Anne Frank and Me

by Cherie Bennett

  “Your opinion, Mr. Hayden?” Zooms pressed, as Doom slumped in his seat, staring out the window. Weeks ago, he had announced that he’d no longer be taking part in classroom discussions. Zooms hadn’t called on him since. Until now.

  “Mr. Hayden, I asked you a question.”

  Silence.

  “In the absence of a coherent response, might I assume that flunking my class is appealing to you?”

  Doom remained mute, unreadable under Zooms’ gaze. She refused to give in. Long seconds ticked by. Then, still staring out the window, Doom spoke. “My grade should be based on my test scores and the quality of my papers. Class participation is inane and entirely subjective.”

  Zooms stepped between Doom and the window. He neither looked at her nor looked away. “Did you listen at all to what our guest speaker said, Mr. Hayden? Would you agree that some things are worth speaking up for? Or against?”

  Silence.

  “I realize you are doing this to irritate me,” she continued. “Congratulations on your success. Now, are we to assume that your silence means you agree with Adolf Hitler, that the world should be Judenrein—Jew-free?”

  Slowly, Doom turned his head to look directly at Mrs. Litzger-Gold. Nicole shivered.

  Zooms strode to the front of the room. “Hopefully, the rest of you can overcome your adolescent self-absorption long enough to recognize the importance of speaking out in the face of tyranny. And the paper you’ll be writing on that subject—thanks to your colleague Mr. Hayden—will reflect that. A thousand words. Due next Thursday.”

  “Thanks, Doom,” Eddie muttered. Someone else hissed “Freak” in Doom’s direction.

  Zooms checked her watch. “Unfortunately, the bell is about to ring. Now, I’m sure you’d like to thank Mrs. Litzger-Gold for speaking with us today.” She led the class in applause, until the bell rang and kids flew from their seats as if shot from a catapult.

  “Remember, people,” Zooms called. “We meet in front of the school tomorrow morning at eight o‘clock sharp for our field trip to the Anne Frank in the World exhibit. On Monday we’ll discuss her diary and the exhibit. I suggest you anticipate a pop quiz.”

  A few kids stayed behind to talk with Mrs. Litzger-Gold. Nicole hung back because Jack had gone to ask the old woman a question. Then it hit her: This was her chance. All she had to do was to go up there and pretend she had a question, too. Jack would notice. He’d be impressed with her sensitivity. For the first time, he would really see her.

  She headed for the front of the room, trying to come up with a question for the speaker. What happened to your family? That might be good. At that moment, Mrs. Litzger-Gold finished answering Jack and looked directly at Nicole. The weirdest feeling came over Nicole, as if she was somehow connected to this woman.

  “Thank you again, ma‘am,” Jack said, as he walked away. For once, Nicole’s eyes didn’t follow him. They were still locked on the old woman’s face.

  “Have we ... met before?” Nicole ventured.

  “Have we?”

  “Ironic question, Miss Burns,” Zooms called. She was closing the classroom windows. “Considering that you weren’t listening when Mrs. Litzger-Gold was speaking.”

  Nicole’s face burned. “I was listening.” Her eyes went back to Mrs. Litzger-Gold. For some reason, Nicole didn’t want to lie to her. “To tell you the truth,” she said, her voice low, “I really wasn’t listening to you much.”

  The old woman smiled. “To tell you the truth, I already knew that. I also know you stayed behind to talk to that handsome boy and not to me.”

  “You’re right. I’m sorry.”

  Mrs. Litzger-Gold cocked her head to the side, still contemplating Nicole. “Do you believe in signs?”

  Nicole was confused. “What, like astrology?”

  “More like things unspoken, things the heart knows.”

  “I don’t know.”

  “What is your name?”

  “Nicole.”

  “A lovely name.” She began to gather her things from Zooms’ desk. “Perhaps we’ll have a chance to speak again sometime, Nicole. I would like that.” With a smile on her lips, Mrs. Litzger-Gold’s eyes met Nicole’s one last time. Then she walked out the classroom door.

  NOTES FROM GIRL X

  CAUTION!!! WEBSITE UNDER CONSTRUCTION!!!

  Day 4, 4:53 p.m.

