The World's Worst Mothers (15 page)

‘One is, anyway,' said Sophie.

‘Emily nearly drowned, and her mother too,' said Nicholas, spilling fishy gunge out of his mouth. ‘Then the man with the boat came and took them out of the water.'

‘Do you have to speak with your mouth full?' asked Sophie, shaking her head.

‘Would you please inform the police?' Bruno asked the owner.

‘I can't,' he said.

‘Why not?' asked Sophie.

‘Because there aren't any on the island,' said Hinnerk.

‘So what happens if there's a crime?' asked Bruno.

‘Ah, no,' said Swantje. ‘That sort of thing don't happen here. We all knows each other here.'

‘And in case of emergency, we have the coastguard,' said Hinnerk.

‘Look, could you for goodness sake tell us what is going on?' said the owner.

Bruno had just opened his mouth when the door burst open and Wohlfarth came tumbling in.

‘There you are!' he gasped. ‘We searched the whole beach for you.'

‘So you can lock us up too, right?' said Sophie, making a face. But her expression cleared when she saw who was coming in behind Wohlfarth. ‘Emily!'

Emily looked serious but calm. She was wearing a pair of trousers that were far too long for her and a blue and white striped fisherman's shirt.

‘What's the story with your mother?' asked Bruno.

‘She's fine,' said Emily.

‘We had a bit of an accident, unfortunately,' said Wohlfarth to the barman. ‘Emily, the daughter of one of my … eh, one of my … students misjudged the tide and she was very nearly swept out to sea. Her mother tried to save her.'

‘We were nearly drowned,' said Emily.

‘These kids wanted me to call the police. They say someone is being held in the factory.'

‘Nobody is being held against their will,' said Wohlfarth. ‘Isn't that right, Emily?'

Emily nodded. ‘That's right. It was all a mistake,' she said.

That night, the children did not stay with Vibke Paulsen but in a stuffy little attic room in Dune View that had not been occupied for years and smelt unpleasantly of mothballs and musty bedclothes.

Nicholas was delighted to find a mousetrap under his bed with a mummified mouse in it.

‘Can I keep it, Sofa?' he asked.

‘No,' said Sophie as she tried to open the skylight to let in some fresh air.

‘I could swap it for my jellyfish,' said Nicholas, taking a lump of gunk out of his pocket.

‘Eeek!' yelped Sophie.

‘I want to know about your mother,' said Bruno. He was disappointed that the whole rescue plan had come to nothing.

Emily shrugged. ‘She says she has thought it all over, and she really doesn't want to come home just yet. The only reason she wanted to leave was that she wanted to see me, and now that she has, everything is fine again.'

‘Do you believe that?' asked Sophie, spitting on a hanky to wipe Nicholas's dirty hands.

‘Why would she lie?' asked Emily, lying down on one of the beds and pulling the cover up over her.

Bruno yawned. ‘Another few nights and we'll have slept in every house on this island.'

‘Well, I'm not interested in doing that, thank you very much,' said Sophie. ‘I'm looking forward to my own bed.'

Hinnerk was not only to take the children to the mainland in the morning but to accompany them by train to Hamburg.

‘So that nothing happens to you,' Wohlfarth had said with a smile. ‘You children are our most precious commodities.'

‘Maybe it's not as bad as we thought,' said Emily, thinking back on those words. ‘They all seem to like it. Wohlfarth let me take a peek into the recreation room. The mothers were playing Old Maid or Canasta, and some of them were watching TV or reading. They have to go to bed at half past ten.'

‘Yeah, but
your
mother wanted to leave,' insisted Bruno.

‘Yes, but you can't take my mother seriously. She likes to make a big deal out of everything.'

‘Oh, well. Goodnight everyone,' said Sophie.

‘Goodnight Mousie,' said Nicholas softly to his mouse corpse.

Swantje woke the children early the next morning. She had laid breakfast for them downstairs. Nicholas was very disappointed to find that there was no fried fish, only rolls and jam.

‘Shall I pack you something for the journey?' asked Swantje.

‘That'd be nice,' Bruno was saying when the door burst open and Emily's mother fell in.

‘Thank God you're still here!'

