The Book Thief (60 page)

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:

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 basement, 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 basement or by the fire.

Of course, there were many thoughts, sketches, and dreams relating to Stuttgart and Germany and the
Führer
. 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.

She turned the page.

THERE WAS once a strange, small man. He decided three important details about his life:

1. He would part his hair from the opposite side to everyone else
   .
   

2. He would make himself a small, strange mustache
   .
   

3. 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 Führer 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 Führer also planted seeds to create symbols, and these, too, were well on their way to full bloom. Now the time had come. The Führer 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 Führer’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 friendship—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
.