E-Book, Englisch, 140 Seiten
Kästner The Parent Trap
1. Auflage 2014
ISBN: 978-1-78269-072-6
Verlag: Pushkin Children's Books
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark
E-Book, Englisch, 140 Seiten
ISBN: 978-1-78269-072-6
Verlag: Pushkin Children's Books
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark
Erich Kästner was born in Dresden in 1899. He began his career as a journalist for the New Leipzig newspaper in 1922, but moved to Berlin in 1927 to begin working as a freelance journalist and theatre critic. In 1929 he published his first book for children, Emil and the Detectives, which has since been translated into 60 languages, achieving international recognition and selling millions of copies around the world. He subsequently published both Dot and Anton and The Flying Classroom, before turning to adult fiction with his 1931 satire Going to the Dogs. After the Nazis took power in Germany, Kästner's books were burnt on Berlin's Opera Square and over the period of 1937-42 he faced repeated arrest and interrogation by the Gestapo, resulting in his blacklisting and exclusion from the writers' guild. After the end of World War II, Kästner moved to Munich and published The Parent Trap, later adapted into a hit film by Walt Disney. In 1957 he received the Georg Büchner Prize and, later, the Order of Merit and the prestigious Hans Christian Andersen Award for his contribution to children's literature. Kästner died in Munich in 1974.
Weitere Infos & Material
Do you know Seebühl? The mountain village of Seebühl on Lake Bühl? No? Are you sure you don’t? How strange – whoever you ask, no one knows Seebühl! Perhaps Seebühl on Lake Bühl is the kind of place known only to the people you ask? I wouldn’t be surprised. These things happen.
Well, if you don’t know Seebühl on Lake Bühl, then you won’t know the summer camp in Seebühl on Lake Bühl either, the well-known camp for little girls. That’s a pity, but never mind. Summer camps are as like each other as two large loaves or two dog violets; when you’ve seen one, you’ve seen them all. And if you walk past any of them, you might think it was a gigantic beehive. Those summer camps buzz with laughter, shrieking, whispering and giggling. They really are beehives full of happiness and merriment, and however many there are, there can never be enough of them.
In the evening, to be sure, the grey dwarf Homesickness sometimes sits on the beds in the dormitory, takes his grey arithmetic book and his grey pencil out of his bag, and with an earnest expression on his face he counts the tears of the children all around him, the tears that have been shed and the tears that haven’t.
But by morning, you may have noticed, he has always left. Then there’s a clattering of cups of milk and a chattering of little mouths, each trying to talk louder than the next child. Then hordes of little girls run back into the cool, bottle-green lake to bathe, splashing, shouting, screeching with delight, crowing and swimming, or at least trying to look as if they are swimming.
It’s just like that in Seebühl on Lake Bühl, where the story that I am going to tell you begins. It is a rather complicated story, and you will have to concentrate hard if you’re to understand everything properly, exactly as it happened. At the beginning, however, everything is still quite easy. It doesn’t get complicated until the later chapters. Complicated and rather exciting.
So for the time being, all the girls are bathing in the lake. Playing more wildly than anyone else, as usual, is a little girl aged nine with her hair tumbling down her back in ringlets. Her name is Luise, Luise Palfy, and she comes from Vienna in Austria.
Then the sound of a gong booms out from the house. The gong is struck again, and then a third time. Those of the children and the supervisors who are still bathing climb out on to the shore of the lake.
‘The gong means everyone has to come in!’ calls Miss Ulrike. ‘Even Luise!’
‘Just coming!’ shouts Luise. ‘An old man like me isn’t an express train.’ But then she comes out of the water as well.
Miss Ulrike drives her cackling flock into the hen-house – sorry, I mean into the dining room. It will be lunchtime at twelve noon on the dot. And then the girls will be looking forward to the afternoon, full of curiosity. Why the curiosity, you may ask?
Because twenty new girls are expected in the afternoon. Twenty little girls from southern Germany. Will there be any stuck-up children among them? A couple of chatterboxes? Perhaps some dignified old ladies of thirteen or even fourteen? Will they bring any interesting toys with them? With luck someone will have a big rubber ball! Trude’s ball has gone flat because all the air went out of it, and Brigitte won’t let anyone else play with hers. She’s locked it safely up in the cupboard, in case anything happens to it. Such things as that have been known, too.