  Frightening Thought du Jour: I’ve never once seen my parents really kiss. What if the feeling of wanting someone so badly that you ache with wanting them always dies? What if all you get in its place is the married-and-live-happily-ever-after lie, which really means mortgages and dental bills and PTA meetings and nothing exciting for the rest of your entire life?

  The Truth Hurts, So? H the Perfect can get J back because looks are power. Anyone who says that isn’t true is lying. This is just the way it is.

  The Truth Hurts, So? Part Two: The thoughts in my head are more interesting than the words on my lips. In school, with my family, every time I open my mouth, someone else speaks. Someone dull and ordinary. The only time I can transcend that is when I dance. Then I don’t think. I just feel. I am the wind.

  000001 MAGI COUNTER

  two

  Despair. Nicole’s pale face stared back at her in the mirror over her dresser: lank brown hair, boring brown eyes in a forgettable face, a body that was ... a body. Not awful. But light-years from Heather the Perfect’s.

  Nicole pushed away the gloom. Winding her hair with a scrunchie, she padded over to her boom box, pressed ON, and danced. “One and two, three and four...” Watching herself move to the hip-hop groove, she tried a regulation Chrissy hair flip. Her ponytail whipped around and smacked her in the eye.

  What was the use? What difference would it make if she changed the Fly Girls choreography a million times? True: Jack would see her dance at the talent show a week from Saturday. False: Seeing her dance would make him fall in love with her.

  She turned off the music and threw herself onto her bed. It was a stupid dream. The dance was stupid. She was stupid.

  Squee-eak. Scree-ech. Through the wall came the sounds of a violin being tortured.

  Nicole pounded the wall. “Knock it off, Little Bit. I’m practicing in here.”

  Silence.

  “Thank you.” She set her jaw and went back to the mirror. Maybe dancing was a stupid dream, but it was the only dream she had. Hip-thrust one, hip-thrust two—

  Renewed violin torture.

  Nicole pounded the wall again. “Practice later, Little Bit, I mean it!”

  Again. Focus. She moved to music inside her head, trying a facial expression that would tell Jack she was incredibly cool and incredibly hot at the same time. It looked okay in the mirror. She thrust her chest one way, her butt the other, and pursed her lips like a model.

  Gales of laughter stopped her cold. “You look like a blow-fish, Nicole.” Little Bit stood in the doorway, violin under her arm.

  “Have I mentioned what a brat you are?”

  “Often.” Her sister smiled sweetly. “Let’s review. Mom said when I hit double digits you had to call me Elizabeth. And, happy birthday to me, I turned ten, two weeks ago. So call me Elizabeth.”

  “Get out of my room.’

  “Technically, I’m not in your room, I’m outside your room. Besides, if you don’t want company, close your door.”

  Nicole swung the door shut

  “That wasn’t very nice,” Little Bit called.

  Like she cared. It was just so irritating. Little Bit was everything wonderful that she was not—neat, organized, a straight-A student. Worse than that, Little Bit was a Heather-in-Training: gold hair, sky blue eyes fringed with sooty lashes. Worst of all, she knew it.

  Suddenly, a terrible thought flitted into Nicole’s mind. Like an unwanted, oblivious party guest, it wouldn’t go away. She went to her computer, logged on to her website, then began to type.

  NOTES FROM GIRL X

  CAUTION!!! WEBSITE UNDER CONSTRUCTION!!! />
  Day 4, 6:43 p.m.

  Frightening Thought du Jour, Part Two: My sister LB is ten, a junior H the Perfect. Soon, she’ll be eleven. Twelve. Thirteen. The phone will ring. Guys will call. Cute guys. Guys like J who don’t know I exist. And they will all be calling for her.

  000001 MAGIC COUNTER

  Pound, pound, pound on Nicole’s door. “Dad wants to know if you’re doing your homework.”

  Translation: Our father the college professor is planning to grill you for dinner.

  “Did you hear me?” Little Bit called.

  “Yes. Now go away.” Nicole frowned. Why did their father insist on being one of those “involved” parents, which, from Nicole’s point of view, simply meant that she was constantly being judged and found wanting? Her father would certainly ask her about English class. She needed to come up with two or three reasonably intelligent things to say about the Holocaust. Immediately.

