saturday, june 20, 1942

dearest kitty! let me get started right away; it's nice and quiet now. father and mother are out and margot has gone to play ping-pong with some other young people at her friend trees's. i've been playing a lot of ping-pong myself lately. so much that five of us girls have formed a club. it's called "the little dipper minus two." a really silly name, but it's based on a mistake. we wanted to give our club a special name; and because there were five of us, we came up with the idea of the little dipper. we thought it consisted of five stars, but we turned out to be wrong. it has seven, like the big dipper, which explains the "minus two." ilse wagner has a ping-pong set, and the wagners let us play in their big dining room whenever we want. since we five ping-pong players like ice cream, especially in the summer, and since you get hot playing ping-pong, our games usually end with a visit to the nearest ice-cream parlor that allows jews: either oasis or delphi. we've long since stopped hunting around for our purses or money -- most of the time it's so busy in oasis that we manage to find a few generous young men of our acquaintance or an admirer to offer us more ice cream than we could eat in a week.

you're probably a little surprised to hear me talking about admirers at such a tender age. unfortunately, or not, as the case may be, this vice seems to be rampant at our school. as soon as a boy asks if he can bicycle home with me and we get to talking, nine times out of ten i can be sure he'll become enamored on the spot and won't let me out of his sight for a second. his ardor eventually cools, especially since i ignore his passionate glances and pedal blithely on my way. if it gets so bad that they start rambling on about "asking father's permission," i swerve slightly on my bike, my schoolbag falls, and the young man feels obliged to get off his bike and hand me the bag, by which time i've switched the conversation to another topic. these are the most innocent types. of course, there are those who blow you kisses or try to take hold of your arm, but they're definitely knocking on the wrong door. i get off my bike and either refuse to make further use of their company or act as if i'm insulted and tell them in no uncertain terms to go on home without me. there you are. we've now laid the basis for our friendship. until tomorrow.

yours, anne