The Great Rabbit Revenge Plan (10 page)

‘What's tickle poison?' asks Peter.

‘Hah!' cries Dad. ‘You've never heard of the dreaded tickle poison? This is how it works!' And with that he leaps on Konrad and tickles him so hard that Konrad gets completely red in the face and can't breathe for laughing.

‘Me too!' says Peter. ‘Please!'

Peter can't bear being tickled. He starts to roar if anyone so much as threatens to tickle him, but – ah, sweet mystery of life! – if there is one thing he can bear even less than being tickled it's his older brother being tickled when he is not.

‘Fair enough,' says Dad and then he jumps on Peter. Three seconds later, Peter is begging him to stop, but in the general
mêlée, nobody can understand what he is saying, and so Dad goes on tickling him for a bit.

‘You see,' he says at last. ‘That's how the dangerous tickle poison works. An overdose of it can kill.'

Konrad is the first to be able to speak again. ‘So, what happens about the fight between Ana and Basis?'

‘A bad scene,' says Dad. ‘The two of them haven't the smallest notion of the code of conflict. On the contrary. The more they fight, the stupider and the more locked-in they get. Ana wants to bite everything to bits, regardless of how much venom she uses up. And Basis says that basically he doesn't want to guard the wretched old sparkler any more and if these explorers want to have it, they can stick it up their jumpers and jolly well jump in the lake with it for all he cares.

‘And so on and so forth. At the end of the day, one says yes just because the other says no. And the other says no just because the first one says yes.'

‘And then?' says Konrad.

‘Well,' says Dad. ‘Then something happens that sometimes does happen. Suddenly, the two forest snakes become so ashamed of all this fighting that, right at the same moment, they both decide to make up. And how do you think they do this?'

‘Dunno.'

‘Easy! They link up together again. But because they both decide to do it at the same time, they each grab the other by the tail. Ana bites into Basis's tail and Basis bites into Ana's.'

‘Hoi,' says Konrad.

‘And so,' says Dad, ‘there they lie, like a discarded bicycle tyre. Completely reconciled but thick as a brick. Ana thinks Basis is in front and turns off her thinking. And Basis thinks Ana is in front, and also turns off his thinking.'

‘So now they'll never be able to split up again!'

‘The poor things,' says Peter, sounding as if he might cry.

‘Oh well.' Dad sighs as he gets up out of Peter's bed. ‘They can think just a tiny little bit. Enough, in any case, to let go again after a few minutes, at the same time. And then –,' Dad is out of the bed now, ‘then the pair of them make off in two different directions and disappear into the impenetrable jungle.'

He kisses the two boys on the forehead. ‘Just like you two now' he says. ‘And no fighting, right?'

‘Right,' they say together.

Fridz's Next Plan

The next day, Thursday, about two hours after breakfast, Konrad Bantelmann is pressing the index finger of his right hand on the doorbell of number 28b, Hedwig Dransfeld Strasse. His left hand is in his pocket, clutching the new code of conflict.

The new code of conflict consists of precisely eight sentences, which he wrote this morning, in the two hours after breakfast, on a clean page in his Dransfeld nobebook.

He can hear the bell ringing inside the house, and soon the door swings open.

‘You?' says Fridz. ‘I wasn't expecting you of all people.'

‘Yeah, well,' says Konrad, ‘I'm not all people, am I?' What a stupid thing to say! What he'd actually meant to say was the first sentence of the new code of conflict. But somehow it just didn't come out right. Oh dear, thinks Konrad. Not a good start.

But it's a good start after all, because Fridz laughs at his pathetic attempt at a joke. Then she asks, ‘Are you in better form?' and without waiting for an answer, she drags him into the house, banging the door.

As if it mattered what kind of form he was in, considering what lousy form she'd been in yesterday! Konrad would like to say this, but it wouldn't be in keeping with the new code
of conflict. Instead, he says what he had resolved to say: the first sentence on the piece of paper that was in his pocket.