  No prob. She logged on to a big Internet search engine and typed the word Holocaust. There were 56,543 matches.

  She scrolled down. Endless listings. Who knew there was so much? The Rhodes Jewish Museum on some island in Greece. The CDJC, the Centre de Documentation Juive Contemporaine, which was in French, her worst subject. What else? The Simon Wiesenthal Center’s 36 Questions About the Holocaust ...

  “Nicole?” Little Bit called through the door.

  “What?”

  “Mom says dinner’s in fifteen minutes.”

  “Fine.”

  “Can I come in?”

  “No.” Didn’t Little Bit ever give up? Nicole clicked into the Wiesenthal Center site, scanning it quickly.

  Knock-knock-knock.

  “Little Bit, if you don’t leave me alone—”

  “It’s Elizabeth, and I left my sweater in there before.”

  Nicole sighed. “Fine. Come in, get it, and then please give me a little peace and quiet.”

  Nicole scrolled down to the next site on the list: The Center for the Scientific Study of Genocide, whatever that was. At least it sounded intellectual. Intellectual always impressed her father. She surfed in and started to read.

  The Center for the Scientific Study of Genocide “Bringing the past into harmony with the truth.”

  If you would like to understand the revisionist viewpoint on history, you’ve come to the right website. The Center features revisionist studies about Auschwitz, Dachau, Nazi gas chambers, the Holocaust, and other aspects of history.

  The “revisionist viewpoint on history”? It sounded technical. Suddenly Nicole got a terrific idea. What if she could find some kind of online summary of Anne Frank’s diary? Like Cliff’s Notes, only shorter? Then she wouldn’t actually have to finish the book, and she’d have stuff to tell her father at dinner, too. She searched The Center’s database under Anne Frank. A long list of scholarly-looking articles popped up. One caught her eye instantly.

  Is Anne Frank’s Diary of a Young Girl a fraud?

  She clicked on the link. An article by someone named Arthur Favre popped up on her monitor.

  Is Anne Frank’s Diary of a Young Girl a fraud? I have been studying this question for three years, and have included it in my upper-level university seminar for the last eighteen months. I have concluded after much research that the diary of Anne Frank is a forgery.

  “Who’s Anne Frank?”

  Nicole jumped. Little Bit was reading over her shoulder.

  “Why are you still here?”

  “Because I didn’t leave yet. Who’s Anne Frank?”

  “This Jewish girl who lived in Holland during World War Two,” Nicole mumbled, as she scrolled further down the article. “When she was hiding from the Germans, she kept a diary. I have to read it for Bazooms’ class.”

  Little Bit’s jaw fell open. “You call your teacher Bazooms?”

  “It’s her name. Renee Zooms, middle initial B. Buh-Zooms.” Nicole and her sister continued reading. Favre explained in the article how he’d scientifically determined that the diary was a forgery. He had dozens of impressively documented footnotes.

  “So, if her diary is fake, why do you have to read it?” Little Bit asked.

  “Got me.” A sidebar link to something called Ask The Center’s Experts came up. Nicole clicked, which took her to the center’s online chat room. Without thinking much about it, she logged in as Girl X.

  “Why do you call yourself Girl X?” Little Bit asked.

  “You have two choices: Leave or be quiet.”

  The only other person in the chat room was a Dr. Bridgeman. A message from him popped up on her monitor.

  DR. BR IDGEMAN: Hello, Girl X! And welcome to The Center. I’m Dr. Martin Bridgeman, the historian on duty this evening. How can I help you?

  GIRLX: I’m not sure. I have to read Anne Frank’s diary for high school. And I just read an article on this website that says it is a fake.

  DR. BRIDGEMAN: Confusing, I know! Well, Girl X, the truth is that no one knows for sure. But during the 1950s, a Jewish man named Meyer Levin sued the writers of its movie version, claiming that they had stolen his work. And he won.

  GIRL X: I never knew that.

  DR. BRIDGEMAN: It’s not one of the things they teach you in school.

  GIRL X: Why not?

  DR. BRIDGEMAN: A lot of educators feel guilty.

  GIRL X: About what?

