by Valija Zinck
40
Read All About It!
The newspaper headline should have read: Sunshine on the 13th August – the sensation of the year! But since hardly anyone had ever noticed that the rain on Penelope’s birthday wasn’t really wet, there probably weren’t all that many people who were interested in the fact that it was sunny the day she turned eleven.
Apart from Penelope, of course.
‘Yes! Yes, yes, yesssss!’ She grabbed her mother’s hand and pulled her out into the garden. Together they ran through the grass, and Penelope climbed the pear tree. ‘There’s no rain today. And I’m eleven. I’m eleven, eleven, eleven!’ She plucked one of the unripe pears and threw it at her father, who was just coming out of the dragon house. ‘What’s up, Dad? Aren’t you excited? Would you rather it was raining, like it normally does on my birthday?’ Penelope shouted, throwing three more pears in his direction.
Leo caught them one by one, biting into one of them, which had suddenly turned ripe in his hands. ‘Yes, yes. I’m glad,’ he said, but he looked a little bit embarrassed.
‘Well, why do you look like you’ve eaten a thistle, then?’ Penelope asked.
‘Well, because I’m pretty sure I’m to blame for the weather on your previous birthdays.’
Penelope jumped down from the tree. ‘That’s rubbish! Why should you be to blame for that? You haven’t been here all these years.’
Leo nodded slowly. He sat down on the wooden steps. ‘That’s just it. On the thirteenth of August every year, I thought of you. Every year I wondered how much you’d grown, how you were and what you were doing. Whether you’d inherited my red hair – and the other thing too. I thought about you and wished I could be with you. That I could take you in your arms and twirl you around. That I could say, Look, Lucia, my darling, look at our Penny – she’s eight already, she’s nine, she’s ten.
‘When someone like us thinks so strongly about another person, it sometimes results in a thunderstorm around that person. But since I was sitting in that dungeon, and hardly had any strength, there probably wasn’t even a storm – just that strange rain.’
Penelope sat down next to him on the steps. She patted his knee. ‘Well, at least I never got wet from your rain. You know what? I think I’m going to lock myself into Mr Ritter’s old goat barn, and think of you very hard, and then we’ll see what falls down on you, shall we?’ She sniggered.
‘I think our daughter’s just a little too cheeky, Lucia. Don’t you think so?’
‘I think we should eat our breakfast birthday cake soon, that’s what I think. There won’t be any leftovers once Tom and Pete get here,’ said Mrs Gardener, putting an arm around her husband.
‘But I could always make another one,’ Granny Elizabeth, who was now outside too, said generously.
‘Aww, thank you, Granny! But I’m pretty sure Gina will bring some fantastic treats from town this afternoon, when she comes for the party,’ Penelope said quickly.
‘OK,’ said G. E., rubbing her old hands with some of the extra-special healing salve Penelope and her dad had cooked up. ‘Let’s just hope she brings something better than the last time she was here. That so-called ice cream she tried to conjure up was nothing but colourless mush.’
Penelope giggled as a bubble of excitement rose in her belly. Another thing had occurred to her: now that she was finally eleven, she’d be able to start studying with Alpha Regius soon, like Gina’s brother!
Penelope’s birthday party that afternoon was the most fun that she’d ever had. She didn’t know exactly why, but she laughed almost all the way through it. It was nice that Tom and Pete got along so well with Gina. It was nice when her mother played the clarinet for them, too. And it was even nice when Granny Elizabeth showed them her collection of coins and explained them all, down to the tiniest detail.
Later that evening, when the birthday guests had left, Penelope sat at the kitchen table with her father, her cheeks flushed, smiling happily. G. E. and her mother were asleep, and Penelope was dog-tired too, but she wanted to have a look through the newspaper. Pete had told her there was a long piece in it today about the strange downturn, and the equally strange recovery, of the Intermix concrete mixer factory, owned by his father. Penelope was absolutely certain that Leo’s captors had had something to do with the terrible business arrangements which had led to the downturn in the first place! As she skimmed over the article, she noticed something else: a report about the local football club. For weeks, now, they’d done nothing but score goals, and hadn’t let a single one in. But the best bit was the article about a new species of giant red-headed bird! Penelope wanted to read that one, too, but instead her eye fell on another story. A very brief one, under the category of ‘Miscellaneous News’.
