The Book Thief Chapter 27

Tricksters

• Now we are back to Liesel.
• Rosa has lost another customer—there are two left.
• Liesel is very glad that the Hermanns are still customers. She still gets to see Ilsa Hermann, and the books.
• Liesel and Rudy pull a few more jobs with Arthur Berg. For diversity, they steal onions and potatoes.
• Rudy and Liesel also pull a job on their own, with great success.
• They've noticed that a guy named Otto Sturm delivers food and other things to the priests at the Catholic church.
• It's now October. On a certain very cold Friday, Liesel and Rudy make a plan to intercept him.
• First Rudy pours water where Otto will ride on his bike. This will make the already icy road extra-slippery.
• Sure enough, Otto hits the icy patch and falls hard with his bike.
• Rudy and Liesel take his basket and run.
• From a distance, they watch him get up and get back on his bike.
• They are loyal to Arthur Berg and the other thieves, so they go to Arthur.
• The whole gang is summoned, and they have a feast by the Amper River.
• On the way home, Liesel wants to know if Rudy "feel[s] bad" (27.38) about hurting Otto and stealing from him.
• He doesn't seem too.
• Death tells us that, "in years to come, he would be a giver of bread—not a stealer" (27.43).
• A little less than a week later, the gang is robbing the potato field.
• Arthur Berg screams the warning—he sees the farmer carrying an ax.
• Everybody gets over the fence but Rudy.
• He gets stuck and calls for help.
• Liesel runs back to him and helps him free his pants from the barbed-wire.
• Later, Rudy looks ashamed, and Arthur tells him, "It's happened to all of us" (27.65).
• Liesel and Rudy would never know for sure if this was true or false.
• In several weeks, Arthur moves to Cologne.
• The last time they see him, he gives them a bag of roasted chestnuts.
• Death has seen him.
• Arthur is still alive. Death sees him in Cologne holding the dead body of his sister.
• Liesel and Rudy sell the chestnuts door to door and go back to Frau Diller's to show her they can afford mixed candy.