The Mother of All Watschens: Liesel’s Defiance and the Grave Digger’s Secret

She was taken up, put in a chair at the side, and told to keep her‎mouth shut by the teacher, who also happened to be a nun. At the‎other end of the classroom, Rudy looked across and waved. Liesel‎waved back and tried not to smile.‎At home, she was well into reading The Grave Digger’s Handbook‎with Papa. They would circle the words she couldn’t understand and‎take them down to the basement the next day. She thought it was‎enough. It was not enough.‎Somewhere at the start of November, there were some progress‎tests at school. One of them was for reading. Every child was made to‎stand at the front of the room and read from a passage the teacher‎gave them. It was a frosty morning but bright with sun. Children‎scrunched their eyes. A halo surrounded the grim reaper nun, Sister‎Maria. (By the way—I like this human idea of the grim reaper. I like‎the scythe. It amuses me.)‎In the sun-heavy classroom, names were rattled off at random.‎“Waldenheim, Lehmann, Steiner.”‎They all stood up and did a reading, all at different levels of‎capability. Rudy was surprisingly good.‎Throughout the test, Liesel sat with a mixture of hot anticipation‎and excruciating fear. She wanted desperately to measure herself, to‎find out once and for all how her learning was advancing. Was she up‎to it? Could she even come close to Rudy and the rest of them?‎Each time Sister Maria looked at her list, a string of nerves‎tightened in Liesel’s ribs. It started in her stomach but had worked its‎way up. Soon, it would be around her neck, thick as rope.‎When Tommy Müller finished his mediocre attempt, she looked‎around the room. Everyone had read. She was the only one left.‎“Very good.” Sister Maria nodded, perusing the list. “That’s‎everyone.”‎What? “No!”‎A voice practically appeared on the other side of the room.‎Attached to it was a lemon-haired boy whose bony knees knocked in‎his pants under the desk. He stretched his hand up and said, “Sister‎Maria, I think you forgot Liesel.”‎Sister Maria.‎Was not impressed.‎She plonked her folder on the table in front of her and inspected Rudy‎with sighing disapproval. It was almost melancholic. Why, she‎lamented, did she have to put up with Rudy Steiner? He simply‎couldn’t keep his mouth shut. Why, God, why?‎“No,” she said, with finality. Her small belly leaned forward with‎the rest of her. “I’m afraid Liesel cannot do it, Rudy.” The teacher‎looked across, for confirmation. “She will read for me later.”‎The girl cleared her throat and spoke with quiet defiance. “I can do‎it now, Sister.” The majority of other kids watched in silence. A few‎of them performed the beautiful childhood art of snickering.‎The sister had had enough. “No, you cannot! … What are you‎doing?”‎—For Liesel was out of her chair and walking slowly, stiffly toward‎the front of the room. She picked up the book and opened it to a‎random page.‎“All right, then,” said Sister Maria. “You want to do it? Do it.”‎“Yes, Sister.” After a quick glance at Rudy, Liesel lowered her eyes‎and examined the page.‎When she looked up again, the room was pulled apart, then‎squashed back together. All the kids were mashed, right before her‎eyes, and in a moment of brilliance, she imagined herself reading the‎entire page in faultless, fluency-filled triumph.“Come on, Liesel!”‎Rudy broke the silence.‎The book thief looked down again, at the words.‎Come on. Rudy mouthed it this time. Come on, Liesel.‎Her blood loudened. The sentences blurred.‎The white page was suddenly written in another tongue, and it‎didn’t help that tears were now forming in her eyes. She couldn’t‎even see the words anymore.‎And the sun. That awful sun. It burst through the window—the‎glass was everywhere—and shone directly onto the useless girl. It‎shouted in her face. “You can steal a book, but you can’t read one!”‎It came to her. A solution.‎Breathing, breathing, she started to read, but not from the book in‎front of her. It was something from The Grave Digger’s Handbook.