A candidate with webbed feet

The notice said that anyone could stand for election. Joep considered this a serious mistake on the organisers’ part.

‘Anyone,’ he read again. ‘They really should have been more careful.’

Vera was sitting on the low wall beside the school garden. An orange beak poked through the fence. It belonged to Miep, who lived on Bennie’s farm next door but took a keen interest in education. Especially when apples were involved.

On Saturday the village was celebrating its birthday. The mayor would open the new playground, and the children could elect a junior mayor for the afternoon. The winner would decide how to spend the jumble-sale money: on a football goal, new sandpit spades or a reading bench beneath the chestnut tree.

Vera had suggested the bench. When the playground was busy, she read on the edge of the sandpit. This meant sand between the pages and, occasionally, a bucket on her head.

‘I nominate Miep,’ said Joep.

The goose nipped at the election notice. He pulled it away just in time.

‘She’s interested already.’

Vera laughed. Then she imagined the headteacher trying to hang a mayor’s chain around that enormous goose neck, and laughed again. On a piece of cardboard she wrote: VOTE MIEP. SHE HAS AN OPINION ABOUT EVERYTHING.

There was hardly any space left at the bottom of the candidates’ list. Vera squeezed her own name in anyway and wrote reading bench beside it. Joep added his name too. His plan involved a football goal and, if there was any money left over, a trophy for himself.

Their teacher, Ms Safia, inspected the board. ‘You understand that a goose can’t be responsible for money?’

‘No pockets,’ said Joep solemnly.

‘Exactly. She can be an honorary candidate. But we’ll elect a child to do the actual job.’ She wrote the rule beneath the list in thick blue pen.

On Friday Joep built a campaign stall out of two crates. Vera drew a goose sitting on a bench. She considered adding a book under its wing, but that would give people the wrong idea.

By lunchtime there were seven Miep posters. Someone had written a question beneath Vera’s own poster: WHAT HAPPENS WHEN IT RAINS?

She thought that was a fair question.