by Nick Garlick
“Right,” he said, tying the rope of the halter to the gatepost and stepping back from the horse, “I’ll stay here with Storm. You go in and tell Mrs. Elberg exactly what happened.”
Flip hesitated.
“A man tells the truth, Flip,” his uncle said, looking calm rather than angry. “Whether it hurts him or not, he tells the truth. Now, in you go.”
Flip stepped into the house and walked down a dark and gloomy hallway to the living room. Inside, he saw a pile of unopened cardboard boxes in front of a window with the curtains drawn. Drifts of ash spilled from a cold fireplace. He turned around as Mrs. Elberg came into the room. She looked him up and down.
“Your clothes are wet,” she said. “You must be cold.” She went to a cupboard, took out a blanket, and wrapped it around his shoulders. Then she walked over to the sofa before the fireplace and sank down into it. She patted the cushion beside her. “Sit down,” she said.
Flip did as he was told. His heart was thumping in his chest, even though she didn’t look particularly angry.
“Your name’s Flip, is that right?” she asked.
“Yes,” he said. “Is your daughter all right?”
Mrs. Elberg nodded. “She’s fine. It’s only a twisted ankle. I bandaged it up. This time tomorrow, she’ll probably be back to running around like the streak of lightning she normally is.”
“Doesn’t she need to go to the doctor?”
“My husband was a doctor,” Mrs. Elberg said sadly. And the sadness seemed to surround her, to swamp her. “I helped him with a lot of twisted ankles. She’ll be fine.” She reached out to turn on a lamp beside her. “But now I’d like to know what happened.”
Still nervous, Flip began to recount everything that had taken place. He kept expecting Mrs. Elberg to blow up at him any moment over what he’d done. But she didn’t. She listened intently. And when he got to the part about the Ghost Girl following Storm out onto The Yellow, she even smiled, although that was sad too.
“That didn’t bother my daughter,” she said. “Did it?”
“I told her it was dangerous,” Flip said. “She wouldn’t listen.”
“She never does,” Mrs. Elberg said. “She never listens to anybody. Not even to me, her own mother.”
Flip told her the rest of the story.
“And how is the horse?” Mrs. Elberg asked when he finished.
“He’s fine,” Flip said. “Actually,” he continued, his nervousness suddenly forgotten as he realized how proud he was of Storm, “he’s amazing. He saved us. All of us.”
“What’s his name?” Mrs. Elberg asked.
“Storm.”
“He’s the horse you rescued from the sea, isn’t he? I heard about that in the village.”
“We rescued him,” Flip said.
Mrs. Elberg looked puzzled. “We?” she said. “You and Renske?”
“Me and your daughter,” Flip said. “Didn’t she tell you?”
All of a sudden, Mrs. Elberg looked sadder than Flip thought it was possible for anyone to look. A tear slid down her cheek.
“My daughter doesn’t tell me anything, Flip. She hasn’t said a word to me since the accident.” Her voice was suddenly anguished, and Mrs. Elberg dabbed at her face with a handkerchief. “We live in The Hague,” she explained softly. “That’s where my husband was a doctor. One night he was in a hurry to get to a patient. It was dark and it was raining and he slipped trying to run across the road in front of a tram. He was killed instantly.” She breathed in deeply, almost choking back a sob. “That was nine months ago. Sophie hasn’t spoken a word since. Not to me. Not to anyone.”
“Is that her name?” Flip asked. “Sophie?” He found it hard to think of the Ghost Girl having an ordinary name. As if she was an ordinary girl, not this mute creature who came and went like a little ghost.
Mrs. Elberg nodded. “So she doesn’t talk to you, either?”
“She’s never said a word to me. I call her—” Flip hesitated, not sure whether he should continue. But then he thought that Mrs. Elberg probably couldn’t get any sadder. “I call her the Ghost Girl.”
Mrs. Elberg sighed. “She is a ghost. That’s what she’s become. I never know where she is half the time and the other half she’s so quiet it’s as if she’s not even in the same house. I thought if I brought her here, to Mossum, away from The Hague and everything that reminds her of her father, she might cheer up. I thought she might start to talk again.”
