The Robber Hotzenplotz

by Otfried Preussler

  “How lucky that it turned out all right in the end!” he cried. “And now what?”

  “Now let’s take the cuckoo to Sergeant Dimplemoser. Then we’ll go home.”

  Seppel swung the birdcage happily back and forth. He was ready to start. But Kasperl did not move.

  “First I need a new cap!” he explained.

  “Where are you going to find one?”

  “We’ve got a wishing ring, remember!”

  Kasperl turned the ring on his finger.

  “I wish for a new pointed cap, just like the old one,” he said. The words were hardly out of his mouth before his wish was granted.

  Before you could count three, there was a new pointed cap sitting on Kasperl’s head. It was as like his old one as two peas in a pod.

  “Wonderful!” said Seppel. “If I hadn’t seen Hotzenplotz throw your old cap into the fire with my own eyes, I’d never believe that this was a new one. Now, come on.”

  “All right,” said Kasperl. “I’m coming now.”

  Carrying the birdcage between them, and whistling cheerfully, they walked towards home.

  “How happy I feel!” said Kasperl after a while.

  “So do I!” said Seppel. “Grandmother will be happy too.”

  “Grandmother!” Kasperl suddenly stopped. “Oh, good gracious me, Seppel!”

  “What’s the matter? Why have you stopped?”

  “I’ve thought of something. We almost forgot the most important thing of all!”

  “The most important thing of all. . . ?”

  “Yes,” said Kasperl. “Grandmother’s coffee mill!”

  “Oh dear!” groaned Seppel, putting his hands to his head. “You’re quite right, Kasperl! We must have Grandmother’s coffee mill—it’s no good going home without it. Well, let’s go back to the robber’s cave.”

  “Wait a minute!” said Kasperl. “I know an much easier way!”

  He turned his wishing ring for the second time.

  “I wish for Grandmother’s coffee mill back,” he said.

  There was a thud—and Grandmother’s coffee mill was lying in the grass at his feet.

  “Goodness!” cried Seppel. “That was quick work. Is it all right?”

  He picked it up and tried it.

  The coffee mill was working all right; when he turned the handle it played “Nuts in May.” And wonder of wonders— it played “Nuts in May” as a duet.

  “A duet!” gasped Seppel. “How lovely! Grandmother will like it, too. How did it happen? Can you explain it?”

  Kasperl agreed that it was very odd.

  “Perhaps the fairy Amaryllis had something to do with it?” he suggested.

  “Oh yes, of course!” said Seppel. “She wanted to give us all a nice surprise! Now, what about the third wish?”

  “Can’t you guess what the third wish is for?” asked Kasperl. “I know what to do with it.”

  Grandmother was worried to death.

  She had no idea what could be keeping Kasperl and Seppel all this time.

  The day before, Grandmother had been to the police station three times to see Sergeant Dimplemoser. Now she was off to try once more.

  She hoped Sergeant Dimplemoser would have some good news at last.

  “Have you found out anything about Kasperl and Seppel, Sergeant?” she asked.

  “No, I’m afraid not,” said Sergeant Dimplemoser. He was sitting at the desk eating his breakfast.

  “You haven’t?” asked Grandmother, beginning to cry.

  “No,” repeated the sergeant. “I’m sorry, but that’s all I can tell you, Grandmother. I’ve found no trace of either of them.”

  “No trace at all?”

  The sergeant shrugged his shoulders.

  “The only clue we have found is that handcart over there in the corner. Do you know it?”

  “Yes,” sobbed Grandmother. “Kasperl and Seppel took it out with them yesterday morning. Where did you find it?”

  “It was lying upside down in the ditch beside the road. We took it in for safekeeping.”

  “And now what?” asked Grandmother.

  “Hm—now what?” muttered Sergeant Dimplemoser.

  He frowned heavily as he thought the problem over. Then he suddenly banged the desk top. The breakfast things tinkled and clattered.

  “Grandmother!” he cried. “I have an idea! Do you know what we’ll do? We’ll have the town crier make a public proclamation about them!”

  “Do you think that will help?” asked Grandmother.

