She remained on the steps, waiting for Papa, watching the stray ash and the corpse of collected books.Everything was sad. Orange and red embers looked like rejected candy, and most of the crowd had vanished.She’d seen Frau Diller leave (very satisfied) and Pfiffikus (white hair, a Nazi uniform, the same dilapidatedshoes, and a triumphant whistle). Now there was nothing but cleaning up, and soon, no one would even imagineit had happened.But you could smell it.“What are you doing?”Hans Hubermann arrived at the church steps.“Hi, Papa.”“You were supposed to be in front of the town hall.”“Sorry, Papa.”He sat down next to her, halving his tallness on the concrete and taking a piece of Liesel’s hair. His fingersadjusted it gently behind her ear. “Liesel, what’s wrong?”For a while, she said nothing. She was making calculations, despite already knowing. An eleven-year-old girl ismany things, but she is not stupid.A SMALL ADDITIONThe word communist + a large bonfire + a collection of dead letters + the suffering of her mother + the death of her brother = the Führer The Führer.He was the they that Hans and Rosa Hubermann were talking about that evening when she first wrote to hermother. She knew it, but she had to ask.“Is my mother a communist?” Staring. Straight ahead. “They were always asking her things, before I camehere.”Hans edged forward a little, forming the beginnings of a lie. “I have no idea—I never met her.”“Did the Führer take her away?”The question surprised them both, and it forced Papa to stand up. He looked at the brown-shirted men taking tothe pile of ash with shovels. He could hear them hacking into it. Another lie was growing in his mouth, but hefound it impossible to let it out. He said, “I think he might have, yes.”“I knew it.” The words were thrown at the steps and Liesel could feel the slush of anger, stirring hotly in herstomach. “I hate the Führer,” she said. “I hate him.”And Hans Hubermann?What did he do?What did he say?Did he bend down and embrace his foster daughter, as he wanted to? Did he tell her that he was sorry for whatwas happening to her, to her mother, for what had happened to her brother?Not exactly.He clenched his eyes. Then opened them. He slapped Liesel Meminger squarely in the face.“Don’t ever say that!” His voice was quiet, but sharp.As the girl shook and sagged on the steps, he sat next to her and held his face in his hands. It would be easy tosay that he was just a tall man sitting poor-postured and shattered on some church steps, but he wasn’t. At thetime, Liesel had no idea that her foster father, Hans Hubermann, was contemplating one of the most dangerousdilemmas a German citizen could face. Not only that, he’d been facing it for close to a year.“Papa?”The surprise in her voice rushed her, but it also rendered her useless. She wanted to run, but she couldn’t. Shecould take a Watschen from nuns and Rosas, but it hurt so much more from Papa. The hands were gone fromPapa’s face now and he found the resolve to speak again.“You can say that in our house,” he said, looking gravely at Liesel’s cheek. “But you never say it on the street,at school, at the BDM, never!” He stood in front of her and lifted her by the triceps. He shook her. “Do you hearme?”With her eyes trapped wide open, Liesel nodded her compliance.It was, in fact, a rehearsal for a future lecture, when all of Hans Hubermann’s worst fears arrived on HimmelStreet later that year, in the early hours of a November morning.“Good.” He placed her back down. “Now, let us try . . .” At the bottom of the steps, Papa stood erect andcocked his arm. Forty-five degrees. “Heil Hitler.”Liesel stood up and also raised her arm. With absolute misery, she repeated it. “Heil Hitler.” It was quite a sight—an eleven-year-old girl, trying not to cry on the church steps, saluting the Führer as the voices over Papa’sshoulder chopped and beat at the dark shape in the background.