages while they’re wet, or they’ll tear.’