The Book Thief Part 61

"Scheiss drauf! s.h.i.+t on them, who cares!"

They ran, and after a hundred meters, the hunched breath of the soldier drew closer. It sidled up next to her and she waited for the accompanying hand.

She was lucky.

All she received was a boot up the a.s.s and a fistful of words. "Keep running, little girl, you don't belong here!" She ran and she did not stop for at least another mile. Branches sliced her arms, pinecones rolled at her feet, and the taste of Christmas needles chimed inside her lungs.

A good forty-five minutes had pa.s.sed by the time she made it back, and Rudy was sitting by the rusty bikes. He'd collected what was left of the bread and was chewing on a stale, stiff portion.

"I told you not to get too close," he said.

She showed him her backside. "Have I got a footprint?"

THE HIDDEN SKETCHBOOK.

A few days before Christmas, there was another raid, although nothing dropped on the town of Molching. According to the radio news, most of the bombs fell in open country.

What was most important was the reaction in the Fiedlers' shelter. Once the last few patrons had arrived, everyone settled down solemnly and waited. They looked at her, expectantly.

Papa's voice arrived, loud in her ears.

"And if there are more raids, keep reading in the shelter."

Liesel waited. She needed to be sure that they wanted it.

Rudy spoke for everyone. "Read, Saumensch."

She opened the book, and again, the words found their way upon all those present in the shelter.

At home, once the sirens had given permission for everyone to return aboveground, Liesel sat in the kitchen with her mama. A preoccupation was at the forefront of Rosa Hubermann's expression, and it was not long until she picked up a knife and left the room. "Come with me."

She walked to the living room and took the sheet from the edge of her mattress. In the side, there was a sewn-up slit. If you didn't know beforehand that it was there, there was almost no chance of finding it. Rosa cut it carefully open and inserted her hand, reaching in the length of her entire arm. When it came back out, she was holding Max Vandenburg's sketchbook.

"He said to give this to you when you were ready," she said. "I was thinking your birthday. Then I brought it back to Christmas." Rosa Hubermann stood and there was a strange look on her face. It was not made up of pride. Perhaps it was the thickness, the heaviness of recollection. She said, "I think you've always been ready, Liesel. From the moment you arrived here, clinging to that gate, you were meant to have this."

Rosa gave her the book.

The cover looked like this:

THE WORD SHAKER.

A Small Collection

of Thoughts

for Liesel Meminger

Liesel held it with soft hands. She stared. "Thanks, Mama."

She embraced her.

There was also a great longing to tell Rosa Hubermann that she loved her. It's a shame she didn't say it.

She wanted to read the book in the bas.e.m.e.nt, for old times' sake, but Mama convinced her otherwise. "There's a reason Max got sick down there," she said, "and I can tell you one thing, girl, I'm not letting you get sick."

She read in the kitchen.

Red and yellow gaps in the stove.

The Word Shaker.

She made her way through the countless sketches and stories, and the pictures with captions. Things like Rudy on a dais with three gold medals slung around his neck. Hair the color of lemons was written beneath it. The snowman made an appearance, as did a list of the thirteen presents, not to mention the records of countless nights in the bas.e.m.e.nt or by the fire.

Of course, there were many thoughts, sketches, and dreams relating to Stuttgart and Germany and the Fhrer. Recollections of Max's family were also there. In the end, he could not resist including them. He had to.

Then came.

That was where The Word Shaker itself made its appearance.

It was a fable or a fairy tale. Liesel was not sure which. Even days later, when she looked up both terms in the Duden Dictionary, she couldn't distinguish between the two.

On the previous page, there was a small note.

PAGE 116.

Liesel-I almost scribbled this story out. I thought you might be too old for such a tale, but maybe no one is. I thought of you and your books and words, and this strange story came into my head. I hope you can find some good in it.

She turned the page.

THERE WAS once a strange, small man. He decided three important details about his life: He would part his hair from the opposite side to everyone else.

He would make himself a small, strange mustache.

He would one day rule the world.

The young man wandered around for quite some time, thinking, planning, and figuring out exactly how to make the world his. Then one day, out of nowhere, it struck him-the perfect plan. He'd seen a mother walking with her child. At one point, she admonished the small boy, until finally, he began to cry. Within a few minutes, she spoke very softly to him, after which he was soothed and even smiled.

The young man rushed to the woman and embraced her. "Words!" He grinned.

"What?"

But there was no reply. He was already gone.

Yes, the Fhrer decided that he would rule the world with words. "I will never fire a gun," he devised. "I will not have to." Still, he was not rash. Let's allow him at least that much. He was not a stupid man at all. His first plan of attack was to plant the words in as many areas of his homeland as possible.

