Free Annexed by Sharon Dogar Page A

creep back to the front office and replace the chairs, hide the radio, and hope a warden doesn't notice the break-in and come searching. We go back upstairs and wait.
    It's all we ever do.
    Wait.
    I hide the hammer under my bed, just in case.
    As soon as I fall asleep the dreams begin. Men in shiny helmets, like insects, crawl from the walls. All through the night I wake, listen, wait. Dream.
    At breakfast we're all so tired we can barely speak—except for Anne, of course.
    "Did you listen for the bells last night?" she asks. "I listened all night but they didn't come. I wonder where they are?"
    "Ah, so that's why I was so disturbed!" says Mutti, slapping her thigh.
    "Ach!" says Father. "Like children, those church bells—at first they plague you, and then you get so used to them that you can't live without them!"
    Everyone smiles.
    "Mmm, and there I was thinking I couldn't sleep because
we'd had a break-in," says Mr. Frank drily, hiding behind yesterday's newspaper.
    "Bells, what bells?" asks Mutti. "I've never heard any bells."
    Mrs. Frank laughs. "Honestly, Auguste, we all know you are only teasing!"
    "It's called a carillon," says Margot suddenly. "You know, when there's a peal of bells, in English, from the French, I mean. It's called a carillon of bells. Isn't that lovely?" She stops, and blushes.
    "That's beautiful," I say. I whisper the word to myself. "Carillon."
    "Well," says Anne, "they've stopped ringing. I wonder why." Then she makes up a story, right then, about how the bells have had enough and are refusing to ring for the Nazis.
    "They'll only ring on the day all Jews are liberated," she says, and takes another mouthful of what we call food these days.
    "What are you looking at?" she asks me.
    "How do you do that?" I ask back.
    "Do what?"
    "Make things up like that?"
    She shrugs. "How do you go downstairs when you think a burglar might be down there? I couldn't!"
    "Mmm," smiles Mr. Frank. "Thank goodness we're all different."
    "Except if we weren't, there wouldn't be a war," says Mutti.
    We're all silent for a minute thinking about that—and then for some reason we all start laughing.
    I like it when that happens.

MARCH 27, 1943— PETER AND MARGOT CHAT IN THE ATTIC
    Why do I have to learn English? Will the British or Americans kill me if I thank them in Dutch? And French, what for—I mean, I like the sound of it. I like saying the words, but I don't really care what they mean. I already speak Dutch and German, isn't that enough?
    Répondez, s'il vous plaît.
That's how you say RSVP in longhand—it means send a reply, please. Margot and Anne have learned shorthand. They pass each other notes written in it, read them, and giggle. It is
so annoying.
    "At least they're learning something!" says Mrs. Frank, giving me a look as sharp as her needles.
    "To be rude, it seems!" snaps Mutti. "I wonder where they get that from?"
    I stand up.
    "What do you think, Peter?" asks Anne. "Does it bother you, us writing notes?
RSVP, tout de suite.
"
    "Please, may I be excused?" I say, and leave.
    "
Il répond, ça c'est vrai,
" laughs Anne.
    "
Oui, avec son pieds.
" Margot smiles.
    I don't answer. I don't know what they're talking about. Perhaps my feet smell
—pieds
—that's feet, isn't it?
    I stand in the attic. I make myself breathe long and slow and try not to feel angry. I look up into the tree, it's full of buds. I wish I could reach out and touch them. I wish I had a handful of them. I wish I were sitting in the branches of the tree swinging my legs in the air, with Liese.
    I wish a lot of things.
    But none of them will happen.
    Sometimes I wish Anne would disappear in a puff of smoke.
    And then I feel bad for wishing that, because we
are
disappearing. All the time. We've just heard that all Jews must be cleansed from German-occupied territories. We are to be "cleansed in north and south Holland" between the first of May and the first of June.
    "We are to be routed out by Herr