Leseprobe

Two Make Magic

Operation Woodruff

Sibylle Luig

Illustrated by Ulrike Barth-Musil

Translated by Richard Wilkins

Impressum

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and events either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or events is entirely coincidental.

Originally published in German under the title:

Magie hoch zwei – Operation Waldmeister, Hildesheim 2018

www.verlag-monikafuchs.de

www.magiehochzwei.com

A catalogue record for this publication is available

at the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek: http://dnb-nb.de

ISBN Printbook: 978-3-947066-55-1

© 2021 by Verlag Monika Fuchs | Hildesheim

Text: Sibylle Luig | Berlin

Translation: Richard Wilkins | London

Copyediting: Sophie Chessum | London

Cover and illustrations: Ulrike Barth-Musil | Potsdam

eBook-Erstellung: Die Bücherfüxin | www.buecherfuexin.de | Hildesheim

Contents

Pretty lonely

Poor old Lou

A cat called Noah

A big black book

Visiting Henrietta

Dr. Thomas Fechner

Noah moves in

School trip to Hamburg

Operation Woodruff

Hospital visit

Home again

Twins

Flying is the best

All’s well that starts wet

Philip misses a trick

Gerbils to the rescue

Secrets with mango ice cream

We’ll never fly alone

Anhang

Sibylle Luig

Ulrike Barth-Musil

Pretty lonely

‘Ouch!’ cried Elli. She had been hit on the lip by one of the scrunched-up balls of paper that Josephine had shot across the classroom with an elastic band. It had landed on her desk, and Elli couldn’t decide whether to just sweep it away or to open it up and read it. Other pupils had apparently already read it - someone kept giggling. Hesitantly, Elli reached for the note, but as she did so she heard a voice screech across the room, ‘Elektra’. It was her new teacher, Ms. Sauter.

‘I thought I’d asked you all to read page 7 of your textbooks. But if your piece of paper is more illuminating, maybe you should just come to the front of the class and let us all share in its delights.’

The whole class suddenly burst into giggles. Did everyone except Elli know what Josephine had written? Bright-red in the face, Elli stood-up and smoothed down her skirt before slowly making her way to the front of the classroom.

‘Well, what’s so interesting?’

Ms. Sauter was a large, chubby lady with short, red hair and a piercing voice. Elli unfolded the piece of paper, and then stared at it long and hard as she wished the ground would just open-up and swallow her whole.

‘Can’t you read, child?’ demanded Ms. Sauter, before snatching the paper from Elli’s hand.

‘Elektra loves Philip,’ she read out loud, holding-up the page so that everyone could see the heart pierced by an arrow, with “Elektra” on the left of it and “Philip” on the right. ‘That’s just beautiful, isn’t it,’ said Ms. Sauter. ‘Now would anyone mind telling me who wrote it?’

Nobody answered – Elli included. This Josephine really seemed not to like her, but they didn’t even know each other yet.

‘You can return to your seat, Elektra,’ said Ms. Sauter. ‘If this class finds itself unable to maintain a modicum of decorum, I will make you all swap seats so that nobody gets to sit next to their friends from elementary school. Elektra and Josephine, you can switch right now.’

Elli returned to her desk and packed-up her things. Philip didn’t look at her.

‘Well, I guess you’ve broken-up,’ Josephine hissed spitefully at Elli as she barged past her, schoolbag in hand.

Elli said nothing. Why was Josephine so mean to her? She’d nev­er done anything to her. Sophie, the girl that Elli now found herself sitting next to, wore a white, frilly blouse and a blue, pleated skirt.

‘Funny name that, Elektra,’ was how she greeted her.

Everyone called her ‘Elli’, except for her mother sometimes, but neither Ms. Sauter nor Sophie knew that yet. But instead of saying to Sophie that she could also call her ‘Elli’, Elli snapped back at her defiantly – ‘Well, I like it just fine.’

‘Good for you,’ said Sophie, and from then on she only talked to Masha, who was sitting on her other side.

Nobody sat to Elli’s left, and to her right was Sophie, who was now acting as if Elli was invisible. Elli felt terribly alone. Yet Sophie and Masha’s constant chatter soon led to the next reorganisation, only a few days later, and Elli landed next to Charlotte.

Other than Philip, Elli knew none of the kids in her new class. Irena, Emilia and Anton were in class 5a, Luis and Nicholas were in class 5c, and the other children from their old class had either gone to new schools or stayed behind.

