Page 396 - The Book Thief

Rudy peered up at the dark face, but Kurt did not answer. Hed noticed the
arguing from the kitchen. Whats going on in there?

It was one of the girls who answered. The youngest, Bettina. She was five. There
are two monsters, she said. Theyve come for Rudy.

Again, the human child. So much cannier.

Later, when the coat men left, the two boys, one seventeen, the other fourteen,
found the courage to face the kitchen.

They stood in the doorway. The light punished their eyes.

It was Kurt who spoke. Are they taking him?

Their mothers forearms were flat on the table. Her palms were facing up.

Alex Steiner raised his head.

It was heavy.

His expression was sharp and definite, freshly cut.

A wooden hand wiped at the splinters of his fringe, and he made several
attempts to speak.

Papa?

But Rudy did not walk toward his father.

He sat at the kitchen table and took hold of his mothers facing-up hand.

Alex and Barbara Steiner would not disclose what was said while the dominoes
were falling like dead bodies in the living room. If only Rudy had kept listening
at the door, just for another few minutes . . .

He told himself in the weeks to comeor in fact, pleaded with himselfthat if hed
heard the rest of the conversation that night, hed have entered the kitchen much