  “We’ll have to wait and see. It can’t do any harm, anyway.”

  Sergeant Dimplemoser pushed his breakfast things aside. He took a big sheet of paper out of the drawer of his desk, dipped his pen into the ink and began to write:

  “There!” said Sergeant Dimplemoser with satisfaction. “All it needs now is my signature. . .”

  He was just about to put his usual flourishing signature at the bottom of the paper. But it turned into a huge blot. For just at the crucial moment, the door flew open and in rushed Kasperl and Seppel.

  “Oh!” cried Grandmother. She nearly fainted again, for joy this time.

  “Hello!” shouted Kasperl and Seppel. “Here we are!”

  Grandmother hugged them, laughing and crying at the same time.

  “How glad I am to see you again!” she said. “I’ve been so worried. Is it really you? I can hardly believe it! Isn’t this a wonderful surprise, Sergeant?”

  Sergeant Dimplemoser had come around to the other side of the desk. He was looking very cross and official.

  “I must say, this is a bit too much!” he said. “Now I’ve gone and wasted a whole sheet of paper. Couldn’t you have come here sooner?”

  “I’m afraid not, Sergeant,” said Kasperl. “But never mind, we’ve brought you a present.”

  “What is it?” asked Sergeant Dimplemoser.

  “We’ve brought you the robber Hotzenplotz!” said Kasperl.

  “Snakes alive!” cried the sergeant in amazement. “Where is he?”

  “Here he is,” said Kasperl.

  He walked up to the desk and put down the birdcage.

  At this, Sergeant Dimplemoser flew into a rage.

  “What?” he cried. “What’s all this? What do you mean by it? Do you think I’m putting up with this? I’m an officer of the law. Play your silly tricks on anyone you like, as long as it’s not me. People who play tricks on me get sent to prison.”

  “All right, Sergeant, all right,” said Kasperl. And he turned the wishing ring on his finger.

  “I wish for the cuckoo in the cage to turn back into the robber Hotzenplotz,” he said.

  At once the third and last wish was granted. The robber Hotzenplotz stood where the cuckoo had been. He was standing in the middle of Sergeant Dimplemoser’s desk, wearing his warm dressing gown. He had no shoes on, and he had the birdcage over his head.

  “Hey, you!” shouted Sergeant Dimplemoser. “Get off my desk! What do you mean by climbing up there? How did you get here all of a sudden—and who are you, anyway?”

  “Just a minute, Sergeant!” said Kasperl. “This is the robber Hotzenplotz. Aren’t you going to arrest him?”

  It didn’t make sense to Sergeant Dimplemoser.

  “This is supposed to be the robber Hotzenplotz, is it?” he cried. “Nonsense! Whoever saw a robber in stocking feet!”

  “Yes, he is!” said Grandmother. “I recognize him—he really is the robber Hotzenplotz. You must—”

  But the robber Hotzenplotz interrupted her. “Out of the way there!” he shouted.

  He leaped off the desk and ran past Sergeant Dimplemoser to the open window. He plunged through head first, hoping to escape. But Seppel grabbed his feet, and Kasperl promptly let down the iron shutter. Crash! The robber Hotzenplotz was trapped.

  He struggled like a fish out of water.

  “Seppel, see that he stays quiet!” said Kasperl. He ran out into the garden with Sergeant Dimplemoser.

 
Hotzenplotz’s head and the top part of his body were hanging out of the window. He was waving his arms as if he were learning to swim.

  “Help! I can’t breathe. I’m finished!” he gasped. “How long is this going on?”

  “That depends,” said Kasperl. “If you’ll only keep still we’ll have you out in a moment.”

  “All right then!” panted Hotzenplotz. He realized that it was all over now.

  He stopped threshing about and let Sergeant Dimplemoser bind his hands behind his back. Then Seppel raised the shutter a little way.

  Sergeant Dimplemoser and Kasperl pulled the robber Hotzenplotz out of the window. The old scoundrel landed heavily in the garden like a sack of potatoes.

  “There,” grunted Sergeant Dimplemoser with satisfaction. “Now we’ve got you. Off we go now. I must put you safely under lock and key.”