‘Hello, Fridz,' he says. ‘I came today to say to you –'

But he doesn't get any further.

‘What's wrong with you? You sound as if you are about to recite a birthday poem or something. It's too late. My birthday was on the ninth of May.'

Keep calm, Konrad Bantelmann. Quite calm! ‘I came today to say to you –'

‘That we have to do things differently,' says Fridz.

‘That's exactly what I was thinking!'

She rolls her eyes. ‘Of course we have to do it differently. You just can't send a rabbit by post. Every schoolchild knows that. A live animal in a box? How silly! Only a dumb cluck could come up with something like that. No, no. That won't do.'

This is totally mad! Konrad squeezes his eyes closed. He feels like a firework whose string someone has lit and which is about to burst into flames in a gunpowder store. He is just about to fly straight up in the air, explode on the landing of number 28b and come twinkling back down in the form of a million sparks. What sort of nonsense is this Fridz talking now? But before he explodes and goes up in the air, himself and his lovely code of conflict, Konrad sees Fridz once more through the narrow slits of his eyes, and she is grinning. A nice, big, wide grin.

Would Friederike Frenke ever have a code of conflict? If so, Konrad thinks, it would probably look quite different from his.

He closes his fist carefully over his eight sentences. ‘Right,' he says. ‘What happened yesterday was stupid.'

‘Exactly what I say,' says Fridz.

And then she gives Konrad a kiss. For the second time. Very quickly, and luckily just on the cheek again. But still, a kiss is a kiss.

Konrad blushes. Only three days ago he had been in a state because he had a date with a girl, and now he's constantly being kissed by her. A dreadful state of affairs.

‘Let's go!' says Fridz, pointing towards the basement. ‘We have loads to do. Let's get started!'

Hold on a minute! What's all this? After the disaster they had yesterday, surely she's given up that terrible plan of hers. To hell with this let's-send-an-allergy-rabbit-to-Kristine-Crisis project. Right?

‘Will we play a bit of
Crazy Bugs?'
says Konrad. Well, you have to try.

‘What? Oh, come on!'

‘Is your mum here?' This is Konrad's last hope. Mabye the whole crazy business won't happen if Fridz's mum is there. Parents have this amazing ability to call a halt to, or at least to lessen, all the monkey business that's going on around them, just by being there. On the other hand, Fridz's mum is not exactly a byword for common sense and Konrad-Bantelmannish behaviour. Konrad has worked this much out by now.

‘So what if she is?' says Fridz. ‘Anyway, she has to go to the bank.'

A door opens upstairs and Fridz's mum comes down into the hall.

Fridz digs Konrad in the ribs. ‘All your fault,' she says softly. ‘We could have been down in the basement by now.'

Fridz's mum has tied her hair up in a knot. She's very pale again. She looks as if she has been crying.

‘Have you seen my folder?' she asks.

‘Which folder?'

‘The red one. No, the blue one.' Fridz's mum sits on the bottom step of the stairs. ‘Oh, hello, Konrad! Are you planning to play something nice today?'

‘Ah,' says Konrad.

‘I mean, like yesterday, the way you played Christmas in the middle of summer! The people across the road told me about it. And you were Rudolf the Red-Nosed Reindeer, the one that pulls the sleigh.'

Rudolf the Red-Nosed Reindeer! Oh, ground, open up! Konrad even taps on it with his foot. But alas, the ground has no intention of opening up. For the moment.

‘It was his idea,' says Fridz.

‘Sweet,' says Fridz's mum. ‘But if I don't find this folder, we may as well move out.'

‘Maybe it's in the oven,' says Fridz. ‘Or in the fridge. There's loads of room in there.'

‘Cheeky monkey!' says her mum.

Then she hits herself on the forehead. ‘In the car! That's where it is, for sure.' She looks at the clock. ‘It's high time I left. You two take care now, right?'

