The warty skin hangs loose around the skeletons. Every few seconds they puff out their cheeks, as though they are gathering air so they can say something but keep changing their minds. For a moment I want to cut open the warts to see what’s inside them, but instead I rest my arms on my desk and lay my chin on my hands. They’ve hardly eaten anything since the toad migration. Maybe they’ve joined the resistance like Mum, although I wouldn’t know what they were rebelling against. In the Second World War, resistance was always against others – now it’s only directed at ourselves, like with my coat, which is a rebellion against all the illnesses listed in the radio requests on The Musical Fruit Basket. I’m more and more scared of all the things you can catch. And sometimes, I even imagine that during gym I’ll look at the queue waiting to jump the pommel horse and my classmates will start throwing up one by one – the vomit like porridge around their ankles and fear riveting me to the linoleum – my cheeks as hot as the heating pipes in the ceiling. As soon as I blink, the vision disappears again. To curb my fear, every morning I break a few peppermints into four on the edge of the table and keep them in my trouser pocket. When I feel sick or think I’m going to throw up, I eat one. The mint flavour makes me calm.
The headmaster won’t let me leave early. ‘There’s usually a deeper underlying issue with children who are off school sick for a long time,’ he said, looking past me as though he could see Mum and Dad’s faces behind me, and the thing that could happen any moment, namely that absent-minded thing called Death who always took the wrong person or, the other way round, let them live.
‘As long as you don’t start spitting,’ I say to the toads, taking two earthworms I got from the vegetable patch this afternoon before Belle came round out of a paper handkerchief. The earthworm is one of the strongest animals because it can be cut in half and still carry on living. They’ve got nine hearts. The worms wiggle around a bit as I hold them in a pincer grip above the head of the fattest toad; its eyes move back and forth. Their pupils are stripes – a slotted screwdriver, I think to myself. Handy to know if I have to take them apart one day to find out what’s wrong with them, the way I did with the toasted sandwich maker that was covered in melted cheese. The toads refuse to open their mouths. I rub my legs together a bit – the knickers from school are itchy. I’ve been wetting myself a lot recently and hiding the wet knickers under my bed. That’s the only good thing about grief: Mum’s nose is constantly blocked so she doesn’t smell the knickers when she comes to wish me goodnight.
Today there was a mishap at school too. Luckily no one noticed except the teacher. She gave me a pair of knickers from the lost property box – there are things in there that everyone’s stopped looking for, so they are properly lost. Red letters on the knickers say COOL. I feel anything but cool.
‘Are you cross?’ I asked the teacher when she gave me the knickers.
‘Of course I’m not cross. These things just happen,’ she said.
Anything can happen, I think then, but nothing can be prevented. The plan about death and a rescuer, Mum and Dad who don’t lie on top of each other any more, Obbe who is growing out of his clothes faster than Mum can learn the washing labels off by heart, and the way not just his body is growing but also his cruelty; the ticking insects in my belly which make me rock on top of my teddy bear and get out of bed exhausted, or why we don’t have crunchy peanut butter any more, why the sweets tin has grown a mouth with Mum’s voice in it that says, ‘Are you sure you want to do that?’ or why Dad’s arm has become like a traffic barrier: it descends on you whether you wait your turn or not; or the Jewish people in the basement that no one talks about, just like Matthies. Are they still alive?
