When Tommy Müller finished his mediocre attempt, she looked around the room. Everyone had read. She was the only one left.
“Very good.” Sister Maria nodded, perusing the list. “That’s everyone.”
What?
“No!”
A voice practically appeared on the other side of the room. Attached to it was a lemon-haired boy whose bony knees knocked in his pants under the desk. He stretched his hand up and said, “Sister Maria, I think you forgot Liesel.”
Sister Maria.
Was not impressed.
She plonked her folder on the table in front of her and inspected Rudy with sighing disapproval. It was almost melancholic. Why, she lamented, did she have to put up with Rudy Steiner? He simply couldn’t keep his mouth shut. Why, God, why?
“No,” she said, with finality. Her small belly leaned forward with the rest of her. “I’m afraid Liesel cannot do it, Rudy.” The teacher looked across, for confirmation. “She will read for me later.”
The girl cleared her throat and spoke with quiet defiance. “I can do it now, Sister.” The majority of other kids watched in silence. A few of them performed the beautiful childhood art of snickering.
The sister had had enough. “No, you cannot! … What are you doing?”
—For Liesel was out of her chair and walking slowly, stiffly toward the front of the room. She picked up the book and opened it to a random page.
“All right, then,” said Sister Maria. “You want to do it? Do it.”
“Yes, Sister.” After a quick glance at Rudy, Liesel lowered her eyes and examined the page.
When she looked up again, the room was pulled apart, then squashed back together. All the kids were mashed, right before her eyes, and in a moment of brilliance, she imagined herself reading the entire page in faultless, fluency-filled triumph.
A KEY WORD
Imagined
“Come on, Liesel!”
Rudy broke the silence.
The book thief looked down again, at the words.
Come on. Rudy mouthed it this time. Come on, Liesel.
Her blood loudened. The sentences blurred.
The white page was suddenly written in another tongue, and it didn’t help that tears were now forming in her eyes. She couldn’t even see the words anymore.
And the sun. That awful sun. It burst through the window—the glass was everywhere—and shone directly onto the useless girl. It shouted in her face. “You can steal a book, but you can’t read one!”
It came to her. A solution.
Breathing, breathing, she started to read, but not from the book in front of her. It was something from The Grave Digger’s Handbook. Chapter three: “In the Event of Snow.” She’d memorized it from her papa’s voice.
“In the event of snow,” she spoke, “you must make sure you use a good shovel. You must dig deep; you cannot be lazy. You cannot cut corners.” Again, she sucked in a large clump of air. “Of course, it is easier to wait for the warmest part of the day, when—”
It ended.
The book was snatched from her grasp and she was told. “Liesel—the corridor.”
As she was given a small Watschen, she could hear them all laughing in the classroom, between Sister Maria’s striking hand. She saw them. All those mashed children. Grinning and laughing. Bathed in sunshine. Everyone laughing but Rudy.