Mim and the Baffling Bully

by Katrina Nannestad

  ‘Clear off,’ snaps Ruben.

  Who says, ‘Clear off,’ to their daughter?!

  Ruben, that’s who. And he says it again. Louder this time. ‘Clear off!’ Then he turns to the next customer, as though Gerda isn’t even there. As though she doesn’t have something important to say.

  Gerda now runs to a woman who is also serving. ‘Mum,’ she says. ‘Mum. Mum. Mum.’

  But her mother pushes past without a word. Without a glance. It’s like Gerda is invisible!

  I feel horrible just seeing it. Sick in my tummy. Sore in my heart.

  How must Gerda feel?

  Gerda turns around and her eyes meet mine. She startles, surprised, embarrassed.

  I smile.

  Gerda frowns and her blue eyes turn to ice. She reaches into the cabinet, right in front of Nat and me, and takes out two huge wedges of chocolate cake, one in each hand. She tosses us an ugly, smug smile and walks away.

  ‘Wowee!’ says Nat. ‘Gerda’s so lucky. She can eat all the cake she likes!’

  ‘Yes,’ I whisper. ‘So lucky.’

  We stand by the glass cabinet for a long time. We stare. We listen. Everything is calling our names, winking, waving, blowing kisses. But in the end, the chocolate cake shouts the loudest. We order three slices and chocolate milkshakes to match.

  We return to our table to eat. But the cake isn’t as yummy as I expected. I have a sour taste in my mouth and an ache in my tummy. I can’t stop thinking about Gerda. Her dad treats her like a pest — a fly that won’t quit buzzing in his ear. Her mum ignores her, as though she doesn’t even exist.

  But Gerda does exist. She’s here, now. Walking towards us. Pretty, confident, pink lights flashing on her sneakers.

  But now I know. There’s a sadness in her life.

  I even feel sorry for her!

  I smile at Gerda. Again.

  This time she smiles back!

  I stand. ‘Hello, Gerda. Would you like to join us for —’

  Gerda would not like to join us. Not for cake. Not for a chat. Not for anything. Gerda just wants to be mean. To me.

  I haven’t even finished my invitation when Gerda shouts, ‘WHOOPS!’ and trips.

  Who shouts, ‘WHOOPS!’ before they trip?

  Gerda, that’s who.

  Gerda trips on purpose. She lunges forward, her hands push against my chest and I fly backwards, off the deck and into the canal!

  I’m okay. I can swim.

  But I’m cold and I’m mad.

  Gerda blinks down at me. ‘Oh no!’ she cries. ‘I’m so sorry!’ Her voice is full of fake and her eyes are full of ice.

  I’m really, really mad. Embarrassed too. Because everyone at the café stares. They point. Some even snicker into their hands.

  Dad looks at Gerda.

  He shrugs, then winks at me.

  He steps to the edge of the canal and totters, waving his arms like a windmill in a tornado.

  He cries, ‘WHOOOOOOAH!’ so loudly that everyone’s attention swivels to him.

  And he falls into the canal beside me.

  ‘’Scuse me! ’Scuse me!’ It’s Nat. He pushes through the crowd, dragging a lifesaving ring. ‘Don’t worry, Mim! Cheer up, Dad! I found a giant O!’

  Nat swings the giant O back and forth and tosses it out into the canal. But he forgets to let go, and the giant O and Nat fly through the air and splash into the water.

  It’s so sweet and so funny that I can’t help laughing. And Dad laughs too. And Nat. And soon we’re all giggling and gurgling and thrashing and splashing, and everyone at the café is laughing too, and clapping and cheering and even taking photos.

  Everyone!

  Except for Gerda.

  Gerda just stares. The ice melts from her eyes and again, the sadness slips in. And something more.

  Gerda is looking at us — me, Nat, Dad — in the same way that we looked at the cakes.

  With raw, hungry longing.

  CHAPTER 12

  A short, soggy walk with big ideas

  We walk home dripping.

  ‘Gerda pushed me,’ I say.

  ‘I know,’ says Dad.

  ‘Why?’ asks Nat.

  ‘Because she’s unhappy,’ I reply. ‘Because she doesn’t have everything. Because she doesn’t have what we have.’

  ‘Wet pants?’ Nat grabs the soggy, saggy seat of his pants and squeezes it. A stream of water runs through his fingers and onto the ground.

  I shake my head and explain. ‘Gerda doesn’t have parents who take notice of her and make her feel special and loved.’

  Dad smiles at me. Warmly. Proudly.

