Willothewisp

-

Our five year old daughter is good, really very, very good. When she tells a fib she does it well, she can control her face perfectly and I say that as a deaf person and therefore a very good reader of facial and body language, make no mistake she is good.

The main victim of her little lies, fibs and wind-ups is her little brother, who despite being fooled by several times continues to have totally un-erring faith in the word of his big sister. Last summer before his first trip out to the summer house on the northern Dutch coast Hilke informed him that dwarves live under the extensive sand dunes of Terschelling. So for the first five days of the holiday month there he stalked through the dunes hunting for the elusive little fellows, even devising little traps for them.

Then came time for him to start school this September. Hilke could not resist telling him about what his first teacher was like, having been in her class the year before. Mevrouw van Ophem is a lovely young lady who leads her classes well but is firm, and has an uncanny ability to know when little ones are misbehaving behind her back. Spotting this opportunity Hilke decided that telling her brother that she had a third eye in the back of her head might be fun. For weeks she warned her brother about ‘ the extra eye ‘, giving him dire warnings of the things she did to those children who did not sit up and pay attention. It did not help matters that on his first day his teacher had decided to wear her hair up in a tight bun on the back of her head, naturally this became the focus of much attention. When I went to collect him at the end of that first day Mevrouw van Ophem asked me why Nicholas keep trying to look around her every time she got close. I explained that it might be something to do with his sister’s antics. The next day while standing next to the table Nicholas sat at she undid her hair bun, and out drops an eye !

I am reliably informed that the event almost resulted in a few wet pairs of pants. She had wrapped a ping pong ball with an eye painted on it into her hair bun. Mevrouw van Ophem’s ‘ third eye ‘ now sits in our son’s little treasure chest under his bed, and is proudly shown to all visitors to our house (much to his sister’s slight annoyance).

Now her newest little wind-up; Fridge mice. I prepare nearly all the food in our household from fresh produce, including the ice cream. Normally the children are expected to eat the food they are given, I run a house not a restaurant offering menu choices, but the one accommodation I make is the ice cream. Nicholas does not like ice cream with anything chocolate in it, and Hilke does, so I make up a portion for each of them to their individual tastes on each Friday ready for the weekend. Come Saturday Nina had been out with the children and on retuning Nicholas went to get his ice cream from the freezer. He opened his container and found that some had gone, apparently ‘ nibbled ‘ from the edges, even though I had filled it as usual. I immediately suspected Hilke because Nina does not like banana & nut ice cream and I certainly had not touched, and while our guide dogs do like any ice cream that is offered and certainly are very clever, they have not as yet mastered opening the freezer door and opening the ice cream container. Hilke, bold little minx that she is said it must be ‘ fridge mice ‘- Fridge Mice !!!. She proceeded to tell her little brother that fridge mice loved ice cream as bold as could be with her mothers standing there watching this with, I have to confess, open mouthed admiration at her complete and utter gall ! Her cheek was breath taking.

She proceeded to describe the entomology of this previously unknown breed of mouse. Did you know that they liked to live in the butter and cheese compartment ? That they used to be ordinary house mice, but moved into fridges and now have developed thicker fur as a result ? We certainly did not, but we were keen to test the extent of her new found knowledge, so Nina asked why we saw no droppings in the fridge. If I had been impressed by her quick thinking so far I was completely floored when she told us, without breaking to think, that because of the cold they were white and easy to miss in against the white inside the fridge. Besides, she added very deftly, “Mummy Doof” (that’s me) “keeps the fridge very clean all the time” – nice touch Hilke !. While this was going on Nicholas had his head in the fridge and was carefully looking through it. Before either my wife or myself got around to telling Hilke she had been rumbled Nicholas was signing and shouting “ leugenaar, leugenaar (liar, liar) ! ”

-

END.