Number the Stars Ch 9-10: Cloze Sentences

The officer moved forward suddenly, across the room, to the coffin. He

placed one gloved hand on its lid. "Poor Great-aunt Birte," he said, in a

__________voice that made her feel bad.

"So, my little friend, it is time for the night of _____ of a lost loved one to

begin. Are you ready?"

Kirsti had gone to bed ______, complaining that she wanted to stay

up with the others, that she was grownup enough, that she had never before

seen a dead person in a closed-up box, that it wasn't fair.

His strong hands continued, ____pressing like a pulse against the cow.

The steady streams of milk still came. He looked at her again, his deep blue

eyes kind and questioning. "You are angry," he said.

The wooden coffin rested on supports in the center of the

living room and was surrounded by the _____, papery flowers that

Annemarie and Ellen had picked that afternoon.

She heard—as if in a ___________nightmare that keeps happening—the pounding on the door, and then the heavy, frighteningly familiar staccato of boots on the kitchen floor.

Surely __________germs wouldn't remain in a dead person!

Annemarie nodded again. Suddenly there was a noise outside. Uncle

Henrik's shoulders stiffened. He rose quickly, went to the window of the

barn, stood in the shadows, and looked out. Then he turned back to

Annemarie.

"It is the _____," he said. "It used to carry a coffin to the cemetary."

"I don't know exactly," Annemarie admitted and _____. "She and Peter were out

somewhere together, and then there was a telephone call, that there had

been an accident. Mama and Papa rushed to the hospital—remember, your

mother came and stayed with me and Kirsti?