I suppose he'll die soon. I'm expecting it, like you do for a dog that's seventeen. There's no way to know how I'll react. He'll have faced his own placid death and slipped without a sound inside himself. Mostly, I imagine I'll crouch there at the door, fall onto him, and cry hard into the stench of his fur. I'll wait for him to wake up, but he won't. I'll bury him. I'll carry him outside, feeling his warmth turn to cold as the horizon frays and falls down in my backyard. For now, though, he's okay. I can see him breathing. He just smells like he's dead.

For at least twenty minutes she handed out the story. The youngest kids were soothed by her voice, and everyone else saw visions of the whistler running from the scene. Liesel did not. The book thief saw only the mechanics of the words--their bodies stranded on the paper, beaten down for her to walk on. Somewhere, too, in the gaps between a period and the next capital letter, there was also Max. She remembered reading to him when he was sick. It he in the basement? she wondered. Or is he stealing a glimpse of the sky again?

Mistakes, mistakes, it's all I seem capable of at times.

Clearly, I see it. I was just about to leave when I found her kneeling there. A mountain range of rubble was written, designed, erected around her. She was clucthing at a book.

The night is alive with stars, and when I lie down and look up, I get lost up there. I feel like I’m falling, but upward, into the abyss of sky above me.

The bombs were coming-and so was I.

Liesel observed the strangeness of her foster father's eyes. They were made of kindness, and silver.