He planted them day and night, and cultivated them.

He watched them grow, until eventually, great forests of words had risen throughout Germany .... It was a nation of farmed thoughts.

WHILE THE words were growing, our young Fhrer also planted seeds to create symbols, and these, too, were well on their way to full bloom. Now the time had come. The Fhrer was ready.

He invited his people toward his own glorious heart, beckoning them with his finest, ugliest words, handpicked from his forests. And the people came.

They were all placed on a conveyor belt and run through a rampant machine that gave them a lifetime in ten minutes. Words were fed into them. Time disappeared and they now Knew everything they needed to know. They were hypnotized.

Next, they were fitted with their symbols, and everyone was happy.

Soon, the demand for the lovely ugly words and Symbols increased to such a point that as the forests grew, many people were needed to maintain them. Some were employed to climb the trees and throw the words down to those below. They were then fed directly into the remainder of the Fhrer's people, not to mention those who came back for more.

The people who climbed the trees were called word shakers.

THE BEST word shakers were the ones who understood the true power of words. They were the ones who could climb the highest. One such word shaker was a small, skinny girl. She was renowned as the best word shaker of her region because she knew how powerless a person could be WITHOUT words.

That's why she could climb higher than anyone else. She had desire. She was hungry for them.

One day, however, she met a man who was despised by her homeland, even though he was born in it. They became good friends, and when the man was sick, the word shaker allowed a single teardrop to fall on his face. The tear was made of friends.h.i.+p-a single word-and it dried and became a seed, and when next the girl was in the forest, she planted that seed among the other trees. She watered it every day.

At first, there was nothing, but one afternoon, when she checked it after a day of word-shaking, a small sprout had shot up. She stared at it for a long time.

The tree grew every day, faster than everything else, till it was the tallest tree in the forest. Everyone came to look at it. They all whispered about it, and they waited... for the Fhrer.

Incensed, he immediately ordered the tree to be cut down. That was when the word shaker made her way through the crowd. She fell to her hands and knees. "Please," she cried, "you can't cut it down"

The Fhrer, however, was unmoved. He could not afford to make exceptions. As the word shaker was dragged away, he turned to his right-hand man and made a request. "Ax, please"

AT THAT moment, the word shaker twisted free. She ran. She boarded the tree, and even as the Fhrer hammered at the trunk with his ax, she climbed until she reached the highest of the branches. The voices and ax beats continued faintly on. Clouds walked by-like white monsters with gray hearts. Afraid but stubborn, the word shaker remained. She waited for the tree to fall.

But the tree would not move.

Many hours pa.s.sed, and still, the Fhrer's ax could not take a single bite out of the trunk. In a state nearing collapse, he ordered another man to continue.

Days pa.s.sed.

Weeks took over.

A hundred and ninety-six soldiers could not make any impact on the word shaker's tree.

"But how does she eat?" the people asked. "How does she sleep?"

What they didn't know was that other word shakers threw supplies across, and the girl climbed down to the lower branches to collect them.

IT SNOWED. It rained. Seasons came and went. The word shaker remained.

When the last axman gave up, he called up to her. "Word shaker! You can come down now! There is no one who can defeat this tree!"

The word shaker, who could only just make out the man's sentences, replied with a whisper. She handed it down through the branches. "NO thank you," she said, for she knew that it was only herself who was holding the tree upright.

NO ONE knew how long it had taken, but one afternoon, a new axman walked into town. His bag looked too heavy for him. His eyes dragged. His feet drooped with exhaustion. "The tree," he asked the people. "Where is the tree?"

An audience followed him, and when he arrived, clouds had covered the highest regions of the branches. The word shaker could hear the people calling out that a new axman had come to put an end to her vigil.

"She will not come down," the people said, "for anyone."

They did not know who the axman was, and they did not know that he was undeterred.

He opened his bag and pulled out something much smaller than an ax.

The people laughed. They said, "You can't chop a tree down with an old hammer!"

The young man did not listen to them. He only looked through his bag for some nails. He placed three of them in his mouth and attempted to hammer a fourth one into the tree. The first branches were now extremely high and he estimated that he needed four nails to use as footholds to reach them.

"Look at this idiot," roared one of the watching men. "NO one else could chop it down with an ax, and this fool thinks he can do it with-"

The man fell silent.

THE FIRST nail entered the tree and was held steady after five blows. Then the second went in, and the young man started to climb.

By the fourth nail, he was up in the arms and continued on his way. He was tempted to call out as he did so, but he decided against it.