“Are we still friends?”Perhaps a quarter of an hour later, Papa held a cigarette olive branch in his palm—the paper and tobacco he’djust received. Without a word, Liesel reached gloomily across and proceeded to roll it.For quite a while, they sat there together.Smoke climbed over Papa’s shoulder.After another ten minutes, the gates of thievery would open just a crack, and Liesel Meminger would widenthem a little further and squeeze through.TWO QUESTIONSWould the gates shut behind her? Or would they have the goodwill to let her back out?As Liesel would discover, a good thief requires many things.Stealth. Nerve. Speed.More important than any of those things, however, was one final requirement.Luck.Actually.Forget the ten minutes.The gates open now.The dark came in pieces, and with the cigarette brought to an end, Liesel and Hans Hubermann began to walkhome. To get out of the square, they would walk past the bonfire site and through a small side road onto MunichStreet. They didn’t make it that far.A middle-aged carpenter named Wolfgang Edel called out. He’d built the platforms for the Nazi big shots tostand on during the fire and he was in the process now of pulling them down. “Hans Hubermann?” He had longsideburns that pointed to his mouth and a dark voice. “Hansi!”“Hey, Wolfal,” Hans replied. There was an introduction to the girl and a “heil Hitler.” “Good, Liesel.”For the first few minutes, Liesel stayed within a five-meter radius of the conversation. Fragments came past her,but she didn’t pay too much attention.“Getting much work?”“No, it’s all tighter now. You know how it is, especially when you’re not a member.”“You told me you were joining, Hansi.”“I tried, but I made a mistake—I think they’re still considering.”Liesel wandered toward the mountain of ash. It sat like a magnet, like a freak. Irresistible to the eyes, similar tothe road of yellow stars.As with her previous urge to see the mound’s ignition, she could not look away. All alone, she didn’t have thediscipline to keep a safe distance. It sucked her toward it and she began to make her way around.Above her, the sky was completing its routine of darkening, but far away, over the mountain’s shoulder, therewas a dull trace of light.“Pass auf, Kind,” a uniform said to her at one point. “Look out, child,” as he shoveled some more ash onto acart.Closer to the town hall, under a light, some shadows stood and talked, most likely exulting in the success of thefire. From Liesel’s position, their voices were only sounds. Not words at all.For a few minutes, she watched the men shoveling up the pile, at first making it smaller at the sides to allowmore of it to collapse. They came back and forth from a truck, and after three return trips, when the heap wasreduced near the bottom, a small section of living material slipped from inside the ash.THE MATERIALHalf a red flag, two posters advertising a Jewish poet, three books, and a wooden sign with something written on it in Hebrew Perhaps they were damp. Perhaps the fire didn’t burn long enough to fully reach the depth where they sat.Whatever the reason, they were huddled among the ashes, shaken. Survivors.“Three books.” Liesel spoke softly and she looked at the backs of the men.“Come on,” said one of them. “Hurry up, will you, I’m starving.”They moved toward the truck.The threesome of books poked their noses out.Liesel moved in.The heat was still strong enough to warm her when she stood at the foot of the ash heap. When she reached herhand in, she was bitten, but on the second attempt, she made sure she was fast enough. She latched onto theclosest of the books. It was hot, but it was also wet, burned only at the edges, but otherwise unhurt.It was blue.The cover felt like it was woven with hundreds of tightly drawn strings and clamped down. Red letters werepressed into those fibers. The only word Liesel had time to read was Shoulder. There wasn’t enough time forthe rest, and there was a problem. The smoke.Smoke lifted from the cover as she juggled it and hurried away. Her head was pulled down, and the sick beautyof nerves proved more ghastly with each stride. There were fourteen steps till the voice.It propped itself up behind her.“Hey!”That was when she nearly ran back and tossed the book onto the mound, but she was unable. The onlymovement at her disposal was the act of turning.“There are some things here that didn’t burn!” It was one of the cleanup men. He was not facing the girl, butrather, the people standing by the town hall.“Well, burn them again!” came the reply. “And watch them burn!”“I think they’re wet!”“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, do I have to do everything myself?” The sound of footsteps passed by. It was themayor, wearing a black coat over his Nazi uniform. He didn’t notice the girl who stood absolutely still only ashort distance away.A REALIZATIONA statue of the book thief stood in the courtyard. . . . It’s very rare, don’t you think, for a statue to appear before its subject has become famous.She sank.