Rosa's just lost a valuable customer and doesn't want to lose any more if she can help it. As always, she takes out her frustration on Liesel, giving her more laundry to do as well as subjecting her to a characteristically brutal tongue-lashing. For good measure, Rosa tells Liesel that, from now on, she'll be the one to venture out to pick up and deliver laundry. And when she does so, she's under strict instructions from Rosa to put on a sad face and tell her customers, especially the rich ones, that Rosa's sick.

It's hoped that eliciting sympathy in such a shameless manner will make it less likely that customers will cancel their orders. Liesel obeys without question; but then, she has no choice. Rosa's threatened her with a good, hard smack with the wooden spoon if she doesn't do as she's told.

In Markus Zusak's The Book Thief, Liesel Meminger is a young girl living in Germany during the time of the Nazi regime in World War II. The book is narrated by Death itself, who sees Liesel's younger brother die near the very beginning of the book.

Her father has been taken away because he is a suspected communist, and Liesel's mother could be taken away as well because she is connected to her possibly communist husband, so Liesel is taken in by Hans and Rosa Hubermann, who act as foster parents. Rosa, or Mama, works doing laundry for the people in their town. Rosa is a pretty harsh person, and Nazi Germany is becoming a harder and harder place to live in, including in terms of the economy. She hopes that by having Liesel, a child, pick up and deliver laundry, people will have sympathy for her and keep using Rosa's laundry service.