She grabs a jacket and runs out of the house. Shortly afterwards, her extraordinary banger of a car springs noisily into action and rattles off.

‘Good,' says Fridz. ‘Now I'll show you how we're going to do it.'

Do it
, thinks Konrad. He doesn't like the sound of this.

They have to do something, but why couldn't they just play
Crazy Bugs
, for example, and have a good laugh? Or they could curl up somewhere comfortable and tell each other mad stories. That'd be good fun too. But no – Fridz wants to do something. And obviously, he is supposed to go along with her.

Fridz is already on the stairs down to the basement.

‘Coming,' says Konrad. He is talking mostly to himself, as if he is giving himself an order. Off you go, my dear Konrad. There is no going back. In for a penny, in for a pound. You've started, so you'll finish. And so on. Things that Mum and Dad must love saying, because they repeat them so often.

‘You'll be amazed,' says Fridz, when they get to the basement. ‘I have a new plan. And this time I've thought of everything. It can't go wrong.'

Famous last words! Konrad has heard this kind of thing before. ‘It can't go wrong.' The thieves in his detective stories say this kind of thing regularly, just before they fall into the trap that the Sly Foxes gang of children have set. It's always the same. ‘It can't go wrong' means roughly: ‘Whatever we do now, it will all go up the spout.' It's just another way of saying it. And it's always the stupid ones who say it, the ones who are sure to come a cropper.

But that's what happens, thinks Konrad, when someone lets himself be persuaded into playing with a girl. Anyone
who plays with a girl is destined to have to spend the rest of his life doing dreadfully embarrassing things. Rudolf the Red-Nosed Reindeer! They'd warned him at school, but unfortunately, they hadn't fully explained to him what the consequences would be.

By now, Fridz has opened the door into the store room where all the boxes are. She goes in, pulling Konrad behind her, and closes the door after them.

And there it is, the new plan. You can't miss it. Within a fraction of a second, Konrad knows exactly what she has in mind. He could not have dreamt up anything as bad as this.

‘Well,' says Fridz. ‘Deadly, isn't it?'

This word is not allowed in the Bantelmann family. But Konrad kind of knows that he shouldn't say that right now.

‘Yes,' he says instead. ‘Mad.' But what he means is, ‘awful'.

On the other hand, you have to hand it to her. Fridz has really gone to a lot of trouble. On top of two other boxes, as if on a podium, stands a box like no other box the world has ever seen. That's what Fridz says anyway. And to emphasise this pronouncement, she lifts it up and displays it from all angles. And it is well worth looking at from every angle.

‘Here,' she says, ‘if you would like to take a look.'

On all four sides, the words OFFICIAL ANIMAL SHIPMENT are written in thick black marker and every letter has been framed first in red, than in yellow.

Low down on each side it says, in slightly smaller writing, so that it all fits in: THIS SHIPMENT IS FULLY LEGAL AND PERMITTED.

‘Mad,' says Konrad. ‘It can't go wrong.'

‘But,' says Fridz, ‘watch!'

She sticks her finger through a little hole and pulls open a flap that is about as big as a playing card. On the inside of the flap it says: SPECIAL RABBIT BREATHING HOLE.

‘There are six of these altogether,' says Fridz. ‘Exactly as it says in the instructions.'

What instructions? Konrad would like to ask, but he doesn't. Probably, in the spirit of the new code of conflict, it's best not to say anything at all for the moment.

‘And now watch! It gets madder!'

Fridz indicates another flap on the top of the box, beside which is written: SPECIAL RABBIT FEEDING CHUTE. And a bit smaller: INSERT ONE CARROT HERE EVERY HOUR!

‘Mad,' says Konrad. He can't think of anything else to say.

And although he probably shouldn't ask, he does ask. ‘And how,' he says, ‘ehh … how are you planning to carry it?'