‘It’s not so bad,’ her mother had said. ‘You’ll make new friends quickly enough, and you already know Philip’. Yes, she knew Philip, but she still hadn’t made any new friends. Not even after three weeks.

‘They are all such idiots,’ said Elli to Philip one day after school.

‘Absolutely,’ said Philip. He had waited for her on the corner of Broad Street. Josephine could never be allowed to know that they shared the same route home, as she would simply never stop from teasing them. It had got so bad that Elli hardly dared to speak to Philip at school anymore.

‘But the boys are okay,’ said Philip. ‘Leon, who sits next to me, he is alright.’

‘Great!’ said Elli, irritated.

‘It is only school,’ said Philip, trying to console her.

‘Yeah, just six terrible hours a day’. Elli shook her head, so that her red-blond locks flew all around her. ‘Shall we go to your place and sit in the oak tree?’

A huge, old oak tree grew in Philip’s garden and they had hung a rope ladder on it. If you could negotiate the first three metres or so of tree trunk, the branches were so wide that you could comfortably stretch-out on them. It was also the only place where you would be safe from Philip’s silly neighbour, and Elli loved to hide up there.

‘I’ve got football practice now,’ said Philip.

Of course, he had. Philip was always playing football nowadays. He almost never had time in the afternoons. At least, that’s how Elli saw it.

In that case, she would just go home alone and read her new book until her mother and aunt returned.

‘There’s a girl in my class who is really nasty to me,’ said Elli at dinner while poking grumpily at her spaghetti.

‘Really?’ asked her mother. ‘What’s she doing then?’

‘She says that I’m in love with Philip’.

Auntie Eva, who was eating dinner with them, chuckled. Elli could have guessed that Eva would find it funny. She wished she hadn’t said anything now.

‘And she says I have a weird name. Elektra – that’s not the name of a person,’ she says.

‘Elektra was the name of my grandmother, and your great grandmother, Elli,’ said her mother while taking another helping of spaghetti, ‘and I loved her dearly.’

‘I don’t even know my grandmother,’ said Elli. ‘I wish you’d named me after you, mum. Matea sounds so nice.’

‘That would be so boring,’ groaned Auntie Eva. ‘Big Matea and little Matea. Well, I ask you.’

Typical Auntie Eva – nothing was worse than when something or someone was boring.

‘When we were young, people found our names strange too, don’t you remember, Eva?’ Elli’s mum asked her sister. ‘Especially, my name,’ she laughed as she remembered it.

‘What’s funny about Matea?’ Elli asked, still in a bad mood.

‘Nobody had heard it before. They all found it funny,’ said her mother.

‘And they were always asking me about Adam – Eve, where’s your Adam?’ remembered Auntie Eva. They giggled at the thought. Elli felt sad as she listened to her mother and aunt giggling. As a pair, you could laugh at the fact that you had strange names, but it wasn’t so easy on your own. When she saw Eva and Matea together like that, it sometimes made her feel terribly lonely.

‘I don’t care how it was in your day. I have a strange name now, and the girls in the class laugh at me,’ she persisted.

‘You don’t have a strange name, but a special one. There’s a difference,’ said her mother.

‘A special name, for a special girl,’ added Auntie Eva, proudly.

‘I’m not at all special,’ said Elli. ‘The girls in my class would prefer that I wasn’t there at all‘.

Elli’s mother lovingly stroked her head.

‘It’s true that the other girls don’t notice me at all,’ said Elli. ‘Only those that want to annoy me.’

Eva reached across the table for Elli’s hand. ‘Elli, you are very special. One day you will see that.’ Eva turned to Matea and said, ‘She shouldn’t feel this way’. To Elli, it sounded a bit like an accusation.

‘Of course, not,’ said Elli’s mother, somewhat defensively. Lost in her thoughts, she had started to rub Elli’s head a little harder.

‘Ow! Mum!’

Elli’s hair crackled as if it were electrically charged.

‘Sorry, darling!’

Matea drew back her hand.

‘Even a blind man with a stick could see it,’ said Auntie Eva, staring at Elli’s hair that was now standing-up on end and pointing in all directions.

‘What could a stupid man with a stick see?’ demanded Elli, trying to flatten her rebellious hair without success. The slightest attempt caused her hair to crackle even more dangerously. Suddenly, Eva’s cat, Nero, who had been comfortably dozing on Elli’s lap at the dinner table, meowed loudly with alarm. He jumped up and hid himself under the sofa.

Matea glanced from her sister to her daughter, and then took her head in both her hands and sighed. Her blonde curls tumbled onto the table in front of her in gentle waves. Matea’s hair never stood-upright like Elli’s sometimes did.

