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say,
“Schweine!”
each time she walked past. One thing I’ve noticed about
the Germans:
    They seem very
fond of pigs.
    A
SMALL QUESTION AND
     
    ITS ANSWER
     
    And who do you think was made to
     
    clean the spit off the door each night?
     
    Yes—you got it.
    When a woman
with an iron fist tells you to get out there and clean spit off the door, you
do it. Especially when the iron’s hot.
    It was all just
part of the routine, really.
    Each night,
Liesel would step outside, wipe the door, and watch the sky. Usually it was
like spillage—cold and heavy, slippery and gray—but once in a while some stars
had the nerve to rise and float, if only for a few minutes. On those nights,
she would stay a little longer and wait.
    “Hello, stars.”
    Waiting.
    For the voice
from the kitchen.
    Or till the
stars were dragged down again, into the waters of the German sky.

     
     
    THE KISS
    (A
Childhood Decision Maker)
    As with most
small towns, Molching was filled with characters. A handful of them lived on
Himmel Street. Frau Holtzapfel was only one cast member.
    The others
included the likes of these:
    •
Rudy Steiner—the boy next door who was obsessed with the black American athlete
Jesse Owens.
    •
Frau Diller—the staunch Aryan corner-shop owner.
    •
Tommy Müller—a kid whose chronic ear infections had resulted in several
operations, a pink river of skin painted across his face, and a tendency to
twitch.
    •
A man known primarily as “Pfiffikus”—whose vulgarity made Rosa Hubermann look
like a wordsmith and a saint.
    On the whole, it
was a street filled with relatively poor people, despite the apparent rise of
Germany’s economy under Hitler. Poor sides of town still existed.
    As mentioned
already, the house next door to the Hubermanns was rented by a family called
Steiner. The Steiners had six children. One of them, the infamous Rudy, would
soon become Liesel’s best friend, and later, her partner and sometime catalyst
in crime. She met him on the street.
    A few days after
Liesel’s first bath, Mama allowed her out, to play with the other kids. On
Himmel Street, friendships were made outside, no matter the weather. The
children rarely visited each other’s homes, for they were small and there was
usually very little in them. Also, they conducted their favorite pastime, like
professionals, on the street. Soccer. Teams were well set. Garbage cans were
used to mark out the goals.
    Being the new
kid in town, Liesel was immediately shoved between one pair of those cans.
(Tommy Müller was finally set free, despite being the most useless soccer
player Himmel Street had ever seen.)
    It all went
nicely for a while, until the fateful moment when Rudy Steiner was upended in
the snow by a Tommy Müller foul of frustration.
    “What?!” Tommy
shouted. His face twitched in desperation. “What did I do?!”
    A penalty was
awarded by everyone on Rudy’s team, and now it was Rudy Steiner against the new
kid, Liesel Meminger.
    He placed the
ball on a grubby mound of snow, confident of the usual outcome. After all, Rudy
hadn’t missed a penalty in eighteen shots, even when the opposition made a
point of booting Tommy Müller out of goal. No matter whom they replaced him
with, Rudy would score.
    On this
occasion, they tried to force Liesel out. As you might imagine, she protested,
and Rudy agreed.
    “No, no.” He
smiled. “Let her stay.” He was rubbing his hands together.
    Snow had stopped
falling on the filthy street now, and the muddy footprints were gathered
between them. Rudy shuffled in, fired the shot, and Liesel dived and somehow
deflected it with her elbow. She stood up grinning, but the first thing she saw
was a snowball smashing into her face. Half of it was mud. It stung like crazy.
    “How do you like
that?” The boy grinned, and he ran off in pursuit of the ball.
    “Saukerl,”
Liesel
whispered. The vocabulary of her new home was catching on