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He was constantly whistling a tune called the Radetzky March, and all the kids in town would call out to him and duplicate that tune. At that precise moment, Pfiffikus would abandon his usual walking style (bent forward, taking large, lanky steps, arms behind his raincoated back) and erect himself to deliver abuse. It was then thatany impression of serenity was violently interrupted, for his voice was brimming with rage.
    On this occasion, Liesel followed Rudy’s taunt almost as a reflex action.
    “Pfiffikus!” she echoed, quickly adopting the appropriate cruelty that childhood seems to require. Her whistling was awful, but there was no time to perfect it.
    He chased them, calling out. It started with
“Geh’ scheissen!”
and deteriorated rapidly from there. At first, he leveled his abuse only at the boy, but soon enough, it was Liesel’s turn.
    “You little slut!” he roared at her. The words clobbered her in the back. “I’ve never seen you before!” Fancy calling a ten-year-old girl a slut. That was Pfiffikus. It was widely agreed that he and Frau Holtzapfel would have made a lovely couple. “Get back here!” were the last words Liesel and Rudy heard as they continued running. They ran until they were on Munich Street.
    “Come on,” Rudy said, once they’d recovered their breath. “Just down here a little.”
    He took her to Hubert Oval, the scene of the Jesse Owens incident, where they stood, hands in pockets. The track was stretched out in front of them. Only one thing could happen. Rudy started it. “Hundred meters,” he goaded her. “I bet you can’t beat me.”
    Liesel wasn’t taking any of that. “I bet you I can.”
    “What do you bet, you little
Saumensch?
Have you got any money?”
    “Of course not. Do you?”
    “No.” But Rudy had an idea. It was the lover boy coming out of him. “If I beat you, I get to kiss you.” He crouched down and began rolling up his trousers.
    Liesel was alarmed, to put it mildly. “What do you want to kiss
me
for? I’m filthy.”
    “So am I.” Rudy clearly saw no reason why a bit of filth should get in the way of things. It had been a while between baths for both of them.
    She thought about it while examining the weedy legs of her opposition. They were about equal with her own. There’s no way he can beat me, she thought. She nodded seriously. This was business. “You can kiss me if you win. But if
I
win, I get out of being goalie at soccer.”
    Rudy considered it. “Fair enough,” and they shook on it.
    All was dark-skied and hazy, and small chips of rain were starting to fall.
    The track was muddier than it looked.
    Both competitors were set.
    Rudy threw a rock in the air as the starting pistol. When it hit the ground, they could start running.
    “I can’t even see the finish line,” Liesel complained.
    “And
I
can?”
    The rock wedged itself into the earth.
    They ran next to each other, elbowing and trying to get in front. The slippery ground slurped at their feet and brought them down perhaps twenty meters from the end.
    “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph!” yelped Rudy. “I’m covered in shit!”
    “It’s not shit,” Liesel corrected him, “it’s mud,” although she had her doubts. They’d slid another five meters toward the finish. “Do we call it a draw, then?”
    Rudy looked over, all sharp teeth and gangly blue eyes. Half his face was painted with mud. “If it’s a draw, do I still get my kiss?”
    “Not in a million years.” Liesel stood up and flicked some mud off her jacket.
    “I’ll get you out of goalie.”
    “Stick your goalie.”
    As they walked back to Himmel Street, Rudy forewarned her. “One day, Liesel,” he said, “you’ll be dying to kiss me.”
    But Liesel knew.
    She vowed.
    As long as both she and Rudy Steiner lived, she would never kiss that miserable, filthy
Saukerl
, especially not
this
day. There were more important matters to attend to. She looked down at her suit of mud and stated the