One of the toads suddenly moves forward. I hold it back with my hand so that it doesn’t tumble off the desk. Do they have silos in their minds? I rest my head back on my hands so that I can look at them close up and say, ‘You know what it is, dear toads? You need to use your strengths. If you can’t swim as well as a frog and you can’t jump as high, you have to be better at other things. You’re really good at sitting, for example. A frog can’t compete with you on that. So still that you look like lumps of mud. And you’re good at digging, I have to give you that. The whole winter we think that you’ve disappeared but you’re just sitting in the earth under our feet. We people are always visible, even when we want to be invisible. Apart from that we can do everything you can do – swim, jump, dig – but we don’t find those things as important because we mainly want to do things we can’t do, things we have to spend ages learning at school, while I’d rather be able to swim, or dig myself into the mud and let two seasons go by. But maybe the most important difference between you and me is that you don’t have any parents any more or you don’t see them. How does that go? Did they say one day, “Bye bye, chubby-cheeked kid, you can cope without us now, we’re off.” Is that how it went? Or did you go paddling one lovely summer’s day in July and they floated away from you on a lily-pad, further and further until they were out of sight? Did it hurt? Does it still hurt? It might sound crazy, but I miss my parents even though I see them every day. Maybe it’s just like the things we want to learn because we can’t do them yet: we miss everything we don’t have. Mum and Dad are there, but at the same time they aren’t.’ I take a deep breath and think about Mum, who is probably downstairs reading the Reformist magazine. You can only take it out of its plastic on Thursdays and no sooner. Her knees together and a mug of aniseed milk in her hand. Dad scrolling through teletext for milk prices. If they’re good, he goes to make himself a sandwich in the kitchen and Mum gets nervous again about possible crumbs, as though she’s from pest control. If the milk prices are disappointing, he goes outside and walks away from us along the dike. Every time I think it’s the last time we’ll see him. Then I’ll hang his overalls on the peg in the hall next to Matthies’s coat – Death has its own coat hook here. But the worst thing is the endless silence. As soon as the television’s off all you can hear is the ticking of the cuckoo clock on the wall. The thing is, they’re not drifting away from us but we’re drifting away from them.
‘Promise me this will stay between us, dear toads, but sometimes I wish I had different parents. Do you understand that?’ I continue. ‘Parents like Belle’s who are as soft as shortbread just out of the oven and give her lots of cuddles when she’s sad, frightened or even very happy. Parents that chase away all the ghosts from under your bed, from inside your head, and run through a summary of the week with you every weekend like Dieuwertje Blok does on TV, so you don’t forget everything you achieved that week, all the things you tripped up on before scrabbling to your feet again. Parents that see you when you’re talking to them – even though I find it terrifying to look people in the eye, as though other people’s eyeballs are two lovely marbles you can continuously win or lose. Belle’s parents go on exotic holidays and make tea for her when she comes home from school. They’ve got hundreds of different sorts including aniseed and fennel, my favourite tea. Sometimes they drink it sitting on the floor because that’s more comfortable than sitting in a chair. And they horse around with each other without it turning into fighting. And they say sorry as often as they’re nasty to each other.
‘What I was wondering, friends, was whether you toads can actually cry or do you go swimming when you feel sad? We’ve got tears in us but perhaps you seek comfort outside yourselves, so you can sink away in it. But more on your strengths, that’s where I started. Of course you have to know what you want to make use of and how you want to do that. I know you’re good at catching flies and at mating. I think that last one’s a funny business but you do it all the time. And if something you like doing stops then there’s something going on. Have you got toad flu? Are you homesick or are you just being difficult? I know I might be asking too much but if you start the mating season, Mum and Dad might get going too. Sometimes someone has to lead by example, the way I always have to set a good example for Hanna, even though the other way round works better. Or are you just mainly kissing now? Belle says there are four bases: kissing, fumbling, more fumbling and mating. I can’t talk about it, I haven’t even been able to bat yet. Even though I understand you have to start slowly. It’s just we don’t have much time. Mum didn’t even eat her rye bread and cheese yesterday and Dad is constantly threatening to leave. You should know that they never kiss either. Never. Well, just at twelve o’clock on New Year’s Eve. Then Mum leans cautiously towards Dad, holds his head briefly like a greasy apple fritter, and presses her lips to his skin without making a kissing sound. Look, I don’t know what love is, but I do know it makes you jump high, that it makes you able to swim more lengths, that it makes you visible. The cows are often in love – then they jump on each other’s backs, even females on females. So we have to do something about the love here on the farm. But to be honest, dear esteemed toads, I think we’ve dug ourselves in, even though it’s summer. We’re buried deep in the mud and no one is going to get us out. Do you actually have a god? A god who forgives and a god who remembers? I don’t know what kind of god we have. Maybe He’s on holiday, or He’s dug himself in. Whatever it is, He’s not exactly on the case. And all these questions, toads. How many fit inside your little heads? I’m no good at maths but I’m guessing about ten. You have to think that if your little heads fit about a hundred times inside mine, how many questions there are in me and how many answers that haven’t been ticked off yet. I’m going to put you back in the bucket now. I’m sorry about this but I can’t set you free. I’d miss you, because who would watch over me when I sleep? I promise to take you to the lake one day. Then we’ll float away together on a lily-pad, and maybe, only maybe, I’ll even dare to take off my coat. Even though it will feel uncomfortable for a while, but according to the pastor, discomfort is good. In discomfort we are real.’