The Great Rabbit Revenge Plan (11 page)

‘What?'

‘I could ask my father to drive us. We have a Passat. We could put the box in the back. For sure.'

‘What?' says Fridz. ‘Are you stupid?' She wrings her hands. ‘It can't be! There has to be a law against people being that stupid.'

‘How d'you mean?'

‘How do I mean? Do you really think your father would drive us if he knew what we are doing with this rabbit?'

‘No,' says Konrad. And then he says something even more outrageous. He says: ‘We'd have to keep him in the dark about that.'

‘Wow,' says Fridz. And then again: ‘Wow!'

Then she says nothing for at least ten seconds, which for her is an extraordinarily long time. She is obviously impressed.
In the end, she says, ‘And what were you thinking of telling him, if he asks?'

‘Hmm. Maybe that the rabbit is sick. That it has to go to the vet. Something like that.'

‘Oh, boy,' says Fridz. ‘You're a right one. Professor Superclever and his great plan.'

That's a bit sharp, but the way she says it, it doesn't sound sharp at all. It sounds rather complimentary.

‘And you really think he'd believe you?'

Konrad shrugs his shoulders and says nothing. This looks good, but he doesn't feel one bit good. Though ‘not one bit good' isn't quite the right expression. He actually feels as sick as a dog. Good heavens, what has he suggested? He's going to get his father mixed up in the whole rabbit revenge thing, without his even noticing. Which would mean that he, Konrad Bantelmann, would have to … tell lies!

‘Wow,' says Fridz again. ‘Wow, wow, wow. That's really something!' Obviously, she no longer doubts that this plan is going to work.

Konrad has started to doubt if he is still upright, considering how the ground is swaying under his feet.

‘Let's play
Crazy Bugs
and afterwards we can go to the canal,' says Fridz.

Oh, sure, to the canal. That's just great, another thing he is not supposed to do.

The Great Divorce Test

An hour later, the two of them are sitting there, where they sat two days ago, at the forbidden canal. They are letting their legs hang down over the water and Fridz is throwing little stones in again.

But one important thing is quite different from how it was two days ago. Two days ago they had just woken up Fridz's mum, who is so unhappy that she sometimes takes sleeping tablets so that she can get some sleep and forget her unhappiness. And then Konrad – completely coincidentally and unintentionally – had given Fridz the appalling idea of sending an allergy rabbit to her father's girlfriend. Because she was so angry and so sad.

But when Konrad gives a secret sidelong glance at her now, she looks fairly happy, even though she is saying nothing and is just looking out over the canal. Since this appalling allergy rabbit project started, she hasn't been as sad and as angry as she was two days ago here at the canal. Cutting – yes, she's been that all along. Unbelievably sharp. And cross. Even super-cross. But being sharp and being cross are easier to take than being sad, both for oneself and for other people. And this makes Konrad think that maybe this rabbit idea is not so harebrained as he had thought at first.

However, what he himself set in motion an hour ago in the basement of number 28b is total lunacy. His father would drive them into town, he'd said, and the law-abiding Konrad Bantelmann, of all people, is to lie himself blue in the face to get him to do it. Was that really the only option? Konrad wonders now. Would it not have been a thousand times better to pull the awful, squeaky trolley through half the town, rather than let himself in for all these lies he is going to have to tell? Probably yes. But there's no going back now.

‘Hey, you,' says Konrad.

‘Yeah?'

‘How's your mother?'

‘All right,' says Fridz. ‘This afternoon, she has to go to the bank. And this morning we were at the solicitor's. For the seven hundred thousandth time. They want to organise an interim access order.'

‘A what?'

‘In-ter-im ac-cess or-der. It says how often my dear father is allowed to visit me and what we can do together.'

‘Oh?' says Konrad. ‘Is there such a thing?'

‘Obviously.' Fridz pulls up her legs and sits cross-legged. ‘That's why I had to go too. I'm allowed to make suggestions. Here, listen.'

She pulls a piece of paper out of her back pocket and opens it out. Then she reads out loud: ‘ “It is hereby arranged and ordered that Herr Matthias Frenke picks up his only daughter Friederike Luise every Friday at 4 p.m. from her home and then immediately takes her to see the film of her choice. Before the cinema, she gets a bucket of candied popcorn
and afterwards a pizza with everything she wants on it, including jelly babies and licorice snakes. Finally, she may watch television until her eyes close and Herr Frenke must then carry her to bed, without waking her.” What do you make of that?'

Konrad nearly said ‘deadly'. But only nearly. What he actually says is, ‘Mad.'

‘It goes on. Listen! “On Saturday mornings, Herr Frenke must let his only daughter Friederike Luise sleep as long as she wants, and subsequently he is to make her pancakes for breakfast with sugar and syrup. And his stupid girlfriend Kristine is not to be present at breakfast or to try to paw her disgustingly.” '

‘Wow!' says Konrad. ‘And they've really allowed all that?'