‎Chapter three: “In the Event of Snow.” She’d memorized it from her‎papa’s voice.‎“In the event of snow,” she spoke, “you must make sure you use a‎good shovel. You must dig deep; you cannot be lazy. You cannot cut‎corners.” Again, she sucked in a large clump of air. “Of course, it is‎easier to wait for the warmest part of the day, when—”‎It ended.‎The book was snatched from her grasp and she was told. “Liesel—‎the corridor.”‎As she was given a small Watschen, she could hear them all‎laughing in the classroom, between Sister Maria’s striking hand. She‎saw them. All those mashed children. Grinning and laughing. Bathed‎in sunshine. Everyone laughing but Rudy In the break, she was taunted. A boy named Ludwig Schmeikl came‎up to her with a book. “Hey, Liesel,” he said to her, “I’m having‎trouble with this word. Could you read it for me?” He laughed—a‎ten-year-old, smugness laughter. “You Dummkopf—you idiot.”‎Clouds were filing in now, big and clumsy, and more kids were‎calling out to her, watching her seethe.‎“Don’t listen to them,” Rudy advised.‎“Easy for you to say. You’re not the stupid one.”‎Nearing the end of the break, the tally of comments stood at‎nineteen. By the twentieth, she snapped. It was Schmeikl, back for‎more. “Come on, Liesel.” He stuck the book under her nose. “Help me‎out, will you?”‎Liesel helped him out, all right.‎She stood up and took the book from him, and as he smiled over his‎shoulder at some other kids, she threw it away and kicked him as‎hard as she could in the vicinity of the groin.‎Well, as you might imagine, Ludwig Schmeikl certainly buckled,‎and on the way down, he was punched in the ear. When he landed,‎he was set upon. When he was set upon, he was slapped and clawed‎and obliterated by a girl who was utterly consumed with rage. His‎skin was so warm and soft. Her knuckles and fingernails were so‎frighteningly tough, despite their smallness. “You Saukerl.” Her voice,‎too, was able to scratch him. “You Arschloch. Can you spell Arschloch‎for me?”‎Oh, how the clouds stumbled in and assembled stupidly in the sky.‎Great obese clouds.‎Dark and plump.‎Bumping into each other. Apologizing. Moving on and finding‎room.‎Children were there, quick as, well, quick as kids gravitating‎toward a fight. A stew of arms and legs, of shouts and cheers grew thicker around them. They were watching Liesel Meminger give‎Ludwig Schmeikl the hiding of a lifetime. “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph,”‎a girl commentated with a shriek, “she’s going to kill him!”‎Liesel did not kill him.‎But she came close.‎In fact, probably the only thing that stopped her was the‎twitchingly pathetic, grinning face of Tommy Müller. Still crowded‎with adrenaline, Liesel caught sight of him smiling with such‎absurdity that she dragged him down and started beating him up as‎well.‎“What are you doing?!” he wailed, and only then, after the third or‎fourth slap and a trickle of bright blood from his nose, did she stop.‎On her knees, she sucked in the air and listened to the groans‎beneath her. She watched the whirlpool of faces, left and right, and‎she announced, “I’m not stupid.”‎No one argued.‎It was only when everyone moved back inside and Sister Maria saw‎the state of Ludwig Schmeikl that the fight resumed. First, it was‎Rudy and a few others who bore the brunt of suspicion. They were‎always at each other. “Hands,” each boy was ordered, but every pair‎was clean.‎“I don’t believe this,” the sister muttered. “It can’t be,” because sure‎enough, when Liesel stepped forward to show her hands, Ludwig‎Schmeikl was all over them, rusting by the moment. “The corridor,”‎she stated for the second time that day. For the second time that‎hour, actually.‎This time, it was not a small Watschen. It was not an average one.‎This time, it was the mother of all corridor Watschens, one sting of the‎stick after another, so that Liesel would barely be able to sit down for‎a week. And there was no laughter from the room. More the silent‎fear of listening in.