  The robber Hotzenplotz got up with difficulty. “Can’t you take this cage off my head?” he asked.

  “No,” said Sergeant Dimplemoser. “The cage stays put!”

  He drew his sword. But before marching Hotzenplotz off, he hurriedly thanked Kasperl and Seppel for their help.

  “I’ll see that you get a reward from the Mayor tomorrow,” Sergeant Dimplemoser finished. “Then you must tell me all about it. I’ll have to put it all down in the evidence, you see. Till tomorrow, goodbye!”

  Sergeant Dimplemoser led the robber Hotzenplotz three times around the town. The people came running out of their houses to stare. They were glad the robber was caught at last.

  “What will happen to him now?” they all asked.

  “First I shall put him behind bars,” said the sergeant.

  “And then what?

  “Then we’ll have the law on him.”

  Kasperl and Seppel sat in Grandmother’s sitting room beaming with pleasure. How good it was to be home at last! It was hard to realize that only three days had passed since the last time they all sat here together.

  Grandmother was beaming, too. She quickly laid the table. Then she ran out of the kitchen and brought in a big plum pie. She put a bowl of whipped cream on the table as well.

  “Why, Grandmother!” said Kasperl in surprise. “It’s not Sunday today, is it?”

  “Of course it is,” said Grandmother. “It may be Wednesday in other people’s houses, but it’s Sunday here.”

  She looked in the mirror and set her cap straight. Then she hurried to the door.

  “Are you going out?” asked Kasperl.

  “Just to borrow a coffee mill. I can’t manage without one.”

  “No,” said Kasperl with a grin, “of course you can’t. There you are!”

  He produced the coffee mill and put it on the table. Then he waited to hear what Grandmother would say.

  At first Grandmother could say nothing at all.

  She picked up the coffee mill and began to turn the handle. The coffee mill played “Nuts in May” as a duet.

  Kasperl and Seppel kept perfectly quiet.

  “Oh!” said Grandmother at last. “How lovely! Do you know how I feel?”

  “How do you feel?”

  “I feel as if it were my birthday and Christmas both at once! And now I’ll make the coffee.”

  Grandmother made the nicest pot of coffee she had ever made in her life. When the pot was standing on the table and all the cups were full, Kasperl and Seppel had to tell their story.

  “You make my hair stand on end!” said Grandmother, shaking her head. “You really make my hair stand on end!” she repeated over and over again.

  Now and then she took a sip from her coffee cup. Kasperl and Seppel had plum pie with whipped cream. They ate plum pie until they had stomach ache, and they were so happy that they wouldn’t have changed places with anyone, not even the Emperor of Constantinople.

  OTFRIED PREUSSLER (1923–2013) was born into a family of teachers in Reichenberg, Czechoslovakia, and as a boy loved listening to the folktales of the region. Drafted into the army during World War II, Preussler was captured in 1944 and spent the next five years as a prisoner of war in the Tatar Republic. After his release, he moved to Bavaria and became a primary-school teacher and principal, supplementing his income by working as a reporter for a local newspaper and by writing scripts for children’s radio. One of the most popular authors for children in Germany, Preussler was twice awarded the German Children’s Book Prize. His many books have been translated into fifty-five languages and have sold over fifty million copies. New York Review Books also publishes Preussler’s Krabat & the Sorcerer’s Mill, The Little Water Sprite, and The Little Witch.

  ANTHEA BELL is a translator from the German, French, and Danish, and the winner of the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize, the Helen and Kurt Wolff Translator’s Prize, and, three times over, the Marsh Award for Children’s Literature in Translation. She has translated Asterix, Hans Christian Andersen, Cornelia Funke, Kerstin Gier, W. G. Sebald, Sigmund Freud, and several novels by Otfried Preussler.

  FRANZ JOSEF TRIPP (1915–1978) illustrated, among many other books, Jim Button and Luke the Engine Driver by Michael Ende, as well as The Little Ghost and the two sequels to The Robber Hotzenplotz by Otfried Preussler. His son is the artist Jan Peter Tripp.