Anna was awakened by gentle shaking. She opened her eyes to look up into Mrs. Brimmer's smiling face.

"Time to wake up, sweetheart!"

Anna looked over to see that Laura had just been awakened as well. Both girls scrambled out of bed and hurried to the kitchen, where Mr. Brimmer and Max were already eating breakfast.

Anna sat down to a plate of bacon, scrambled eggs, grits, and toast. Her own mother had never served bacon for breakfast before, but she cooked sausages for Anna's father for dinner sometimes. Anna's father loved sausages.

"Bacon is like sausage, isn't it?" she asked.

"They both come from pigs, yes," said Mr. Brimmer.

Anna wrinkled her nose. "Bubbe and Aunt Sarah said pigs aren't kosher. That means you're not supposed to eat them."

Mrs. Brimmer wiped her hands on a dish towel.

"That's because they're Jewish. We're Lutheran, so we don't keep kosher."

Anna frowned, contemplating the situation.

"My Mommy doesn't eat the sausage. Just my Daddy does. Maybe I shouldn't eat the bacon, either," she decided.

"Can I have it?" Max asked.

Anna shrugged.

"Sure."

Max took the bacon from her plate and piled it onto his own.

After breakfast, Laura and Anna went into Laura's bedroom to change into their Sunday dresses. Laura's was yellow, and Anna's was pink. When everyone was ready, Mr. Brimmer drove them to the church.

The church was made of wood and painted white, and inside were two rows of wooden benches with a wooden altar and podium at the front. Mr. Brimmer led the family to a bench about halfway down the aisle. A few of the benches already had people sitting in them, and more people arrived after the Brimmers.

Anna looked around and recognized Ellen and Gene from school.

A middle-aged man with short brown hair parted on the side walked to the podium. Anna assumed he must be the pastor.

"In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit," he intoned.

"Amen," replied the congregation.

A prayer, and then a song, followed. Then the pastor asked all children twelve and under to come forward.

"It's time for Sunday School," Laura whispered to Anna.

Sunday School took place in a small room to the side of the main building. The walls were painted yellow, and children's drawings were hung on them. In the middle of the room was an oblong table with twelve little chairs around it. At the head of the table sat a smiling brunette of about Anna's mother's age.

"I see we have a visitor this morning," she said. "Welcome to our Sunday school. My name is Miss Ruth. What's yours?"

"Anna." Suddenly, she felt very shy.

"Well, it's good to have you with us this morning." said Miss Ruth.

"She's in my class at school," said Ellen.

"That's nice," said Miss Ruth. "Today we'll be learning about the time Jesus walked on the water, and then we'll draw pictures to go along with the lesson."

Anna had heard of Jesus, of course, but she didn't know very much about him, except that he lived a long time ago and was important to Christians, like her father and her German grandparents. As the lesson progressed, she thought about the incident with the bacon that morning, and suddenly she had a question and raised her hand.

"How come Christians can eat meat that comes from a pig but Jews can't ?" she asked.

Miss Ruth bit her bottom lip, thinking of how to answer.

"Well, Anna, I don't know a whole lot about the Jews and how they believe, but I do know they worship the same God we Christians do, and if they believe he doesn't want them to eat certain things, then that's what they do. It isn't that one group is right and the other is wrong. It's just that different people live by different rules. I'm sure there are things your parents let you do that some of your friends can't do, and the other way around, as well. It's the same way with different religions."

"Oh," said Anna, but she still didn't really understand.

Mrs. Brimmer cooked a delicious dinner of fried chicken and mashed potatoes, and after lunch, April came over to play.

"You remember my friend Anna, don't you?" said Laura.

"Uh huh," said April. "What do you want to do first, jump rope or hopscotch?"

"Since Anna's here, we have three people," said Laura. "Two to turn the rope and one to jump, so we can take turns."

"Yay!" said April.

The girls took turns jumping rope for awhile, and when they got tired of that, they played hopscotch. Later, Anna's mother came to pick her up.

"Did you have fun with Laura and Max?" she asked as the two of them walked back home.

"Oh, yes!" said Anna. "We went to church and Sunday School this morning, and this evening, April came over and we jumped rope and played hopscotch. I'm almost as good as they are!"

Anna's mother smiled.

"That's nice."

When Anna got home, she was so tired she took a long nap on the sofa.