The Book Thief by Markus Zusak Read Free Book Online

scheissen!”
and deteriorated rapidly
from there. At first, he leveled his abuse only at the boy, but soon enough, it
was Liesel’s turn.
    “You little
slut!” he roared at her. The words clobbered her in the back. “I’ve never seen
you before!” Fancy calling a ten-year-old girl a slut. That was Pfiffikus. It
was widely agreed that he and Frau Holtzapfel would have made a lovely couple.
“Get back here!” were the last words Liesel and Rudy heard as they continued
running. They ran until they were on Munich Street.
    “Come on,” Rudy
said, once they’d recovered their breath. “Just down here a little.”
    He took her to
Hubert Oval, the scene of the Jesse Owens incident, where they stood, hands in
pockets. The track was stretched out in front of them. Only one thing could
happen. Rudy started it. “Hundred meters,” he goaded her. “I bet you can’t beat
me.”
    Liesel wasn’t
taking any of that. “I bet you I can.”
    “What do you
bet, you little
Saumensch
? Have you got any money?”
    “Of course not.
Do you?”
    “No.” But Rudy
had an idea. It was the lover boy coming out of him. “If I beat you, I get to
kiss you.” He crouched down and began rolling up his trousers.
    Liesel was
alarmed, to put it mildly. “What do you want to kiss
me
for? I’m
filthy.”
    “So am I.” Rudy
clearly saw no reason why a bit of filth should get in the way of things. It
had been a while between baths for both of them.
    She thought
about it while examining the weedy legs of her opposition. They were about
equal with her own. There’s no way he can beat me, she thought. She nodded
seriously. This was business. “You can kiss me if you win. But if
I
win,
I get out of being goalie at soccer.”
    Rudy considered
it. “Fair enough,” and they shook on it.
    All was
dark-skied and hazy, and small chips of rain were starting to fall.
    The track was
muddier than it looked.
    Both competitors
were set.
    Rudy threw a
rock in the air as the starting pistol. When it hit the ground, they could
start running.
    “I can’t even
see the finish line,” Liesel complained.
    “And
I
can?”
    The rock wedged
itself into the earth.
    They ran next to
each other, elbowing and trying to get in front. The slippery ground slurped at
their feet and brought them down perhaps twenty meters from the end.
    “Jesus, Mary,
and Joseph!” yelped Rudy. “I’m covered in shit!”
    “It’s not shit,”
Liesel corrected him, “it’s mud,” although she had her doubts. They’d slid
another five meters toward the finish. “Do we call it a draw, then?”
    Rudy looked
over, all sharp teeth and gangly blue eyes. Half his face was painted with mud.
“If it’s a draw, do I still get my kiss?”
    “Not in a
million years.” Liesel stood up and flicked some mud off her jacket.
    “I’ll get you
out of goalie.”
    “Stick your
goalie.”
    As they walked
back to Himmel Street, Rudy forewarned her. “One day, Liesel,” he said, “you’ll
be dying to kiss me.”
    But Liesel knew.
    She vowed.
    As long as both
she and Rudy Steiner lived, she would never kiss that miserable, filthy
Saukerl,
especially not
this
day. There were more important matters to attend
to. She looked down at her suit of mud and stated the obvious.
    “She’s going to
kill me.”
    She, of course,
was Rosa Hubermann, also known as Mama, and she very nearly did kill her. The
word
Saumensch
featured heavily in the administration of punishment. She
made mincemeat out of her.

     
     
    THE JESSE OWENS INCIDENT
    As we both know,
Liesel wasn’t on hand on Himmel Street when Rudy performed his act of childhood
infamy. When she looked back, though, it felt like she’d actually been there.
In her memory, she had somehow become a member of Rudy’s imaginary audience.
Nobody else mentioned it, but Rudy certainly made up for that, so much that
when Liesel came to recollect her story, the Jesse Owens incident was as much a