ce."That sounds fishy," I said to Margot. "It's obviously a pretext. You can tell by the way the men are talking that there's been a break-in!" I was right. The warehouse was being broken into at that very moment. Father, Mr. van Daan and peter were downstairs in a flash. Margot, Mother, Mrs. van D. and I waited. Four frightened women need to talk, so that's what we did until we heard a bang downstairs. After that all was quiet. The clock struck quarter to ten. The color had drained from our faces, but we remained calm, even though we were afraid. Where were the men? What was that bang? Were they fighting with the burglars? We were too scared to think; all we could do was wait.Ten o'clock, footsteps on the stairs. Father, pale and nervous, came inside, followed by Mr. van Daan. "Lights out, tiptoe upstairs, we're expecting the police!" There wasn't time to be scared. The lights were switched off, I grabbed a jacket, and we sat down upstairs."What happened? Tell us quickly!"There was no one to tell us; the men had gone back downstairs. The four of them didn't come back up until ten past ten. Two of them kept watch at peter's open window. The door to the landing was locked, the book- case shut. We draped a sweater over our night-light, and then they told us what had happened:peter was on the landing when he heard two loud bangs. He went downstairs and saw that a large panel was missing from the left half of the warehouse door. He dashed upstairs, alerted the "Home Guard," and the four of them went downstairs. When they entered the warehouse, the burglars were going about their business. Without thinking, Mr. van Daan yelled "police!" Hur- ried footsteps outside; the burglars had fled. The board was put back in the door so the police wouldn't notice the gap, but then a swift kick from outside sent it flying to the floor. The men were amazed at the burglars' audacity. Both peter and Mr. van Daan felt a murderous rage come over them. Mr. van Daan slammed an ax against th
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