‘I don't know,' says Fridz.

‘What d'you mean, you don't know?'

‘I didn't read it to them.' Fridz folds the paper and puts it back in her pocket.

‘Why not?'

‘Because it would make my mum even sadder.' She punches Konrad in the shoulder. ‘You should be there sometime when we go to the solicitor. It's dreadful, I'm telling you. First, Mum is totally nervous. Really panicking. Sometimes she sits down suddenly somewhere and starts crying. A few times, she's even been crying in the car. When we're actually at the solicitor's, she's totally cool and she talks to the man for hours, all about payments.'

‘About payments?'

‘Yes, how much Dad has to pay her, how much he has to
pay for me and how much he has to save so that I can go to university. Pure money stuff. And then,' Fridz starts throwing stones into the canal, ‘then, if it's about the house, that's the worst. Because the stupid house doesn't belong to either Mum or Dad. The stupid house belongs to the bank, and Mum says if we don't watch like a hawk and let Dad just do as he pleases, then we'll have to move out again within a few months.'

‘Why's that?' Konrad is horrified.

‘Dunno,' says Fridz. ‘In any case, Mum and the solicitor talk for hours about the house. And about payments. And the more they talk about payments, the sadder Mum gets. As long as we're at the solicitor's, she's fine. But on the way home in the car, by the first traffic light at the latest, she starts wailing again. All the way home. Then she stops the car in front of the garage and stumbles out of it to the door and says, “Crap house.” And then …'

‘What then?'

Fridz says nothing for a moment. Then she starts throwing stones into the canal with both hands at the same time.

‘Dunno,' she says. ‘Something. Anyway, she's always super super bad after that. And if I read out a page like that, then she would definitely be even worse.'

‘I understand,' says Konrad.

‘You understand nothing,' says Fridz. But she doesn't say it sharply at all. She rubs her hands together and lets her legs hang down again. ‘You wouldn't want anyone to be able to understand the first thing about such a heap of crap.'

Konrad has taken a very small stone and now he lets it fall down into the canal by his legs. The stone goes
splish
.

‘Would you think,' he says, ‘that my parents might separate too?'

‘Haven't a clue!'

‘But I thought you'd know about things like that.'

Fridz laughs. ‘I don't know a thing about your parents,' she says. ‘I have a hard enough time understanding my own.'

‘Hmm,' says Konrad. ‘But your whole family is divorced. You must know more about it than I do.'

‘Okay,' says Fridz. ‘If you say so.' She grins again, as only she can grin. ‘So let's do a test.'

‘What kind of a test?'

‘A big divorce test. I'll ask you a few questions, and if you answer most of them with yes, then your parents are going to get divorced soon.'

‘Oh,' says Konrad. He hadn't expected this. ‘How many questions?'

‘Well,' says Fridz, ‘I think maybe five. Agreed?'

Konrad pulls his legs up and wraps his arms around his knees. He's feeling a bit uneasy. Five questions – that means, he mustn't answer yes more than twice. Otherwise his parents will get divorced.

‘Agreed,' he says. ‘Get started!'

‘Away we go!' Fridz bites her lower lip. ‘Question number one: Have you built a house lately?'

‘You know that!'

‘So, the answer to the first question is yes.'

‘Yes, but –'

The first question and Konrad is already up to his neck in it.

But Fridz is right. Franzkarl Findouter and his wife Evelyn have also got divorced, just after they had built a house. And the Bantelmann parents had squabbled a lot during the building of the house. About such ridiculously unimportant things as where the second washbasin should go in the bathroom, what kind of tiles should they lay in the hall, whether the drainpipe should be round or square, and so on and so forth.

Konrad says ‘But–' again, but he can't think of anything more to say.

‘Yeah, well, but,' says Fridz. ‘One nil to divorce. Second question: Do your parents fight every Sunday morning at breakfast until one of them takes something off the table and throws it on the floor?'

‘No!' cries Konrad very quickly and very loudly. Not every Sunday morning – you certainly could not say that. In any case, Peter – and sometimes Konrad himself – is responsible for throwing things on the floor. A definite no.

‘One all,' says Fridz. ‘Third question: does your mum stand in front of her wardrobe sometimes and say, “I really don't know who I'm putting all this stuff on for?” '

Konrad thinks. His mother does sometimes stand for a long time in front of her wardrobe. But she always says something quite different. She says, ‘I have absolutely nothing to wear.' If Dad hears this, first he laughs for a quarter of an hour, and then he kisses Mum and calls her so many funny names that she laughs too. Konrad tells Fridz all this.