‘Please, don’t argue,’ Elli begged. ‘It just makes everything worse.’

‘We’re not arguing. We have a difference of opinion,’ said her mother.

Just another word for “argue”, thought Elli, pushing her plate away. She was no longer hungry.

‘I have a difference of opinion with Josephine from my class,’ she replied. ‘I think she’s a silly moo and she sees it differently.’

Eva giggled and Matea sighed.

‘Come on, Matea, laugh,’ said Eva, nudging her sister with her elbow. Matea cracked a gentle smile.

‘Is it really that bad at school, my love?’

‘I have no friends in my class.’

‘But what about Philip?’

‘He says the boys in the class are nice, but the girls are all like silly moos.’

‘We’ve understood that now,’ said Matea sternly while Eva continued to giggle.

‘It’s not nice to be alone,’ said Elli. ‘You don’t understand it because you’re never alone. You’ll always be sisters, even when you quarrel.’

Eva had stopped giggling. ‘You’re not alone either. We’re here for you too.’

‘Not at all. You’re together all day in your practice, and I’m alone at school. And even if it were true, you’re both grown-ups and twins on top.’

Nobody said anything for a moment, and then her mother said ‘Come on, Elli, you’re going to find a friend.’

‘Matea is right,’ agreed Eva. ‘When you really wish for something, you can make it happen.’

‘Don’t let Josephine get to you,’ added Matea. ‘There must be other girls in the class, and I can’t imagine that everyone loves Josephine.’

Elli thought it over. Her mother and aunt were probably right. She was not the only one who was picked upon by Josephine; Henrietta, for example. Josephine always called her “Henrietta Chuffertrain” after some picture book belonging to her father. To Antonia, who was a little bit on the stocky-side, she would always say “Ton-i” rather than “Toni” and just fall about laughing.

Later that night, as Elli lay in bed unable to sleep, she decided that the very next day she was going to make a friend at school. In her head she repeated Eva's words.‘You can make it happen.’ She got back out of bed, took a sheet of paper and a pen from her desk, and made a list of all the girls in her class.

She started the list with Josephine and immediately put a line through her name. Josephine would never be a friend. For the second name, she wrote down Sophie. Elli also thought about scrubb­ing-out Sophie’s name straight away, but she left it. She was going to try hard to make a friend.

Finally, her list looked like this:

Josephine

Alexandra

Sophie

Antonia

Mascha

Frieda (with ie)

Frida (with i)

Margarethe

Lena

Henriette

Lea

Charlotte

She would start the search for a best friend at the bottom of the list. That made sense, since she was already sitting next to Charlotte in class.

‘Aren’t you asleep yet?’

Her mother poked her head around the door, and her cat, Mihai, snuck in behind her. He jumped up on Elli’s bed and turned around in a circle three times. Then he snuggled down between her feet and began to purr.

‘I’m going to sleep in just a second,’ said Elli.

Matea lay down on the bed next to Elli. They lay together on Elli’s four-poster bed, looking up at the white and blue starry awning above their heads.

‘I count the stars when I can’t sleep,’ said Elli as she snuggled up to her mother. Her mother and Auntie Eva had given her the four-poster bed for her 10th birthday. Together, they had chosen the fabrics and sewn the loose-fitting curtains that could be pulled around the bed. On the first night, the three of them had slept there together.

‘Remember that what you dream of in your first night in a new bed comes true,’ Auntie Eva had whispered to her shortly before she fell asleep. Elli had dreamed that she could fly and, as that was impossible, she had never told Auntie Eva. But now she had to think about it. Flying would be amazing. If she could fly, suddenly, Josephine and Sophie would be nice to her – and all the others too.

‘It’s good to have a place where you can feel happy,’ her moth­er’s words nestled into her thoughts as she kissed her on the fore­head, before returning to Eva in the kitchen.

That was true. Her four-poster bed was special to her, and in her four-poster bed Elli was happy. First thing in the morning, she wanted to begin her search for a friend that she could show her bed to. She read two more pages of her latest favourite book while from the kitchen she could hear Matea and Eva clattering dishes and talking. Elli loved those familiar sounds. It was nice to know that her mother and aunt were awake and looking-out for her while she was in bed. Then just as she was falling asleep, she heard Auntie Eva’s voice more loudly:

‘You have to tell her, Matea. She has a right to know who she is.’

However, before Elli could even think about to whom Matea should say what and why, she was already fast asleep.

