The Great Rabbit Revenge Plan (6 page)

Crazy Bugs 3

It's arrived. Tuesday. Not any old Tuesday, but the Tuesday on which Konrad Bantelmann – future fifth class pupil, inhabitant of number 17a, passionate Lego player and owner of a very intelligent list – is to meet a girl. A girl who possesses Crazy
Bugs 3
but unfortunately also a repulsive rabbit, and whose parents are very sadly separated. How can that be?

Konrad spends the whole morning playing Lego, but no matter what he makes – missile rockets, space stations or transporters – nothing goes right. Somehow, everything manages to look like a rabbit hutch.

The time is fast approaching. All Konrad has to do is take his eyes off the time, and suddenly at least half an hour has passed. Just to make sure, Konrad goes down to the kitchen a couple of times to check, but the clock down there is racing away like mad and it's lunchtime already. What a day!

And for lunch, there's spinach. It's not that Konrad doesn't like spinach. Spinach is good. Or, more precisely, spinach is not bad. But unfortunately it is extremely difficult to eat a plate of spinach in such a way that all the spinach is inside the person and none of it ends up somewhere else. The spinach won't hear of it. Spinach wants to get everywhere: on the table, on your sweatshirt sleeves, on your trousers
and especially on your face, just next to your ear. Why spinach wants to do this is unknown. But spinach must want to do it pretty badly, because although Konrad has been trying very hard for years, the spinach manages every time to find its favourite places to settle. Which inevitably leads to Mum-panic.

Now, Konrad could point out that in the case of his brother Peter, spinach manages to reach much more remote places, for example, the top of his head and under his feet, from where it could spread itself all over the house. But if he mentions this, Konrad does not make himself popular, because then he's told that he is older, and should know better, and moreover he should be showing a good example to his younger brother. That's just the way it is. So, Konrad takes up the spinach challenge once again. As a precautionary measure, he bends so far over his plate that there is at the most five millimetres between the spinach and his mouth. That looks good, but even within this space of five millimetres, the spinach is sure to be able to make a dash for it.

All's well at first, but then a siren suddenly starts up outside on Hedwig Dransfeld Strasse. Is it the fire brigade? Could one of the new duplexes have gone on fire? And if so, which one? Maybe one where a child who's on Konrad's list lives? Maybe it's number 28b?

Quick, to the window for a look! Peter has the same idea at the same time, and as the two of them leap up from the table at the same moment, their shoulders collide and there is such a tussle that Konrad's fork, which he had put down a
bit crooked at the edge of his plate, unfortunately slips to one side. Being somewhat overloaded, it falls from the table and hits off the side of the chair, which creates a catapult effect. This catapult effect causes a forkload of spinach to fly through the air and to land – splat – against the dining-room wall. Not until then does the fork clatter to the floor.

Major Mum-panic sets in. Peter starts up a precautionary wail, and – wouldn't you know it? – the noise outside turns out not to be the fire brigade after all but a car alarm, and there is nothing to be seen except the man from number 18b, who keeps pulling a cable out from under the bonnet of his car until the siren finally stops. That's the end of lunch.

Mum scrapes the spinach off the wall and says horrid things about her sons. The boys excuse themselves and go to their rooms and think dark thoughts about spinach, while their mice, Lackilug and Mattchoo, go so far as to suggest what might be done about eliminating spinach altogether from the world. Just as well no one else understands what they are saying.

And then all of a sudden it's a quarter to two! Which means that Konrad had better be on his way, because he has to meet a girl called Fridz with a d and very likely also her horrible rabbit. So he goes downstairs, puts on his shoes and calls out as usual, ‘Bye. I'm not going far.' Just as he has his hand on the door handle, his mother calls him back. Mum-panic is still in evidence.

‘Stay right there! You are under house arrest.'

‘I beg your pardon?' says Konrad.

Fine, anyone can understand ‘stay right there'. But what
in the world does ‘house arrest' mean? Konrad Bantelmann doesn't know what ‘house arrest' means. And he says so.

‘What's house arrest?'

