Chapter 4 Summary

Annemarie and Ellen play with paper dolls in the Johansen's living room. Kirsti stomps in angrily, just ahead of her mother. Kirsti is upset because her new shoes are made of fish scales. Mama tries to tell her they were lucky to find shoes at all, but Kirsti is humiliated to be wearing green, scaly shoes. Ellen asks her if she'd like them better if they were black and shiny, and Kirsti says that she would. So Ellen offers to take them home and ask her dad to paint them black with the ink from his inkpot. Mollified, Kirsti asks to join in their game. Annemarie would rather not include her, but there's no one else for her to play with, and it would be too mean to ignore her in the tiny apartment.

They pretend they're taking their dolls to Tivoli, an...