Anne Frank's Tales from the Secret Annex Read Online Free PDF Page B

Boche * and the warehousekey; Pim lugs the typewriters upstairs; Margot looks around for a quiet place to do her office work; Mrs van D. puts a kettle of water on the gas ring; Mother comes down the stairs with a pan of potatoes; we all know our jobs.
    Soon Peter comes back from the warehouse. The first question they ask him is whether he’s remembered the bread. No, he hasn’t. He crouches before the door to the front office to make himself as small as possible and crawls on his hands and knees to the steel cabinet, takes out the bread and starts to leave. At any rate, that’s what he intends to do, but before he knows what’s happened, Mouschi has jumped over him and gone to sit under the desk.
    Peter looks all around him. Aha, there’s the cat! He crawls back into the office and grabs the cat by the tail. Mouschi hisses, Peter sighs. What has he accomplished? Mouschi’s now sitting by the window licking herself, very pleased at having escaped Peter’s clutches. Peter has no choice but to lure her with the bread. Mouschi takes the bait, follows him out, and the door closes.
    I watch the entire scene through a crack in the door.
    Mr van Daan is angry and slams the door. Margot and I exchange looks and think the same thing: he must have worked himself into a rage again because of some blunder on Mr Kugler’s part, and he’s forgotten all about the Keg Company next door.
    Another step is heard in the passage. Dussel comes in, goes towards the window with an air of propriety, sniffs… coughs, sneezes and clears his throat. He’s out of luck – it was pepper. He continues on to the front office. Thecurtains are open, which means he can’t get at his writing paper. He disappears with a scowl.
    Margot and I exchange another glance. ‘One less page for his sweetheart tomorrow,’ I hear her say. I nod in agreement.
    We resume our work. An elephant’s tread is heard on the stairway. It’s Dussel, seeking comfort in his favourite spot.
    We go on working. Knock, knock, knock… Three taps means dinnertime!
     
    Friday, 6 August 1943
    * Another cat.

Sundays
    W HAT HAPPENS IN other people’s houses during the rest of the week happens here in the Annexe on Sundays. While other people put on their best clothes and go strolling in the sun, we scrub, sweep and do the washing.
    Eight o’clock : Though the rest of us prefer to lie in, Dussel gets up at eight. He goes to the bathroom, then downstairs, then up again and then to the bathroom, where he devotes a whole hour to washing himself.
    Nine-thirty : The stoves are lit, the black-out screen is taken down and Mr van Daan heads for the bathroom. One of my Sunday morning ordeals is having to lie in bed and look at Dussel’s back when he’s praying. I know it sounds strange, but a praying Dussel is a terrible sight to behold. It’s not that he cries or gets sentimental, not at all, but he does spend a quarter of an hour – an entire fifteen minutes – rocking from his toes to his heels. Back and forth, back and forth. It goes on forever, and if I don’t shut my eyes tight, my head starts to spin.
    Ten-fifteen : The van Daans whistle; the bathroom’s free.In the Frank family quarters, the first sleepy faces are beginning to emerge from their pillows. Then everything happens fast, fast, fast. Margot and I take turns doing the washing. Since it’s quite cold downstairs, we put on trousers and head scarves. Meanwhile, Father is busy in the bathroom. Either Margot or I have a turn in the bathroom at eleven, and then all is clean.
    Eleven-thirty : Breakfast. I won’t dwell on this, since there’s enough talk about food without my bringing the subject up as well.
    Twelve-fifteen : We each go our own separate ways. Father, clad in overalls, gets down on his hands and knees and brushes the rug so vigorously that the room is enveloped in a cloud of dust. Mr Dussel makes the beds (all wrong, of course), always whistling the same Beethoven violin concerto as he goes about his