  I continue. ‘I think Gerda pushed me into the canal to take the attention away from her mum and dad ignoring her . . . That’s probably why Gerda’s so mean to Willemina as well. To take the bad attention away from herself and lump it all on someone else.’ I stop. It’s all becoming clear to me now! ‘And maybe bullying Willemina makes Gerda feel strong and clever and important, because she feels weak and stupid and invisible with her mum and dad!’ I gasp. ‘That’s it, isn’t it?’

  Dad nods.

  ‘Poor Gerda,’ I whisper.

  ‘Don’t you mean poor Willemina?’ asks Nat.

  ‘Willemina!’ I shout. ‘I get it, Dad! I get it! Willemina doesn’t need to change. It’s Gerda who needs to change. You need to find the right book for Gerda!’

  CHAPTER 13

  The wrong book again

  Daisy is standing way up on top of a bookshelf when we get home. Coco perches nearby, bobbing her head up and down encouragingly.

  Nat gawps. ‘He flew!’

  Daisy bleats down at us. His fairy wings quiver.

  I sidle up to Dad and whisper, ‘Can sheep climb ladders?’

  He shrugs.

  ‘Hello!’ It’s Willemina. She trots down the steps, The Big Book of Creepy-Crawly Things and Nat’s pink tutu tucked beneath her arm. She has a huge yellow bow stuck in her hair.

  Nat slips into his tutu, then says, ‘Look, Willemina! We have a new lamb called Daisy and he can fly.’

  Willemina’s eyes boggle behind her glasses. There is obviously so much about Nat’s sentence that confuses her. But she blinks at Daisy, then smiles at Nat. ‘That’s brilliant! Flying lambs are my favourite animal.’

  Nat beams. He hugs Willemina and says, ‘I love you so much.’

  Willemina pats his back and says, ‘Me too.’

  Dad’s right. Willemina is lovely just as she is. She doesn’t need to change one jot.

  Willemina pulls something from her pocket and gives it to Nat. It’s a red jelly lolly, round with a hole in the middle.

  ‘An O!’ shouts Nat. ‘I love O’s!’ He grabs his treasure chest and opens the lid. A sharp cheesy smell fills the air. Nat sits his jelly O on top of his collection. He sniffs the cheesy air, sighs, ‘O’s!’ and closes the lid.

  Customers start streaming into the bookshop. Daisy bleats rudely down at each new arrival. Everyone’s surprised but not annoyed.

  Nat, Willemina and I sit on a rug and play a game of Scrabble. I explain the rules for Willemina. ‘K, Q, V, W, X, Y and Z can be themselves or they can be used as O’s. Nat’s taken all the O’s for his collection, so we have to bend the rules a bit.’

  Nat giggles.

  We have a great game of Scrabble. Willemina and I are both good spellers, and Nat’s very creative. I write BOOKSHOP for one turn, then CARAVAN for the next. It’s almost spooky!

  It’s Nat’s turn again. He puts down his letters and spells MNXAZT. ‘Chocolate cake,’ he announces, running his finger across the tiles. He’s very pleased because he knows the Z is worth a lot of points. He’s also covered the triple word score.

  ‘Brilliant!’ I say and write down his new tally.

  Nat peers at the numbers beneath his name. ‘Seven billion hundred and nine! I’m winning!’

  Willemina giggles and Nat joins in.

  Just then a shadow darkens the board. Gerda is here, staring down at
us.

  Nat and Willemina fall silent, and I hold my breath. I’m waiting for Gerda to say something mean about Nat’s word. Or kick the Scrabble board. Or even kick me.

  But she doesn’t. She wanders away and starts looking at the fairy tales and fables.

  Willemina’s face has lost its shine. Her yellow bow has slipped down the side of her head. She forgets that we’re playing the best game of Scrabble ever. She crawls into the corner of a sofa and buries her head in the pages of her book.

  I don’t blame her. I’m nervous too, now Gerda is here. I sit beside Willemina, but I keep my eyes on Gerda. She might strike at any moment.

  Gerda spots the hedgehogs. She returns her book to the shelf and creeps towards them. Stretching out her hand, she murmurs, ‘Hello, little darlings.’

  The hedgehogs snuffle and smile, and Gerda smiles back. Really smiles.

  ‘MAAAAAAAA!’

  Gerda jumps and looks up. Daisy has walked along the top of the bookshelves and is now right above Gerda. He bleats rudely down at her.

  ‘MAAAA! MAAAA! MAAAA!’