She waved a carrier bag. ‘I washed your skirt and blouse last night, Emily,' she said, and added with a smile, ‘and I ironed them this morning.' She took a white blouse out of the bag. ‘Only it's got a bit crumpled.'

Emily took the blouse from her mother and said with a beam, ‘You've done a great job, thanks, Mum. I'll just go and put these things on.' She disappeared behind the counter.

‘And you really don't want to come with us?' Bruno asked Emily's mother.

‘It was very nice of you to try to help me,' said Emily's mother, shaking her head. ‘But no, it's not necessary any more.'

Emily came waltzing out in her skirt and blouse and gave her mother the trousers and fisherman's shirt she had been wearing.

‘You can take these. I think they belong to Sven-Ole.'

Susie rolled the things up and stuffed them into the carrier bag. Then she hugged her daughter and said, ‘I have to go. Class is just starting. See you soon, darling, very soon!'

Emily felt something damp on her cheek. Surely her mother couldn't be crying? But before she could ask, her mother ran to the door and almost bumped right into Hinnerk, who was just coming in.

He tipped his cap at them and said, ‘Mornin', mornin', are you all ready to set sail?'

Sophie gulped down the last of her orange juice and answered, ‘Aye, aye, cap'n.'

‘But what about Mama?' asked Nicholas, watching a fly that had got stuck on the jam pot.

‘We'll see Mum later,' said Sophie. ‘But now we're going on a boat. Won't that be lovely?'

‘Well, maybe not exactly lovely,' said Hinnerk. ‘The sea is right choppy today.'

‘Choppy!' cried Bruno, alarmed. ‘Not again!'

‘Ah, just a bit of a swell, that's all,' said Hinnerk.

Bruno was sorry he'd eaten those two rolls with jam. He could have saved them for later.

It was only a few paces from Dune View to the pier. The seagulls were all lined up, as if they'd come to wave the children goodbye. For the first time, Bruno noticed a sleek motor boat that looked a bit out of place among all the smaller boats. It said
Margarethe
in gold letters along the hull.

‘She's cool,' he said. ‘Who does she belong to?'

‘Wohlfarth,' said Hinnerk. ‘His mother's name was Margarethe.'

‘His mother was called Margarethe?' asked Emily. ‘I thought she was dead.'

‘He's had this yacht for ever,' said Hinnerk. ‘And anyway, you can always call a boat after a dead person if you want to. In their memory.'

‘Of course. I just find it a bit odd that …'

‘What?' asked Bruno.

‘Oh, nothing, forget it.'

Bruno still couldn't see why there was anything strange about naming a boat after your mother, but he couldn't think about that now. He was feeling sick. He was feeling sicker than he had ever felt in his life. The fishing boat was going up and down with every wave, bobbing and swaying. It made a rollercoaster ride seem like a walk in the park.

Hinnerk was standing stoutly at the helm, working hard to keep his boat on course. Emily was clutching her skirt, which was being blown up all the time by the stiff wind. And Sophie sat with her eyes closed, crouched up against the wall of the boat. She didn't dare to move in case she threw up. Only Nicholas cheered happily every time water came sloshing over the deck.

After the most vile sixty minutes of their lives, the children came ashore in Südersiel, their legs still wobbling under them. They were very glad to get into a train that sat nice and quietly on its tracks and showed no signs of pitching from side to side.

The journey was uneventful. Emily looked out of the window, Nicholas slept and Sophie chewed her nails. Bruno was reading a boxing magazine that he'd had in his rucksack, while Hinnerk perused the catalogue of a Hamburg ship chandlers. He needed a new engine.

‘These things are not exactly cheap,' he said, taking a map of Hamburg out of his bag.

‘Could I take a peek, please?' asked Emily.

‘You know your way home from Hamburg, don't you?' asked Hinnerk.

‘Sure we do,' said Bruno. ‘My train goes from platform twelve at a quarter past ten.'

‘We're leaving from the same platform,' said Sophie, ‘only twenty minutes later.'

‘It's just that my aunt lives in Hamburg,' said Emily. ‘I thought I might call in and see her. But I'm not sure I can remember exactly where her street is.'

