Page 18 (1/2)

"You’ll have to forgive e as an ailustus pulledconfetti of the eletaway, but wemy cart, and then started to walk back toward the Filosoof on a buular bricks For the first ti

"Hey," he said, touching my waist "Hey It’s okay" I nodded and wiped ain "I’ll write you an epilogue," Gus said That made me cry harder "I will," he said "I will Better than any shit that drunk could write His brain is Swiss cheese He doesn’t even re the book I can write ten tiuts and sacrifice An Imperial Affliction , faking a s ed up his polo shirt a little but then recovered enough to speak

"I spent your Wish on that doucheface," I said into his chest

"Hazel Grace No I will grant you that you did spend my one and only Wish, but you did not spend it on him You spent it on us"

Behind us, I heard the plonk plonk of high heels running I turned around It was Lidewij, her eyeliner running down her cheeks, duly horrified, chasing us up the sidewalk "Perhaps we should go to the Anne Frank Huis," Lidewij said

"I’ustus said

"He is not invited," Lidewij said

Augustus kept holding me, protective, his hand on the side of my face "I don’t think--" he started, but I cut hio" I still wanted answers from Van Houten But it wasn’t all I wanted I only had two days left in Austus Waters I wouldn’t let a sad old ine that sounded like an excited four-year-old girl As we drove through the streets of Aized "I am very sorry There is no excuse He is very sick," she said "I thoughtyou would help him, if he would see that his work has shaped real lives, butI’ustus nor I said anything I was in the backseat behind him I snuckfor his hand, but I couldn’t find it Lidewij continued, "I have continued this work because I believe he is a genius and because the pay is very good, but he has becoot pretty rich on that book," I said after a while

"Oh, no no, he is of the Van Houtens," she said "In the seventeenth century, his ancestor discovered how to mix cocoa into water Soo, and Peter is of those, but he moved to Holland after his novel He is an eine screae "It is circumstance," she said "Circumstance has made him so cruel He is not an evil man But this day, I did not think--when he said these terrible things, I could not believe it I am very sorry Very very sorry"

We had to park a block away from the Anne Frank House, and then while Lidewij stood in line to get tickets for us, I sat withat all the ustus was standing abovethe wheels spin I wanted him to sit next to me, but I kneas hard for him to sit, and harder still to stand back up "Okay?" he asked, looking down at ed and reached a hand for his calf It was his fake calf, but I held on to it He looked down at me

"I wanted" I said

"I know," he said "I know Apparently the world is not a wish-granting factory" That made me smile a little

Lidewij returned with tickets, but her thin lips were pursed orry "There is no elevator," she said "I am very very sorry"

"It’s okay," I said

"No, there are many stairs," she said "Steep stairs"

"It’s okay," I said again Augustus started to say soan in a room with a video about Jews in Holland and the Nazi invasion and the Frank family Then alked upstairs into the canal house where Otto Frank’s business had been The stairs were slow, forat the famous bookcase that had hid Anne Frank, her family, and four others The bookcase was half open, and behind it was an even steeper set of stairs, only wide enough for one person There were fellow visitors all around us, and I didn’t want to hold up the procession, but Lidewij said, "If everyone could be patient, please," and I began the walk up, Lidewij carrying the cart behindabout the people behind es--and feeling ehost that both comforts and haunts, but finally I ainst the wall, s it’s okay it’s okay cal ustus come upstairs, but he came over and wiped his broith the back of his hand likeand said, "You’re a cha, I made it to the next room, which Anne had shared with the dentist Fritz Pfeffer It was tiny, empty of all furniture You’d never know anyone had ever lived there except that the pictures Anne had pasted onto the wall froazines and newspapers were still there

Another staircase led up to the room where the van Pels fahteen steps, essentially a glorified ladder I got to the threshold and looked up and figured I could not do it, but also knew the only way through was up

"Let’s go back," Gus said behind me

"I’ I owed it to her--to Anne Frank, I mean--because she was dead and I wasn’t, because she had stayed quiet and kept the blinds drawn and done everything right and still died, and so I should go up the steps and see the rest of the world she’d lived in those years before the Gestapo ca up them like a little kid would, slow at first so I could breathe, but then faster because I knew I couldn’t breathe and wanted to get to the top before everything gave out The blackness encroached around hteen steps, steep as hell I finally crested the staircase s screa watered-down coughs There was an elass case bolted to the wall aboveand tried not to pass out

Lidewij crouched down next to , "You are at the top, that is it," and I nodded I had a vague awareness of the adults all around glancing down at e and then another and then another to various visitors; of Augustus standing abovethe part

After a long tiustus pulled lass case: pencil rowth of all the children in the annex during the period they lived there, inch after inch until they would grow noarea, but ere still in thenarrow hallway showed pictures of each of the annex’s eight residents and described how and where and when they died

"The only member of his whole fa to Anne’s father, Otto Her voice was hushed like ere in church