She rubbed her eyes.
“But it hasn’t helped. It hasn’t done anything, which is a great disappointment. She’s still a ghost. We’re leaving soon and she’ll probably still be a ghost when we do.”
She lapsed into silence and stared into the ash-filled fireplace. Another tear ran down her cheek. She wiped it away and offered Flip a thin smile.
“You should go,” she said. “There’s your poor uncle standing outside while I’m in here moaning about my problems. He’ll be wondering what’s happening.”
The two of them walked outside.
“I want to thank you, Flip, for looking after Sophie,” Mrs. Elberg said when they reached the front gate. “And I want to thank you for bringing her back. I’m glad she’s got a friend here, even if she never does say a word to you. I’m glad she met someone who was nice to her. It’ll give her something good to remember when she gets home.”
She turned around and went inside the house before Flip could reply. I’m glad I met your daughter too, he wanted to say. I was lonely here and she rescued me from the Mesman Boys. And if it wasn’t for her, Storm wouldn’t be here at all. But Mrs. Elberg was gone.
Uncle Andries looked down at him. “Did you tell her what happened?” he asked.
“Yes,” Flip said. “I told her.”
“Everything?”
“Yes. Everything.”
“What did she do?”
Flip tried to think of the most honest answer. “She just got sad,” he said at last. “Because her daughter never talks to her. She wasn’t angry with me.”
Uncle Andries thought this over and gave a brief nod. Motioning Flip to untie Storm, he set off back toward the farm. Neither of them spoke. The only sound was the thump of Storm’s big hooves on the sandy road.
Eventually, Flip knew he had to speak. Taking a deep breath, he said, “There’s something I didn’t tell you.”
Uncle Andries stopped and stared down at him, waiting.
“I didn’t lock the gate after me,” Flip admitted. “That’s the reason Storm got out. Not the Mesman Boys, like Renske said. They just upset him. If I’d locked the gate like I should have, they couldn’t have left it open when they came in and he’d never have escaped. It was my fault.”
Uncle Andries shook his head.
“Well, you should have locked the gate,” he agreed. “But it was the Mesman Boys scared him off. You shouldn’t feel bad about anything those little hooligans do. Ever. I’m glad you told me, though. Good for you.”
Flip nodded. But he could tell from Uncle Andries’s face that there was something else he wanted to say.
“Are you still angry with me?” he asked.
Uncle Andries shook his head. “No,” he said. He paused. “It’s just that I’ve got some bad news. About Storm.”
Flip stopped dead in the middle of the road. When he spoke he could hardly get the words out of his mouth. “Is something going to happen to him?”
“Yes,” Uncle Andries said. “We’re going to have to find him another home.”
“WHY?” FLIP DEMANDED. “I thought you said you weren’t angry. And you agreed it wasn’t his fault he escaped—”
Uncle Andries cut him off. “It’s because we can’t afford to keep him.” He walked on for a few paces before continuing. “Your aunt and I have known it for a day or two now and we were planning to tell you this evening. Him running out onto The Yellow has nothing to do with it at all.”
“But he’s out in the field,” Flip said. “All he’s eating is
grass! You don’t have to pay for grass!”
“No, you don’t,” Uncle Andries agreed. “But that’s in the summer, and the summer’s coming to an end. And you can’t keep a horse outside in winter. It’s far too cold, which means he’ll have to come inside. If he comes inside, he has to have hay and feed. Not to mention shoes if he’s going to work. That’s what we can’t afford.”
“It can’t be that much,” Flip said. “Just food for one horse.”
Uncle Andries stopped and looked down at him. “Do you know that tin on the top shelf in the kitchen?” he asked.
“The cocoa tin?” Flip said. “Next to the cookie jar?”
Uncle Andries nodded. “That’s where your aunt keeps our housekeeping money. Do you know how much is in it?”
“No,” Flip said.
