Wednesday, 14 October, 1942
Dear Kitty, I’m terribly busy. I’ve just translated a chapter out of La Belle Nivemaise and made notes of new words. Then tried to solve a perfectly foul math problem and three pages of French grammar. I flatly refuse to do these math problems every day. Daddy agrees that they’re vile. I’m almost better at them than he is, though neither of us are much good and we often have to fetch Margot. I’m the furthest on of the three of us in shorthand.
Yesterday I finished The Assault. Its quite amusing, but doesn’t touch Joop ter Heul. As a matter of fact, I think Cissy van Marxveldt is a first-rate writer. I shall definitely let my children read her books. Mummy, Margot, and I are as thick as thieves again. Its really much better. Margot and I got in the same bed together last evening; it was a frightful squash, but that was just the fun of it. She asked if she could read my diary. I said, ‘Yes—at least, bits of it’ and then I asked if I could read hers and she said, ‘Yes.’ Then we got on to the subject of the future. I asked her what she wanted to be. But she wouldn’t say and made a great secret of it. I gathered something about teaching, I’m not sure if I’m right, but I think so. Really, I shouldn’t be so curious!
This morning I was lying on Peter’s bed, having chased him off at first.
He was furious with me, not that I cared very much. He might be a bit more friendly with me for once, after all I did give him an apple yesterday.
I asked Margot if she thought I was very ugly. She said that I was quite attractive and that I had nice eyes. Rather vague, don’t you think?
Till next time.
Yours, Anne
Tuesday, 20 October, 1942
Dear Kitty, My hand still shakes, although it’s two hours since we had the shock. I should explain that there are five fire extinguishers in the house. We knew that someone was coming to fill them, but no one had warned us when the carpenter, or whatever you call him, was coming.
The result was that we weren’t making any attempt to keep quiet, until I heard hammering outside on the landing opposite our cupboard door. I thought of the carpenter at once and warned Elli, who was having a meal with us, that she shouldn’t go downstairs. Daddy and I posted ourselves at the door so as to hear when the man left. After he’d been working for a quarter of an hour, he laid his hammer and tools down on top of our cupboard (as we thought) and knocked at our door. We turned absolutely white. Perhaps he had heard something after all and wanted to investigate our secret den. It seemed like it. The knocking, pulling, pushing, and wrenching went on. I nearly fainted at the thought that this utter stranger might discover our beautiful secret hiding place. And just as I thought my last hour was at hand, I heard Kleiman say, “Open the door, it’s only me.”
We opened it immediately. The hook that holds the cupboard, which can be undone by people who know the secret, had got jammed. That was why no one had been able to warn us about the carpenter. The man had now gone downstairs and Kleiman wanted to fetch Elli, but couldn’t open the cupboard again. It was a great relief to me, I can tell you. In my imagination the man who I thought was trying to get in had been growing and growing in size until in the end he appeared to be a giant and the greatest fascist that ever walked the earth.
Well, Well! Luckily everything was okay this time. Meanwhile we had great fun on Monday. Miep and Jan spent the night here. Margot and I went in Mummy and Daddy’s room for the night, so that the Gies could have our room. The meal tasted divine. There was one small interruption. Daddy’s lamp blew a fuse, and all of a sudden we were sitting in darkness. What was to be done? There was some fuse wire in the house, but the fuse box is right at the very back of the dark storeroom—not such a nice job after dark. Still,
