certainly do one thing, if Peter and I decide to be friends, I shall tell him that you are very fond of him too and would always be prepared to help him should the need arise. The latter may not be what you wish, but I don’t care now, I don’t know what Peter thinks about you, but I shall ask him then.
I’m sure it’s not bad—the opposite! You are always welcome to join us in the attic, or wherever we are, you honestly won’t disturb us because I feel we have a silent agreement to talk only in the evenings when it’s dark.
Keep your courage up! Like I do. Although it’s not always easy, your time may come sooner than you think.
Yours, Anne
Thursday, 23 March, 1944
Dear Kitty, Things are running more or less normally again now. Our coupon men are out of prison again, thank goodness!
Miep returned yesterday. Bep is better, although she still has a cough; Kleiman will have to stay at home for a long time still.
A plane crashed near here yesterday, the occupants were able to jump out in time by parachute. The machine crashed onto a school, but there were no children there at the time. The result was a small fire and two people killed. The Germans shot at the airmen terribly as they were coming down.
The Amsterdammers who saw it nearly exploded with rage and indignation at the cowardliness of such a deed. We—I’m speaking of the ladies—nearly jumped out of our skins, I loathe the blasted shooting.
I often go upstairs after supper nowadays and take a breath of the fresh evening air. I like it up there, sitting on a chair beside Peter and looking outside.
van Daan and Dussel make very feeble remarks when I disappear into his room; 'Anne’s second home,' they call it, or 'Is it suitable for young gentlemen to receive young girls in semidarkness?' Peter shows amazing wit in his replies to these so-called humorous sallies. For that matter, Mummy too is somewhat curious and would love to ask what we talk about, if she wasn’t secretly afraid of being snubbed. Peter says it’s nothing but envy on the part of the grown-ups, because we are young and we don’t pay much attention to their spitefulness. Sometimes he comes and gets me from downstairs, but he turns simply scarlet in spite of all precautions, and can hardly get the words out of his mouth. How thankful I am that I don’t blush, it must be a highly unpleasant sensation. Daddy always says I’m prudish and vain but that’s not true, I’m just simply vain! I have not often had anyone tell me I was pretty. Except a boy at school; who said I looked so attractive when I laughed. Yesterday I received a genuine compliment from Peter, and just for fun I will tell you roughly how the conversation went: Peter so often used to say, “Do laugh, Anne!” This struck me as odd, and I asked, “Why must I always laugh?”
“Because I like it, you get such dimples in your cheeks when you laugh, how do they come, actually?” “I was born with them, I’ve got one in my
chin too. That’s my only beauty!”
“Of course not, that’s not true.”
“Yes, it is, I know quite well that I’m not a beauty, I never have been and never shall be.”
“I don’t agree at all, I think you’re pretty.”
“That’s not true.”
“If I say so, then you can take it from me it is!”
Then I naturally said the same of him.
I hear a lot from all sides about the sudden friendship. We don’t take much notice of all this parental chatter, their remarks are so feeble. Have the two sets of parents forgotten their own youth? It seems like it at least, they seem to take us seriously, if we make a joke, and laugh at us when we are serious.