So there they stand, Mum Bantelmann and her son Konrad, who still has his hand on the door handle. And while Konrad goes on thinking about the words ‘house arrest,' it has dawned on Mum that she's done something wrong. Because while of course it is unacceptable for the boys to spread spinach on the newly painted walls of the recently built number 17a, on the other hand, a phrase like ‘house arrest' is just as out of place in Hedwig Dransfeld Strasse as spinach on the walls. That is a phrase out of the Dark Ages, when parents locked their children up in their rooms for the slightest thing. House arrest hadn't existed even when Mum was called Edith and was a little girl. Even then house arrest had been abolished – and now many, many years later, at a time when her son Konrad doesn't even know what house arrest means, she, a thoroughly modern Dransfeld mother, is planning to impose such an old-fashioned punishment! And all because of a spot of spinach! Mum flushes a little. But just as she is about to answer, it finally occurs to Konrad what ‘house arrest' must mean.

‘Arrest', that's what a policeman threatens a robber with in one of his books, and it means something like jail. So, Mum wants to turn the house into a jail for him, which in turn means that he, Konrad Bantelmann, has the best excuse in the whole world not to turn up to his appointment with this Fridz. What a piece of luck, thinks Konrad, and on a
day like today! He vows never to think badly of spinach again. Hurray!

Konrad does not, of course, say ‘Hurray!' Instead, he makes a gesture that means roughly, ‘Oh well, that's life.' And he says aloud, ‘I'll just go back upstairs then.' That is to say, he doesn't say it really loudly, but rather softly, so that it sounds half-sad and half-sulky.

‘No, no!' says Mum quickly. ‘I didn't mean it like that.'

What's that supposed to mean? Did she intend ‘house arrest' to mean something different? And if so, what?

‘You can go,' says Mum. ‘You have an appointment. We'll discuss the spinach this evening.'

There he stands, then, Konrad Bantelmann. No such luck after all. What can he say? Should he ask for a spot of house arrest so that he doesn't have to visit the wretched rabbit? No, that would never do.

Instead, he mumbles ‘Thanks,' as quietly as possible, opens the door a crack and squeezes out. There's no way back now. What had Mum said yesterday? He'd just have to go through it.

Konrad walks slowly along Hedwig Dransfeld Strasse, his eyes glued to the ground, to the new paving stones, which are still quite bare, without a single piece of trodden-on chewing gum on them. Just as long as he doesn't meet anyone. As long as no one speaks to him. So that the whole of The Dransfeld doesn't start gossiping about how he has a date with a girl.

Outside number 28b Konrad looks up for the first time. He can't see anyone, but that doesn't mean that no one has
seen him. In 27b, for example, the twins, Lena and Lisa, could be watching him from behind a flowery net curtain or a china goose. But Konrad has an idea. He knows a trick. He got it out of a detective story. He takes a euro coin out of his pocket, keeping his fist closed over it, then he bends over and gropes on the ground. And when he straightens up, he has the coin in his hand, so that anyone watching would be sure to think he'd just found it on the ground. That's part one of the clever trick. Now for the second part. Konrad looks pointedly left and right as if to say, who could have lost this coin? Who could it be? And the third part of the trick: Konrad looks up the drive of number 28b and smacks himself with the flat of his hand on the forehead, the way Mum does when she finally remembers, after many hours, where she has put her keys. That's supposed to mean, obviously it's the people in number 28b who have lost the coin. The fourth part of the trick goes like this: Konrad holds the coin up as high as possible, he goes to the door of number 28b and he rings the doorbell. Nobody on earth could possibly conclude after all this that Konrad Bantelmann is ringing the doorbell because he is supposed to meet a girl.

‘Hi,' says Fridz.

‘Hi,' says Konrad.

‘Come in!' She grabs Konrad's sweatshirt and drags him into the house. That's girls for you.

‘There's no admission charge,' she says.

Konrad, of course, still has the coin in his raised hand.

‘Oh,' he says, ‘this is – ah – for the rabbit.'

‘Great,' says Fridz, ‘thank you very much. But he doesn't eat money.'

Yeah, very funny. This Fridz is by far the sharpesttongued girl that Konrad has ever met. But he won't let himself be beaten as easily as that.

‘I know,' he says. ‘But I thought you should buy him a fresh lettuce.'

As a smart answer, that's pretty good. Except that now the rabbit is the centre of attention again. And that was exactly what Konrad wanted to avoid.

But Konrad's luck is very changeable today. Fridz takes the coin from him, and says, ‘Shut up about the rabbit. Just take your shoes off and come upstairs. I'm playing
Crazy Bugs
and I've got to level two already.'

