E-Book, Englisch, 144 Seiten
Steinhöfel My Brother and I
11001. Auflage 2011
ISBN: 978-3-646-92290-5
Verlag: Carlsen
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark
E-Book, Englisch, 144 Seiten
ISBN: 978-3-646-92290-5
Verlag: Carlsen
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark
Andreas Steinhöfel wurde 1962 in Battenberg geboren. Er ist Autor zahlreicher, vielfach preisgekrönter Kinder- und Jugendbücher, wie z. B. »Die Mitte der Welt«. Für »Rico, Oskar und die Tieferschatten« erhielt er u. a. den Deutschen Jugendliteraturpreis. Nach Peter Rühmkorf, Loriot, Robert Gernhardt und Tomi Ungerer hat Andreas Steinhöfel 2009 den Erich Kästner Preis für Literatur verliehen bekommen. 2013 wurde er mit dem Sonderpreis des Deutschen Jugendliteraturpreises für sein Gesamtwerk ausgezeichnet und 2017 folgte der James-Krüss-Preis. Zudem wurde er für den ALMA und den Hans-Christian-Andersen-Preis nominiert. Andreas Steinhöfel ist als erster Kinder- und Jugendbuchautor Mitglied der Deutschen Akademie für Sprache und Dichtung. Seine Serie über Rico und Oskar wurde sehr erfolgreich fürs Kino verfilmt. Zusätzlich zu seiner Autorentätigkeit arbeitet er als Übersetzer und Rezensent und schreibt Drehbücher. Seit 2015 betätigt er sich in seiner Filmfirma sad ORIGAMI als Produzent von Kinderfilmen.
Weitere Infos & Material
Let It Snow
The first snowfall of the year came at the beginning of December, on a Saturday.
That morning, Dirk and I went into the kitchen where Mum and Dad were already sitting at the breakfast table. Dad didn’t have to work on Saturdays because the bank where he was in charge of1 a department was closed. Mum worked as a secretary in Braun’s large factory, but only part-time. She was always telling people that she needed the rest of the time to clean up the mess2 we and Dad made in the flat.
So Mum was sitting with Dad at the breakfast table with both her hands placed comfortably on her sticky-out belly3 where the baby was. Look out of the window, she said, the outdoors has put on its white coat.
Dirk and I went over to the window and looked out. Dirk said he couldn’t see a coat, but there was snow everywhere and wasn’t that fantastic because now we could go sledging and build snowmen.
Tons of snowflakes were falling from the sky, millions and millions of them. I picked out one that was still a long way up and watched it until it lay on the ground with the others.
We were still living in the house on the edge of town then. Dad’s aunt, the one we inherited4 the house in town from, hadn’t died yet. Björn wasn’t born either, he didn’t arrive until the next April. I didn’t have my guinea pig5 Fran yet either, and I only met Behruz, the fat Persian who would become my friend, much later.
But Richard was already my best friend. We were true blood brothers.
I was seven years old and Dirk was six.
Anyway, because of all the fresh snow that day, Dirk and I wanted to go sledging after breakfast.
Dad brought our sledge down from the attic. He told us not to go mad6 and break the thing, the way we did last year when Dirk had crashed into a tree and broken his arm.
Dirk was always much braver7 than I was, but then again I’d never broken anything. Apart from one summer when I had sort of ridden into a street lamp on my bike. I’d knocked out two teeth and swallowed them. But it wasn’t all that bad cos8 they were only milk teeth.
While Dad was fetching the sledge, Mum wrapped us up in warm clothes. We had to wear gloves and our bobble hats. Finally, Mum wrapped the big thick scarves that Granny had knitted for us around our necks.
Granny was Mum’s mum. There was usually trouble when she came to visit because Dad couldn’t stand her9. Granny always told us that Dad had been a real yob10 in his youth. He used to drive around on his motorbike scaring all the old people and she would never understand why Mum had married such an idiotic show-off.
Granny liked to tell stories of the old days. Her favourite stories were all about how she had run through the bombed-out ruins of the town after the war carrying Aunt Gertrud on her back. I always felt sorry for her when she told us that, cos Aunt Gertrud was really really fat.
Dad’s mum had died before Dirk and I were born and we didn’t have any grandads either.
So Mum wrapped the scarves around our necks and told us to be very careful and not to go breaking any bones or teeth again. And then we were finally allowed to go.
Only fifteen minutes away from our house there was a big field with a really long slope11 that led all the way down to the stream. That’s where Dirk and I were going.