“Well, I do,” Uncle Andries said, “because I counted it up at lunchtime. Three hundred and sixty guilders. And that’s all we’ve got until the end of the month, to buy food for all of us. Not to mention a new coat for Renske before she goes back to school in the autumn. And you’ll probably need something too. Three and sixty guilders won’t buy all that and extra feed for an extra horse. And there’s not going to be much more than that in the months to come.”
He was silent for a moment.
“I’m sorry, Flip,” he continued. “You rescued Storm and looked after him and made a friend of him. And you’ve taught him a lot. You’ve really persevered, so we know what he means to you. But we can’t afford to keep him. It’s as simple as that.”
He turned away and set off slowly back toward the farm. Flip watched him go, then all of a sudden rushed to catch up. An idea had just occurred to him.
“What if you did have enough money,” he said. “Could Storm stay then?”
“Flip,” Uncle Andries said patiently, “we haven’t.”
“Yes,” he said, “but if you did, could he stay?”
Uncle Andries looked as if he really didn’t want to talk about Storm anymore. Even so, he nodded his head and said, “If by some strange miracle, there was enough money to pay for him, then yes, I suppose he could. But since there isn’t, he can’t, and there’s no more to be said on the matter. There’ll be no more discussion.”
Flip nodded and remained silent the rest of the way to the farm. He took Storm into the barn, rubbed him down, and gave him a good brush and some food, then put him back in his field. He hung up the halter and went inside for supper. He didn’t say a word during the entire meal. As soon as he was finished, he asked to leave the table.
“I’m really tired,” he said. “I’d like to go to bed.”
“Oh, Flip,” Aunt Elly said, misunderstanding what he was thinking. “Try not to be angry. You know we don’t want to say good-bye to Storm.”
Flip stopped at the door and turned to look at her. “I’m not angry,” he said. “Really, I’m not.”
And he wasn’t. He wasn’t angry, because he knew how he could find the money they needed to keep Storm on the farm. He raced off to the barn to make plans.
THE NEXT DAY, Flip did all he could to hide his intentions. He said little and walked around with a long face while he did his morning chores. When he’d finished, he asked if he could be excused and go into the village.
When Aunt Elly said yes, he ran to his room and took the suitcase from under his bed. On top of it went a piece of cardboard he’d found on a shelf in the barn, together with a wax crayon he’d borrowed from Renske. He carried them all to the center of Mossum and sat down on the grass in front of the church tower.
From the suitcase, he took out the record player. He opened it up so passersby could clearly see the loudspeakers and the turntable. Then he wrote FOR SALE on the piece of cardboard with the crayon and under that 3 YEARS OLD. HARDLY EVER USED. ONLY 200 GUILDERS. He placed the piece of cardboard on the grass in front of the record player and waited.
It didn’t seem wrong to sell the player now. At least, not to Flip. Even though he’d kept it just for her—protected it for her—if everything went the way he hoped, he’d have something far better to show her when she arrived on Mossum. He’d have a horse. A horse he’d rescued and looked after, and who listened to him. He felt sure she’d appreciate that far more than any record player, however nice or expensive it was, especially since she liked horses so much herself.
A voice dragged him out of his thoughts. “Isn’t that a lot of money to ask?”
He looked up to see a man and a woman staring down at him.
Flip reached into his pocket and pulled out the receipt for the player. His mom had kept it. She’d always kept receipts and now Flip was ever so glad she had, because not only did it prove how old the player was but also how much it had cost.
“My mom bought it when it was only a month old,” Flip said, holding the receipt up, “for four hundred guilders. And then she only used it for two months. The rest of the time it’s been sitting in a case all locked up, so it’s practically brand-new. There isn’t a scratch on it anywhere.”
The couple agreed that it was in excellent condition, but even so, they shook their heads. “Still too much for us,” they said, and walked away.
Flip thought two hundred guilders for a record player that had hardly ever been used was an excellent price. He thought somebody was bound to snap it up in a matter of minutes.
He was wrong.