Giant vegetables blast out bunker
A subterranean vault was blown up yesterday in a small community in the Plasow district. Experts assume that the explosion was caused by a strain of oversized pumpkin which was being stored in the vault. The explosion devastated the entire property, including the house. No one had been seen there by locals of the village for several weeks.
‘Look, Dad. Perhaps we should call and tell them that the inhabitants are wandering around in Arkansas and Ohio now.’
Her father looked thoughtfully at the newspaper report.
‘Yes, perhaps we could,’ he said, but he didn’t sound especially convinced. He ran his hand over the kitchen table. ‘I shouldn’t have done that – made them forget, I mean.’ His hand stilled. ‘I just couldn’t think of any better way to protect us. All I can hope is that things worked out for Seller and Platell, with their ironing-board businesses. Perhaps they’re living happier lives now.’
Penelope frowned. ‘You wish them happiness, after everything they did to you? You don’t wish them any ill at all?’
‘No, I don’t,’ said Leo softly. ‘What would I gain from that? I’m just happy that I can be here with you today – with my beloved wife and daughter.’
‘But that’s exactly why those awful men don’t deserve a happy life!’
‘Maybe,’ her father said quietly. ‘But it would be something new for them. They haven’t known much happiness – everything was always about money. It never made them happy, and there was never enough. I just want Seller and Platell to find something they truly enjoy.’
Penelope went to the sink and drank some cold water straight from the tap. She didn’t understand how her father could think that way, after everything he’d been through. But maybe she didn’t have to understand.
Her eye fell on the newspaper again. ‘Oh, I wanted to read the rest of that.’
‘Not tonight. It’s late,’ her father said.
‘Are you kidding? Are you actually serious?! I’m eleven now – I can stay up half the night!’
‘I suppose so,’ Leo sighed, ‘but I really wanted to read it myself.’
Penelope puffed out her cheeks, reaching for the paper. But Leo was quicker. ‘Now just you wait one minute, fire-girl.’ He rolled the newspaper up and swished it through the air like a sword. ‘You want to steal your father’s reading matter? Well, get ready for this, then!’ With a sweeping, skilful stroke, he drove Penelope squealing round the table and towards the stairs.
Penelope giggled, dodging him as best as she could, but her father pushed her ruthlessly up the stairs. She had no chance. She reluctantly took a bath, brushed her teeth and put on her pyjamas. She really was pretty tired. When she finally left the bathroom, her father was sitting at the kitchen table. He was drinking elderberry water and had his reading glasses on, and his head was tilted over the newspaper.
Penelope’s fingertips itched. She couldn’t help herself – she took a breath and whispered some newly learnt words: ‘Serfix dalons!’
In a matter of seconds, the newspaper had folded itself up, danced briefly around her father’s head like an excited chicken, and hopped up the stairs two at a time. Penelope snatched it out of the air.
‘Hey!�
� her father said.
Penelope raced into her room, threw herself on the bed, and hid under the blanket. Already she could hear her father’s footsteps on the stairs, and she knew he’d soon come through the door. Everything inside her chuckled and giggled.
I wouldn’t want to swap my life with anyone’s, she thought. I’m Penelope Gardener and I am the best newspaper thief in the world. I live in the dragon house, and I have a battery cat. I’ve got my darling mum, and G. E. and Tom and Pete and Gina. I’ve got the road and my flying, and a book by Alpha Regius. I’m eleven, and I’ve got my father back.
Original German text © Valija Zinck 2017
English translation by Helen Jennings © Chicken House 2018
Cover illustration © Sarah Gibb 2018
The translation of this work was supported by a grant from the Goethe-Institut.
Originally published as Penelop und der funkenrote Zauber
by S. Fischer Verlag GmbH, Frankfurt in 2017
First paperback edition published in Great Britain in 2018
This electronic edition published in 2018
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Valija Zinck has asserted her right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work.
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Produced in the UK by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon, CR0 4YY
Cover and interior design by Helen Crawford-White
Cover and interior illustrations by Sarah Gibb
British Library Cataloguing in Publication data available.
PB ISBN 978-1-911490-28-9
eISBN 978-1-760272-81-4