Hinnerk passed her the map of Hamburg and, a few moments later, the train came into Hamburg Central Station.

The fisherman said goodbye to the children on the platform. ‘Maybe we'll meet again some time,' he said. He had no idea how soon.

Sophie and Bruno were about to make their way to platform twelve, but Emily caught Sophie by the arm and said, ‘I want you to come with me.'

‘To see your aunt?' asked Bruno. ‘What would we want to do that for?'

‘I want to go home!' moaned Nicholas.

‘Just for a few minutes,' said Emily. ‘Please. I'm scared to go by myself.'

‘Oh, for goodness' sake,' said Sophie impatiently. ‘Where do you want us to go?'

But she followed Emily out of the station.

‘Listen,' Emily said. ‘After Kruschke rescued me and my mum, Wohlfarth wanted to speak to us. While we were waiting for him in his office, I saw this letter lying on his desk. It was addressed to a Margarethe Wohlfarth.'

‘You think that's his mother?' asked Bruno. ‘It could easily be some other relation of his.'

‘Or it could be an old letter,' said Sophie. ‘He reveres his mother. He has probably kept all kinds of things that belonged to her.'

‘No,' said Emily. ‘I could tell by the post code. They used to have four digits, right? The five-digit ones only came in a while back, so it can't be an old letter.'

‘Did you see what street?' asked Bruno.

‘Yes,' said Emily. ‘The street was “Am Krahenberg”.'

‘And where's that, when it's at home?' asked Bruno.

‘It's in an area of the city called Blankenese,' said Emily.

‘Well, so what?' said Sophie. ‘Even if we did find this Margarethe Wohlfarth, what do you want with her?'

Emily shrugged. ‘I don't exactly know. But somehow, I don't really believe my mother when she says everything is fine. She was crying when she said goodbye to me.'

‘Oh, that's nothing,' said Bruno. ‘My mother roared her head off on my first day at school. Mothers are just like that.'

‘But mine
isn't
like that,' said Emily. ‘She's always in a mess and terrible things happen to her, but I have never seen her crying.'

‘I want an ice cream!' squawked Nicholas.

‘Later,' said Sophie.

‘It won't take long,' said Emily, seeming very sure of herself. ‘I really have this feeling that I have to go there. I feel that is the way to find out what on earth this whole mother school thing is about.'

‘Hmm,' said Bruno. ‘Well, I suppose, I have no plans. My father thinks I'm still on this school trip.'

‘And George won't be home until Friday evening,' said Sophie.

‘So, off we go to Blankenese!'

‘What about my ice cream?' asked Nicholas.

‘You'll get it when we arrive,' Emily promised him. ‘They have the nicest ones there.'

When they arrived at Blankenese, Sophie said, ‘What fabulous houses they have here!'

‘It must be all rich people,' said Bruno.

Nicholas wasn't interested in fine houses belonging to rich people. He'd had enough of all this going around the place. He wanted his ice cream. Sophie bought him a big chocolate ice cream, which was not only especially delicious, but also especially expensive, but at least it shut her little brother up for a while.

They walked along a street of very fancy villas with wrought-iron railings and rhododendron hedges. Emily stopped at a garden gate. ‘This must be it. Number 66.'

Number 66 was a brilliant white villa with two black marble pillars in front. Beside the brass doorbell on the gate, instead of a name-card, there were just two intertwined Ws.

‘We've come to the right place,' said Sophie. ‘I recognise that logo. I saw it on the neck of my Aunt Anna.'

All the same, Emily felt a bit wobbly as she pressed on the doorbell. ‘What'll we say?' she asked as the gate hummed open.

‘We'll think of something when we meet the lady,' said Bruno.

It wasn't a lady that they saw now, however, but a gentleman, standing in the open gateway and giving them a suspicious look. He was wearing a dark jacket over a striped waistcoat.

‘Do you think he's a butler?' Emily whispered to Sophie. ‘I've only seen those on the television.'

They were walking along a paved path, guarded on either side by trim box trees, towards the house.

‘What do you want?' asked the man, not sounding too friendly.

Nicholas hid behind Sophie. She spoke up bravely: ‘We'd like to speak to Frau Margarethe Wohlfarth, please.'

