By Pieter Thomassen

One summer they are not holidaying at the Nolle beach in Flushing. That year, there are no flesh-coloured sea stars put out to dry on a rainy balcony, their tentacles sometimes as purple as a butcher’s stamp on bacon. Dad and mum Graafland take their scion down south. The White Cars bus, yodelling and popular sing-songs in the aisle, carries them in a polonaise dance to the Côte d’Azur.
      On day seven, table football and self-service desserts are interrupted by a trip to a perfume factory.
      In the factory shop, somewhere between wafts of musk and civet perfume, Axel’s mother becomes enamoured by a portly Brit, whose dry accent makes her curse the day she was forced to become a midwife instead of an English teacher. She openly hangs onto his every word. ‘Such a precious boy. Gorgeous character!’
      When, at a stop on the way back, a fragrant Axel loses his feet and gets soaked, his mother has no objection to Axel, dressed in his underpants, taking a window seat next to her new friend. After a few kilometres, Axel spots the man’s porky purple finger creeping up his thigh in order to slip into his fly. Axel screams and worms his way to the safety of the aisle. ‘Daddy, he’s into my pants!’
      From that moment onwards, the travel companion brushes Axel’s mother aside as if she was a complete stranger.

© Pieter Thomassen
© Translation Holland Park Press

Axel 25 – Axel 24 – Axel 23 – Axel 22 – Axel 21 – Axel 20 – Axel 19 – Axel 18 – Axel 17 – Axel 16 – Axel 15 – Axel 14 – Axel 13 – Axel 12 – Axel 11 – Axel 10 – Axel 9 – Axel 8 – Axel 7 – Axel 6 – Axel 5 – Axel 4 – Axel 3 – Axel 2 – Axel 1