Everyone can take part

Vera had never shaken the sand out of a book before. Jumpers, yes. And once her trainer, which had been full of sand after she’d been playing. But a book?

She held it over the bin and gave it a gentle shake. A thin trickle fell from between the pages. In the picture of a very grand king, one grain remained perched on the end of his nose.

‘Don’t laugh,’ she told Joep.

‘I’m not laughing.’

His cheeks were bulging.

Vera blew on the king. The sand went into her eye.

Then Joep did laugh.

She was sitting on the stone edge of the sandpit, her knees tucked up. It had been her reading spot ever since the old bench by the wall had been taken away. One of its legs was loose. Mr Kees said it was perfectly safe to sit on, provided you weren’t the sort of person who ever moved. In the end, he’d put it in the shed anyway.

Puk was making soup in the sandpit. Three scoops of sand, two leaves and an empty bucket. When it was ready, she poured it over Vera’s shoe.

‘Nice?’ she asked.

Vera looked at the heap on her shoelace.

‘A bit dry.’

Puk ran off to fetch some water.

‘You shouldn’t have said that,’ said Joep.

Vera jumped down. She took off her shoe, but by now the sand was in her sock as well. There was nowhere to tip it without making another heap. So she stood on one leg, holding a book, a shoe and a sock.

‘You need a bench,’ said Joep.

‘I know.’

Across the playground, a football flew through the goal. It hadn’t gone past the goalkeeper. It had gone straight through the net. The hole was big enough for Vera to crawl through, if she’d had both her shoes on.

Joep retrieved the ball. ‘We need a goal.’

‘You’ve got one.’

‘One that stops footballs.’

He kicked. The ball missed the goal and struck the drainpipe.

‘That won’t help much,’ said Vera.

‘It was a demonstration.’

Puk returned with a watering can. Before Vera could say anything, she poured water over the shoe in Vera’s hand. Some splashed onto the sock. Vera hurriedly pulled it back on. There was a mark on her book’s cover now, too, and blowing wouldn’t get rid of it.

After break, Miss Safia pinned a letter to the noticeboard. She used four drawing pins. One in each corner, as always. Joep said she needn’t pin letters up as though they might escape. Safia handed him the fifth pin and asked him to hold it for a moment.

‘The village fair is in two weeks,’ she said. ‘On Saturday. There’ll be a jumble sale, and the mayor will open our improved playground.’

‘Will she come in a car with flashing lights?’ asked Joep.

‘She says she’ll come by bicycle.’

He didn’t think that was very suitable for a mayor.

‘We’re also going to elect a children’s mayor for the afternoon. They’ll work with the school on a plan for the playground. There’s a hundred and eighty euros set aside for you from the last jumble sale.’

Vera laid her book flat on the desk. A hundred and eighty euros sounded like a lot. A reading bench would surely cost less than a bicycle.

‘Three ideas have been suggested,’ said Safia. ‘A better football goal, new things for the sandpit, and a bench under the chestnut tree. You can choose one and work out a plan. It doesn’t have to be the same idea your friends choose.’

The letter said: EVERYONE CAN TAKE PART.

Joep read it aloud. Then he read it again, more quietly.

‘They’ve got that wrong.’

‘What?’ asked Vera.

‘Everyone.’

‘They mean children.’

‘Then they should write children.’

He held the drawing pin between his fingers and studied the list beneath the letter. There were three blank lines. A fourth was much narrower because the bottom of the paper had been folded up.

Vera wanted to put her name down. She already knew what the bench should look like: two wide planks, a backrest, and somewhere underneath for cushions. One of the tree’s branches hung over the grass as if it were pointing to just the right spot.

But when the bell rang, everyone went to the board at once. Joep got in front of her. He was good at being first in a queue. If there was a chance to practise, he took it.

‘I’m entering,’ he said. ‘For the goal.’

He wrote JOEP in letters that nearly needed two lines.

Eef, from the other class, stood beside him. She’d read the suggestions and pointed to the one about the sandpit.

‘My little sister has to dig with a tablespoon,’ she said. ‘She shouldn’t have to.’

‘Puk makes soup,’ said Vera. ‘A spoon’s quite useful for that.’

‘It’s our tablespoon.’

Eef wrote her name on the second line in small, neat letters. Underneath, she added: things little children can use too.

Vera waited while Joep finished drawing a star beside his name. The third line was left for her. She wrote VERA, followed by: reading bench.

It felt strange to put a wish on a list for everyone to see. As though she’d pinned her diary to the noticeboard, only with just one sentence in it.

‘You might get a trophy,’ said Joep. ‘If you become mayor.’

‘Where does it say that?’

‘Nowhere. But I think you might.’

After school they walked past the school garden. Vera shook more sand out of her book. Miep waddled up behind the fence. She belonged to Bennie, the farmer, and lived in the garden next to the school. She liked to come and look whenever anybody was eating. Especially apples. If it was a carrot, she looked offended.

Joep held the election letter in front of him. Safia had given him a copy because he wanted to ‘study the rules thoroughly’. So far, he’d only read the largest letters.

Miep pushed her beak through the wire and snapped at the paper.

Joep pulled it away.

‘Interested,’ he said.

The goose tilted her head. A drop of water slid from her beak onto Joep’s shoe.

Joep looked from the letter to Miep. Then at Vera.

‘Everyone,’ he said.

Vera suddenly imagined a goose standing on the platform beside the real mayor. She laughed so hard that more sand fell out of her book.