Chapter 35 - Rudy’s Youth

July 1941 opens with Rudy, muddied and defiant, declaring that everything is “shit.” While Liesel hides Max and navigates her own battles, Rudy suffers a harsher routine at Hitler Youth alongside Tommy Müller, whose damaged hearing ruins their marching synchronization.

During drills, Tommy repeatedly misses the halt command, infuriating the leader, Franz Deutscher. When Tommy’s twitching and misheard salute are taken as mockery, Rudy intervenes to explain Tommy’s hearing problem. Franz punishes them both with laps and grueling drop-and-rise exercises, culminating in a deliberate order that forces Rudy face-first into a circle of mud.

Afterward, Rudy and Tommy return to Himmel Street, caked in filth. Rudy animatedly retells the ordeal to Liesel, keeping Tommy from blaming himself. He then tries to leverage pity into a kiss; Liesel laughs him off and walks home, leaving Rudy to promise, “One day, Liesel!”

In a later reflection from the basement years ahead, Liesel aches to see Rudy and recognizes that the humiliations he suffered at Hitler Youth helped fuel his, and then her, drive to steal. With summer ripening, the thought of apple theft signals their shared turn back toward small, defiant crimes.