The snow was piled up quite high and when we got to the field it was still snowing. It was very cold and quiet everywhere. The only sound came from the snowflakes falling quietly on to the ground and from our boots stomping through the snow. We climbed up the slope and I pulled the sledge after me.
When we reached the top, Dirk wanted to slide down the steepest bit of course, the bit that led to the stream. Right away I thought that things were bound to go wrong, but I didn’t say anything so that Dirk wouldn’t think I was a wimp12.
We sat down on the sledge. Dirk at the front and me at the back.
Hold tight, cried Dirk, here we go!
It was fantastic, and above all fantastically fast. The wind whooshed around my ears, snowflakes smacked into my face and I could hardly13 see anything because I had screwed my eyes up tight. We went faster and faster and Dirk shouted out that he was the best sledger in the world and I shouted out, when were we finally going to get there because I couldn’t see a thing.
Then there was a bang.
I sailed briefly through the air, there was a crash and I landed with my face down in the snow. It hurt14 a lot and I felt hot, but at least I didn’t have any broken bones.
Dirk wasn’t there. Neither was the sledge.
I looked around and then I heard Dirk shouting up from the stream.
He was sitting right in the middle of it, with the sledge next to him, soaked15 to the skin. Thank God the stream wasn’t particularly deep there. But the bank was quite high, at least a metre tall.
I had to laugh, because Dirk looked so funny with his wet bobble hat on his head. But he was really mad and yelled at me that he didn’t see what was so funny, I hadn’t steered properly, I was an idiot and in future I should stay at home and build snowmen.
I yelled back, idiot yourself, you’re too stupid to go sledging, and I said that if he didn’t keep his trap shut16, then he could find his own way out of the stream.
Dirk called back that I could go ahead and leave him all alone, then he’d freeze and there’d be no Christmas and probably no New Year either because everybody would be in mourning17.
I pretended to think about it, and then I said, all right, I’ll get you out – but only because of Christmas!
I held on to the branch of a small tree that was hanging over the stream with one hand. I stretched the other hand down to Dirk. I couldn’t quite reach and it was slippy because of the snow but the branch didn’t break. Dirk grabbed my hand and everything would have been fine if he hadn’t leaned over towards the sledge without letting go of me, the meanie18.
The branch made a cracking noise and snapped, and I fell down the bank into the stream. I would have screamed but my mouth was already full of water. It was icy cold. I was so shocked I could hardly breathe.
When I had picked myself up, Dirk was standing next to me laughing himself to bits. I was so cross19 that I slapped him with my wet glove. Dirk stopped laughing, slapped me back and before we knew it we were both in the water fighting. If it hadn’t been so freezing cold, we would probably have fought a lot longer, but we just couldn’t.
We had to run downstream for quite a long time until we found a spot where we could climb out. By then it had stopped snowing, but it was windy and we were shivering with cold.
I was afraid that the two of us would freeze to death and stand there like icicles20. Nobody would recognise21 us in our frozen state and Mum and Dad would have to call the police and ask them to search for us. It would take months until they found us and by then it would be spring, and in the meantime every single passing dog would have weed on us because they thought we were bushes covered in snow.
I really wanted to cry, but if I did my eyes might freeze shut. It was terrible and then on top of everything Dirk wet his pants22.
When we got home, Mum was really mad. She took off our wet things and put us into a really hot bath. Mum said, because you’re so stupid and can’t take care of yourselves, I am banning23 sledging for the whole of the next week.
Dirk started to cry but I thought, well, the stupid sledge is stuck in the stream anyway. And that’s what I told Dad when he asked about the sledge and then he was cross too. He said we only had ourselves to blame if we were only allowed to build snowmen for the whole of the following week.
But he went to fetch the sledge while Mum put Dirk and I in our pyjamas and made us a bed on the couch in the living room. She even gave us a hot water bottle for our feet. She grinned and said that we were stupid but that she loved us nonetheless and that was why she was going to make us hot chocolate.
When Dad had returned with the sledge, Dirk and I had to tell Mum and Dad exactly how we had landed in the stream and how we had got into a fight and everything.
Well, said Dad, something similar had happened to him when he was young. And he told us how, when he was a kid, he had landed in the village pond while sledging with his brother, Uncle Alfred. They had run over a duck on the frozen pond before crashing into the ice and the duck had fallen into the hole and drowned24 and never come back up again.
Mum said, Peter! Don’t tell the children such horrible things!
Dad said, that wasn’t horrible. The horrible thing was that the duck’s mate, the drake25, was so distraught26 at the loss of his beloved that...