‘Yeah, yeah,' she says. ‘That'll do. So, it's a no. That makes it two to one against divorce. Fourth question.' Fridz seems to have to think. ‘Fourth questionn,' she says again, very slowly. But then it comes to her: ‘Have your parents considered taking separate holidays?'

Ouch! Konrad can feel his ears going red. His parents did think of that, this very year. Dad suggested that Mum might take him and Peter for a week to the sea, and while they were away, Dad could get a few little jobs finished around the house. That way they would save on the double: the money for Dad's hotel and the money they would otherwise pay to get the jobs done on the house. A sensible suggestion. But Mum was very much against it. And in the end, when Dad came back from the bank in a very bad mood, they decided that this year they'd all stay at home, in order to save even more money.

‘All the same,' says Fridz. ‘That counts as a yes. Whether or not they actually did it. It's enough that they discussed doing it. I'm telling you, that's the beginning of the end. So now it's two all.'

Fridz raises a hand. ‘In other words, ladies and gentlemen,' she says, like a ringmaster who is announcing the number of lions the lion-tamer is going to produce, ‘Konrad Bantelmann now faces the final and decisive question in the Great Divorce Test. Drum roll, please, orchestra!' And she makes a noise that is supposed to sound like a rumble of drums.

That's enough, thinks Konrad. If only he hadn't let himself in for this test!

‘Right,' says Fridz, stretching the word right out. ‘Riiiiiiiight.'

‘Oh, get on with it,' says Konrad. It has to happen quickly or he will get even more jumpy.

‘Right. Fifth question: do you get too many presents?'

‘I beg your pardon?'

What kind of a question is that? Nobody in the world gets too many presents! No – that is impossible. That goes against the laws of nature, Dad would say. And Konrad says something like that now.

‘D'you think?' says Fridz. ‘Take me, for example. I get too many presents.'

‘Seriously?'

‘Completely seriously. From my dad. I get something every time he comes to see me.'

‘But that's super!' Maybe, Konrad thinks, Fridz is mad after all.

‘Yeah?' she says. ‘D'you reckon? Then start wishing that your parents will be very unhappy together. Because if they are unhappy together, then they start thinking whether it might not be better for them to get divorced. But when they think about divorce, then they get a bad conscience. Because there's you, and you have nothing to do with their unhappiness. “The poor child!” they think. And out of pure guilt, they give you a whole toy shop full of presents.'

‘Ach,' says Konrad.

‘Ach is right. And then when they really do separate, it gets even crazier. Do you really think I got
Crazy Bugs 3
because I am such a sweet and well-behaved little girl and
always eat up my porridge?'

Konrad would rather not answer.

‘So you see. And in case you're interested in what you get when your parents get divorced, you can take a look any day at my soft toy collection, which my dear runaway father has bestowed upon me, so that I won't be all alone with my mum and his stupid bunny.'

‘But there aren't any soft toys in your room,' says Konrad. He's been in her room, and he's never seen a single soft toy in it.

‘They're in the basement,' says Fridz. ‘Near the bins. I go down once a day and torture them with needles and scissors. You should hear how they scream for help. There's this stupid green turtle; he shouts the loudest. You have to stuff your ears when he starts.'

‘Is that really true?'

‘Yeah,' says Fridz. ‘Or maybe I've been telling lies. Maybe it's the funny little beaver that howls the loudest. Or this totally outrageous purple dinosaur with disgusting yellow spots. Or one of the super-sweet little woolly mice that you can arrange nicely in a row on a very long skewer.'

Konrad thinks of his own mouse, with the problematic name of Mattchoo. Just as well he has never mentioned it to Fridz.

‘You'd do a thing like that?' he says.

‘Sure,' says Fridz. ‘Not always, but often. I call it woolly mouse kebab.And if the creatures shout, then I turn them over an open flame, until they are crisp on the outside and juicy on the inside. That's good fun.'

‘Ha ha,' goes Konrad. But this ‘Ha ha' is nothing like a real laugh.

‘Just pay attention,' says Fridz. ‘If your parents are getting divorced, then you'll get up to five thousand sweet little cars. You could smash them up good and proper between two bricks. That would probably be good fun too.'

‘But,' says Konrad, ‘my parents are not getting divorced. Have you forgotten? The score is three two.'

‘Oh?' says Fridz. ‘You don't get too many presents? Honestly?'

‘Yes,' says Konrad. ‘I mean, no, I really don't get too many presents. Dad has even gone so far as to say I will be getting fewer things, because we all have to save.'

‘Okay,' says Fridz. ‘I get it.'

‘So that's three two against divorce.'

‘Agreed.' Fridz stands up and brushes something off her trousers. ‘But I'm telling you, three two is tight enough. Four one would have been better. But listen, when are you going to ask your father if he will drive us?'