‘Cool,' says Konrad.

Half an hour later, they are both on level five, and Konrad is laughing so hard that the tears are running down his cheeks. Because firstly, this game really is very funny, and secondly, Fridz can be really sharp about what's happening, and funny too. If she doesn't stop soon, Konrad is going to explode. His stomach hurts from laughing.

‘Ahh!' she says now. ‘Just you wait, you evil spawn of blue-spotted horse-poo flies! I'm going to mash you into brown horse-pooh mush.' With that, she makes the little man on the screen race around like mad with his fly-swatter. But instead of catching a single bug, he knocks the dishes off a little table, the flowers off the windowsill and the pictures off the walls. In the end, he even knocks a hole in the window, through which more and more and yet more insects come
pouring into the virtual room. Konrad can hardly breathe, he is laughing so hard. Sebastian from number 9a, who would quite happily play
Crazy Bugs 2
all day, takes the game completely seriously. The first time they sat together at the computer and Konrad let a few bugs go that he could easily have caught on level two, Sebastian got really cross with him. ‘I'll never get to level five if I play with you,' he'd said.

But Fridz is unbelievably expert at
Crazy Bugs 3
. They'd got to level five in no time, but then Fridz had suddenly started messing about. Of course, their lovely level five score was in ruins within seconds, because the new bugs immediately free the ones Konrad and Fridz had just captured, and then the whole lot start swarming all over the little man, who's screeching like mad now and scratching himself. The bug-counter on the left of the screen is rattling away downwards at a great rate towards zero, until finally the signs light up that tell you you are the lousiest bug-catcher under the sun. And the computer laughs wickedly.

‘That's that!' cries Fridz. ‘So what'll we do now?'

‘Play mothers and fathers?' says Konrad.

Oh no! How on earth did he let that out? It must have to do with the mood of hilarity Fridz has created with her smart remarks and all her fooling about at the computer.

Mothers and fathers, of all things! Because that's every girl's favourite thing to play. And of all the utterly embarrassing games on earth, this one is the most embarrassing. What's he going to do now, if Fridz says, ‘Super'? But that is not what she says at all. Instead, she suddenly goes all serious. ‘Nah,' she says. ‘We don't play that game any more around here.'

Oh, of course! Konrad wishes the earth would open and swallow him up. Fridz's parents are separated! That was the loopiest suggestion he could possibly have made. He mumbles something that might, at a stretch, be interpreted as ‘sorry'. It had been such good fun until now. Hopefully Fridz isn't offended.

‘It's okay,' she says. And then she gives Konrad such a cheeky look. ‘Do you play mothers and fathers at home?'

Konrad smacks himself on the forehead. No way!

‘And your parents,' says Fridz, ‘they're still together?'

‘Sure they are!'

‘Nothing sure about it.' Fridz taps a few keys and
Crazy Bugs 3
disappears from the screen. ‘Nothing is sure. My mum and dad are separated. My real Uncle Klaus and my real Aunt Sabine are actually divorced. And my pretend Uncle Jürgen and my pretend Aunt Marie too.'

‘Wow,' says Konrad. He can't think of anything else to say.

‘Yeah,' says Fridz. ‘And Paul and Elvira, whom I don't call uncle and aunt, they've decided that they want to try living in separate apartments for a year.'

‘Oh,' says Konrad. ‘And your dad? Where does he live now?'

Fridz turns the computer off. ‘With Kristine. Kristine with a K. Imagine! With a K at the beginning. Like kindergarten. Or kick.'

‘And who is this Kristine?'

‘Dad's girlfriend. Just think, she has short blonde hair.' Fridz demonstrates with two fingers. ‘This short. You
wouldn't believe it. It only takes her ten minutes to wash her hair. Ten minutes, including drying and everything. When Mum washes her hair, it takes half the afternoon. And if she puts colour in too, then that's the whole evening gone.'

‘I see,' says Konrad. This is extraordinary information. Fridz's mother's red hair is dyed and Fridz's father lives with a girlfriend called Kristine with a K. And on top of that, all Fridz's relations are divorced. Konrad must seem like a person who has no proper experience of life. He feels somehow rather small. And because nobody likes feeling small, he tries hard to think what kind of catastrophe he can offer to match Fridz's experience.