The clouds clustered tightly together like the delicate snowflakes of winter, then spread out just as quickly. A sigh from the book thief's mouth emanated. If you had asked her what was wrong, she would have said that she was tired or that she had eaten too much porridge that morning and her stomach was bothering her or that she just wanted to be left alone. But I knew better.
A small note:
Liesel Meminger was, in her own way, mourning.
"Saumensch..." she muttered under her breath, tasting the words on her lips and trying to remember how somebody she had once known had said them, "Saukerl..." Tears fell guiltily from her eyelids and landed heavily on the windowsill. She wiped them away, wiped away the grief and sorrow and frustration with her dry hand. If only life was so simple. Her hair hung limply from her head like a rag-doll without stuffing and her eyes had lost their cunning shine. The book-thief was not dealing well.
"Liesel, my dear!" came the blank and tall voice of Ms. Klein, the "keeper." In reality, Liesel had no keeper. No matter how far she fell into the obviously deep pit that she had dug, Liesel Meminger would never lose her fight. And so, quite simply, she did not respond.
"Liesel!" The call came again. A humorless smile played across the girl's lips. She found the woman's attempt at "kindness" rather amusing. I, for one, do not believe that Ms. Klein had an ounce of sense about human nature in her bony frame. She was clueless, and Liesel knew it.
"Saumensch!" yelled the girl, the words of her stealings whirling nimbly through her mind. "I-I... come eat," came the reply. As you may guess, this response angered the thin girl. Her dark eyebrows curled inward like clenched fists, her eyes became more sinister than black, the color of death, and she decided to do something rather risky.
What Liesel Meminger decided to do:
Break the window
It happened quite quickly, a single good hit to the glass to send it shattering. Liesel imagined it as Rudy and Mama and Papa. There was a single scream from the kitchen, but I could tell that it was not one of disapproval or disdain. This was a scream of fear. The fat tears taunted Liesel and laughed as they cleaned her cheeks with their purifying oils. She did not make a sound when the glass burrowed into her bare, callused toes or when her fingers were poked and slashed. Not even when she landed hard on the pile of rubble outside and her blood stained the grass. At least she had left Klein with the colors of Christmas. Liesel stood quickly, her face blank and emotionless, and picked a single shard from her palm before running. I never saw Liesel Meminger again and that night, under the tattered, brown blankets of Death, a boy with the hair of a smile screamed.