Excerpt from Girl in the Blue Coat by Monica Hesse, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

"Mrs. Janssen?" He fumbles with his hat in his hands, uncomfortable to have interrupted us. "I'm here for the opklapbed? This is the time you said?"

"Yes, of course." She begins to rise, but Christoffel gestures for her to stay seated.

"I can manage on my own. I have a cart, and a friend waiting outside to help." He nods toward the window, where a tall, stout boy waves from the street. When he disappears for his cart and his friend, Mrs. Janssen sees my alarmed face and reassures me. "Not that bed. Not Mirjam's. He's taking the one in Hendrik's office. I barely go in that room anymore. I asked Christoffel if he could find a buyer, and I was going to use the money to help support Mirjam."

"Now?"

"Now I'll use the money to pay you to help me." I'm shaking my head in protest, but she cuts me off. "You have to find her, Hanneke. My older sons— I may never see them again. My youngest son is dead, my husband died trying to protect Mirjam's family, and her family died trying to protect him. I have no one now, and neither does she. Mirjam and I must be each other's family. Don't let me lose her. Please."

I'm saved from having to respond by the squeaking wheels of Christoffel's pushcart, to which he and his friend have lashed Mrs. Janssen's other opklapbed. It's more ornate than the one in the pantry, the wood smooth and varnished and still smelling faintly of lemon furniture oil. "Mrs. Janssen? I'm leaving now," he says. "Wait," I tell him. "Mrs. Janssen, maybe you don't need to sell this bed now. Wait a day to think about it." It's my way of telling her I'm not going to be able to agree to this proposition.

"No. I'm selling it now," she says definitively. "I have to. Christoffel, how much do I owe you for your trouble in picking it up?"

"Nothing, Mrs. Janssen. I'm happy to do it."

"I insist." She reaches for her pocketbook on the table and begins to count out money from a small coin purse. "Oh dear. I thought I had—"

"It's not necessary," Christoffel insists. He is blushing again and looks to me, stricken, for help.

"Mrs. Janssen," I say softly. "Christoffel has other deliveries. Why don't we let him go?"

She stops searching through her pocketbook and folds it closed, embarrassed. Once Christoffel leaves, she sinks back to her chair. She looks tired and old. "Will you help me?" she asks. I drain the rest of my cold coffee. What outcome does she think I can deliver? I wouldn't know where to start. Even if Mirjam managed to escape, how far could a fifteen-year-old girl with a yellow Jodenster on her clothing get? I don't need to take Mrs. Janssen's money to know what will happen to a girl like Mirjam, if it hasn't happened already: She'll be captured, and she'll be relocated to a labor camp in Germany or Poland, the type from which nobody has yet to return. But how did she get out in the first place?

There has to be a rational explanation, I tell myself again. People don't disappear into thin air. But that's a lie, actually. People disappear into thin air every day during this occupation. Hundreds of people, taken from their homes.

How can she expect me to find just one?

Excerpted from Girl in the Blue Coat by Monica Hesse. Copyright © 2016 by Monica Hesse. Excerpted by permission of Little, Brown Books for Young Readers. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.