friday, july 23, 1943

bep is currently able to get hold of notebooks, especially journals and ledgers, useful for my bookkeeping sister! other kinds are for sale as well, but don't ask what they're like or how long they'll last. at the moment they're all labeled "no coupons needed!" like everything else you can purchase without ration stamps, they're i totally worthless. they consist of twelve sheets of gray i paper with narrow lines that slant across the page. margot is thinking about taking a course in calligraphy; i've advised her to go ahead and do it. mother won't let me because of my eyes, but i think that's silly. whether i do i that or something else, it all comes down to the same i thing.

since you've never been through a war, kitty, and since you know very little about life in hiding, in spite of my letters, let me tell you, just for fun, what we each want to do first when we're able to go outside again.

margot and mr. van daan wish, above all else, to have a hot bath, filled to the brim, which they can lie in for more than half an hour. mrs. van daan would like a cake, dussel can think of nothing but seeing his charlotte, and mother is dying for a cup of real coffee. father would like to visit mr. voskuijl, peter would go downtown, and as for me, i'd be so overjoyed i wouldn't know where to begin.

most of all i long to have a home of our own, to be able to move around freely and have someone help me with my homework again, at last. in other words, to go back to school!

bep has offered to get us some fruit, at so-called bargain prices: grapes 2.50 guilders a pound, gooseberries 70 cents a pound, one peach 50 cents, melons 75 cents a pound. no wonder the papers write every evening in big, fat letters: "keep prices down!"