  Gerda blushes and turns to me. As though it’s my fault!

  ‘That’s Daisy!’ says Nat. ‘He’s our new lamb and he can fly because of the fairy wings.’

  I huddle closer to Willemina and we both stare at a double-page picture of the life cycle of a snail. It’s amazing — bright and detailed, with swirly arrows and marvellous words like invertebrate and gastropod and terrestrial. But I barely notice because I’m scared of what Gerda might do next.

  Gerda inches back towards us. Slowly. Pretending to look at a book here, a book there. But I see her getting closer.

  Dad does too. He slips away from the customers and plops to the floor beside Nat. They start drawing O’s on the pages of a cookbook. It’s called The Joy of Brussels Sprouts and Dad says it’s fine to write all over it because, obviously, with a title like that, it’s never going to sell.

  Soon Gerda is right beside us. She peers at the snail life cycle, her face full of wonder. And then she looks at Dad and Nat and the picture of brussels sprout soup now covered in thick black O’s. She stares hungrily. And I’m pretty sure it’s not because she has a sudden longing for brussels sprout soup.

  Dad springs to his feet. ‘You must be Gerda!’ he sings, as though he’s pleased to see her.

  Gerda’s eyelashes flutter in surprise.

  ‘Let me find you the perfect book!’ says Dad. ‘A gift for you to take home. Just like we did with Willemina.’

  Gerda glances at The Big Book of Creepy-Crawly Things. She licks her lips and her eyes flicker with hope.

  I feel hopeful too. I can’t wait for Gerda to get the right book. The one that will teach her to be kind to everyone. Even Willemina.

  Dad rubs his hands together. ‘The right book,’ he murmurs, looking up and down the shelves. ‘Hmmm. Let me see.’

  ‘Maaaa!’ bleats Daisy. He knocks down an old book, dusty and forgotten, from the top of the shelf. It falls to the floor with a thud.

  Dad picks it up. It’s small with a faded green cover, tattered pages, a loose spine and a stain that’s probably a watermark but looks like something far worse.

  Dad smiles.

  Oh no! Don’t do it, Dad! Don’t do it! Pleeease!

  Dad does it.

  ‘Here!’ he says, passing the book to Gerda. ‘This is the perfect book for you!’

  Gerda gawps at the mangy old book.

  She looks at the big, bright, glossy new book on Willemina’s knee.

  She narrows her eyes at me.

  She flicks through the pages of the faded green book and a puff of dust drifts into the air.

  ‘Aaaa-choo!’ I sneeze. Hard.

  Now Gerda’s book has wet, splattered pages. As if that gross stain wasn’t bad enough!

  Gerda glares at me. She snaps shut the book, shoves it into her pocket and stomps out of the bookshop.

  She doesn’t even say thank you.

  Although I can hardly blame her.

  ‘Dad,’ I moan. ‘How could you? That was the ugliest book ever!’

  ‘Daisy tossed it to me,’ says Dad.

  ‘But Daisy is a lamb!’ I shout.

  ‘A flying lamb!’ Nat reminds me.

  ‘It was the right book,’ says Dad.

  ‘No, no, no, no, no!’ I bury my face in my hands. ‘It was the wrong book. Gerda hated it. She was angry.’

  And there’s nothing more dangerous than an angry bully.

  CHAPTER 14

  The emperor’s bare bottom

  It’s Sunday. Family day. The Travelling Bookshop is closed.

  Dad, Nat, Willemina and I are sitting on the grass in the sunshine, making sock puppets. We’re going to do a puppet play of The Emperor’s New Clothes.

  Franz and Elke are sitting on a bench beside us. The book Knitted Tea Cosies lies on the ground at their feet. Franz is knitting. He’s almost finished his first ever tea cosy — a pretty yellow sheep with a white face and ears.

  Coco perches on Franz’s shoulder, bobbing up and down, chattering happily to the tea cosy. ‘Hello, gorgeous! Hello, gorgeous!’

  Daisy and Flossy wander around us, nibbling on the grass and sometimes the socks.

  We sew button eyes and red ribbon tongues onto the socks. Elke sews woollen hair on some. She’s very clever and the emperor now has loops of yellow wool that look like golden curls.

  Sewing is too tricky for Nat, so he practises the story. ‘One uponce a time, there was a king with a bare bottom.’ He smiles. Then he giggles. Then he throws his head back and laughs.

  Franz laughs too.

  ‘Shouldn’t the bare bottom come later?’ asks Elke.

  ‘But it’s the best bit,’ says Nat.

