A NEW LIFE
A/N: Oneshot! Originally written for an English assignment, but I thought it was worth sharing. Please read and review! Hope you enjoy :)
Liesel Meminger padded across the carpets of her Sydney home, picking up discarded toys from the floor. Elvis Presley sounded quietly from the record player as she closed the big front windows, blocking out the sight of the busy city traffic. She bustled into the kitchen, knocking a book off the shelf on the way. She bent down to pick it up and gasped. It was her journal, The Life and Story of Liesel Meminger. The book brought back so many memories. Memories as painful and heavy as an iron knife, memories of her life before. Shaking, she sat down and brought her hand to her head, unable to resist the urge to open it and take a peek. Just one page.
"Rudy.
Rudy, you Saumensch.
How could you leave me?"
Memories flashed before Liesel's eyes, and she was transported back to a much, much earlier tine, in a town called Molching on a street called heaven.
THE HARDEST GOODBYE
A younger Liesel Meminger stepped onto the path of 8 Grade Strasse and ambled slowly down the street. Isla Hermann watched anxiously from the front steps. Liesel turned the corner. A businessman strode briskly past her, envying Liesel's relaxed manner. To him it appeared she had no real destination at all, was just wandering the streets as children do.
~ A SMALL FACT~
Liesel knew exactly where she was going.
Two miles. Eight corners. Four thousand, nine hundred and twenty one steps. Countless painful memories. The Amper River.
The grief hung around The Book Thief, dark and black and so, so heavy. When the sound of rushing water first reached her ears, Liesel nearly collapsed. Relief and distress consumed her, swirling together in the most inexplicably painful way possible. But she struggled on. She had to do this. For herself. For Herr Steiner. For Rudy.
~AN HONEST TRUTH~
Humans amaze me.
Their ability to stay strong for others shows true strength and real determination.
They are both the most selfish creatures on earth, and the least.
When Liesel finally reached the bank, she stopped, facing away from the light of the slowly sinking sun. Inching closer to the river, she listened to the sound of its movement, imagined the feel of its freezing chill. She imagined other things, too, while she was standing there. She imagined a boy with hair the colour of lemons, laughing and throwing a half-eaten apple at her. She imagined pulling a face and calling him a Saumensch, even though she really wanted to laugh too. She imagined grabbing him and shaking him, demanding to know how he could leave her alone with only the mayor and his wife for company.
"Oh, Rudy," she whispered shakily. "Rudy, you Saumensch. How could you do this to me? Don't you know I love you? Don't you know that I miss you? I miss stealing apples with you and making ourselves sick on them. It was stealing that really sealed our friendship, I think. There were other things of course, but I think that's what kept us together at first."
Liesel paused for a moment and wiped her dripping nose. "Do you remember the last time we were here? Viktor Chemmel through my book into the river and you got it out for me. 'How about a kiss, Saumensch?' you asked. You were so proud of yourself."
She paused for a moment and pulled something out of her coat, fiddling with it. It was a little book, just some painted pages tied together with string.
"I have something for you. I wrote it myself."
Liesel spun the book around in her hands a few times, staring at it. Then, without flinching, walked straight into the icy water of the Amper River.
GRATITUDE
The cold slammed into Liesel the same way the bombs pummelled Molching. It was everywhere- crashing into her, spraying into her face, seeping into her very bones. The force of it swept her breath away and held her. Frozen.
~AN IMPORTANT NOTE~
Liesel had not thought it would be this cold.
Liesel opened her mouth to squeal for help but stopped. She could do this. She would do this. She had to. Using all her strength, she lifted one foot up in front of the other and walked further into the river. Liesel struggled on, until she was in the middle of the river.
She whispered goodbye.
Then she placed the book on the water.
The current immediately grabbed it; clawing at the pages and whipping it open as it tumbled over itself. Liesel watched it skim, fast as lightning, away from her, even as the words and paint began to run and fade away before her eyes.
When she could no longer glimpse it, she sloshed out of the river and strated back on her way to the Hermann household, dripping wet.
A NEW BEGINNING
People stared at the shivering girl, stumbling along the uneven path, arms crossed over her chest and shoulders hunched against the cold. A small child pointed and laughed, tugging his mother's sleeve and asking why the girl was so wet. What had she been doing?
Liesel ignored the stares and whispers, staggering as fast as she could to the place she would one day call home. When she walked onto her street, she spotted a boy outside someone else's house. He was short and thin, about Liesel's age but obviously hungry, his clothes tattered. As Liesel watched, he picked up a rock and aimed towards the window.
"Wait! Liesel yelled. The boy dropped the rock, frightened, looking around to see who had caught him. As he did, Liesel saw his eyes, and she recognised that look. The hungry, desperate look. The look that said he was tired of being lonely. Liesel had once looked like that.
Without knowing why she did it, Liesel pointed. "That hosue. The library window on the side is always open."
She was pointing towards 8 Grande Strasse.
Without a word, the boy nodded and, taking her advice, ran in that direction.
~SOME IMPORTANT FACTS~
The boy's name was Jonas.
In fifteen years, Liesel would marry him.
They would have one little boy, and name him Werner.
Liesel would die relatively young, in her home, with the sound of her husband and son laughing in the next room.
She would be clutching an old accordion, thinking of a kind man with silver eyes, and a refrigerator woman who called everyone a Saumensch.
Most of all, she would be thinking of a boy with hair the colour of lemons and a heart of pure gold.
THE END.