Read Online The Book Thief by Markus Zusak - Free Book Online Page A

world talked
it over.
    Newspaper
headlines reveled in it.
    The
Führer
’s
voice roared from German radios. We will not give up. We will not rest. We will
be victorious. Our time has come.
    The German
invasion of Poland had begun and people were gathered everywhere, listening to
the news of it. Munich Street, like every other main street in Germany, was
alive with war. The smell, the voice. Rationing had begun a few days earlier—the
writing on the wall—and now it was official. England and France had made their
declaration on Germany. To steal a phrase from Hans Hubermann:
    The fun begins.
    The day of the
announcement, Papa was lucky enough to have some work. On his way home, he
picked up a discarded newspaper, and rather than stopping to shove it between
paint cans in his cart, he folded it up and slipped it beneath his shirt. By
the time he made it home and removed it, his sweat had drawn the ink onto his
skin. The paper landed on the table, but the news was stapled to his chest. A
tattoo. Holding the shirt open, he looked down in the unsure kitchen light.
    “What does it
say?” Liesel asked him. She was looking back and forth, from the black outlines
on his skin to the paper.
    “ ‘Hitler takes
Poland,’ ” he answered, and Hans Hubermann slumped into a chair.
“Deutschland
über Alles,”
he whispered, and his voice was not remotely patriotic.
    The face was
there again—his accordion face.
    That was one war
started.
    Liesel would
soon be in another.
    Nearly a month
after school resumed, she was moved up to her rightful year level. You might
think this was due to her improved reading, but it wasn’t. Despite the
advancement, she still read with great difficulty. Sentences were strewn
everywhere. Words fooled her. The reason she was elevated had more to do with
the fact that she became disruptive in the younger class. She answered
questions directed to other children and called out. A few times, she was given
what was known as a
Watschen
(pronounced “varchen”) in the corridor.
    A
DEFINITION
     
    Watschen
= a good hiding
    She was taken
up, put in a chair at the side, and told to keep her mouth shut by the teacher,
who also happened to be a nun. At the other end of the classroom, Rudy looked
across and waved. Liesel waved back and tried not to smile.
    At home, she was
well into reading
The Grave Digger’s Handbook
with Papa. They would
circle the words she couldn’t understand and take them down to the basement the
next day. She thought it was enough. It was not enough.
    Somewhere at the
start of November, there were some progress tests at school. One of them was
for reading. Every child was made to stand at the front of the room and read
from a passage the teacher gave them. It was a frosty morning but bright with
sun. Children scrunched their eyes. A halo surrounded the grim reaper nun,
Sister Maria. (By the way—I like this human idea of the grim reaper. I like the
scythe. It amuses me.)
    In the sun-heavy
classroom, names were rattled off at random.
    “Waldenheim,
Lehmann, Steiner.”
    They all stood
up and did a reading, all at different levels of capability. Rudy was
surprisingly good.
    Throughout the
test, Liesel sat with a mixture of hot anticipation and excruciating fear. She
wanted desperately to measure herself, to find out once and for all how her
learning was advancing. Was she up to it? Could she even come close to Rudy and
the rest of them?
    Each time Sister
Maria looked at her list, a string of nerves tightened in Liesel’s ribs. It
started in her stomach but had worked its way up. Soon, it would be around her
neck, thick as rope.
    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