‘In connection with what?' said the man.

‘We have a message for her from Walther Wohlfarth.'

‘From her son?' asked the man with a frown.

‘Exactly,' said Emily, giving Bruno a triumphant look.

‘Just a moment, please.'

The butler disappeared.

‘Didn't I tell you it's the mother!'

The butler reappeared.

‘Madam wishes you to …'

He made a movement with his hand that managed to seem snide rather than inviting, but nevertheless beckoned them on. They crossed a hallway tiled in black and white and entered a room with a large bay window.

A red satin armchair stood in front of the window, and in the armchair, a black-clad person sat bolt upright. On her protruding bosom there gleamed a large gold medallion. Her knobbly hand rested on the silver handle of a walking stick. At her feet lay some kind of grey-brown mop or duster.

‘It's her,' murmured Emily. ‘It's the woman in the portrait.'

It was certainly true that the woman sitting here bore some resemblance to the portrait that hung in Wohlfarth's study. Except that her features, which looked soft and gentle in the picture, were stony. Either the painter had flattered her or age had made a monster of the woman. That's exactly what she looked like: a monster out of a nightmare, eyes as hard and penetrating as marbles, a chin that fell in a cascade of bulges and squeezed itself into a stiff collar, a mouth that looked as if it had been drawn with a ruler and a nose as hooked and as pointy as a parrot's.

The ruler-straight mouth opened and a voice as sharp as a razor, so sharp that you could positively see it cutting the air, said, ‘What have you got to tell me?'

Before any of the children got a chance to answer, her marble eyes fell on Nicholas. He was standing there with his ice cream in his hand, his mouth open in horror.

‘Alfred, take that ice cream from the child before there's a catastrophe.'

Before Nicholas knew what was happening, the butler had snatched the ice cream out of his hand. He held it out in front of him like something that stank and left the room with it.

‘My ice cream! I want my ice cream!'

At that moment, the mop came to life. It yapped at Nicholas and snapped at his leg with piranha-like teeth

‘Sit, Henry!' called Frau Wohlfarth, and the tangled thing rolled itself up again and lay at her feet.

‘What was that?' asked Sophie in disgust.

‘That is Henry the Fourth,' said Frau Wohlfarth.

She poked at the mop with her stick and a head with a flattened nose and bulging eyes appeared, with a bow in its topnotch.

‘A Pekinese. Also known as a palace dog. In the past, only the Emperors of China were allowed to own this breed.'

‘Just as well,' muttered Bruno.

‘Well, boy,' said Frau Wohlfarth, turning towards Nicholas. ‘What was that you said?'

He had stepped back, terrified at having been attacked by the dog, but he spoke up bravely now and said, ‘I want my ice cream back.'

‘Well, maybe you would
like
it back,' said Frau Wahlfarth. ‘But the word “want” does not belong in the vocabulary of a child.'

She gave him a look of pure disgust and added, ‘And what's more, your nose is running.'

Nicholas took a slimy mess out of his pocket.

‘That's a jellyfish for my collection,' he announced proudly and stuffed the thing back into his pocket.

‘And this,' he said, pulling something out of the other pocket, ‘this is Mousie.' He stroked the mummified mouse tenderly.

‘Alfred! Quick!' shouted the old woman, rapping impatiently on the floor with her stick. ‘Bring a dustpan and brush.'

Alfred hurried in with what had been ordered.

‘Empty your pockets at once!' said Frau Wohlfarth to Nicholas.

He started to roar. ‘But I want to keep Mousie!'

‘Did you use the word “want”?' The old woman had stood up and was towering threateningly over Nicholas. ‘I do not want to hear that word again, or I will wash your mouth out with soap.'

This was supposed to be a wonderful mother – the best in the world?

Emily gazed incredulously at the old woman who was giving Nicholas such an evil look that he quickly threw his jellyfish and his mouse onto the dustpan.

Wrinkling his nose, Alfred disappeared with it.

‘Well, good riddance!' grunted the old woman happily. Then she turned to Bruno and Sophie and said, ‘So, then, tell me why you are here, and get a move on about it. I haven't got all day.'