Читать книгу The vanished village - Markus Seidel - Страница 4

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How it all began

The day when I suddenly disappeared one afternoon and the adventure began

It was a beautiful day, a Saturday, the sun was shining and it was quite hot. We soon had big holidays, summer holidays; Marie and Maya, my siblings, and I were looking forward to it, because we wanted to camp in France on the Atlantic coast with our parents. Maya is still in kindergarten, Marie is in the sixth grade and I am in the fifth grade. I had recently celebrated my eleventh birthday, and the colorful Happy Birthday banner from the party was still hanging on the terrace.

Mom sent us outside. Dad was sitting at his desk upstairs writing his book the day I suddenly disappeared. He'd been writing it for a couple of weeks. He's a writer. He also works for a newspaper and writes articles. I don't know exactly what they're about, but every now and then he reads something to me. I like the way he writes. Once I asked him if he would like to read me something from the book he was typing, but he said it wasn't for me, I was too young for that, but later, when I was older, he would give it to me to read. At least that's what he promised me.

My mum is at an insurance company; I don't know what she does there exactly, but she has quite a lot to do.

So it was a Saturday, mum had the day off and dad was typing at the top of his book, as I said. We asked him once again to read us something, but he just shook his head and told us a story he made up at that moment. Marie found the story boring (but I liked it), she told it to him directly, but Daddy didn't hold it against her and said that he would definitely make up a story she would like to hear some day. Then he took her in his arms and whirled her through the air until mum laughed and said that they would both get a spinning worm if he continued like this. Then Maya also wanted to be twirled around by him, finally also me, and in the end of course Mama was supposed to twirl us through the air as well.

That day Mama had sent us outside because the weather was so nice and she wanted to prepare lunch. At first we painted a little with chalk on the sidewalk, but Marie soon didn't feel like it anymore, and then suggested we play hide and seek. Although she is already twelve, she still loves to play hide-and-seek. I should look for her and Maya, Maya was still too small to hide alone at the age of four, that's what mummy had told us over and over again: One always has to stay with Maya. So we agreed that I should look for them both first. Who knows what would have happened if we hadn't gone outside and played hide and seek. Then I wouldn't have disappeared, I guess. Then maybe everything would have stayed the same.

Anyway, I found them both pretty soon, even though Marie had chosen a good hiding place, but Maya couldn't keep still, something kept calling her, so I just had to follow her voice to find them. Marie scolded Maya a little bit and said that playing hide and seek with her was not possible at all, and then it was my turn. Marie would count to twenty, I had already chosen a hiding place, namely the shed in the garden where daddy keeps his wheelbarrow and spade and so on. I ran there, opened the door and hid in the back of the shed, between the shelf and the lawnmower. It was quite dark in there, it smelled of earth and lawn and a bit of petrol. Marie and Maya called for me, their voices became quieter and quieter at some point and I wondered why they didn't get the idea to look for me in that shed.

I don't remember how long I sat there, but it must have been five minutes. Then I got up, because I no longer believed that they were still looking for me, and also because my legs hurt from sitting there for so long.

I opened the door and stepped out carefully, after all it was possible that they were both still around. But they were not, simply because there was nothing here that I knew of. I mean, my parents' house was gone, the garden, the street, and Marie and Maya were gone, too. I called for them, but of course it was useless, because I was sure that they were no longer there. Or maybe I should better say: It was me who was no longer there.

I was somewhere else, in another garden that was much bigger than ours, that belonged to a house, a house that didn't have the slightest resemblance to ours. I turned around and looked into the shed, which was exactly the same as the one I had been hiding in. But everything else had changed.

The vanished village

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