Plenty of people stopped to look at it. A lot of them asked Flip why he was selling it. He told them the truth, and most of them smiled at that and wished him luck before walking on. Others said they’d come on vacation to get away from buying things. And a few people said it looked like a good deal, but since they had suitcases and tents and rucksacks to carry back home, they wouldn’t be able to take a record player as well. No matter how much of a bargain it was.
He sat on the grass and waited for an hour, his disappointment steadily growing.
And then another hour.
By that time the sun had moved around in the sky and was shining straight down on him. It got so strong he had to hold the FOR SALE sign up against his head to protect his eyes against the glare. Two teenage boys walking by said it looked like he was trying to sell himself and laughed. The girls they were with laughed even louder. Flip moved the sign down over his face to hide his embarrassment.
After he’d been there for three hours, Flip decided to give up. He felt ridiculous sitting on the grass, being stared at. It was obvious no one was interested in the record player and that it had been a bad idea all along to think someone would buy it. How stupid could he have been to think they would? But just as he was about to get up and leave, a voice cut into his thoughts.
“You there! What are you doing?”
Flip looked up to see Mr. Mesman staring down at him. He had his hands in his pockets and a big fat cigar protruding from his lips.
“I’m trying to sell my record player,” Flip said, glancing away. He didn’t want the hotel owner to see how dejected he felt.
“Then you should say so!” Mr. Mesman replied, still not bothering to take the cigar out of his mouth. “You won’t get far in this world if you just hold up a sign and keep your mouth shut. Why are you selling it?”
Flip remembered how Mr. Mesman had tried to take control of Storm the day he’d been rescued and how angry the man had been when Uncle Andries had stopped him. He didn’t think it would be a good idea to mention the horse, so all he said was “I just need the money for something.”
“We all need money,” Mr. Mesman said. “Money makes the world go around.” He breathed out a big messy cloud of cigar smoke. “Well, I’ll buy it. The hotel could use a good record player. Bring it inside.”
Flip couldn’t believe his ears. Here he’d been just about to pack up and go home and now someone wanted to buy it. He was so surprised he didn’t move.
“Come on, come on, come on!” Mr. Mesman barked. “Before I change my mind. I haven’t got all day, you know.”
Flip packed the player into t
he suitcase and followed him into the hotel. They went into a small office behind the reception desk. Mr. Mesman pointed at a table. “Put it down there,” he said. Then he stuck his head out of the office door. “Jan!” he called out. “Petrus! Thijs! Get down here! Now!”
When there was no reply, he leaned on the reception desk.
“I said now!” he bellowed.
Footsteps clattered on the stairs. A few seconds later, the three brothers crowded into the office. They stared at Flip with ill-disguised dislike.
“Now, this boy,” Mr. Mesman said, pointing at Flip, “wants to sell his record player. He’s been sitting outside in the sun for the past three hours trying to make some money while all you lot’ve been doing is playing. Well, I’m going to buy it from him and I want you to pay attention and learn something. Understood?”
The three boys nodded like puppies.
Mr. Mesman bent over and examined the player carefully. He twiddled the dials on the front, pressed his fingers against the turntable, and picked up the arm and looked at the needle.
“Very good,” he said. “Very good. I know this machine, you know. I’ve seen it before in the shops. Cost four hundred and seventy-five guilders if I’m not mistaken.” He turned to look at his sons. “A businessman should always know the price of everything,” he told them. Then he turned to Flip. “Where did you get it?”
Flip told him how his mom had bought it and showed him the receipt.
“The receipt,” Mr. Mesman said. He read it through, folded it up, and stuck it in his pocket. “Clever of you to keep it. Well done. Smart lad.” Producing his wallet, he counted out a sheaf of banknotes and handed them to Flip with a flourish. “And that, I think you’ll find,” he said, “is a very good deal.”
Flip’s excitement lasted only as long as it took to count the money.
One hundred guilders.
Mr. Mesman saw the disappointment on his face and asked, “Were you expecting more?”
“Yes,” Flip said.