  DR. BRIDGEMAN: The other side of the story. Did you know that our own government forced thousands of Japanese Americans into camps during WWII because we feared they’d be subversive? Germany did the same thing with their enemies. But we won the war, so we get to write history. It lessens our guilt to think that what Germany did was more awful than what we did.

  GIRL X: But didn’t the Germans kill millions of Jews during the Second World War?

  DR. BR I DGEMAN: War is a terrible thing. Yes, a lot of innocent people on both sides died. Many were Jews, many were not. Are they also teaching you about the fire-bombing of Dresden by the Allies, for example?

  “Who’s Dresden?” Little Bit asked.

  “Got me,” Nicole muttered. She typed furiously

  GIRL X: I still don’t get why anyone would publish a fake.

  DR. BRIDGEMAN : Think about it, Girl X. It serves the interests of the people who don’t want you to know the truth. There are still a lot of open questions about what happened during the war.

  GIRL X: My teachers never said there were open questions.

  DR. BRIDGEMAN: Don’t be too hard on them. Sometimes it is difficult to look in the mirror. But the truth will come out in time. It always does. Just remember that there are two sides to every story. You believe that, don’t you?

  GIRL X: :)

  DR. BRIDGEMAN: Smart girl. People go to death row for crimes they didn’t commit; politicians that we elect lie to us. It’s important for you to be an independent thinker. Get all the facts, then make up your own mind.

  “Nicole! Elizabeth, dinner!” their mom called from downstairs.

  GIRL X: I gotta go.

  DR. BR I DGEMAN: Come back anytime, Girl X. There’s always someone here who can help you with your research.

  Nicole logged off.

  “He was nice,” Little Bit said.

  “He was okay. I’ll be down in a minute.”

  Little Bit bounded downstairs as Nicole went to wash her hands. She caught her reflection in the bathroom mirror, and for a split second, she saw the shining eyes of Mrs. Litzger-Gold looking back at her. She blinked. They were gone.

  three

  Nicole stopped in the archway of the dining room, watching her family as if they were strangers she’d come upon. The dimmed chandelier cast a golden glow on her father and Little Bit, who talked animatedly, leaning toward him like a flower to the sun.

  “ ... and I would have gotten the highest grade, but Brian Lapsoll had all the vocabulary words written on his hand,” Little Bit was saying.

  Their mother carried a platter of chicken to the table. “Nicole, please sit. Elizabeth, did you
tell your teacher?”

  Little Bit shrugged as Nicole sat down. “Tattlers are the lowest.”

  “No, cheaters are the lowest,” her father corrected, filling Little Bit’s salad dish. “I’m seeing more and more plagiarized papers taken directly from research mills on the Internet. Cheaters deserve whatever punishment they get.”

  Reading about Anne Frank online instead of reading the diary would definitely meet her father’s definition of cheating. Nicole forked a drumstick from the serving platter.

  “Can I go to the mall with Britnee after school tomorrow, Mom?” Little Bit asked. “Her nanny can drive us if you can pick us up.”

  “How about riding your bicycle?” Dr. Burns suggested.

  Little Bit looked askance. “Dad, no one rides their bike to the mall. So can you, Mom?”

  “I’ll have to check my schedule.”

  “If we had a nanny, you wouldn’t have to check your schedule.”

  “Your mother and I prefer to raise our own children, thank you,” her father said dryly.

  “I just meant Mom wouldn’t get so stressed.”

  “I’m not str—” Mrs. Burns began, just as her cell phone rang. “Mary Burns,” she answered crisply. “Oh, hi, Dru ... Yes ... Yes... But that house is already in escrow! Hold a sec...” She covered the phone with her hand, mouthing apologies as she stepped away from the table.

  Dr. Burns’ mouth went tight. Nicole’s father hated it when her mother interrupted “family time” with her work calls. Oblivious to the tension, Little Bit blithely continued eating. Nicole knew her sister couldn’t remember a time when their mom wasn’t working, when the family hadn’t had plenty of money. But Nicole could. Seven years before, Mrs. Burns, who’d only attended junior college, had gotten her real estate license. It turned out that she was a real estate genius and now earned twice as much money as Dr. Burns did teaching college. The family had two new cars, a renovated kitchen, and had spent Christmas in Barbados. What was the point, Nicole thought, of her father—anyone—wast ing all those years in school?