I expect you will be rather surprised at the fact that I should talk of boy friends at my age. Alas, one simply can’t seem to avoid it at our school. As soon as a boy asks if he may bicycle home with me and we get into conversation, nine out of ten times I can be sure that he will fall head over heels in love immediately and simply won’t allow me out of his sight. After a while it cools down of course, especially as I take little notice of ardent looks and pedal blithely on.
If it gets so far that they go on about ‘asking Father’ I swerve slightly on my bicycle, my satchel falls, the young man is bound to get off and hand it to me, by which time I have introduced a new topic of conversation.
These are the most innocent types; you get some who blow kisses or try to get hold of your arm, but then they are definitely knocking at the wrong door. I get off my bicycle and refuse to go further in their company, or I pretend to be insulted and tell them in no uncertain terms to, clear off.
There, the foundation of our friendship is laid until tomorrow!
Yours, Anne
Sunday, 21 June, 1942
Dear Kitty, Our whole class B is trembling, the reason is that the teachers’ meeting is to be held soon. There is much speculation as to who will move up and who will stay put. Miep de Jong and I are highly amused at Wim and Jacques, the two boys behind us. They won’t have a guilder left for the holidays, it will all be gone on betting. “You’ll move up,” “Shan’t,” “Shall,” from morning till night. Even Miep pleads for silence and my angry outbursts don’t calm them.
According to me, a quarter of the class should stay where they are; there are some absolute cuckoos, but teachers are the greatest freaks on earth, so
perhaps they will be freakish in the right way for once.
I’m not afraid for my girl friends and myself, we’ll squeeze through somehow, though I’m not too certain about my math. Still we can’t but wait patiently. Till then, we cheer each other along.
I get along quite well with all my teachers, nine in all, seven masters and two mistresses. Mr. Keesing, the old math master, was very annoyed with me for a long time because I chatter so much. So I had to write a composition with ‘A Chatterbox’ as the subject. A chatterbox! Whatever could one write? However, deciding I would puzzle that out later, I wrote it in my notebook, and tried to keep quiet.
That evening, when I’d finished my other homework, my eyes fell on the title in my notebook. I pondered, while chewing the end of my fountain pen, that anyone could scribble some nonsense in large letters with the words well spaced but the difficulty was to prove beyond doubt the necessity of talking. I thought and thought and then, suddenly having got an idea, filled my three allotted sides and felt completely satisfied. My arguments were that talking is a feminine characteristic and that I would do my best to keep it under control, but I should never be cured, for my mother talked as much as I, probably more, and what can one do about inherited qualities? Mr. Keesing had to laugh at my arguments, but when I continued to hold forth in the next lesson, another composition followed. This time it was ‘Incurable Chatterbox’ I handed this in and Keesing made no complaints for two whole lessons. But in the third lesson it was too much for him again. “Anne, as punishment for talking, will do a composition entitled ‘Quack, quack, quack, said Mrs. Chatterback.’” Shouts of laughter from the class. I had to laugh too, although I felt that my inventiveness on this subject was exhausted. I had to think of something else, something entirely original. I was in luck, as my friend Sanne writes good poetry and offered to help by doing the whole composition in verse. I jumped for joy.
Keesing wanted to make a fool of me with this absurd theme, I would get back at him and make him the laughing-stock of the whole class. The poem was finished and was perfect. It was about a mother duck and a father swan who had three baby ducklings. The baby ducklings were bitten to death by