Poor old Lou

When Elli arrived for class the next morning, Henrietta was already there – sitting alone at her desk and staring at her phone. She didn’t look very happy. Perhaps Elli was indeed not the only one longing to make a friend? However, just as she was pluck­ing-up the courage to say something to her, Ms. Sauter entered the room, and the best she could manage was a courtesy nod as she hurriedly sat down.

During the class, the seat next to Henrietta remained unclaimed. Elli tried to recall who had been sitting there last but, for the life of her, she couldn’t remember. Ms. Sauter was always switch­ing children around the moment she found them bothersome – and children seemed to always bother her. Elli turned around left and right to see which of the girls were in the classroom.

‘If you have such an urge to jiggle, Elektra, why don’t you jiggle your way over here?’ said Ms. Sauter. ‘Perhaps you can remember the English vocabulary we learned yesterday on the theme of autumn.’

Elli had practiced the words that Ms. Sauter asked her, and could answer everything precisely. However, Ms. Sauter corrected the pronunciation of every single word, shaking her head each time in disbelief as if she couldn’t understand how anyone could speak English quite so badly.

‘It will always be beyond some people,’ said Ms. Sauter to the class, still shaking her head long after Elli had sat back down. ‘With English, you need a dash of talent and a feeling for language.’

Elli tried to hold her own head in such a way that not everyone could see how red she’d now gone. She kept thinking about Miss Linse, her teacher from elementary school, and how nice she had been in comparison to Ms. Sauter.

When the class was over, Elli stayed put. She didn’t feel like going out into the hallway and just hanging around on her own; and if she were to go over to Philip, Josephine would immediately start making fun of her. She therefore preferred to stay seated where she was and pretend that she was getting ready for the next class.

‘That was mean of Ms. Sauter,’ said Henrietta, taking the seat next to Elli. ‘But don’t let her get to you. She used to be really nasty to my cousin too.’

‘But not anymore?’

‘Nope, he’s in Grade 8 now, and says she wouldn’t dare. She only picks on the younger kids.’

‘I would like a cousin in Grade 8 too,’ said Elli.

‘You can have mine!’

Henrietta scrunched up her nose and laughed. ‘Nah, he’s actually pretty okay.’

Elli’s heart pounded. She’d never talked so much with someone from her class. Yet here she was, chatting to Henrietta, whom she’d placed second on her “best friends list”. Now there was noth­ing else for it, but to take the plunge –

‘Was everything okay earlier? You looked really sad?’

‘I’ll tell you later in the break. Mr. Mueller’s here,’ said Henrietta, getting-up.

Mr Mueller taught science and was Elli’s favourite teacher. Not only did he teach the most interesting subject, he was the nicest teacher at the school. He was tall and grey-haired, and when he listened to his students he would remove his glasses before giving them his full attention. Usually he’d place his glasses somewhere where he couldn’t find them again, and the whole class would ­search for them later.

Today, however, Elli could hardly concentrate on what Mr. Mueller was saying because she was so excited about the break. When the bell finally rang, she swiftly followed Henrietta out into the playground.

‘If all the teachers were as nice as Mr. Mueller, you could just about stand it here, right?’ said Henrietta.

‘Don’t you like school much?’ asked Elli.

‘Sure. It’s okay.’

‘Because you looked really sad earlier.’

‘It’s just that my dog’s unwell so I’m feeling a bit down.’

‘You have a dog?’

Elli felt a pang of jealousy. She would have loved to have a pet of her own.

‘He’s called Lou, and he’s a beagle puppy. I’ve only just got him. But since Wednesday he’s been constantly whining and trying to lick his ear. The vet says he can’t see anything wrong and thinks maybe Lou just doesn’t like living with me. My dad says we’ll have to call the dog-breeder if there’s no change.’

‘Oh,’ said Elli.

‘Then they’ll probably take him away from me,’ said Henrietta close to tears.

‘No, they can’t do that!’

Elli grabbed Henrietta by the hand. ‘I have an idea what we can do.’

‘You do?’ said Henrietta doubtfully. To Elli, it felt as though Henrietta didn’t have much faith in her, but she was absolutely certain that she could help her and Lou.

‘Yes, I do,’ she replied firmly. ‘Wait for me after school. Lou will soon be himself again, I promise.’

After school they called Elli’s mother from Henrietta’s mobile. She was working in her veterinary practice.

‘With the best will in the world, I can’t manage it today, love.

I have an operation to perform and that can take a while. Bring the dog in tomorrow.’