  ‘It really is,’ agrees Willemina. And now she and Nat and Franz are all laughing. Out of control.

  Franz starts coughing and Elke rubs his back.

  Dad smiles at them. ‘How long have you two known each other?’

  ‘Three days,’ says Franz.

  I’m amazed. They look so comfortable together. Like toast and butter.

  Elke chuckles. ‘Franz was sitting on a bench by the canal, trying to knit. He was making a dreadful mess of it, so I offered to help.’

  ‘We knitted and chatted all day,’ says Franz. ‘Elke’s lovely company.’ He blushes.

  Elke pats his hand. ‘Franz is good company too. We both live by ourselves. It can get quite lonely, you know.’

  Franz nods and smiles. ‘But neither of us has been lonely these past three days.’

  I look at Franz’s book, Knitted Tea Cosies. It was the right book after all.

  ‘Done!’ cries Dad. ‘All of our socks have been made into puppets.’

  ‘All of them?’ I gasp. ‘But what will we wear with our shoes?’

  Dad stares at me. He slips a puppet onto each of his bare feet and wriggles them about. ‘Puppets!’

  We all pull sock puppets onto our hands and feet. We have an emperor and two naughty tailors and a manservant and a huge crowd of subjects who’ll watch the emperor walk through his kingdom without any clothes on. We prance about, making our sock puppets shout lines from the play.

  ‘The emperor’s naked!’

  ‘Goodness, his buttocks are white!’

  ‘Oh, how terribly, awfully embarrassing!’

  We’re leaping and laughing, and shouting ‘bare bottom’ and ‘buttocks’ and ‘crack’ far more than necessary. Even Franz and Elke. Then suddenly, Gerda appears.

  Our foot puppets freeze. Our hand puppets drop to our sides. An uncomfortable hush fills the air.

  Uh-oh, I think. This is it. Gerda’s here for revenge.

  I sidle up to Dad. Willemina slips behind Franz. Nat pokes at a blob of chewing gum stuck to the bench.

  Daisy creeps up behind Gerda. ‘MAAAA!’

  Gerda jumps and Daisy bounces away like a clown on a pogo stick.

  Gerda stares. She snorts. And then she laughs.

  Rea
lly laughs. There’s not even a nasty edge to it.

  ‘Hello, Gerda!’ sings Dad. ‘Wonderful to see you again.’ Then the sock puppets on his hands repeat the greeting. ‘Hellooo, Gerda!’ and, ‘Greetings, lovely Gerda.’

  Lovely Gerda? I roll my eyes. I think Dad’s overdoing it.

  Then, to top it all off, Coco bobs up and down on Franz’s shoulder and squawks, ‘Hello, gorgeous! Hello, gorgeous!’

  Gerda’s cheeks turn pink. A happy pink. And her eyes sparkle.

  Willemina notices too. Her eyes boggle behind her glasses.

  Gerda pulls the mangy old book from her pocket and hugs it to her chest. ‘Thank you for this book,’ she says. ‘It was perfect.’

  My mouth drops open. What’s she up to now?

  ‘My dad loved it!’ cries Gerda. ‘He had the same book when he was a little boy. He saw it sitting on our dining table and started reading it. And then he started laughing. My dad never laughs any more. He’s far too busy . . . and tired . . . and grumpy.’

  I think of Ruben telling Gerda to clear off and my tummy squelches.

  ‘But this book made Dad laugh!’ says Gerda, her voice full of awe. ‘And then he began reading it out loud to Mum and my sister, Margareta, and me. We sat around the table while Dad read the entire book, and we laughed and we cried, and we had such a lovely time. Together.’ She presses the ugly green book to her cheek as though it’s treasure.

  Because it is treasure.

  It’s the right book.

  The perfect book.

  Gerda bites her lip. ‘I know you’re closed,’ she murmurs, ‘but I wondered . . .’ She looks at Dad, her eyes full of hope and longing.

  ‘Come on in!’ shouts Dad. ‘The Travelling Bookshop is always open for someone as sweet as you, Gerda!’

  Nat, Willemina and I sneak inside after them. At least, we try. Nat gives us away when he trips and falls down the last three steps. He’s still wearing the eyepatch.

  We watch as Dad wanders along the shelves and pulls out three shabby-looking books. They all have faded green covers and tattered pages. One has mouldy dots along the spine. A second has nibbles in the cover. Rat-sized nibbles. The third has been sheltering a family of moths. Now they flutter out from between the pages and flap about Gerda’s head. She doesn’t even blink!