‘Well, how do you think!' Fridz taps her forehead to show how smart she is and how smart Konrad is not. ‘Same as yesterday. We pack the rabbit into the box, we put the box on the trolley and then we pull the thing to the cow's house.'

Oh dear!

‘Maybe,' says Konrad, ‘maybe we could play some other trick on this Kristine?'

‘Out of the question,' says Fridz. ‘She has to get an allergy and she has to scratch herself to bits.'

Well, it was worth a try. Konrad thinks some more. And something does in fact occur to him, slowly but surely. ‘But,' he says.

‘Yes? But? Go on.'

‘How are you going to get the rabbit into the flat?'

Fridz taps her forehead again. She really is feeling very smart today. ‘The stupid cow works very close to her stupid cowshed. In a clothes shop. We'll go there, you'll stay outside and mind the giant, I'll go in and wangle the key out of her.'

‘Hmm,' says Konrad. He knocks on the box. ‘But if RABBIT is written all over it, then she won't open it.'

Bingo!

Fridz grins so broadly that the corners of her mouth nearly reach her ears.

‘My mum,' she says, ‘sometimes tells me how much smarter women are than men. And you know, my mum is not exactly on top of things right now, but stupid she is not.'

Fridz stands right in front of Konrad. ‘Now,' she says very softly and very clearly, ‘here comes the most ingenious part of my plan. I'm telling you, she won't notice a thing. We will go into the flat, we will take the bunny rabbit out of the box, and we will chase it all over the place so hard that it will shed thousands of its allergy hairs.'

Fridz turns around and pretends to be driving something in front of her.

‘Shoo! Shoo!' she cries. ‘Up on the sofa, you little pet. Into the bed. Turn around, roll a bit. Well done!' Then she stands so close to Konrad again that the tip of her nose is exactly one millimetre from the tip of Konrad's nose.

‘You see?' she says. ‘When the whole place is full of hairs,
then we scarper, and nobody can lay a finger on us. So what do you say – ingenious or what?'

A rhetorical question.

‘And where does this Kristine live?' asks Konrad quietly.

‘Hmm,' says Fridz. She takes one step back. ‘Not very far away. Do you know Gerhard's toy shop?'

Who wouldn't know Gerhard's toy shop!

‘Near there.'

‘What?' says Konrad.

To get to Gerhard's toy shop from The Dransfeld you'd have to go all the way into town and then a bit further. It could take hours on foot. Or, who knows, maybe even days.

‘But,' says Konrad, ‘but …'

‘But what?' says Fridz.

‘It's too far.'

‘Too far? Too far!' There is no doubt about it, Fridz is getting shirty. ‘That's the way scaredy people talk.'

‘Suppose we took the bus?'

‘You think we can get the box and the trolley onto a bus? Up those steep steps?'

No, if he is to be honest, Konrad doesn't really think so.

‘A taxi?'

‘Not a hope,' says Fridz. ‘Taxi drivers don't take children.'

‘How do you know that?'

Fridz rolls her eyes. ‘Last week, Mum was in a spin and I wanted to go to her. I called a taxi, but the driver said ‘only when accompanied by an adult'. And remember, we have this bunny box with us. That'd send the taxi driver into a spin too, and there'd be a right to-do.'

Yes, Konrad has to admit, that could well happen.

‘Well, then. There's nothing else for it, is there?'

Or is there? Konrad thinks. If he doesn't come up with a good answer right away to this ‘or is there' question, then he is going to have to pull this wretched trolley with the Flemish Giant box on it all the way through town. Or … well, then what? Or it's all over between him and this Fridz.

But she'll never be able to do it on her own. And if he lets her down now, then there is no code of conflict on earth that can reconcile them. Then Konrad Bantelmann would be forever free of his red-haired, terrifying, nerve-shattering, catastrophe-inducing Friederike. But for some reason, Konrad doesn't want that to happen, so he says something outrageous. He says, ‘I could ask my father.'