Elli didn’t want to wait until tomorrow. She wanted to show Henrietta that she could help her now.

‘Then, put Auntie Eva on,’ urged Elli.

Phew! Auntie Eva said yes, and they were allowed to bring Lou to her at three o’clock.

‘I would like to take a look at his ear. Howling with pain just won’t do.’ As always, Auntie Eva came straight to the point.

‘Thank you, thank you, thank you!’ screamed Elli into the phone.

‘Thank you, thank you, thank you!’ said Henrietta to Elli, giving her a hug.

‘Do we need to ask your parents?’ Elli asked Henrietta.

‘My dad, if anyone, but he won’t be around till later,’ said Henrietta; and so they set off.

When they arrived at Henrietta’s, Lou was whimpering in a dark corner of the living room. He lifted his head to greet Henrietta, then immediately buried it under his paws again.

‘Oh, you poor little guy,’ whispered Elli.

Elli and Henrietta knelt-down beside him.

‘I don’t know how we’ll get him to your aunt. He doesn’t want to walk, and I can’t carry him there,’ Henrietta sighed.

Lou was too heavy to carry, even though he was still a puppy.

‘Maybe we can do it together? If we put him in a large shopping bag with a cushion in it?’

‘Good idea!’ cried Henrietta. ‘Follow me!’

In the kitchen they found a blue Ikea bag behind a cupboard.

‘I think his soft basket will even fit in.’

Henrietta ran upstairs and came down shortly afterwards carry­ing a dog basket. They placed it in the bag, and then together they lifted the whimpering Lou into his basket – very gently so as not to hurt him.

‘I couldn’t do this without you,’ groaned Henrietta, and Elli smiled happily.

‘I noticed,’ she said. Then they each took a handle of the bag and hooked it over a shoulder. On “one, two, three,” they lifted it up.

For a moment, the bag swayed unsteadily between them with Lou in the middle wondering what was going on. Then they found their feet.

Henrietta entered the address of the veterinary practice into her phone. Elli wasn’t sure that she could find the way on her own from Henrietta’s.

‘Arrival at 14:58,’ announced Henrietta, a moment later. ‘Perfect.’ They followed the phone’s instructions through the streets until they arrived at Matea and Eva’s vet practice.

Auntie Eva was sitting outside on the front step; her red hair tied-up in a knot and one of her herbal cigarettes in her hand.

‘Your mother smokes?’ asked Henrietta.

‘That’s my aunt,’ said Elli quickly. Did Auntie Eva have to smoke in front of her friends?

‘My father smokes too sometimes,’ said Henrietta. ‘But only in the evenings.’

Okay, thought Elli. Not perfect either.

‘Hello, I’m Eva!’ Elli’s aunt held out her hand to Henrietta. Then she saw Lou in the bag. ‘And you must be the patient. C’mon in then.’

Eva’s half of the practice was on the right-hand side of the hall. A beaded-curtain hung across the doorway, and jangled gently as they passed through.

It was pretty dark in the room: in the corners stood candles while a big lamp hung from the ceiling, giving-off a reddish glow.

Henrietta seemed confused as she looked around.

‘It looks a bit different at your vet’s, I bet,’ said Eva.

Henrietta nodded.

‘Maybe I can help him anyway.’ Eva winked at Henrietta. ‘May I take Lou out of the bag?’

Henrietta nodded again. Auntie Eva and her practice seemed to have made her lose her voice.

Eva took Lou out of the bag and sat down with him in her big wing chair. For a moment they just sat there, and then Lou raised his head, looked-up at Auntie Eva, and laid his front paws on her lap. He had stopped whimpering. Eva stroked his head and looked at him carefully.

‘It’s his right ear, isn’t it?’ she asked Henrietta.

Henrietta nodded again. Then she cleared her throat – finally able to speak again it seemed.

‘The vet couldn’t find anything wrong with him,’ she said.

‘Well, let’s see what we can find,’ Eva comforted her.

‘May I?’ she asked Lou. Then she carefully lifted his right ear and shone a light inside with a small torch.

‘Okay,’ she said a moment later. ‘Bring me the first drawer below and to the right. Just pull it out.’

Elli pulled out the drawer Eva had pointed at from the chest of drawers. Inside were many tubes with ointments. Eva rummaged around for a moment, pulled-out two tubes, one after the other, shook her head, and finally found a big fat tube that seemed to be

Impressum

Verlag: BookRix GmbH & Co. KG

Tag der Veröffentlichung: 09.05.2021
ISBN: 978-3-7487-8226-1

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