So in the afternoon Luise, Trude, Brigitte and the other children are standing at the large iron gate, which is wide open, and waiting excitedly for the arrival of the bus that was going to pick up the new girls at the nearest railway station. If their train came in on time, they ought to be …
The bus driver hoots his horn. ‘They’re on their way!’ The bus comes along the road, turns carefully into the drive and stops. The driver gets out, and is kept busy helping little girl after little girl out of the bus. And not only little girls; he also unloads suitcases and portmanteaux, dolls and baskets and bags, stuffed toy dogs and scooters and parasols and thermos flasks and raincoats and rolled-up rugs and picture books and botanical collection cases and butterfly nets, a wonderful jumble of all sorts of things.
Finally the twentieth little girl appears, with her possessions, in the doorway of the bus. She is a serious-looking little thing. The driver puts out his arms to help her down.
The little girl shakes her head, and her two braids swing in time with each other. ‘No, thank you,’ she says politely but firmly, and she clambers down to the running-board, safe and sound and perfectly sure of herself. Once down on the ground, she looks shyly at all the other girls. Suddenly her eyes widen in surprise. She is staring at Luise! Luise’s eyes are wide open, too. She is equally surprised as she stares at the new girl’s face.
The other children and Miss Ulrike, who is in charge of them, all look at each other, baffled. The bus driver pushes his cap back, scratches his head, his jaw drops and stays dropped. Why, you may wonder?
Because Luise and the new girl are as like as two peas in a pod! It is true that one of them has long ringlets, and the other has neatly plaited braids – but that really is the only difference!
Then Luise turns round and runs into the garden as if lions and tigers were chasing her.
‘Luise!’ calls Miss Ulrike. ‘Luise!’ Then, shrugging her shoulders, she takes the twenty new girls into the house. Last of all, hesitantly and in astonishment, the little girl with the braids walks through the doorway.
Mrs Muthesius, the head of the summer camp, is sitting in her office discussing the menus for the next few days with the old cook, a lady who knows her mind.
There’s a knock on the door. Miss Ulrike comes in and announces that the new girls have all arrived and are healthy and cheerful.
‘I’m glad to hear it. Thank you.’
‘There’s just one thing …’
‘Yes?’ The head of the camp, who is extremely busy, looks up for a moment.
‘It’s about Luise Palfy,’ Miss Ulrike begins, with some hesitation. ‘She’s waiting outside the door …’
‘Show the little rascal in!’ Mrs Muthesius can’t suppress a smile. ‘What’s she been up to this time?’
‘Well, she hasn’t been up to anything,’ says the assistant. ‘It’s just that …’
Cautiously, she opens the door and calls, ‘Come in, both of you! There’s no need to be frightened!’
The two little girls walk into the room. They keep well away from each other.
‘Well, I never!’ murmurs the cook.
While the astonished Mrs Muthesius looks the children up and down, Miss Ulrike says, ‘The new girl is Lottie Körner, and she lives in Munich.’
‘Are you two related to each other?’
The two girls shake their heads very slightly, but with great conviction.
‘They never set eyes on each other before today!’ says Miss Ulrike. ‘Odd, don’t you think?’
‘What’s so odd about it?’ asks the cook. ‘Why would they have set eyes on each other? I mean, what with one of them living in Munich and the other in Vienna?’
Mrs Muthesius says, in kindly tones, ‘Two girls who look so like each other are sure to become good friends. Don’t stand so far apart, children! Come along, shake hands!’
‘Won’t!’ cries Luise, clasping her hands behind her back.
Mrs Muthesius shrugs her shoulders, thinks about it for a moment, and finally says, ‘Very well, you can both go.’
Luise runs to the door, flings it wide open and storms out. Lottie bobs a little curtsy and begins to leave the room more slowly.
‘Just a minute, Lottie,’ says the head of the camp. She opens a big book. ‘I’ll enter your name in the register right away. And when and where you were born, with the names of your parents.’
‘I just have a mummy,’ whispers Lottie.
Mrs Muthesius dips her pen in the inkwell. ‘Very well, first your date of birth, then.’
Lottie goes along the corridor, climbs the stairs, opens a door and finds herself in the room containing the girls’ wardrobes. Her case hasn’t been unpacked yet. She begins putting away her clothes – shirts, pinafores, socks – in the wardrobe that is to be hers. The distant sound of children’s laughter drifts in through the open window.
Lottie is holding the photograph of a young woman. She looks lovingly at the picture and then hides it carefully under the pinafores. When she is about to close the wardrobe, her eyes fall on a mirror inside its door. She looks gravely and inquiringly at her reflection, as if she had never seen herself before. Then, with a sudden decisive movement, she tosses back her braids and strokes them in a way that makes her hair look more like Luise Palfy’s.
Somewhere a door bangs. Lottie quickly lets her hand drop to her sides as if she has been caught out doing something naughty.
Luise is sitting on the garden wall with her friends. There is a cross frown on her forehead, just above her nose.
‘ wouldn’t put up with a thing...
